Mention has been made that the Second Colony members took up land. This was located in two sites, one now in Madison County, VA, and the other, a much smaller location, now in Culpeper Co., VA. The location which is now in Madison Co., on both sides of the Robinson River, was sometimes called the Robinson River settlement. The church which they built eventually became known as the Hebron Lutheran Church, and so some modern writers call it the Hebron community. The other location, now in Culpeper Co., was a just to the southeast of Mt. Pony, which itself is just to the southeast of the town of Culpeper. This latter site was unrecognized as a settlement location by the Germanna Foundation writers until I showed it was the case. In both of these cases, the land at the time was in Spotsylvania County.
Germantown, where the First Colony settled, was at a little distance from the sites just mentioned. Willis Kemper, in writing the Genealogy of the Kemper Family in 1899, made much of the fact that the Second Colony did not chose to settle beside the First Colony. Searching for a reason, he finally ascribed it to the religious difference between the German Reformed First Colony members and the Lutheran Second Colony members. He missed the mark, though, in this belief. What he did not realize is that land was free in Spotsylvania County at the time the Second Colony was ready to move.
This free land was not due any altruistic action by Spotswood toward the Germans. Instead, as a patentee of many square miles of land in the area which was to become to Spotsylvania County, he proposed legislation to create two new counties, Spotsylvania and Brunswick, and in both of these counties, land was to be "free of levies" for ten years. The term "free of levies" was not clearly defined, and it resulted in Spotswood's own claim to land being clouded for many years. But for the smaller landowner, it meant free land. The Second Colony Germans took advantage of this and patented their land in Spotsylvania Co., and not adjacent or near to Germantown, where the First Colony lived. Thus the decision of the Second Colony to settle apart from the First Colony was not based on religious questions, but it was based on economic questions. Most of the people took out patents for 400 acres, some for more, and several for less. But many of them went back again and patented more land.
The Robinson River community was located about 25 miles west of Germanna and New Germantown. By 1725, when it appears the move of the 2nd Colony took place, the original New Germantown was no longer "New", since the 2nd Colony's settlement was a still newer Germantown, which caused the original "New" Germantown to be known simply as Germantown. At the "new" New Germantown, the Second Colony members were the western-most point of English Atlantic seaboard civilization. After Germantown was founded, it was a more remote location, if not a more western point. After the Second Colony move to the Robinson River, they were clearly the frontier community. Being the "frontier community" did not last for long, though, as the Shenandoah Valley was soon settled (from the north, not the east).
It is said that the Indians were still living east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and that they interacted with the Second Colony people. Probably, this was true. About the time the Germans moved in, a few English moved in also, but the community was dominated by the Germans. Some English speaking people patented lands before the Germans (in modern Madison Co.), but these were speculative ventures, not a settlement pattern. Usually they were forfeited because of a lack of settlement.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.