T. L. C. Genealogy (Books and Search Services at PO Box 403369, Miami Beach, FL 33140-1369) has a Web Page, http://www.tlc-gen.com ( Click Here to go directly do it), which leads to information about Fauquier Co., VA. They post, for the precinct of Thomas Marshall, the list of tithables in Fauquier Co. for the year 1759. This is available to everyone who can access it. By mail, they will sell the list for $3.00.
This note is based on that list. Apparently there had been three lists and the list of Thomas Marshall is the Southern District. There is another extant list for the Northeast District of George Lamkin. The Northwest District list is missing. The year 1759 is when Fauquier County was formed. Germantown is in the Marshall list.
There were about 420 tithables in the Marshall list. People entered on the tithable lists include all white males, sixteen years of age and above, and all servants, sixteen years of age and above. The number of tithables on the list is approximately 420. Of the 420 tithables, about 225 were Blacks. Or, stated another way, there was about one Black, sixteen or older, for every white male, sixteen and older. For every white male there was probably one white female. We might say there was one Black person for every two white people. The ratio of Blacks to whites seems high for the Piedmont.
It is not hard to discern the reason that the percentage of Blacks was as high as it was. There were some large plantations manned almost entirely by servants. On the Churchill Quarter, there were eight whites and forty-two Blacks. On the Alexander Quarter, the numbers were one and five. On the Blackwell Quarter, four and seven. On the Carter Quarter, at Ludwell Park, one and nine. This pattern extends to many more quarters. (Remember these numbers are the tithables.) In fact, it appears that the majority of the people were living on tracts designated as quarters. (A quarter is a farm on which the owner does not live but has overseers and servants.) A modern analogy might be corporate farms and family farms.
One of the implications of these large farms is that land was not so readily available for expansion. Our German ancestors at Germantown found they were landlocked in the sense that they could not find land adjacent to their first farms. This forced them to go some distance to find land for expansion. They had enough land as they could farm with their own efforts but they wanted more for their children. Also, more people were arriving from Germany and they needed land. One expansion move was to the northern part of the county. Another was across the Hedgman River into the area which became Culpeper County (Little Fork). Before very long they were moving to the area which became southwestern Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley, southwestern Virginia, or to the Carolinas and Georgia. Later, came Kentucky, Tennessee and points west.
Germanna names on the Marshall list include Catherine Holtzclaw (HOH or Head of Household), with Joseph; Henry Utterback with John; Harmon Rector, with John and Harmon; John Rector, with Jacob; Jacob Holtzclaw, with Jacob and Joseph. Most of these families included Blacks who were tithables to the HOH.
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.