John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 224

Plotting land patents and grants is a frustrating work but lots of fun.  Doing so today has led to a series of thoughts to share with you.

There is nothing permanent about the names of geographical features.  At one time there was a river called the Rappahannock which flows down toward the ocean from the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Going upstream, a little way above the modern town of Fredericksburg, the river divides into two parts.  These used to be called the North Fork and the South Fork of the Rappahannock.  When Alexander Spotswood came to Virginia, he renamed the South Fork the Rapidan (or Rapidanna, Rapid Anne).  Then the North Fork no longer needed to be called "North" and so it became simply the Rappahannock.  Later it was decided the Rapidan was the main fork of the Rappahannock River.

Now the land between the Rappahannock and the Rapidan Rivers is called the Great Fork of the Rappahannock or simply the Great Fork.  This was a fairly sizeable area taking in the modern counties of Culpeper, Madison, and Rappahannock.  So the history of many of our Germanna people occurs in the Great Fork which extends to the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Fort Germanna itself, the original home of the Germanna people, is outside the Great Fork but just across the Rapidan River.  Germantown in Fauquier County is also outside the Great Fork but not far from the lands of the Great Fork.

Returning to the Rappahannock River, i.e., the northern fork of the original Rappahannock River, it has undergone a few name changes.  The river, that is the northern fork of the original river, forks itself.  These two branches have a variety of names.  One is called the South River, the Elk River, Eastham River, and Hazel River.  The other fork is called the North River, the Hedgman River, or just simply the Rappahannock River.  The tendency to use one or another of these names depends on where you are along the river.

The land between the North River and the South River is called Little Fork.  The Little Fork is a part of the Great Fork.  A patent description may say the Little Fork in the Great Fork.  Unfortunately, though the term Great Fork seems never to be misapplied, the term Little Fork is also applied to splits in other water ways.

Many of the smaller waterways duplicate names.  Some names are extremely popular such as Beaverdam Run, Muddy Run, Crooked Run.  In the Great Fork, I can cite two Beaverdam Runs in the Great Fork though there are probably more.  One flows into White Oak Run, known originally as Island Run, and the other Beaverdam Run is in the Little Fork flowing into the North River.

My interest in the Little Fork lies in its being the home of several of our Germanna citizens.  Some of the people who owned land, either by patent, grant, or purchase, were Jacob Holtzclaw, Frederick Fishback, Tilman Weaver, Harmon Miller, Henry Hoffman, John Young, Harman Back, Jacob Fishback, James Spilman, George Wayman, John Crim, Joseph Coons, and Henry Otterback.

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.