John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 1641

The records of the Jeffersonton Baptist Church were destroyed in the fire of 1877. They immediately tried to reconstruct a list of members drawing on the living people and on their memories. In addition, Prof. Hackley searched in the minutes of other churches for mentions of Jeffersonton members. The following are some of the names most likely to be Germanna names.

James M. Button, died in 1868.
Joseph W. Button, Mrs. Jane H. Button, and Henry Button, joined the church in 1868 (Joseph was a delegate to conventions).
James William Coons, joined and died as a youth.
Martin Fishback, born in 1763 and died in 1842. (This last man was born, married, and died in the same room. He served the church very faithfully.)
Mrs. Sophia Ann Fishback, the wife of Col. Frederick Fishback, and the mother of Gov. William Meade Fishback, who was said to be a member by a relative.
Capt. Conway Spilman, baptized in 1825. (His wife, Nancy, died in 42 year in 1835.)
Luther Spilman, transferred from Jeffersonton to Richmond.
Mrs. Susan (Fishback) Young, described as an "ornament of the church".
Harmon Button was a trustee in 1819.
James M. Button was a trustee in 1852.
T. Fishback was a delegate to a convention in 1841 (taken from the minutes of the convention).
John M. Young was a trustee in 1852.
F. Wayman was convention delegate in 1869.

The church was predominantly English, not German. Even those above with German names might not have thought of themselves as German. In the case of the Spilmans, I am not certain about their nationality. There were German Spilmans in the Little Fork.

In 1959, Prof. B. C. Holtzclaw "stumbled" on the diary of Matthias Gottschalk, a Moravian missionary, who stated that in 1748 there was a colony of Germans in the Little Fork. This was news to Holtzclaw and he, with Hackley, started a search for the Little Fork Germans. They found land patents and grants, plus transfers of land which fixed the names of many people in the Little Fork. Gottschalk had said there was a "small, neat, and suitable church", which the Germans had. Being so few in number, they could not get a minister. John Jung (Young) served as a reader and conducted services every Sunday. The German chapel was never located positively but it was thought to be about a mile south of today's Jeffersonton. Without a regular German minister, the congregation was certainly open to the invitation from the Baptists to join them.
(10 Apr 03)

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.