[In note 562, I gave a quotation from Scott and it might be inferred that it was a quotation from Willis Kemper's book, " Genealogy of Kemper Family ". Though every thought in the quotation is included in Kemper's work, and the expression of the ideas is typical Kemper writing, the quotation itself seems to have come from another source, probably a letter from Kemper.]
Willis Kemper wrote another book, without a coauthor, entitled " Genealogy of the Fishback Family in America ", which was published in 1914, two hundred years after the arrival of the first Germanna group in Virginia. The ideas in this book are so similar to the " Kemper Genealogy ", in which there was a coauthor, that Kemper is often given as the sole author of the Kemper book. One difference between the two books was that Kemper had been to Nassau-Siegen after the " Kemper Genealogy ".
On page 1 there are two errors. Speaking of the First Germanna Colony, he says it was "brought to Virginia to exploit her iron mines for the benefit of her rulers". Then, in the second paragraph he says that the group was "the first organized German colony to come to the territory, later to be known as the United States of America". The first error is repeated on page 12, when he says they "came at the request of the rulers of Virginia".
On page 13, writing about Spotswood's letter to the Council of Trade, dated 24 Oct 1710, Kemper claims that Spotswood uses the phrase "towards the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia". This was the letter in which Spotswood (erroneously) mentions the newly discovered iron mines. A search of the Spotswood letter that Kemper cites shows that it does not contain the phrase that he claimed. In fact, one should have been suspicious that Kemper erred because the phrase " Blue Ridge Mountains " was not used in 1710.
Though I am no fan of Graffenried, I must defend him against a charge that Kemper makes against him. Kemper says Graffenried abandoned his colony in North Carolina and came up to Virginia. Actually, one of Graffenried's purposes in the trip to Virginia was to see if he could find homes there for the members of the colony. The answer was affirmative, but none of the North Carolina colonists wished to move.
In another place, Kemper again makes a letter of Spotswood say something that Spotswood did not write. Kemper mixes statements from Graffenried and Spotswood together and implies by his citation that Spotswood was the source of all of the comments, see page 14 of Kemper .
Kemper wondered why most of the First Colony people did not apply for headrights until ten years after they came to Virginia. He concludes that they applied because Spotswood insisted they apply and assign the headrights to him. The truth is that they were not more diligent in applying, because in the Northern Neck, where their permanent homes were, they could not use headrights. Outside the Northern Neck, headrights fell in value, because land was free in Spotsylvania County, the location of the most active land development. Later, the head rights had some small value outside the Northern Neck, and, in fact, several of the colonists did sell their headrights. For example, Lawrence Crees, on the Robinson River, purchased some of these headrights and used them to pay for his land. The value of a headright was only a few shillings, and it hardly paid going to court to get them.
Kemper notes that the chief miner, Johann Justus Albrecht, seems to have disappeared and says that he did not come to Virginia. There is a record of Albrecht in the Virginia courthouses but his eventual fate is unknown.
Some of the mistakes of the " Kemper Genealogy " are repeated (not mentioned here), others do not appear in " Fishback Genealogy ", and some new ones appear.
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.