GERMANNA_COLONIES-L Archives

From: John Blankenbaker <>
Subject: (557)Germanna Colonies, History of
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 1999 07:29:46 -0500

The five hundred and fifty-seventh note in a series on the Germanna Colonies

The last note closed with an example of how Willis Kemper (and his coauthor)
let their imagination go to work when they had no facts. I will continue
with Kemper and discuss his (erroneous) version of Germanna history.

Kemper notes that Alexander Spotswood was appointed Governor of Virginia in
1710. (More correctly, he was appointed Lt. Governor.) The story continues,
"It was not long until he discovered evidences of iron ore in districts
toward the Blue Ridge." The facts are that there is no evidence that at any
time did Spotswood discover any iron. From the justification for his expense
reports, there is no mention that he was near or even toward the Blue Ridge
Mountains in the months following his arrival.

In the first few months, October more exactly, he did write to the Council
of Trade and tell them he would propose that the Colony start an iron works
to be based on the iron mines lately discovered. In doing this, Spotswood
was in error (as his later writings show). Iron had been known in Virginia
for over a century and a smelting furnace had even been built in 1622. This
was on land belonging now to Col. Byrd which was located on Falling Creek
where it flows into the James River (a few miles below Richmond today). It
was known in England that Virginia had good sources of iron and this
knowledge had appeared in books in England published before 1600. The "iron
mines lately discovered" were the iron mines of a century earlier.

Kemper says that Spotswood urged, in numerous letters, for the Lords of
Trade to have the Queen to take up the iron project after the Assembly in
Virginia turned thumbs down on the iron project. Actually, there is only one
letter from Spotswood on the subject and the other letters were on a
different subject. The different subject was silver, not iron.

Kemper came to erroneous conclusions because he did not understand, or chose
to ignore, or was unaware of Graffenried's primary purpose in being in
America. First and foremost, Graffenried's motivation for coming to America
was to engage in silver mining, not to start a colony in North Carolina.
Graffenried undertook the North Carolina work because in doing so he
obtained free transportation to America for his Swiss colony. When this
colony was in place, he planned on going to Virginia and starting work on
the silver mines. He had already made plans for this by sending Johann
Justus Albrecht to Siegen to recruit miners in 1710.

When Graffenried came up to Virginia in 1712, one purpose of the trip was to
locate the silver mines. He made an active physical exploration of the upper
Potomac watershed. This was not at the request of Spotswood, as Kemper says,
but something that Graffenried did on his own initiative and in accordance
with his plans he had made in 1710 before he had left England and before he
met Spotswood.

John Blankenbaker, PO Box 120, Chadds Ford, PA 19317
Beyond Germanna, A Newsletter/Journal of Germanna Information
http://www.germanna.com/
http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~george/johnsgermnotes/germhis1.html
http://www.inficad.com/~genelea
http://www.pretext.com/mar98/shorts/short3.ht

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