I have made the point recently that Alexander Spotswood already had picked out the land on which the Second Colony Germans were placed before they came. Spotswood's March 28 letter to Nathaniel Harrison, in 1724, says that the land was so remote and exposed to Indians that it was difficult to find settlers, until a considerable number of Germans " happened " to arrive. This was the Second Colony, because Spotswood does say 1717 (which could have been up to March 23, 1718, by the modern calendar).
Spotswood makes it clear that the land included 13,000 acres that Robert Beverley was holding in reserve. Actually, Beverley's claim to this land even preceded the establishment of Germanna, but he had not gone through the formal procedures of applying for a patent because he would have been required to pay his fees then. He could not be sure of finding settlers for it because of the remoteness and the danger from Indians.
Spotswood went on to say that he joined with Beverley in a partnership and that, besides the original 13,000 acres of Beverley, they added 27,000 acres, for a claimed total of 40,000. The intended economic activity was the production of naval stores. Other writers also identify the Second Colony with naval stores. All of the evidence, taken together, says that somewhere in the tract of 40,000 acres would be the first homes of the Second Colony.
The first patent on this tract was issued on 22 Jun 1722 to Thomas Jones, Gent., John Clayton, Esq., and Richard Hackman. The Germans had already been living on the land for more than four years! The delay in patenting the land was due to a variety of reasons. People put off filing for a patent as long as they felt they could prevent claim jumpers or squatters from putting down roots on it. Of course, the delay meant that they did not have to pay fees yet. On this tract, Spotswood was hoping that the "free land" in the new county of Spotsylvania would apply. So he held off from issuing the patent until the law was clarified. Finally, it seemed (correctly) that he would be replaced as Lt. Governor, so he proceeded to issue the title to Jones, Clayton, and Hackman, who were proxies for him. Of course, when the patent was issued, there was a description of the metes and bounds of the tract. This furnishes us with a physical description of its location. Somewhere within the confines of this is where the Second Colony was located.
Just describing a tract of 40,000 acres takes several pages in the metes and bounds system. Plotting such a large piece of land is difficult, and had discouraged people from actually seeing where the land extended. Fortunately, today, there is software for this purpose, and, using DeedMapper™
software, I did plot it. The full extent had been lost as the years rolled by, so modern folk did not know what its measure was.
(06 Oct 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.