For an explanation of how the situation in London in 1713 came about, which Graffenried described in the last note, I have no authoritative answer, nor does anyone else. Regardless of how it did come about, it makes Kemper's statements ridiculous. My estimation is that the situation in London came about because there were mistakes in the communication across the Atlantic.
Everywhere that we turn in Kemper, we see that he started with a misconception as to the nature of the events. From this he tried to put everything into his framework, regardless of whether the evidence supported him or not. He had the knack of reading a statement saying "X is black" and at the same time saying "X is white". The sad thing is that people believed him, and started quoting him.
Kemper says that the group from Germany, "...were master mechanics, and were an intelligent, progressive set of people." I have not seen any evidence that they were mechanics, and, in particular, master mechanics. The only two occupations that I know are a pastor and a schoolteacher. It would be nice if someone who may have the information would come forth and tell us. I have no reason to doubt that their intelligence and progressiveness, but again I would ask how Kemper knew this two hundred years after the fact.
Kemper claims that the group knew what it was going to do when it left Germany. What they thought they were going to do is quite different from what Kemper thinks they thought. They thought they were going to mine silver for the George Ritter and Company. Kemper says they thought they were going to mine iron for Spotswood, but he errs concerning the iron and concerning Spotswood.
They had not been engaged to perform any task for Lt. Gov. Spotswood when they left Germany.
Kemper never seems to have doubted that the Tubal furnace was built about thirteen miles from Fort Germanna. The iron mines would have been close to the furnace. If Spotswood did have iron mines when the Germans came, why did he settle the Germans thirteen miles away from the iron mines? Were they to take the Autobahn to work? The whole scenario of where the furnace was eventually built, and where the Germans were first settled in Fort Germanna, is enough to tip one off that there were no iron mines when they came. And this also ignores the fact that Fort Germanna was much nearer to another purported mine, one thought to contain silver.
(10 Jul 00)
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.