VA-CL7 German Town

Marker text: GERMAN TOWN

About 1719, five years after they immigrated to Germanna in present-day Orange Co., twelve German families moved here as lot owners of 1,805 acres on Licking Run claimed a year earlier by their trustees. John Fishback, John Hoffman, and Jacob Holtzclaw, Melchoir Brumback, Joseph Coons, Harman Fishback, Peter Hitt, John Kemper, John Joseph Martin, John Jacob Rector, John Spilman, and Tilman Weaver headed the other families. With their pastor, the Rev. Henry Hager, they constituted the first German Reformed congregation in the southern colonies. On 22 Aug. 1724, Thomas Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern Neck, issued them a land grant.

Department of Historic Resources, 1995.