John Blankenbaker's Germanna History Notes

Note 2463

*[Warst du schon einmal verliebt?] (Clue: I am a few days late with this one.)

I thought we might note the documents I have been using recently.  A major one is the Headright List of Alexander Spotswood.  This is recorded in Virginia Patent Book 14 , page 378ff.  I believe this can be obtained online from the Virginia State Library.  Those of you who have Nell Marion Nugent’s volume III of Cavaliers and Pioneers can find it there, but she has a few flaws in her transcription.  She, for example, had the Clores scattered around in the list of names whereas in the Patent they are contiguous.  The original list has a few errors in it, quite aside from the very poor spelling.  Two names were combined into one, namely, Ferdinandis Sylvina Otes, which should be Ferdinand Utz and Sylvina Volck.  Anna Louise Otes should also be a Volck, we believe.

[From Elke Hall's reply to this Note, 19 Feb 07:  "John, do we know who Sylvina Volck is?  Does it imply in one of the Germanna Notes (my wife's mother) that Sylvina is Maria Sabina Charlotta Barbara Volck and that she was the wife of Ferdinand Utz?  I thought she was married to Johannes Hoffmann from Siegen?  Elke"]

[From John's reply to Elke, 19 Feb 07:  "Elke is correct.  Sylvina is Sabina, namely Maria Sabina Charlotta Barbara Volck, who married John Huffman.  Ferdinand Utz is a young son of George Utz and Barbara his wife.  He did not live long.  John Blankenbaker"]

Apparently, another good source of information is the list of people who were sued by Alexander Spotswood.  The thought is that the lawsuits would not have been brought against anyone who arrived later than 1717 since not enough time has gone by since they arrived.  James E. Brown examined the court books of Spotsylvania County and extracted all references to suits by Spotswood against the Germans.  He presented a summary of his findings in Beyond Germanna in volume 5, number 3, on pages 265ff.  This is, I believe, the best summary that has ever been prepared.  Twenty people appear to have been sued, though it is true that the Germans, in a petition to the Assembly, said above 25 had been sued by him.  I have no explanation for this difference.  The suits against Crigler, Bellenger, Holt, Utz, Clore, and Fleshman were dismissed.  Judgments were obtained against Paulitz, Amberger, Yager, B. Blankenbaker, Henry Snyder, Moyer, Cook, Broyles, M. Smith, Kaefer, M. Blankenbaker, N. Blankenbaker, and Sheible.

Good sources of information are in the Headright Applications.  Again, James E. Brown compiled a list of all that he could find in the Spotsylvania County records.  These, for both the First Colony and the “Second” Colony were summarized in Beyond Germanna , volume 7, number 5, on pages 401 and 402, plus page 435.  For the “Second” Colony and later, applications were made from 1725 to 1729.  The families were Motz, Harnsberger, Zimmerman, Snyder, M. Smith, Cook, Kerker, Carpenter, Barlow, Broyles, Yager, Paulitz, Turner (Tanner), Long, and Wayland.  One of the values of the information is that the applicant stated when each came and the names of the family members.  All except Carpenter (1721) and Tanner (1720) said they came in 1717.  Wayland did not specify an arrival date.  The non-appearance of a name here is not too significant since Headrights were not very valuable and most of the people were obtaining their land under the free land clause in the legislation creating Spotsylvania County.

*[Have you ever been in love?]
(19 Feb 07)