German Settlers in Culpeper County
In 1714, 42 German men, women, and children arrived in Virginia where Lt. Gov. Alexander Spotswood settled them on the eastern side of the Rapidan River in a five-sided palisaded fort on what was then the edge of European colonization in Virginia.
The Germans had come from villages near Siegen, in North Rhine Westphalia, a silver and iron producing area. Spotswood planned to use them to mine his lands, and there were hopes that silver would be found.
By 1717, iron had replaced silver as the focus of Spotswood’s mining operation. As the Siegerlanders were coming to the end of their indenture, Spotswood settled a second group of Germans to add to his workforce, also as indentured servants for seven years. Coming mainly from agricultural villages in the Kraichgau area of Baden-Wurttemberg, they had expected to go to Pennsylvania. This group was much larger, and by this point, Fort Germanna had expanded into the town of Germanna, on both sides of the Rapidan River, including in what would become Culpeper County.
In 1720, the first group of German colonists, their indentures over, moved north into what is now Fauquier County, with their descendants populating this region. The second colony, their indentures finished by 1726, moved west into what is now Madison County.1
Some of the Germanna colonists remained in the region, including what is now Stevensburg. Founded as York in 1742, this community, originally of Quakers, expanded due to the growing east-west traffic between Germanna and Culpeper Court House (originally called Fairfax).2
In 1735, Rueben Zimmerman established Zimmerman’s Tavern in York, at the intersection of the Kirtley and Carolina Roads. He was the grandson of Christopher Zimmerman, a 1717 Germanna colonist.3
Zimmerman’s Tavern, also known as Zimmerman Cross Keys Tavern, grew as east-west traffic grew. One notable guest includes Thomas Jefferson, who regularly stopped at the tavern on his way to Washington, DC, from Monticello. He called it “an indifferent house.”4
Nearby, in 1757, Reverend John Thompson and his wife Butler Brayne Spotswood oversaw the construction of a Georgian-style plantation house. This large brick structure with elaborate wood paneling was constructed by free and enslaved workers, overseen by the Thompsons. This was Butler Brayne’s second marriage; her first husband had been none other than Alexander Spotswood, founder of Germanna nearly forty years ago. Spotswood died in 1740, and his now-widow remarried the rector of Little Fork Church in 1742.5
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1 “A Brief History of Germanna,” Historic Germanna, July 11, 2024, https://germanna.org/about/.
2 Sean Maroney, “COST-SHARE CULTURAL RESOURCE SURVEY OF 23 AREAS OF HISTORIC INTEREST WITHIN CULPEPER COUNTY, VIRGINIA” (Dovetail Cultural Resource Group: 2019), 146.
3 Dorothy Zimmerman Allen, Zimmerman, Waters, and Allied Families (1916), 5-9.
4 Thomas Jefferson, “Itinerary from Edgehill to Washington, 3 June 1802,” Founders Online, accessed August 19, 2024, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-37-02-0432-0002.
5 Katherine Ellis, Voices of Salubria.