In the last note, recognition was taken of Albrecht's and Holtzclaw's testimony that they were engaged in mining and quarrying from March 1715/16 until December of 1718. This does not quite jibe with Spotswood's testimony as given to Harrison when he said the search for iron ore began in 1717. It may be that the Germans were first engaged in an active search for silver and that after about one year this was changed to a search for iron ore.
In either case, toward the end of 1718, the activity ceased for two reasons. First, the English partners of Spotswood dropped out and did not want to pursue the quest any longer. Second, the time the Germans were to serve had expired. In London, they had agreed to work four years and they arrived in April of 1714. Thus their time was up in 1718. From the testimony above, we know they stayed a while longer, until December, but it would seem that they left about then.
What had been accomplished by December of 1718? The first clue is the amount of money which was spent on the project. Spotswood wrote that it had cost him and the partners upwards of three score pounds. Such a paltry sum would just have covered the cost of the black powder used in the mining and quarrying operation. Thus at the end of the 1718, there was no iron furnace. Spotswood probably had a proven iron mine though he had not yet patented the land. Certainly he was far short of the capital needed to build an iron furnace and for this he needed partners.
So when the Germans (the First Germanna Colony) left, there was no iron furnace. Though Spotswood at this time could not yet say he was in the iron business, he may have had hopes but he certainly had an unclear path to the future. In fact, he seems at this time to be placing more emphasis on land development than on iron smelting. Toward this end, he, with partners, had placed seventy-odd Germans on a large tract of land. When this Second Germanna Colony arrived, there was no iron mine, yet alone an iron furnace. So there was no intention to use them in the iron operation.
When he built his new home, which didn't occur until the early 1720's, he placed the new home so that it would be in the midst of his land holdings which extended out to the west beyond the present city of Culpeper. This home was about thirteen miles from the future iron furnace which shows the state of his thinking when he was building his home. He was thinking of his land and not of the iron prospects. The former had been proven as a course of success in Virginia while the latter was most uncertain.
As an additional comment on yesterday's note, when the partners in England asked Spotswood to seek out iron ore, Spotswood did not turn to the proven source on William Byrd's land. He could have answered to Sir Richard Blackmore by "return mail" that there was iron ore. Instead, Spotswood started a search on unpatented (unclaimed) land that he could patent if ore was found.
From the length of time spent in developing the mine, it is not at all certain that a source of the ore was known when the search was started. Rather than saying that Spotswood had found iron when he came to Virginia and that he recruited people to mine it (which was not even true), I would prefer to say the Germans found the iron that eventually put Spotswood into the iron business.
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.