The patents and grants allow us to make sociological studies. For example, the dates tell us when settlement occurred and by whom it was made. One point needs explanation immediately though. Some patents were made in the spirit of speculation and some were made for the purpose of living on the land. This has been recognized in Nell Marion Nugent’s books and their successors which are entitled " Cavaliers and Pioneers ". The Cavaliers were the speculators who did not want to work the land themselves. Instead, they either sold the land in a very quick time, or leased it, or purchased slaves to work on it. The Pioneers took out their patents with a view to living on and working the land themselves. The pioneers sometimes took up more than one tract but it was usually with a view to having land for their sons and daughters.
The first patents in the modern county of Culpeper commenced in the last half of the 1710 decade. Some of these were in eastern Culpeper, especially along Mountain Run and southeast of Mt. Pony. There were a few in the northern part of the county in the Little Fork area, especially close to the Rappahannock River. The trip over the Blue Ridge Mountains by Spotswood led to speculation in land in the Great Fork, the land between the Rapidan and the Rappahannock Rivers. As a result of this trip, he and friends claimed about 65,000 acres. Another spur to this land fever was the establishment of a group of Germans, the Second Colony, on the north side of the Rapidan River. It is arguable that these Germans were the first settlers of modern Culpeper County. If not the first, they were among the earliest. It is true that at the end of 1718, there were more Germans living in the Great Fork than there were English. And this was the most western point under the control of the English along the Atlantic seaboard.
Who were the first settlers, actually living on their land, in the modern county of Madison? This area is almost the same as the Robinson River Valley. The first patents that I find on the Robinson River or its tributaries are in 1726 when two patents were issued to Rush and Rush. In this same year, twenty-two patents were issued to Germans. (Because the Rush patents were on the fringe of the German patents, it appears that the German claims were the first.) At the end of 1726, the area around what we might call the Hebron Valley was strongly German in nature. This encouraged some Englishmen to settle in the area. In 1727, Downs, Southall, and Phillips had patents, while only one individual, who was possible German, namely Rucker, took a patent.
The year 1728 reflected an increased interest in the area. In this year, eleven patents were issued to Englishmen and nineteen patents were issued to Germans. Through 1736, patents were issued to the English and Germans in about equal numbers. With the numbers strongly showing the Germans were first with the largest numbers of people, the Robinson River Valley had a strong German flavor in its first decades.
(17 Feb 06)
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.