The road of Charles II toward the throne of England was not easy. Oliver Cromwell prevented him from occupying the seat. In this state, Charles could do little to reward his supporters but he did grant seven loyal supporters the "land bounded by and within the heads" of the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers (in 1649). While Cromwell remained in control, this was a dubious claim.
When Charles was restored to the throne in 1660, the value of the claim was raised considerably. A son of one of the original proprietors, Thomas Second Lord Culpeper, saw the potential value and he acquired the total and exclusive rights from the other proprietors. His interest in the land went to his daughter and heir in 1689. She married Thomas the Fifth Lord Fairfax. Their son, Thomas the Sixth Lord Fairfax, inherited the grant. In 1730, he began a 15 year battle to assert his claim in the broadest geographical sense.
There was a dispute about how much land was to be included. The Crown wanted a narrow definition, with the least amount of land, because the land that Fairfax had could not be sold by the King nor could quitrents be levied. Fairfax saw the question in just the opposite light.
That there were questions hinged on the definitions and their interpretations. For example, the Rappahannock River splits into two parts just above the town of Frederickburg. The northern branch was called the Hedgman or the North Fork of the Rappahannock. The southern branch was called the South Fork of the Rappahannock until Alexander Spotswood came as Lt. Governor. He started calling this South Fork, the Rapidan River. One wonders if this was an attempt to disguise the issue and to weaken the proprietor's claim. That the two branches were part of the same river system is emphasized by land claims of the period which refer to the Great Fork, meaning the land between the northern and southern branches of the Rappahannock.
This was a question of some importance to people who were buying land in the Great Fork. Did one buy it from the King or from Fairfax? The King did preempt Fairfax and was selling the land in the Great Fork, but Fairfax was insisting that it belonged to him. Today this land constitutes the modern counties of Culpeper, Madison, and Rappahannock. Land to the north of the Northern Fork (Hedgman) and east of the Blue Ridge Mountains was clearly in Fairfax's domain. This included the original counties of Stafford, Prince William, and today's Fauquier County. Thus the First Germanna Colony was living, at Germantown, on land purchased from the proprietor, not from the Crown. This region was called, in a broad sense, the Northern Neck because it the northern tier of counties in Virginia. The Second Germanna Colony lived on land in the Great Fork they purchased from the King.
How does one settle questions of the type raised by the proprietor's claims? The Northern Neck proprietor and the Colonial government argued and measured the relative flows of waters in the branches. Was the northern branch larger than the southern branch? Commissions were appointed and surveyors were put to work. Recommendations were made and rejected. There was a little give and take but the positions were, by and large, inflexible.
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.