Perhaps you might have observed that Joy Stearns, in a note on the Germanna Colonies list, has made my day. She asked for information to fill in some details of a 1735 lease in Orange County. By then, Orange County had been formed and included present Orange Co. and the land in the Great Fork (more than that also). She quotes from a lease from Spotswood to John and Mary Bond, which uses these words are phrases:
Brooks' Run,
German Tenements on the Rapidan River
North side of the Rapidan (i.e., Great Fork)
Part of 40,000 acre tract of Spotswood
Lot No. 18
These are the words and phrases that I have been using very recently to describe the first home of the Second Germanna Colony. Thus the information provided by Joy Stearns is very broadly a confirmation of what I am in the process of describing. There is one new element in her description and that is Brooks' Run.
Brooks' Run empties into the Rapidan about two miles above where Fleshman's Run (now called Field's Run) empties in the Rapidan. But this lease to the Bonds makes it clear, I believe, that the Second Colony was in the Great Fork (as early as 1717). As such, they are candidates to be considered as the first residents of modern Culpeper County.
Pinpointing the location even more exactly remains to be done, but we have the water courses of Brooks' Run, German Run, and Fleshman's Run, to help us. Two miles just about covers this span so, at least a considerable reduction has been made in locating the site out of the 40,000 acres of the tract.
None of the writers contemporary with the Second Colony ever identify them as working in the mines or furnace or iron endeavors. In fact, as we are seeing, they were located in the opposite direction from Germanna to the location of the iron furnace. Rev. Jones gives a good description, and it is roughly confirmed by Spotswood, that they were engaged in farming, grapes, and naval stores. Spotswood does not mention the grapes, but then naval stores was a more politically correct topic to discuss. He was trying to describe why his acquisition of 40,000 acres was a good thing for England so he talked about naval stores and not about wine.
Joy Stearns' remarks make it clear research needs to be done in Orange County. I had thought that by the time that Orange was formed (1733), any reference to the Germans would have been omitted.
If anyone has abstracts of the early Orange Co. deeds and abstracts, they might scan them for references involving words similar to the key phrases above. It would be appreciated.
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.