July 17 Sunday Fort Germanna / Enchanted Castle Site Bus Tour, hosted by archaeologist Dr. Kerri Barile of Dovetail Cultural Resource Group. Dr. Barile's dissertation on the Fort Germanna / Enchanted Castle site is available for review in the library of the Germanna Visitor Center.

Photograph from the Fort Germanna / Enchanted Castle archaeological site.  These markings in the subsoil are believed by experts to be evidence of Fort Germanna's palisade wall.  Expensive excavation is needed to verify if this wall ends in an angle that would confirm the pentagonal fort described in John Fontaine's diary in 1715.

Guided Tour of the Fort Germanna / Enchanted Castle Site

9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.  - Shuttles depart from the Germanna Visitor Center.  The Germanna Foundation is grateful to the University of Mary Washington for special access to this site.  Guided tours of the Fort Germanna / Enchanted Castle archaeological site will leave every half hour beginning at 9:00 a.m. from the Germanna Visitor Center via shuttle bus, with the last bus departing at 12:30 p.m. No private vehicles are allowed. This is truly a special opportunity as this important site is closed to the public.

Your pilgrimage will follow in the footsteps of John Fontaine, who visited Fort Germanna in November 1715, reporting that "The Germans live very miserably."   

 [T]he town...is pallisaded with stakes stuck in the ground, and laid close the one to the other, of substance to bear out a musket-shot. There are but nine families and they have nine houses built all in a line; and before every house about 20 feet from the house they have small sheds built for their hogs and hens, so that the hog-sties and houses make a street. This place that is paled in is a pentagon, very regularly laid out, and in the very centre there is a blockhouse made with five sides which answers to the five sides of pales or great inclosure. There is loop holes through it, from which you may see all the inside of the inclosure. This was intended for a retreat for the people in case they were not able to defend the pallisadoes if attacked by the Indians. They make use of this Blockhouse for divine service. They go to prayers constantly once a day and have two sermons on Sunday. We went to hear them perform their service, which was done in their own language, which we did not understand; but they seemed to be very devout, and sang the psalms very well. [Fontaine, Rev. James; John Fontaine, et al., Memoirs of a Huguenot Family, NY: George P. Putnam & Co., 1853, at 268.  Available at http://books.google.com/books?id=baFMAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA3#v=onepage&q=palisadoes&f=false

Worship Service

At 10:00 a.m., a non-denominational worship service will take place under the Cloister in the Memorial Garden adjoining the Brawdus Martin Germanna Visitor Center, in gratitude for nearly three centuries of living in freedom in America.  The service will be led by the Rev. Greg Hampton of Christ Church Between the Rivers, Yorktown, Virginia.

Library of Virginia Preservation of Civil War Manuscripts

Throughout Sunday the 17th, as part of the Virginia General Assembly’s observance of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the Germanna Visitor Center has been selected as a site for the preservation of Virginia’s Civil War manuscripts.  On Sunday only, staff from the Library of Virginia in Richmond will be on hand at the Germanna Visitor Center to digitally scan original Civil War source materials relating to Virginia.  Materials may include letters, memoirs, pension materials, military passes, discharge papers, diaries, hand-drawn maps, and selected memorabilia and other Civil War era manuscripts.  Items must be owned by the individual presenting the materials for digitization. 

The members of the Germanna Foundation who volunteer their time, talent, and treasure should be justifiably proud that their efforts have been recognized by the Commonwealth of Virginia for this singular honor to safeguard Virginia’s Civil War manuscripts on behalf of future generations.