Recent notes have discussed the first homes of the First and Second Germanna colonies. In addition to the first two colonies, a Third Germanna Colony has been mentioned. It seemed necessary to postulate the existence of this colony to account for the number of Germans who appeared not long after the Second Colony arrived.
Alexander Spotswood had comments on the subject. In his March 28, 1724 letter to Col. Harrison, he explained why he had thought it would be good to extend his holding of 13,000 acres to 40,000 acres. He wrote,
". . . but afterwards understanding that many others of the Germans, who had been sold for servants in this Colony, designed, when the time of their servitude was expired, to come and joyn their country-folks, we thought it needful to inlarge the tract . . ."
Here the country-folks would have been the Second Colony who were living on his land.
In 1719, the First and Second Colonies joined together in an appeal to be printed in Germany asking for assistance, both financially and in securing an assistant to Rev. Häger. This appeal was taken to Germany by the Swiss merchant, Jacob Christopher Zollicoffer, and therefore the appeal is often tagged with his name. The number of people mentioned in it was so large that it seemed necessary to have a Third Colony of Germans, one that was larger than either of the First or Second Colonies. So the individuals who came in the years immediately after the Second Colony were said to be members of the Third Colony.
Upon reflection, it now seems that there was no Third Colony. The numbers used by (given to?) Zollicoffer must have been an exaggeration. The numbers who came in the two years just after the Second Colony were much smaller than Zollicoffer implied. It may have been that the Germans were anticipating future arrivals and so they used inflated numbers to make their appear stronger.
The number of Germans did increase year-by-year due to new arrivals, but it does not appear that they were any part of an organized group. They were individuals acting as individuals.
It is, of course, true that the Germans often traveled as multiple families, either related or from the same village. But the story is best expressed by saying a few families came each year. We have only very general statements as to where the new people lived. In the quotation above, Spotswood implies they were scattered over Virginia. Also, by implication, he seems to say a few moved onto his property where the Second Colony was living. He says, in 1724, that the number on his (40,000 acre) tract was about a hundred, up from the seventy-odd he had mentioned as the initial contingent. The net of births and deaths would not seem able to provide a one-third increase so a few must have moved in.
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.