The Andreas Mielke-Sandra Yelton research team found interesting material written by Richard Beresford who was an agent for the South Carolina Assembly in December of 1715. The letter was written on 4 July 1716. I will paraphrase the letter rather than quote it which appears verbatim in the November issue of Beyond Germanna .
Beresford had just returned from Virginia where he had learned that the fort at Christiana was finished. [This fort was in the southern part of the colony and was the base for several activities but principally it was to serve as the headquarters for an Indian trading operation. The Virginia legislature had established a privately run state monopoly for Indian trading. The trading company was to maintain a school for Indians at Christiana. It was anticipated that the trading company would be very profitable and Alexander Spotswood was one of the investors in it.]
Beresford writes that the Governor (i.e., Spotswood) was building a house near Christiana where he intends to live when he will be out of the government. [Already in 1716, relations between Spotswood and the leading citizens of Virginia had deteriorated and Spotswood was making his plans for the future.] Spotswood's house was expected to cost five to six hundred pounds. Encouraged by his example, other people were planning to do the same.
[What this tells us is that Spotswood was abandoning Germanna and concentrating on Christiana. At this time, he saw no future in silver and there were no iron mines yet. He had only a few thousand acres of land at Germanna which he was hoping to lease to the Germans.]
Beresford continues that there were three companies of Rangers (twelve men each) who ranged and made discoveries as the governor directed. One of the companies made the discovery of a passage through the mountains between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers. [This could not be Swift Run Gap, where all of the historical markers are planted claiming that site for the passage.] The pass was said to be easy to ascend and descend. The Rangers went forty miles beyond the mountains where they saw new cabins and signs that Indians were in the area.
The governor is going to order the three companies of Rangers and some other men to explore the pass and the lands beyond in more detail. It was thought that this could open a new route for trading with the Indians. [This worried people in South Carolina who saw a threat to their Indian trading.]
Several people in Virginia see the proposed trip as excuse to look for mines, reports Beresford. It was noted that there was a settlement of Germans that way who could mine. And it was noted that Frantz Ludwig Mitchell [Michel] had passed information to the Treasury in London about mines in the Valley and this information had been forwarded to Spotswood.
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.