About a year and a half after he came to Virginia as Lt. Governor, Alexander Spotswood was worried that the Indian wars in North Carolina would spread to Virginia.
(February 8, 1711/12 to Council of Trade in London) ". . . a Combination of all our Neighboring Indians might put our Frontiers in a very unhappy condition, considering how ill we are provided to encounter an Enemy . ."
Christopher de Graffenried and his colony of Swiss and Germans had suffered at the hands of the Indians in North Carolina. Graffenried visited Virginia for a variety of reasons, one of which was to see if he could find a more suitable location of his settlers. Spotswood's report of this discussion given in the same letter as above said,
" . .(Graffenried) has made some efforts to remove with the Palatines to this Colony upon some of his Majesty's Lands; and since such a number of people as he may bring with him, with what he proposes to invite over Swisserland and Germany, will be of great advantage to this Country and prove a strong Barier against the incursions of the Indians if they are properly disposed above our Inhabitants. I pray your Lord'ps' directions what encouragement ought to be given to this design, either as to the quantity of Land or the terms of granting it."
Spotswood envisioned settling the frontier with foreigners that would protect the current inhabitants. He was unsure as to the status that these people should have, especially as they were foreigners. It is clear that he felt that foreigners would serve excellently in this capacity, not because they were better peace keepers but because they were expendable. They were in some sense different from "Our Inhabitants". I am unaware that Spotswood ever received any answers to his questions. However, he did not forget the basic idea.
Within three months, a new dimension entered into the frontier question. In Spotswood's own words,
(May 15, 1712 to the Board of Trade) ". . .a gen'll Opinion lately received (was) that there are gold and silver mines in these parts towards the Mountain . . ."
This hope for precious minerals was strong enough that Larkin Chew obtained a patent for 4,020 acres on May 3, 1713. This was centered around the community of Burr Hill in present day Orange County, a few miles from the future Fort Germanna location. One month later Chew sold fractional shares in this silver mine to seven others including Spotswood and Graffenried.
We are seeing ideas taking shape that will influence the future location of Fort Germanna.
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.