Recently notes have discussed the prospects of locating the first homes of the First Colony Germanna settlers who came in 1714. One portion of the boundary of a 3.5 acre plot seems to have been discovered. It remains only to search within the 3.5 acres.
There is also some hope that the first homes of the Second Germanna Colony settlers will be discovered. If not in total, then at least some of them. Since I have played a part in the discovery, I will recount here how that discovery came about. First, the Second Colony site is not where everyone else had been saying it was. But then it was obvious that "everyone else" was talking through their hat and had no evidence on which to base their pronouncements.
Twenty years ago I read the following item in Crozier's "Spotsylvania County," which is an abstraction from Deed Book A:
Decr. 17, 1728. The Honorable Alexander Spotswood, Esqr., by John Grame, Gentl., his attorney, to Thomas Byrn and Martha, his wife, for certain considerations of tobacco each year, etc., a lease for two adjoining plantations in the fork of Rappa. River in St. Geo. Par., Spts. Co.- part of that land known as New German Town, Nos. 18 and 19, with 200 a. adjoining the sd. plantations. Witnesses: Henry Collins, Elliott Benger, Robt. Macculloch. Rec. Feby. 4, 1728/9.
There were small mysteries connected with this. First, was the mention of New German Town which I had never heard of before. There was a German Town, but it was not located in the fork of the Rappahannock River. This fork of the Rappahannock is usually referred to as the Great Fork of the Rappahannock. But there can be little doubt about the intended general location.
At the time of the reading the book, I marked interesting items in the back and this was certainly one of them. After a while I learned that Germanna itself was referred to as German Town, but as the original German Town it would not be called New. Also it is not within the Great Fork. So the mystery only deepened.
The conventional wisdom said the Second Colony lived south of the Rapidan River, which is one of the branches forming the Great Fork. But to be in the Great Fork, one would be on the north side of the Rapidan. Others said the Second Colony lived near the iron furnace because they were working at the mines and/or furnace. This was thirteen miles down the Rapidan and Rappahannock, and certainly was outside the Great Fork.
As so often occurs in the process of discovery, the route or path is not steady progress. One learns a fact and, seeing no way to fit it in, one lays it aside for the moment.
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.