John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 538

As the year of 1718 developed, Spotswood had two groups of Germans at work.  Each group was technically working for a partnership, but Spotswood dominated the partners.  The first group of Germans at last had a chance to put their mining skills to work as they were seeking iron ore.  Though they had probably detected the presence of iron ore before the time that Spotswood officially set them to work on this task, they had to prove there was a commercially sized deposit.  In the future, when the furnace started, it would need a nearby source of iron ore that would run for many years to "charge" the furnace.  At the same time the furnace had to be close to a source of water power.  Also the furnace needed to be near the trees from which the charcoal would be made.  Charcoal cannot be shipped or moved any appreciable distance for it is destroyed in the process.  So the miners were busy proving and developing a lode of iron that would be fairly close to where a furnace could be located.  It strongly appears that the miners did not build the furnace.  The evidence for this comes from Spotswood's statement that the expenditures were upwards of sixty pounds, a very trivial sum.  The cost of furnace construction was measured in thousands of pounds.  (The furnace built at Falling Creek in the early 1600's had been financed by a subscription of five thousand pounds.)

The second group of Germans was at work building their homes and clearing ground.  One of the best descriptions of their activity, though it was probably secondhand, was provided by Rev. Hugh Jones in his book, The Present State of Virginia , published in 1724 in London, but probably based on what he learned in Virginia which he left in 1722, well before the Germans had moved to their own land:

"Beyond this [Germanna] are seated the Colony of Germans or Palatines, with allowance of good quantities of rich land, at easy or no rates, who thrive very well, and live happily, and entertain generously.

"These are encouraged to make wines, which the experience (particularly) of the late Colonel Robert Beverley, who wrote the history of Virginia, was done easily and in large quantities in those parts; not only from the cultivation of wild grapes, which grow plentifully and naturally in all the good lands thereabouts, and in other parts of the country; but also from the Spanish, French, Italian, and German vines, which have been found to thrive there to admiration.

"Besides this, these uplands seem very good for hemp and flax, if the manufacture thereof was but encouraged and promoted thereabouts; which might prove of wonderful advantage in our naval stores and linens. "Here may likewise be found as good clapboards, and pipe-staves, deals, masts, yards, planks, etc. for shipping . . ."

The references to naval stores, Beverley, and wine show that Jones was writing about the second group, not the first group as some have claimed.