A book on one of our Germanna families was published this year. It contains a number of errors in the general history, but the author was probably acting in good faith in passing along these errors. The author thanks many family members who helped him, and, on the matters of family history, I have little to say. For the general history, which is in error on several points, he thanks The Memorial Foundation of Germanna Colonists in Virginia. The sad point is that many of the errors for which the Germanna Foundation was responsible have been corrected by others, but the Germanna Foundation continues to restate the same old errors.
Several of you may remember that I spent several Notes here showing the errors in an article in a publication of the Germanna Foundation. This was in the publication called "Germanna", in the Summer of 1997 (vol. 5, number 3). After I had exposed the errors, a vice-president of the Foundation said here that the Foundation was aware there were errors in the article, before they published it. However, they did nothing to alert readers that they believed there were errors. Nor did they ever publish corrective works. What they have done is to continue to refer people, seeking information, to their publications, which contain errors. So, our author, to whom I have referred in the first paragraph, unknowingly repeats the errors.
Our author states there were three colonies of Germans, and cites W. W. Scott. The Germanna Foundation repeats this error, even to the extent of saying the Third Colony came in 1719, and consisted of approximately forty families, who were settled near Germanna (see the Germanna Foundation's web page for confirmation of this statement). There is NO evidence that Germans, in numbers that would even come close to forty families, came in 1719. While a few Germans probably did come in 1719, the numbers were far less than forty families. Additionally, Germans were coming at a fairly steady pace, albeit irregularly, from year to year, so, it is not worthwhile to distinguish a so-called third colony from other Germans.
Our author states that Alexander Spotswood discovered iron ore lying about on the ground in the Rapidan River, of what was then Essex County. This statement is taken from "Germanna" loc cit. The web page for the Foundation implies much the same, by saying that Spotswood wanted miners for his mines. I believe the original source for the statement was Willis Kemper, in his history of the Kemper Family. What we can observe, with some confidence, is that when the First Germanna Colony came they were located twelve miles from the future site of Spotswood's iron mine (see the recent notes on William Byrd). Doesn't it seem reasonable that if Spotswood did have an "iron mine" that he would have settled his miners at the mine, and not twelve miles away?
It struck Brawdus Martin, about the middle of this century, that the idea of the Germans being twelve miles away from the mine was ridiculous. His answer was simple. He simply composed false documents, and published them, to show that Germanna was not where we think it is, but was at the iron mine. Had he thought the situation though, he would have realized the error was in the statement that Spotswood had found iron, and was seeking miners to develop these iron mines. There is no evidence that Spotswood ever found any iron.
(10 Nov 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.