The third Picnic Party of the Society of Germanna Colonies was held on 15 July 1951 at the grounds of Spotswood's "Enchanted Castle". The third number of the Journal which was issued after the meeting was prepared by Brawdus Martin. It is hard to follow the history of the Germans that he gives because he is thinking out loud and he is confused.
Before we begin the discussion of his thoughts, a review of the geography is helpful. Spotswood's home was in the area where State Highway 3 crosses the Rapidan River. Most people considered this to be Germanna. The fort was usually placed in this same vicinity though no definitive location could be given. The iron mines and the furnace were thirteen miles down the Rapidan River and past its confluence with the Rappahannock River. The physical remains of Spotswood's home and the furnace were testimony as to their location.
What troubled Martin were Willis Kemper's statements that Spotswood had iron mines and he imported German miners to work these mines. The problem was the miners were not located or placed at the mines but were located thirteen miles away which was not very logical. But Martin was reluctant to come to the conclusion that Kemper was in error, which is the obvious answer borne out by many other statements and events, but instead he sought other answers, none of which came easily.
He said there were three possibilities as to where the German miners were first settled. One was at "Douchertown", a slangy name for German Town which, was an alternative name for Germanna. Douchertown was about one-half mile up the Rapidan from the site of the future "Castle". Martin said that he had found a copy of an old map which located Douchertown there. A second choice was closer to the "Castle". That this was a possibility was indicated by Byrd's remarks in " Progress to the Mines " where he speaks of the Castle as facing a baker's dozen of ruinous tenements across the street where German workmen had lived. The third possibility was that the miners were actually settled at the mines, thirteen miles away from Germanna.
Martin was least inclined to accept the Castle location, i.e., across the street. He found it hard to believe that Spotswood would build so close to the houses that were primitive. Also, he was looking for nine houses, not thirteen, since John Fontaine found nine houses at Germanna. So Martin concluded that the thirteen houses were at Douchertown which was half a mile away. (He ascribed Byrd's description of the location to poetic license.) There were thirteen houses because the larger second group of Germans had replaced the smaller first group.
Still, he was not happy with the idea that the miners were at Douchertown because that went against the implications to be drawn from Kemper. Martin tried the idea that the miners were at Douchertown and working on gold mines at first. And a variation of this is that they were settled first at Douchertown where they produced a sample of iron but never went into production.
Martin seemed the happiest with two Germannas and two forts. One Germanna and one fort were located on the site of the furnace. Very few people really believed this and it was a hard sell.
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.