On the occasion of the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Arrival of the Second Colony, A. L. Keith wrote an article, " The German Colony of 1717 ", which was published in three issues of the William and Mary Quarterly . He copies the mistake of Johann Caspar Stoever as to the places of the origins of the Second Colony, putting Alsace at the head of the list. Keith seems to be the first writer to name the Captain of the ship as Scott, which brought the Second Colony. It is instructive as to how he phrased the statement,
". . . for the reason that its Captain (Captain Scott?) had been thrown into prison . . ."
In other words, he had his doubts since he wrote a specific name with a question mark. After that, no one put in the question mark, but just stated the man was Captain Scott. It appears that the name of the ship was the Scott and the captain was Capt. Tarbett.
Keith said that Col. Spotswood sued them [the Germans] and compelled most of them to serve another year. The lawsuits were brought for money, not for an additional year of servitude.
Keith also thought the Second Colony had joined in the 1719/1720 fund-raising appeal. Also, Keith said there was no evidence that any of the 1717 colony failed to go to the Robinson River. The latter is slightly in error, as Christopher Zimmerman and Conrad Amberger went to the Mt. Pony area, which is outside the Robinson River area.
In 1926, C. L. Yowell wrote the book, " A History of Madison County, Virginia ", which was revised and reissued in 1977 by Margaret Grim Davis as " Madison County, Virginia, A Revised History ". Both authors make the claim,
"Later Governor Alexander Spotswood patented land in what is now Madison County to Germanna settlers, believing this land to be his by a grant given by Queen Anne."
Alexander Spotswood had no land within the borders of today's Madison County. He did not patent this land to the Germans (who obtained their patents in 1726), as he had been out of office for four years and could not issue a patent.
The statement is made that Governor Spotswood employed the Germans in his iron mines near Germanna, and also at odd times they did a little farming. In fact they were 15 to 20 miles from the mines when the mines were eventually developed. They were engaged in naval stores projects, grapes, and farming. A major part of their time was spent in clearing land to farm.
Yowell says Hebron Church was organized by a colony of Germans who had emigrated from Germanna and a few years before from Holland. It would have been more accurate to say "from Germany and through Holland". By his reasoning he could have said they were from England. Yowell follows Keith and says the captain's name was Scott. He also says they were located by Spotswood on the south side of the Rapidan. We now know they were on the north side of the Rapidan in the Great Fork.
(09 Aug 04)
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.