Taking the time as about 1716, let's look at the motivations of Gov. Spotswood. Already people were opposing him as Governor. A recent quotation from him here was in response to a series of charges made against him. He needed an alternative economic base to the half-pay he drew as the Lieutenant Governor. His first economic venture, the Indian Trading Company, had been vetoed from London. His second venture, the silver mine, was stalled on the question of getting the royal share approved.
Looking around in Virginia, he saw that the path to economic independence, as used by others, was land. His first step in this direction was to obtain a patent on the land where Fort Germanna was settled. He did not obtain the patent in his own name. The patent was issued to another person who transferred it over to Spotswood. There was no attempt at secrecy in doing this. As Spotswood openly explained, it simply did not look right to have his name appear as both the grantor (on behalf of the crown) and as grantee. But this first land acquisition, a few thousand acres, was small.
The low cost land was to be acquired from the crown. This would be undeveloped land which cost five shillings per fifty acres. Developed land, with a house, meadows, and orchards typically cost ten to twenty times this much, as John Fontaine tells us.
We have to understand the nature of the Virginia geography also. From the ocean westward, the land is relatively flat and sandy. But the most important characteristic of it was that four major rivers provided the transportation. This was the Tidewater region. Using a modern feature of the landscape, Interstate Highway 95 divides the Tidewater region from the Piedmont region. Along this line there were falls on the rivers, so that the "fall line" marked the end of river navigation. In the early eighteenth century, it also marked the end of civilization. To the west of the fall line, the Indians controlled the countryside and there were no roads. Though land was available here for settlement, no one wanted to be the pioneer and expose himself to the dangers and hard work that would be necessary to live there.
Fort Germanna was twenty miles or so into the Piedmont and it was an isolated settlement, a fortified town for the protection of the inhabitants. The public purpose, for which the colony's support had been obtained, had been to control the Indians in this area. To have access to the Fort, the Germans had built roads and bridges.
This is where the largest quantity of the best land was available -- in the Piedmont, which ran to the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was so near in a physical sense, but so far away in a practical sense of how to settle the area.
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.