Looking in more depth at the Mt. Pony area just south of Stevensburg, one of the earliest patents was issued to Christopher Zimmerman, who had a patent across present day Road 662 on the west side of present day Road 661. Two years later, Frederick Kabler had a patent just to the south of Zimmerman, and Conrad Amberger had a patent just to the east of Zimmerman. Also, in the year 1728, Christopher Zimmerman had a patent which lay across the current State Route 3, almost at Salubria. In fact, Salubria may be on this land of Zimmerman, but I can't vouch for this.
In the previous year, that is 1727, Bloodworth and Joseph Kooper each had patents which probably lay to the west and north of the original Zimmerman patent, but not touching it. Then in 1731, Zimmerman had another patent, again across present day State Route 3, on the east side of Kooper. Thus, Zimmerman had patents across State Route 3 on the east and the west of modern Stevensburg. If you drive from the town of Culpeper to Germanna, twice you will cross land of Christopher Zimmerman.
So far I have spotted only one "English" patent before 1728 in this area, and that went to Quarles and Ashley as a joint patent in 1726, and probably included the modern village of Stevensburg. In 1728, there were several English patents. I am inclined to regard both Bloodworth and Kooper as Germans. The name Bloodworth is sometimes spelled Bludworth and that would be a German spelling of "blood". Also, Kooper with a "K" is suspicious. If we accept these two people as Germans, then the Germans were the first in the several square mile area which lies in the eastern part of modern Culpeper County. Of course, the Germans just to the east of these patents were the Second Colony members who have a claim on being the first inhabitants of modern Culpeper County.
Of the hundreds of patents that I have plotted, the Amberger patent is the one whose location I regard as the most solid. It is an anchor stone, but unfortunately not many other patents reference it. Two of the sides of the Amberger patent fit current existing roads almost perfectly. A slight adjustment of the magnetic declination was necessary (not an unusual event), but the description fits the water ways and the roads excellently. I have visited the site and one can see the modern boundaries just as the plot predicts. One corner (the southern tip) of the Amberger patent touches the Spotsylvania tract of Alexander Spotswood. This was the 40,000 acre tract (actually about 65,000 acres) that started as a partnership for settling the Second Germanna Colony. The Germans who took up the patents here had not been living very far away.
In the near vicinity of the Kabler patent there is a road known as the Kibler Road. I do not know whether it was named after the Kabler family or not, but it sounds as it might have been. Another German who had a patent in this general area was Adam Yeager, on the south slope of Mt. Pony.
English names in the area (not an exhaustive list) are:
Stamps,
McQueen,
Dwett,
Quarles,
Ashley, and
Wright (at least two by this name).
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.