In the last note, I discussed that the First Colony procured their land by cash on the barrel head to Lord Fairfax. Perhaps I should issue a disclaimer and say that I do not know whether they paid by cash or by an IOU. If anyone should have definite information on this, I would appreciate knowing. In the Northern Neck this was the only way to obtain land.
Outside the Northern Neck, on lands of the crown, in the time frame about 1718, there were two ways of paying for land, head rights (fifty acres per head) or cash (five shillings per fifty acres). From time to time, there was a third way. Sometimes in specified regions the crown gave land away to encourage settlement in that area. Usually these "special offers" were for short periods of time and on the surface they do seem to be for the purpose of promoting settlement on frontier lands.
The legislation creating Spotsylvania County in late 1720 contained a section in which it was declared that the land would be free for ten years. In itself, this was not a novel idea because it had been used before. It was to encourage settlement, but it seems a stronger motive for its inclusion in the law was to allow the creators of the law to obtain large blocks of land for free. The very day that the Assembly passed the law, Spotswood and his friends filed for large tracts of land. This seems to indicate that as much as anything the law was to benefit them. Originally, it was hoped that the law would allow free land and no quit rents for ten years, but in the end it was cut back a bit in England.
The law was still fresh on the books when the members of the Second Colony were looking for their land, and they were aware of the free land. Rather than move to the approximate vicinity of Germantown where the First Colony was, they opted for the free land. Until about 1729, head rights had little value because they were competing against free land. It would have made sense for the First Colony to abandon Germantown and move to the free land, which they could have acquired in a larger measure than they had at Germantown. But who wants to clear fields of trees and build new houses? Actually, Jacob Holtzclaw did take advantage of the free land offer and he procured some of the free land in the region, which became known as the Little Fork. Later he sold this land to new immigrants, so his venture had multiple motives, but probably not as a home for himself.
I have heard of several reasons that the First Colony moved to the Northern Neck, as opposed to the lands of the crown. But none of them seem to me to be valid. Perhaps the best reason of all was they liked that location better than any other. But I have never heard this given as their reason.
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.