Information made available to me by Joy Q. Stearns adds support to the idea that the Second Germanna Colony was first located in the Great Fork on the north side of the Rapidan River. Whereas I had found some information in a Spotsylvania County lease, she found information in several Orange County leases. Her information confirms strongly that there was a German settlement on the north side of the Rapidan.
Prior to her find, the information we had was Spotswood's comment,
" . . . we settled them upon our tract from our tract [the Spotsylvania tract] . . . in 20 odd tenements, all close joyning to one another for their better defense . . ."
The first lease that Joy Stearns found was issued by Spotswood to John Bond, on 14 Jul 1735, when the land then fell into Orange County. Unlike the Byrn lease cited earlier, which does not have metes and bounds, the Bond lease does. It is said to start at the lower corner of lot 18 of the GERMAN TENEMENTS on the Rapidan River and runs north to Brook's Run. The description by George Hume actually includes 140 acres, not the 110 acres stated. Hume even included a small plot of the tract, and it shows that there were two homes. One of them is next to the Rapidan River, and the other is about one half mile inland along Brook(e)'s Run.
Were the homes on the Bond tract built after the Germans left? Probably not, because Spotswood leased land for two lifetimes. Anyone who had leased the land would have remained on it for many years.
A 7 Apr 1740 lease to Roger Topp mentions the north side of the Rapidan, the Spotsylvania tract, a branch of Potato Run, and a lot 9 as an adjacent lot. A lease to Jeremiah Strother, 7 Apr 1740, from the Spotswood executors mentions Potato Run, lot 8, north side of the Rapidan, 40,000 acres tract. Still another lease in the same apparent area mentions lot 10. A lease to Daniel Underwood, 7 Apr 1740, mentions the north side of the Rapidan, 40,000 acres, 150 acres, corner to lot 8, corner to lot 6, Brooks Run. The John Asher lease, 7 Apr 1740, mentions 150 acres, the north side of the Rapidan, Spotsylvania tract, below the mouth of Spade's Run, corner to an old German lot on the river.
Thus, several leases reference the Germans on the north side of the Rapidan River, with some evidence that they were spread out from Fleshman's Run in the east to Potato Run in the west, a distance of several miles. Thus, "closely joyned" was not as close as one might think. The houses appear to been about one-half mile apart along the river, and with another row similarly spaced about one-half mile from the river. Probably, the land that Christopher Zimmerman, Frederick Kabler, and Conrad Amburgey took up on Potato Run was just beyond the extent of the Germans.
The reason that so many of the leases above were dated in 1740 is that Spotswood had died and his executors were cleaning up his affairs. Probably, the people were already settled on the land, but Spotswood had not executed leases to them. He was inclined to do things this way. For example, the earlier lease to Thomas Byrd had no defined metes and bounds. It merely said that it was defined on the (personal) books of Alexander Spotswood. There was no public record of the leased property. For reasons such as this, I am not an admirer of the character of Alexander Spotswood.
(11 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.