While the sub-set of Notes based on material written or influenced by Alexander Spotswood is not yet finished, an insert of material written by another person will be made in a couple of Notes here. The material here is in the Public Record Office (C.O. 5/1265) and a copy was obtained by Jim and Louise Hodge. Andreas Mielke had suggested that a search might be profitable and Sandra Yelton found an abbreviated printed version in the book Colonial Papers, America and West Indies , p. 143.
The author of the material is Richard Beresford, an agent for the South Carolina Legislature. On the subject of Indian trading, South Carolina and Virginia were strongly opposed. The date of the letter is July 4, 1716, and it was written from Chowan, North Carolina, to friends or employers in South Carolina. [Some paraphrasing is done in the report here.]
"I have just returned from Virginia where I was informed that the fort built at Christiana by Gov. Spotswood was finished. It lies on Meherrin River about 50 or 60 miles from some part of James River and Appomatocks River. The fort consists of five large pentagonal log houses which serve for bastions, and a curtain of mauled wood with earth on the inside from one house to another. Each house has a great gun of about 1400 pounds. It is constantly kept by an officer and twelve men at the charge of the Virginia Indian company which was incorporated by an act of the assembly for that purpose.
"There is a schoolmaster maintained there for instructing the Indians in the Christian religion. He has a salary of 40 pounds sterling per annum. The Honorable Mr. Boyle gave a considerable sum to pious uses, one of which is the conversion of the Indians and at his charge are taught several of the youth of the tributary Indians at Williamsburg. One of them that can read and write is to be the usher at the school at Christiana.
"The governor is building a handsome house near Christiana where he intends to live when he shall be out of the government. It will cost him about 5 or 600 pounds sterling and divers other people are encouraged by the governor's example to settle plantations that way. I saw an abundance of iron, steel, and other utensils carried thither. There are a couple of forges set up and it is expected that it will be a place of note."
[What Mr. Beresford is telling us is that Alexander Spotswood was preparing in 1716 to abandon Germanna, where there had been a pretension to silver in the neighborhood, and to stake his economic future on Indian trading with a base at Christiana. In other words, Spotswood saw no future for Germanna except possibly as land to be leased to the Germans.]
(20 Dec 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.