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Of the twelve 1714 immigrants, only three were 'naturalized' under Colonial law. The others, which included Peter Hitt,
were given 99 year leases on their lands at Germantown. Title to the leased land eventually went to the lease holders because
records exist of the sale and transfer of these lands at later dates.
It should not be concluded that there are good records listing the names of German families that were placed at Germanna in
1714, even though B. C. Holtzclaw tried to identify the forty-two persons at Germanna in 17141 who were
excused from paying taxes by the Virginia Council. Actually, there appears to be no official record of the names of the original
families. An Act of the Virginia Council, in about 1715, to exempt the original Germans from levies did not give the names,
all that the Act stated was:
"Whereas certain German Protestants, to the number of forty-two persons or thereabouts, have been settled above the falls of the River Rappahannock . . ."This reference to the Germans at Germanna made no mention of twelve families. The exact number of families is further complicated by John Fontaines notes which he recorded in 1715 about his visit to Germanna:
". . . we walked about the town, which is palisaded with stakes stuck in the ground, and laid close the one to the other, and of substance to bear out a musket shot. There are but nine families, and they have nine houses, built all in a line, . . . . "The names of the original families were first given in an article by Kemper in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography in 1906, some 192 years after the families were placed at Germanna. Kemper noted, without documentation or proof, that the families were:
"Jacob Holtzclaw, wife Margaret, sons John and Henry; John Kemper, wife Alice Katherina; John Joseph Martin, wife Maria Kathrina; John Spillman, wife Mary; Herman Fishback, wife Kathrina; John Henry Hoffman, wife Kathrina; Joseph Coons, wife Kathrina, son John Annalis, daughter Kathrina; John Fishback, wife Agnes; Jacob Rector, wife Elizabeth, son John; Melchior Brumback, wife Elizabeth; Tillman Weaver, mother Ann Weaver; Peter Hitt, wife Elizabeth."The families in this list total 12, but the number of persons only total to 29. John Hoffman is listed with his wife Kathrina which is obviously in error since John and Kathrina did not marry until 1721 and the original families had already moved north to Germantown.
Green in his 1964 book2 also lists the colony at Germanna, but his list includes the following heads of families:
<"John Kemper, Jacob Holtzclaw, John and Harmon Fishback, John Hoffman, Harmon Utterback, Tillman Weaver (Webber), John Joseph Martin (Merdten), Peter Hitt (Heide), Jacob Coons (Countz),Wayman and Handback."
This list also contains twelve heads of families, but is different than the list given by Kemper. Only nine names are common to
both lists: Jacob Holtzclaw, John Kemper, John Joseph Martin, Herman Fishback, John Fishback, John Henry Hoffman, Joseph
Coons, Tillman Weaver, and Peter Hitt. Is it just a coincidence that Fontaine found only nine families and nine houses at
Germanna and historians can only agree on the names of nine families? What may be more important is the source of these
names. All of the lists of the 1714 immigrants seem to have been developed from records which were established much later, and
can be or are misleading.
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