In the spring of 1722, as Spotswood was approving the applications for land patents in anticipation that he would be replaced as governor, he also appointed justices, a sheriff, and a clerk for the new county of Spotsylvania. The original land patents had been redefined. The 40,000 acre Spotsylvania tract was in the name of Thomas Jones, John Clayton, and Richard Hickman.
Because Robert Beverley, the partner of Spotswood, had died, and because Beverley's son did not desire to continue in the partnership, Spotswood bought out his interest. He also procured the interests of the smaller investors and thereby became the sole owner of the 40,000 acre Spotsylvania tract. This is the tract on which the second group of Germans was settled.
When the metes and bounds of the Spotsylvania tract are plotted out (they required several pages to specify) and the area of the tract is computed, which is easy to do with software for the purpose, it is found that the 40,000 acres were almost 65,000 acres. Based on the legal specifications, Spotswood was the owner in total of 85,000 acres but with the extra 25,000 acres that was included in the metes and bounds of the Spotsylvania tract he was the owner of more than 100,000 acres of land. Land was his prime objective in his personal economic plans.
By the time that the county of Spotsylvania began functioning in the spring of 1722, Spotswood had made substantial progress on his home at Germanna. The archaeological evidence is that he tore down Fort Germanna and used the cleared area for his home site. The legislation creating the county had said that the governor was to pick a site for the county seat. Spotswood chose Germanna, the site of his new home. In fact, the first courts were held in his home.
Germanna was not an ideal location for the county seat. Only Germans lived to the west of Germanna and they were not even citizens yet. Thus, all of the voting citizens of Spotsylvania County lived to the east of Germanna. According to the usual rule in picking the site of a county seat, which is to make it the most convenient for the citizens, Germanna was a very bad choice. Why then did Spotswood pick Germanna? About half of his land lay to the west of Germanna and he was trying to draw attention to the west.
In choosing to place his home at Germanna, he was putting it thirteen miles away from the iron mine. This also shows that his primary interest at this time was land, not iron.
As a side note, just before Spotswood left for the Indian conference at Albany, New York, one of his last official acts in Virginia was to naturalize Jacob Holtzclaw. In the naturalization, Holtzclaw made the statement that he had been a resident of Stafford County for several years. Since the time was now 1722, it tends to confirm that the first Germans had left Germanna about January of 1719 (NS).
When Spotswood returned from the Indian conference in the fall of the year, Hugh Drysdale had been installed as the new governor of Virginia. Spotswood retired to his home at Germanna, the county seat of Spotsylvania, where he had appointed the sheriff, clerk, and justices and where he owned more than 100,000 acres of land.
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.