TOBIAS WILHOIT  B. 15 July 1708 in Schwaigern, Neckarkreis, W�rttemberg Germany, d. 1762 in Culpeper County, VA, will dated 1 Sep 1761.  Son of Johann Michael Willheit.  Married 1733 in Virginia.  Will lists children as Michael, Conrade, Jesse, William, & Mary Broil, wife of Adam Broil.

From John Blankenbaker's Germanna Notes ^©, Page 2, Note Nr. 47.

The Rev. Hugh Jones came to Virginia in 1717 and returned to England in 1722.  In 1724, he wrote a small book, "The Present State of Virginia".  It is considered that he was writing of events that occurred no later than 1722.  He was at Williamsburg associated with the College of William and Mary, and he was a friend of Spotswood.  On some occasions he goes overboard in his praise of Spotswood.

Suppose that we want to go into the business of raising tobacco.  Here is how to go about it (as described by the Rev. Hugh Jones):

"When a tract of land is seated, they clear it by felling the trees about a yard from the ground, lest they should shoot up again.  What they have occasion for they carry off, and burn the rest, or let it lie and rot upon the ground.  The land between the logs and stumps they how up, planting tobacco there in the spring, inclosing it with a slight fence of cleft rails.  This will last for tobacco for some years, if the land is good; as it is where fine timber, or grape vines grow.

"Land when tired is forced to bear tobacco by penning their cattle upon it; but cow pen tobacco tastes strong, and that planted in wet marshy land is called non burning tobacco, which smokes in the pipe like leather, unless it be of a good age.  When land is tired of tobacco, it will bear Indian corn, or English wheat, or any other European grain or seed, with wonderful increase.

"Tobacco and Indian corn are planted in hills as hops, and secured by worm fences, which are made of rails supporting one another very firmly in a particular manner.  Tobacco requires a great deal of skill and trouble in the right management of it.  They raise the plants in beds, as we do cabbage plants; which they transplant and replant upon occasion after a shower of rain, which they call a season.

"When it is grown up they top it, or nip off the head, succor it, or cut off the ground leaves, weed it, hill it; and when ripe, they cut it down about six or eight leaves up a stalk, which they carry into airy tobacco houses; after it is withered a little in the sun, there it is hung to dry on sticks, as paper at the paper-mills; when it is in proper case, (as they call it) and the air neither too moist, nor too dry, they strike it, or take it down, then cover it up in bulk, or a great heap, where it lies till they have leisure or occasion to stem it (that is pull the leaves from the stalk) or strip it (that is take out the great fibers) and tie it up in hands, or straight lay it; and so by degrees prize or press it with proper engines into great hogsheads, containing from about six to eleven hundred pounds; four of which hogsheads make a tun, by dimension, not by weight; then it is ready for sale or shipping.

"There are two sorts of tobacco, viz. Oroonoko the stronger, and sweet scented the milder; the first with a sharper leaf like a fox's ear, and the other rounder and with finer fibres; but each of these are varied into several sorts, much as apples and pears are; and I have been informed by the Indian traders, that the inland Indians have sorts of tobacco much differing from any planted or used by the Europeans."

When our Germanna ancestors came to Virginia, it was essential to learn how to do this to have a cash income.  I made the observation here that, on the average, each militia man would have grown two hogsheads of tobacco.  I didn't mean to imply that each man would have grown tobacco; the quotation was only an average.  From the size of the hogshead above, this is a lot of tobacco.

From John Blankenbaker's Germanna Notes ^©, Page 2, Note Nr. 48.

We have seen the principal means of earning cash in early eighteenth Virginia. Now we examine Jones' comments upon raising food.

"The Indian corn is planted in hills and weeded much as Tobacco.  This grain is of great increase and most general use; for with this is made good bread, cakes, mush, and hommony for the Negroes, which with good pork and potatoes (red and white, very nice and different from ours) with other roots and pulse, are their general food.  Indian corn is the best food for cattle, hogs, sheep and horses; and the blades and tops are excellent fodder, when well cured, which is commonly used, though many raise good clover and oats; and some have planted sanfoin, etc.

"In the marshes, and woods, and old fields is good range for stock in the spring, summer, and fall; and the hogs will run fat with certain roots of flags and reeds, which abounding in the marshes they root up and eat.  Besides, at the plantations are standard peach-trees, and apple-trees, planted out in orchards, on purpose almost for the hogs.

"The peaches abound, and are of a delicious taste, and apple-trees are raised from the seeds very soon, which kind of kernel fruit needs no grafting, and is diversified into numberless sorts, and makes, with good management, an excellent cyder, not much inferior to that of Herefordshire, when kept to to a good age; which is rarely done, the planters being good companions and guests whilst the cyder lasts.  Here cherries thrive much better (I think) than in England; though the fruit trees soon decay, yet they are raised to great perfection.

"As for wool, I have had near so good as any near Leominister; and it might be much improved if he sheep were housed every night, and foddered and littered as in Urchingfield, where they have by such means the finest wool; but to do this, would be of little use, since it is contrary to the interest of Great Britain to allow them exportation of their woolen manufactures; and what little woolen is there made might be nearly had as cheap, and better from England.

"As for provisions, there is an excellent variety of excellent fish in great plenty easily taken; especially oysters, sheepheads, rocks, large trouts, crabs, drums, sturgeons, etc. They have the same fowl as in England, only they propagate better; but these exceed in wild geese and ducks, cohoncks, blew-wings, teal,swans, and mallards.

"Their beef and veal is small, sweet, and fat enough; their pork is famous, whole Virginia shoots being frequently barbecued in England; their bacon is excellent, the hams being scarce to be distinguished from those of Westphalia; but their mutton and lamb some folks don't like, though others extol it.  Their butter is good and plentiful enough.

"Their venison in the lower parts of the country is not so plentiful as it has been, though there be enough and tolerably good; but in the frontier counties they abound with venison, wild turkeys, etc., where the common people sometimes dress bears, whose flesh they say, is not to be distinguished from good pork or bacon.  They pull the down of their living geese and wild and tame ducks, wherewith they make the softest and sweetest beds.

"The houses stand sometimes two or three together; and in other places a quarter, half a mile, or a mile, or two, asunder, much as in the country in England."

The food picture above probably reflects the German tastes also but it does not show the vegetable preferences where there were differences.

From John Blankenbaker's Germanna Notes ^©, Page 2, Note Nr. 49.

The Rev. Hugh Jones had a few comments about our German ancestors.  Quoting him:

"Beyond Colonel Spotswood's furnace above the falls of Rappahannock River, within view of the vast mountains, he has founded a town called Germanna, from some Germans sent over thither by Queen Anne, who are now removed up farther; here he has servants and workmen of most handicraft trades; and he is building a church, court-house and dwelling-house for himself; and with his servants and Negroes he has cleared plantations about it, proposing great encouragement for people to come and settle in that uninhabited part of the world, lately divided into a county."

Jones errs slightly in some of the facts.  The Germans who settled at Germanna had been invited over by Baron de Graffenried to come to Virginia to a colony which he was planning to form, but which failed (see earlier notes).  Queen Anne had authorized the governor to furnish the Baron's company, or enterprise, with land upon their arrival, but it can hardly be said that she sent them over.  The passage of the Germans was paid in part by the Germans, and in part by Spotswood, in return for which they agreed to work four years for him.

Jones wrote this in 1724, but he left Virginia in 1722, and most commentators believe he is describing Virginia as he understood it in 1722.  This is consistent with the building activity he describes at Germanna.  Jones continues with a new paragraph:

"Beyond this are seated the colony of Germans or Palatines, with allowance of good quantities of rich land, at easy or no rates, who thrive very well, and live happily, and entertain generously." In this last paragraph Jones is describing the Second Germanna Colony who were at New Germantown on the north bank of the Rapidan River about two miles west of Germanna.  At this time, Spotswood was still hopeful that the Germans would remain on his land and lease it from him.  Jones makes it clear that this 'colony of Germans or Palatines' was involved in wine making and the naval stores programs which Spotswood himself had described as the activities of the Second Colony.  (See Page 1, Note 22, for additional comments.)

A little bit about the Government of Virginia follows.  Each county elected two Burgesses (by the freeholders), plus another for James Town and for the College.  These proceeded, as a General Assembly, in many ways similar to the House of Commons in England.  The equivalent of the House of Lords was the Council (of 12), appointed by the King, who advised the Governor and approved Legislation.  While Virginia was self-governing, the King did not forfeit his right to veto Legislation.

EARLY HISTORY OF GERMANNA, VIRGINIA: Who are considered Colonists?
From John Blankenbaker's Germanna Notes ^©, Page 8, Note Nr. 176.

This note starts another set of twenty-five and I like to review the term, Germanna Colonies.  In the narrowest sense, the Germanna Colony was a group of 42 Germans who came to Virginia in April of 1714 and were settled on the frontier in a "fort" called Fort Germanna.  The transportation of the Germans was paid, in part, by Lt. Gov. Spotswood.  In return for this, the Germans were to work four years for him.

In 1717 (by the modern calendar, it was very probably 1718), another group of seventy-odd Germans came, and their transportation costs were paid by a partnership, of which the principal partners were Spotswood and Robert Beverley.  This group was settled about two miles from Germanna, across the Rapidan River, in a community called New German Town (the alternative name for Germanna, widely used, was German Town).  This second group had no fort, but their defense was the number of people and the Rapidan River, which could be forded at their doorstep.  Since this group was only two miles from Germanna, it is customary to consider them as Germanna colonists also.  To distinguish the two groups, they are called the First and Second Colonies.  (Sometimes, Germanna 1 and Germanna 2.)

More Germans came early on, but mostly as individuals, and at different times, not as a group from one locality in Germany.  Collectively, they have been called the Third Germanna colony, but it is a misnomer, as they were not a group.  The number of people has also been overestimated.  By 1724, the Second Colony had grown from seventy-odd to about 100, per a statement by Spotswood .  Since many of these people were living with the Second Colony, it seems as if they should be called Germanna colonists also.  Some of the immigrants were scattered throughout Virginia.

After 1719, essentially no Germans were at Germanna proper.  After 1725, there were no Germans at New German Town.  But the Germans kept coming, right up to the time of the Revolution, when the war stopped immigration, and relocation within the colonies slowed down.  These later Germans usually lived in the neighborhoods of where the First and Second Colonies made their permanent homes away from Germanna.

What is the requirement to be called a Germanna colonist?  Was it to have lived at or near Germanna?  The definition that has evolved included anyone who lived in the neighborhood of the original German immigrants, whether at Germanna, or in the larger surrounding community.  Generally, this larger community is taken to be the modern counties of Culpeper, Fauquier, Madison, and Rappahannock in Virginia.  All of these counties are east of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  This area is also in the Piedmont of Virginia.  There are alternative phrases.

EARLY GERMANNA HISTORY: Who were the Palatinates?
From John Blankenbaker's Germanna Notes ^©, Page 8, Note Nr. 186.

Since the villages (in present day Germany) of many of the 1717 emigrants have been learned since I did my original research, a new search would probably find more.  All of the villages (in Notes 183 through 186, Page 8) are in the midst of the homes of many of the Second Colony emigrants.  I did no research in the region that was specifically known as the Palatinate (the home of the Palatines).  A few of the Second Colony people did come from the Palatinate.

The word Palatine has two meanings.  English people used it to mean all Germans.  This practice started at the time of the 1709 emigration, when so many of the Germans came from the Palatinate.  In writing about Virginia, the Rev. Hugh Jones, in his book (printed 1724) referred to the Second Colony as "Germans or Palatines".  In this sense it was interchangeable with the word, German.  More specifically, the Palatinate was only one region in the land which was to eventually become Germany.  Unfortunately, it did not always refer to exactly the same area, as the Palatinate grew or shrank, phenomena typical of many of the regions in Germany.  As an example of how principalities did change, Baden is noted as having extremes of area from a thousand square miles, to more than ten thousand square miles.

This confusion over where the boundary lines ran is even worse than the problem we have with counties here in America.  In order to provide a stable reference point for filing information, I believe it was decided to use the boundaries as of 1872 (I may be in error a few years) as reference marks.

Thus I could say that my Blankenbaker ancestors emigrated from Baden (now a part of Baden-W�rttemberg); however, at the time they left, they said they were from the lands belonging to the Bishops of Speyer, who were Catholic.  Early in the nineteenth century these lands were ceded to the civil authorities and today we refer to this area as Baden.

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