Today I will be at Germantown trying to answer a few questions. Germantown got its name in the same way that all of the many Germantowns did. Wherever people saw a few Germans living close together, they called it Germantown. Or, perhaps, they called it Dutch Town, or something similar to that. The Germantown to which the First German Colony moved started as a well-defined piece of land (even though the different surveys did not agree). It consisted of a rectangular piece of ground which, theoretically, contained 1805 acres. It was larger in practice than the survey said. We might say it contains three square miles configured as one mile by three miles.
For the fourteen families, they divided it into twenty parcels by running lines across the short dimension, as though they were slicing bread. Why it was twenty parcels is a mystery. In the end, they divided these additional lots into two parts, and some families had one and a half lots, using the original division as the definition of a lot. The division this way tended to divide the physical features most equitably. For example, Licking Run flows in the long direction so the cross cuts gave everyone a part of Licking Run. The northern lots tended to have more hills than the southern ones so the lots were not entirely equal. It is said that the actual assignment of the lots was by chance.
With a church and school at the center, the distance from the ends of the total tract was a mile and a half. Though we would be inclined to think this was a long distance to walk to church, the people were used to going these distances by foot. Apparently, every lot had its own home. Instead of the village concept from which one went to one's fields, people were living on their own land.
Before many years had passed, the residents were buying additional land. In some cases, this was at a considerable distance from the original Germantown. One of the first to leave physically was John Hoffman, who moved to the Robinson River Valley, just shortly after the Second Colony had moved into this district. Then Jacob Holtzclaw and John Fishback took up land on the other side of the Rappahannock River. One of the motivations of all three of these men may have been the land which was free in Spotsylvania County for a limited time. The Rectors tended to go to the north, and left a reminder of their presence in Rector Town.
This exodus was motivated in part by the scarcity of land at Germantown. "King" Carter owned 10,000 acres on three sides of Germantown which limited expansion in these directions. Also, the growth in the number of settlers meant there was a competition for land.
A native of northern Virginia has said that the land they had chosen was not the best land. There was better land; however, the Moravians, in the middle of the eighteenth century, commented on the Germantown community, which appears to have been vigorous, even though without a church leader. Descendants of some of the original settlers continued to live indefinitely on the Germantown land.
Whether there was a communal cemetery as opposed to multiple private cemeteries is a debated question. Some people believe that what is called the Martin cemetery is really a community cemetery.
(14 Jul 01)
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.