Starting with the last note, some ideas are given which are not proven and are contradictory to known facts They originated with Broadus Martin and are given here in the spirit of showing how erroneous ideas, many of which started with Willis Kemper, can lead to further errors.
The fourth Annual Picnic (of the Society of Germanna Colonists ) was held 6 July 1952, but no Journal was issued in the year following The fifth Annual Picnic was held 7 June 1953, with both picnics at the site of the ruins of Spotswood's home Following the fifth picnic, a Journal was issued which was intended to cover both years.
Martin suggested more definitely that there were two Germannas The first Germanna was located near the furnace He also suggested that the "Germanna" tract of 1716 included this site The "Wilderness" tract of 1719 was the site where Spotswood built his home Spotswood moved the name "Germanna" from the first site to the second site The only Germans at the Spotswood home site were the second group of Germans The first group of Germans was located only at the first Germanna.
Martin boldly struck out at the recent writers who, in writing about the first group of Germans, were "confused" By this, he meant that everyone else was confused According to him, there was a fort, which he called Spotswood's Fort, near the fork in the Rappahannock River (This would put this fort much closer to the iron mine.) It was here that the First Colony was settled; it was here that Fontaine, Clayton, (and Beverley) visited in 1715; it was here that the trip across the Blue Ridge Mountains started in 1716 The blockhouse, where the First Colony held their church services, was at Fort Spotswood The Spotswood Fort was ten miles away from the site where the picnic was being held at the ruins of Spotswood's home.
If students of Germanna history have a hard time swallowing these ideas, they could try the following quotation from Martin in the Journal:
"The first Germans (1714) the twelve ironworking apostles by 1718 had become dissatisfied for they had felt that their contract with the Governor included them as participants in his Iron venture and sued the Governor for a copy of the contract The court ordered the Governor to give them a copy which as far as the records showed, the Governor never relinquished."
There are several ideas in this last quotation for which there is no evidence Martin applied some ideas which pertained to the second group of Germans to the first group but in doing so he made errors (No Germans sued Spotswood but Spotswood did sue many members of the second group.)
One begins to wonder if it wasn't Broadus Martin who was confused .
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.