In the year 1992, I gave a talk at a Germanna Foundation Seminar on the subject of where the Second Colony first lived. In the audience, there was a David M. W. Brown, who came up after the talk and told me that he was familiar with the area around Fleshman's Run that I was talking about. His grandfather owned some land along Fleshman's Run which crosses State Route 3 about one and a half miles west of the Germanna Bridge. He agreed to give a short presentation to the audience when the meeting resumed. The gist of it follows.
"In the late 1950's, my grandfather owned and operated a lumber mill along Route 3. Adjoining the mill property, on its western boundary, is a tract of pasture and woodland to which we always referred as Field's Place, as it had been purchased by my grandfather from the Field family. This tract included land on both sides of Field's Run, formerly known as Fleshman's Run, and the property extended south, down the Run, toward the Rapidan River.
"My grandfather kept a small herd of Angus cattle pastured on the Field's Place, and occasionally I would accompany him to check the cattle. On one such occasion, we went for a walk through the woods in a southward direction, paralleling Field's Run. Being very interested in the Civil War, I asked him if there were any campsites in the area, to which he replied that he thought not, but that there had been a settlement in the area many years earlier, and that it had disappeared long before the war. We found no evidence that day of human habitation, other than some odd designs carved into the bark of a large beech tree which might have been made by anyone at any time.
"I never went back to the area to explore, for I did not regard the alleged settlement as likely to be of any great historical significance. Over the years I all but forgot the possibility, until I heard the theory just presented regarding the home of the Second Germanna Colony. It was then that I recalled my grandfather's words and how they just may have held a hint as to the location of what is indeed a very significant historical site, the home of the 1717 Germanna Colony."
( Note from Webmaster: I've been meaning to insert a definition for the word "run" somewhere in these Notes, and this is as good a place as any.REGIONAL NOTE: Terms for "a small, fast-flowing stream" vary throughout the eastern United States especially. Speakers in the eastern part of the Lower North (including Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, and southern Pennsylvania) use the word "run", as in Bull Run. Speakers in New York State are liable to call such a stream a "kill" (a Dutch borrowing). "Brook" has come to be used throughout the Northeast. Southerners refer to a "branch", and throughout the northern United States the term is "crick", a variant of "creek". GWD )
Some more evidence has come to light since that time which has required a modification to the original theory of how the "tenements" were located. At that time, I was placing some stress on Spotswood's comments that their habitations were closely joined for their mutual protection, so I was expecting a tight little "city" of homes. It has turned out that "closely joined" means they were about one-half mile apart, and so had none of the flavor of a village or city.
(10 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.