Oldal 417 [417]
HORSESHOE
diers of whom John Randolph said, "They were
raised in a minute, armed in a minute, marched in
a minute, fought in a minute and vanquished in a
minute." Upon their picturesque green hunting shirts the motto,
‘Liberty or Death" was so conspicuous that a would-be recruit
begged that it be modified to “Liberty or be Crippled.”
Since the time of these brave Minute Men, Culpeper has held
its place in the annals of the country through the bravery of its
people and the beauty and charm of its homes, some of which ante¬
date the Republic. Among the latter, the lands granted by the
English Crown to Governor Alexander Spotswood naturally come
first.
In William Byrd’s ‘Progress to the Mines,” after a description
of the Spotswood family and Germanna, he wrote under date of
September, 1732, “In the afternoon we walkt in a Meadow by the
River side, which winds in the form of a Horseshoe about
Germanna, making it a peninsula, containing about 400 acres.”’
As the present estate of Horseshoe contains approximately that
number of acres we must conclude that this very property. was
once the home of the colonial governor. |
History tells us that John, the son of Alexander Spotswood, lost
by debt, his inheritance of four hundred and sixty acres, “known
as the Horseshoe tract,’ and that on April 15, 1767, the place
was purchased by James Pollard. Still later it became the property
of the Reverend John Thompson, who married the widow of Gov¬
ernor Spotswood.
John Thompson was a conspicuous figure in Virginia church
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