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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 antedate 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 Governor Spotswood. John Thompson was a conspicuous figure in Virginia church | 260 | )
