correction- it was Dr. Robinson, and Colonel Robertson...




On Jan 27, 2007, at 9:07 PM, Sunshine49 wrote:

> 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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