Schuricht would have us believe that the time that Col. Spotswood was governor overlapped the time that the Robinson River Germans were settled in their homes there. Actually, Spotswood was replaced as governor in 1722, and the Germans did not move to the Robinson River until 1725. Thus he was only a private citizen when the Germans moved. It is true that he and the Germans both lived in Spotsylvania County, but he seemed to have no involvement in the government. Schuricht refers to Spotswood as "Sir" which I believe is incorrect. I believe that one must be knighted to be called "Sir".
Schuricht says the Germans on the Robinson River founded a congregation in 1735, with John Casper Stoever (Stöver)as parson. He also took charge of the church at Germanna when Rev. Henkel at Germanna moved on to North Carolina. Schuricht says the church register also shows two sentinels were posted at the door of the Robinson River chapel. Schuricht also says Rev. Stoever traveled to Germany in 1739 to raise money for a church, school, and library. After this trip, Stoever conducted the school himself. All of these statements by Schuricht are generally false, though there is an occasional hint of truth in some of them. In fact, Stoever died in 1739 returning from Germany where he had been several years.
With friends like this, who needs enemies? From the work I reported here earlier on the history of the history of Germanna, I can recognize some of the sources for the statements that Schuricht makes. Still, he could not entirely place the blame on other people. He seems to have misunderstood a lot of what he read or heard. I don't think that he set out to deliberately misinform people; it was more a case that he did not understand.
There was a more recent individual who did set out to deliberately misinform people by making up evidence that simply was not there, or was not true. This was Brawdus Martin, the man for whom the Germanna Foundation's new visitor center is to be named. Out of nothing he created what he said were facts in order to persuade people that his version of history was correct. Schuricht cannot be blamed for such dishonest behavior. More exactly, he might be considered as incompetent but well intentioned. I certainly would not take my Germanna history from what the man wrote.
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.