Spotswood's comments to Harrison, Deputy Auditor of H.M. Revenue, had stopped with the statement,
"... but they [First Germanna Colony] were seduced away by greater expectations elsewhere and I was forced to purchase servants and slaves for seating plantations in this Colony." This is followed immediately by, "Soon afterwards I was drawn into another land concern. In Feb 1717 [1718 by the new style calendar], Sir Richard Blackmore wrote to Mr. Secretary Cock to engage me to favor a design, which he, with several considerable men at home, had to set up an iron works in Virginia, and desires people might be employed to find out the ore, and some thousands of acres were taken up for that purpose. Accordingly I set my Germans to work to look for such oar which search cost me upwards of three score pounds."
If one reads this literally, the First Colony had left Germanna. And, about this same time, he started a search for iron ore with " his Germans ". The Second Colony had not arrived yet. This shows how Spotswood was confused in his timing of events, and it is best not to accept his statements too literally, without independent confirmation. Notice also that the land taken up for the purpose of the iron ore " search " seems to have been already identified. In other words, before the Germans started the search, Spotswood and the Germans seemed to be aware that iron ore was there. [I believe that the Germans had found the ore already, before Spotswood received the request from England to look for it. Spotswood was very careful to make it clear that the " thousands of acres " were taken up, not for his benefit, but for the benefit of several people in England.]
Spotswood added that there was an expenditure of upwards of three score pounds in the search endeavor, which is only a piddling amount for an enterprise of this size. In other words, no iron furnace was built. The search for ore was just that, and nothing more. Spotswood adds that, about two years after the search commenced, Sir Richard said he would not proceed with it. Rather than give up the endeavor, Spotswood said that he joined in with several gentlemen in Virginia, and took up the 15,000 acre iron mine tract in Feb of 1720. Just previous to this, in his letter, Spotswood implied the land was taken up for the benefit of the people in England, but apparently no formal claim had been made on the land.
Spotswood continues in his letter to Harrison,
"About the same time I fell into another partnership of land . . . Mr. Robert Beverley having discovered some excellent land among the little mountains, and made a survey thereof before the Proclamation issued in 1710 concerning the granting of land [fees had to be paid at the time], and not daring to seat lands so remote from all Christian inhabitants, and exposed to Indians, found it in vain to take out a patent for the same under the new terms of cultivation, until an opportunity happened of freeing a considerable number of Germans families IMPORTED [emphasis added] in 1717, when he invited me to become a sharer in the land, and at the same time admitted in some other partners, to the end that we might all join our abilities to make a strong settlement with a body of people at once."
[This is a revealing paragraph as to how Spotswood attempted to confuse the issues. He makes it appear that Beverley invited Spotswood into the land partnership after the (Second Colony) Germans arrived. On the contrary, plans had been laid during the expedition to the western regions in 1716. A fair amount of time was spent in examining Beverley's land. And Spotswood, as a result of that expedition, laid claim to a tract, which, with Beverley's land, amounted to about 65,000 acres. We know that this was case, because the Germans were not settled on Beverley's land, but on the expanded tract which Spotswood was claiming as a result of the expedition. Notice how false the idea was that free land was necessary to encourage settlement in the new county of Spotsylvania. Settlement to the west of Germanna had commenced three years before the county of Spotsylvania was created.]
(25 Sep 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.