Germantown is a historic unincorporated rural community in Fauquier County, Virginia, United States. It is the resting place of John Jacob Richter (also spelled Rector). He was buried there in 1729. It is located in and around current-day C. M. Crockett Park, which contains the popular local fishing destination of

Germantown Lake Germantown or German Town may refer to: Places Australia * Germantown, Queensland, a locality in the Cassowary Coast Region United States * Germantown, California, the former name of Artois, a census-designated place in Glenn County * G ...

. Chief Justice

John Marshall John Marshall (September 24, 1755July 6, 1835) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the fourth Chief Justice of the United States from 1801 until his death in 1835. He remains the longest-serving chief justice and fourth-longes ...

was born in Germantown. Archeological sites relating to the settlement are listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

History

Many inhabitants from Germantown came from Germany, e.g.

Siegen Siegen () is a city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg region. The university town (nearly 20,000 students in the 2018–2019 winter semest ...

, east of Bonn. In 1718 twelve German emigrant families left the employ of Governor Alexander Spotswood and the mining settlement of Germanna for a parcel of land in modern southern Fauquier County. The parcel was divided equally between the settlers:

Melchior Brombach Melchior is the name traditionally given to one of the biblical Magi appearing in the Gospel of Matthew. There are many notable people with this name, or close variations. As a first name * Melchior Anderegg (1828–1914), Swiss mountain guide * ...

, Joseph Coons, Harman Fishback, John Fishback, Peter Hitt, Jacob Holtzclaw, John Hoffman, John Kemper, John Joseph Martin, Jacob Rector, John Spilman, and Tillman Weaver. All the homes were built on the southern side of

Licking Run Licking is the action of passing the tongue over a surface, typically either to deposit saliva onto the surface, or to collect liquid, food or minerals onto the tongue for ingestion, or to communicate with other animals. Many animals both gro ...

which flowed through each farm. Each landowner also donated 10 areas to form a

glebe Glebe (; also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s))McGurk 1970, p. 17 is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved ...

where the first church, parsonage, and school in Fauquier County were constructed. German Rolling Road was constructed by the settlers to enable them to reach the market of Falmouth. A

saw mill A sawmill (saw mill, saw-mill) or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes (dimensi ...

and a

grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and middlings. The term can refer to either the grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist is grain that has been separat ...

also operated in this town as well. The mill pond lies under

, named in honor of the settlement. This is

where Where may refer to: * Where?, one of the Five Ws in journalism * where (command), a shell command * Where (SQL), a database language clause * Where.com, a provider of location-based applications via mobile phones * ''Where'' (magazine), a serie ...

future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

was born in 1755. By the time of the

American Revolution The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...

the prosperous settlers had all acquired other land and the settlement was defunct. Therefore, Germantown is sometimes called a lost German colony.

References

Sources

*Germantown. Daine Gulick. The Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia, Inc.. Fauquier County Parks and Recreation. 1993.
Marker
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Fauquier County, Virginia Unincorporated communities in Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Fauquier County, Virginia