John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes
Note 2301
At the start of each "century" in these Notes, it is customary to write a little about what they are all about. After 2,300 notes, I have covered many subjects and some of them seem to have little direct relationship to the Germanna Colonies for which a strict, narrow definition is not very broad.
Recently, we talked a bit about DNA and its application. What we said was general enough to have application to all nationalities. In our case, the intention was to better understand the Germanna Thomas family. There, the use of DNA was very effective to establish that there was a relationship between different branches of the Thomas family. This was a major accomplishment in that family’s research.
So it is with many of the subjects that are discussed here. In some cases they are broad enough to have value beyond the narrow interpretation of Germanna.
Germanna itself is a geographical locality, once a county seat of Spotsylvania. Before that, it was a frontier fort in Virginia. After the county seat moved, Germanna remained a commercial center for a while, until it faded into oblivion. It has been renewed as a center by the presence of Germanna Community College (Locust campus), and by the Visitor’s Center of the
Germanna Foundation
. We are interested in Germanna because the first settlers of Germanna, when it was a fort, were Germans.
These first Germans were augmented loosely by additions. The second group lived just a few miles outside the fort and would have been familiar with the it. Later, when Germanna was the county seat of Spotsylvania, many of these Germans attended court at Germanna. Then, to these early Germans, there were additional people, many of whom were friends and relatives of those already there. It becomes too hard to define a strict set of "Germanna" Germans and so we (at least I do) define all Germans in this geographical area of several counties as "Germanna Colonists".
Where is Germanna? It is along Virginia State Highway 3 (called the Germanna Highway), which runs between Frederickburg and Culpeper, about half way between those two towns. Of course, there were no towns and roads when Fort Germanna was built in 1714. The site of Germanna can be located more exactly by noting that it was on the Rapidan River, the southern branch of the Rappahannock River. From this spot, the region to the immediate north and west has become, in time, the extended Germanna area. This takes us almost to Warrenton in present day Fauquier County, and to the "Great Mountains" (now known as the Blue Ridge Mountains).
(28 Apr 06)