The last note touched on changing cultures. The rate of change of a culture is directly proportional to the percentage of other or different cultures which surround the given one. Thus the Mt. Pony Germanic culture changed very rapidly because they were a small minority in their neighborhood. In the Robinson River community, which had a large percentage of Germans, change occurred much more slowly. For example, William Carpenter became the pastor of Hebron Lutheran Church in 1787, which was sixty years after the founding of the church. He suggested that some of the services might be held in English. The elders of the church told him to stick to German and that he wasn't even to speak English in the community. It was almost another thirty years before the first communion service was held in English.
Klaus Wust has published a book describing the Germans in Virginia. Simply enough, the book is called " The Virginia Germans " and it has won awards for the excellency of the research plus the presentation. First published in 1969, almost thirty years ago, my copy is from the third printing of 1984. If you had German ancestors anywhere in Virginia, you should have your own copy.
Anyone who has tried to count just how many Germans there were in Virginia (a number which varies by the year), has been frustrated by several factors. They did not hold still, but on the contrary were moving in and out of Virginia constantly besides just moving around in Virginia. There were no census lists which asked where the people were born or where their fathers were born. All that we can do today is to take the census lists where they exist and try and estimate which names were German. First, these lists seem to be incomplete in light of today's knowledge. But the bigger error is recognizing the origin of the names. A Carpenter could be either a German or an Englishman. Since most of the list takers were English, they tended to write names which were the closest to the English names they knew. Thus a Preiss would be down as Price and thereby obscure for us the true nationality. Recently, a report was made on the will of Johann Gerhard which is filed as John Garrett. This same man is reported in another place as Carehaut.
From the studies of this question, loaded with uncertainties of course, it is conservatively estimated there were 25,000 Germans in Virginia by the Revolution. This was about 5 percent of the population. The density varied widely though. In many regions they were the dominant culture and in others they were a definitely a minority.
Never did the Germans express solidarity with European Germany. There was no European Germany; there was instead a collection of fiefdoms. The Germans here were glad to be here and little sympathy for what they had left behind. Family and friends were treasured but the concept of a German nation was not developed. Maintaining the German culture was not a question of loyalty to abstract concepts; it was the culture of the people here who wished to maintain what had worked for themselves. German was spoken, not because it was a superior language, but because it was what was known. The larger the community in which a culture existed, the more it tended to persevere. If you are the only one in a crowd speaking German, then it does not work for you to speak German.
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.