From 1710 to 1713, Johann Justus Albrecht recruited Germans in the Sieg Valley to emigrate to America to mine silver for the George Ritter Company of Switzerland. By 1713 he had persuaded some forty odd people, including women and children, to leave their homes from the villages around Siegen, such as Eisern, Trupbach, Oberfischbach, Freudenberg, Niederndorf, and Muesen, to pay their way to London where they would obtain the additional financial support to continue the trip to America. When they arrived in London, the principal American leader of George Ritter Company, Christoph von Graffenried, was not there, but he arrived about a month later with the news that the George Ritter Company was bankrupt. Graffenried recommended that the Germans return to their homes in Germany. Most of the Germans felt that they were not able to do this as they had sold their homes and paid their emigration fees. They made a counteroffer to Graffenried, namely that they would pool their money toward their transportation costs and would work for four years to pay the balance. Graffenried took this offer to several men in London and found a receptive audience in Col. Nathaniel Blakiston, the agent for the Colony of Virginia in London. Blakiston knew that Lt. Gov. of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, was an investor in a purported silver mine in Virginia. Though the share of this mine that would go to the Crown was not determined, Blakiston was optimistic that this would be resolved and Spotswood would be needing miners before long. Blakiston committed Spotswood to paying the 150 pounds Sterling that was needed to complete the cost of the transportation. With this plan in place, the Germans embarked in January of 1714(NS) and arrived in Virginia in April of 1714. Spotswood learned that he had been committed to pay the 150 pounds only shortly before the Germans arrived in Virginia. Though Spotswood was nervous about importing foreigners, he happily believed that Blakiston would not have done this without some reason to believe that the royalty question would be resolved soon.
Two years previously, Spotswood had formulated a policy of placing foreigners on the frontier as a barrier or buffer between the English and the Indians. Though this tentative policy had never been officially approved, Spotswood put it into effect. He placed the Germans in a fort, called Fort Germanna, after the Germans and Queen Anne, in a horseshoe bend of the Rapidan River twenty miles above the present day town of Fredericksberg. This site was well suited to the purpose of defense of the frontier, and, therefore, it was approved by the Council as a valid expenditure of the public funds. Apparently, Spotswood hid from the Council that he was an investor in a silver mine that was about four miles from this site, though the fact became widely known before long. In 1715 and 1716, John Fontaine left a description of Fort Germanna in his personal diary. From this, we know that the life of the Germans was not easy.
(27 Oct 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.