[Continuing the quotations from the work of the last note.]
The earliest mention of the Golden Horseshoe was by the Rev. Hugh Jones, who, by Spotswood’s appointment, preached in pretty Bruton Church in Williamsburg, which the governor transformed from a small structure into what it now is a monument of his good taste. The clergyman wrote:
“Governor Spotswood, when he undertook the great discovery of a passage over the mountains, attended with a sufficient guard of provisions, passed these mountains and cut his Majesty’s name upon a rock upon the highest of them, naming it Mount George, and in complaisance to him (Alexander Spotswood), the gentlemen called the next mountain to it Mount Alexander. For this expedition, they were obliged to provide a great quantity of horseshoes, things seldom used in the eastern part of Virginia, where there are no stones. Upon which account, the Governor upon his return presented each of his companions with a golden horseshoe, some of which I have seen, covered with valuable stones, resembling the heads of nails, with the inscription ‘Sic juvat transcendere montes’. This he instituted to encourage gentlemen to venture backward and make discoveries and settlements, any gentlemen being entitled to wear this golden shoe who could prove that he had drunk his Majesty’s health on Mount George.”
So unimpressive was the incident at the time that no hint of it is found in any of Spotswood’s letters, though he repeatedly alludes to the expedition; and although there were fifty persons in the exploration, and must have been a considerable number of golden horseshoes, not one has rewarded the long search of antiquarians for a specimen. Nothing was heard in Spotswood’s time of any “Order” or “Knights”; possibly he and those whom he decorated feared to awaken royal jealousy in England by any such appearance of a gubernatorial fountain of honor. This part of the legend was evolved and decorated by later generations.
The exploration of the Blue Ridge, which touched the imagination of young Virginia, had among its romantic episodes the return with the governor of an Indian maiden, Katena. There are variants of the story: some said that she begged to be carried to the region of the paleface; others that she was taken as a voluntary hostage from her father, a chief, for his friendship. At any rate I have been told by the descendants of Francis Thornton that Katena is not at all mythical, and that she became the devoted companion of their ancestor. She used to carry the child into the woods, near the mansion now known as Snowden, on the Falls of the Rappahannock, and taught him the wild arts of her race. . . . But when Katena died in her eighteenth year, Francis Thornton remained through life a melancholy man.
[If I, John, should lay my head down and never wake, please remember that I hardly believe a word of what I have written as taken from “Barons of the Potomack and the Rappahannock”.]
(16 Oct 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.