Today's note is intended to illustrate the remoteness of Germanna. It came to life in 1714 when the Virginia Colony built Fort Germanna and installed forty-two Germans from the Nassau-Siegen region of Germany in it. At this time, Alexander Spotswood described the location as fifteen miles beyond the usual course of the Rangers. This is just about how far the Fort was to the west of the present town of Fredericksburg. The region grew by the addition of seventy-odd additional Germans who lived about two miles to the west of Germanna in the "Great Fork" of the Rappahannock River.
Probably it was in January of 1719 (NS) when the Nassau-Siegen people moved to the north onto the land they had bought (which became known as Germantown). Meanwhile, Spotswood was acquiring land in and around Germanna. One tract alone to the west of Germanna contained about 60,000 acres (though it was described in the patent as 40,000 acres). Germanna was more or less at the center of his land holdings and this no doubt influenced his choice of where to build his new home.
When Spotsylvania County was created in 1720, the seat of the government was to be Germanna which probably shows that Spotswood was already planning for his home to be there; however, the choice of Germanna as the seat of the county government was not popular with the citizens. From their standpoint it was not centrally located. In 1724 they filed a grievance with the new Lt. Gov. of Virginia (Drysdale) against Spotswood and the decisions that had been made.
They noted that the act creating Spotsylvania County provided Spotswood with 500 pounds of money for the building of a church and a court. As of the date of the petition, satisfactory progress had not yet been made toward these objectives. They did note that Spotswood had laid the foundation of a church but Germanna was so remote that few or none other than his menial servants could ever attend it. Even the number of his servants was decreasing. The majority of the people in the vicinity are foreigners and also tenants of Spotswood. If the foreign Protestants employ a minister of their own which the creation of the county allowed, then they were exempted from attending the Church of England. So perhaps there was no need for a church at Germanna.
The petition went on to complain that Spotswood had not built a courthouse yet, but instead he had fitted a room in his own house for that purpose. Attending court is a great inconvenience for four-fifths of the inhabitants of the county. With most of the land around Germanna belonging to Spotswood, there will never be any population around Germanna.
Therefore the petitioners stated that they labored under handicaps by reason of the great distance the court was from their homes. They also noted that the one thousand pounds given to Spotswood for arms, ammunition, church and court house had not been distributed according to the good intentions of the Assembly in creating the county.
The petition did not ask specifically for any remedy except by implication they seemed to be asking for the county government to be relocated (to the east) where the majority of the population lived. This argument over the location of the county government was to go on for several years.
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.