I finally made it to the history center at Germanna today. I went in  
and told the person there [not a lot of tourist traffic on a January  
day...] what I was looking for and he said oh, that should be no  
problem. Till he started looking. And later 4 people he knew stopped  
by, had the same response, oh, that should be easy to find-- everyone  
was as surprised as I was, to find that it's not readily available.  
So what I did find out:

He suggested looking through John Fontaine's account of the journey.  
You can buy it for $25, or get a copy through an inter-library loan.  
It should be interesting reading anyway, for anyone wanting to learn  
more about the expedition.

The Germanna group has a website at germanna.org that has information  
[after leaving my name at the place, the president later called me  
and suggested looking there]; there are also germanna.com and  
germanna.net  The germanna.com might be worth contacting, I was told  
the guy who runs it knows pretty much everything there is to know  
about the era, and is happy to help researchers.

I also came across a site on their computer, West Virginia Archives  
and History [look up "Alexander Spotswood's Transmontane Expedition",  
extracted from a book written in 1860 which uses a book from 1722],  
it names a few more of the members of the expedition- Spotswood,  
Fontaine, Beverly [it was at Beverly's house at Middlesex, where  
after being "hospitably entertained" by Beverly, the governor the  
next day "left his chaise and mounted a horse for the rest of the  
expedition"], Colonel Robertson, Austin Smith ["who returned home  
owing to a fever"], Todd, Dr. Robertson, Taylor, Mason, Brooke, and  
Captains Clouder and Smith. "The whole number in the party, including  
gentlemen, rangers, pioneers, Indians and servants, was probably  
about fifty. They had with them a large number of riding and pack  
horses, an abundant supply of provisions, and an extraordinary  
variety of liquors." The first leg of the trip was three miles, and  
when they camped they named each camp after a member of the  
expedition; the first camp was Camp Beverly. The fellow at Germanna  
said they used every stop at every camp, church, house or inn as an  
excuse for another round of drinks. This was not a "Lewis and Clark"  
type expedition, more an adventure for gentlemen. The exact route is  
still not known, many think it was over the mountains at what is now  
Rt. 33, where a commemorative stone pyramid now stands. But others  
think it was a road back through the towns of Syria and Graves  
Mountain, which once crossed the mountains and was called something  
like "Mountain Crossing Road", but it was closed in the 1930s when  
the federal government bought and built Skyline Drive. The road now  
ends in a fire road with a gate across it. When they crested the  
mountains and saw a river below them, Spotswood named it Euphrates.  
Luckily saner heads later prevailed and it now bears the beautiful  
Indian name of Shenandoah.

There are also the Spotswood family papers, in possession of the  
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. If you can track them down, they  
might have something. So this is as much as I could gather about the  
Knights of the Golden Horseshoe.

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone

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