The claim was made here recently that the seventy-odd Germans of 1717 were settled by Spotswood (and his partners) on the north side of the Rapidan River. This note starts the proof of that. The Rapidan is the southern branch of the Rappahannock River while the northern branch is called simply the Rappahannock or Hedgman's River. Between these two branches is the Great Fork (of the Rappahannock), a phrase that recurs in many patent and grant land descriptions. Germanna is NOT in the Great Fork, since it lies to the south of the Rapidan. Germantown (now of Fauquier County) lies north of the Rappahannock River and it, too, is not in the Great Fork.
The first clue that I had toward determining the home of the 1717 Germans was a lease executed by Spotswood to Thomas Byrn and Martha, his wife. To quote from the abstract:
" . .in the fork of the Rappahannock in St. George's Parish of Spotsylvania County, part of that land known as New German Town, Nos. 18 and 19. . ."
At first, I did not connect it with the home of the 1717 group, but it did strike me as odd to have a New German Town in the fork of the Rappahannock. Both Germanna (sometimes called German Town), and Germantown to the north, were outside the fork of the Rappahannock. Therefore we had a third German Town which was unexplained.
Anyone looking for the first home of the 1717 Germans should look in a radius of five miles of Germanna because this is the area of the old St. George's parish, the one set up for the benefit of the Germans, or, more likely, for the benefit of Spotswood. Germans in this area were relieved from paying tithes to the Church of England. Actually, since Spotswood and partners paid the transportation of the Germans, it could be said they were exempt from the tithes. (The mention of St. George's Parish in the lease was to the new parish which replaced the old parish.)
Prior to my search for the first home of the 1717 Germans, the universal opinion was that they lived south of the Rapidan. Sometimes, it was said, at the iron furnace, where they were supposed to have worked. Actually, the iron furnace was not in existence yet, and would not be for a few more years. So, the claim that the 1717 Germans worked in the iron industry was false, but it was not so easy to discount the claim that the Germans lived south of the Rapidan, i.e., on the same side of the Rapidan as Germanna.
Taking the patent description of the 40,000 acre tract that Spotswood owned, which is where he said the Germans were settled, one finds that it starts on the south side of the Rapidan, just west of Germanna, runs west to the mouth of the Robinson River (this was the original Beverley claim), then up the Robinson to Meander Run, and up it for a ways and across land to the western side of the modern town of Culpeper, south for a while, then east, back toward Germanna. All of the boundaries, starting with the Robinson River, are in the Great Fork. At the close of the boundary description, there is a mention of a German Run. This is a few miles from Germanna, and across the Rapidan from Germanna, so it is not obvious for what Germans it is named.
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.