At this URL you'll find the debate:
http://www.germanna.org/history.html#marker

Quoted from the above URL...

The Knights of the Horseshoe
In August 1716, Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood led a group of men on a 
trip that has become known as the exploration to the Blue Ridge Mountains of 
Virginia. This group of men later became known in fiction as "The Knights of 
the Golden Horseshoe" and Reverend Jones in his history of Virginia says 
they were given a gold horseshoe in commemoration of their famous journey. 
No proof of this gold horseshoe has ever been found so the  story was 
probably a creation of Jones and later perpetuated by Caruthers in his 1834 
fantasy "The Knights of the Horseshoe". Fontaine's Journal makes no mention 
of any gift given by Spotswood at the end of the expedition. From Fontaine's 
Journal: "...and at four we came to Germanna. The Governor thanked the 
Gentlemen for their assistance in the expedition. Mr. Mason left us at five. 
I went and swam in the Rappahannoc (sic) river and returned to the town."

The men in the party were Spotswood; John Fontaine, who wrote a journal of 
his observations of the journey that has been an invaluable resource for 
research by historians through the years; Beverley, the noted historian of 
Virginia in 1703; Colonel Robertson; Austin Smith; Todd; Dr. Robinson; 
Taylor; Brooke; Mason; and Captains Clouder and Smith. The entire party also 
included rangers, Indians, and numerous servants who made the total number 
of the party approximately fifty persons.

In Hugh Jones' fanciful "History of Virginia", published in 1724, the 
following is stated:


  "Governor Spotswood, when he undertook the great discovery of the Passage 
over the Mountains, attended with a sufficient guard, and pioneers and 
gentlemen, with a sufficient stock of provisions, with abundant fatigue 
passed these Mountains, and cut His Majesty's name in a rock upon the 
highest of them, naming it Mount George; and in complaisance the gentlemen, 
from the governor's name, called the mountain next in height Mount 
Alexander.

  For this expedition they were obliged to provide a great quantity of horse 
shoes [things seldom used in the lower parts of the country, where there are 
few stones]; upon which account the Governor, upon their return, presented 
each of his companions with a golden horse shoe [some of which I have seen 
studded with valuable stones, resembling the heads of nails] with this 
inscription on the one side: SIC JUVAT TRANSCENDERE MONTES; and on the other 
is written the tramontane order."

Part of Jones' account is again contradicted by Fontaine when he states:

"The Governor had graving irons but could not grave any thing, the stones 
were so hard. I graved my name on a tree by the river side and the governor 
buried a bottle with a paper enclosed in which he writ that he took 
possession of this place in the name and for King George 1st of England."


End Quote

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