Germanna

John Paul Vaught and his family may have been the first of our family in Virginia, but they were not the first Germans. The Colony of Germanna was truly in the wilderness (at it's start) in 1714. By the time John Paul Vaught and his family arrived in the area in 1735, the colony had expanded with and moved more towards the area where the Vaught's settled. This leads me to believe that Germanna had a pretty large influence in our ancestors daily lives.

The following site is the official web presence of Germanna today and it is fantastic. I highly recommend checking it out---maybe not for direct information on our family, but definitely for some very relevant background information on daily life in the area of Virginia where the Vaught's lived.

History of Germanna The memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies in Virginia Inc.

Germanna casts a long shadow over 18th Century Virginia. John Paul Vaught and his family no doubt had fairly close ties to this group starting in 1735 when they moved to the Orange County homestead. Indeed, before the family moved west to the Great Shenandoah Valley in 1744, their youngest daughter Maria Catherina married one Christohper Moyers, son of George Moyer (aka Jurgen Majer) who with his family settled the second Germanna colony in 1717.

At the bottom of the above link, there is a reference to the Hebron Lutheran Church being built (just a few miles southeast of John Paul Vaught's land) in 1740. Maria Catherina (Vaught) Moyers was a communicant at the church with her husband until 1792 (Christopher until 1790).

The first Vaught homestead in Virginia

John Paul Vaught moved his family to Orange County, Virginia in 1735.  The land is located  a little west of Culpeper, Virginia, right near the boarder of Madison County.  Here's a satellite image from the Bing.com search engine that I have overlayed the estimated boundary lines between John Paul Vaught and Christian Clements (who would married John Paul Vaught's eldest daughter in 1738.

If you look closely, the layout of the trees still matches the old boundary lines. 

This image interpreted from the classic work on the Vaught family, "There was a Gaspar in the Family" by Spurlin and Martin.

My father and I visited this area in 1998 on a family history road trip.  The Hebron Lutheran Church is a few miles to the southwest just out of range of the picture.  If you've visited this land, I'd love to hear your impressions---for me it was almost a spiritual experience.  Knowing that we were walking on the ground, on roads (that were built on wagon trails) that our ancestors probably passed hundreds of years ago...it really was a wonderful experience.  I'd love to see it in the winter!

George Washington Vaught 1870 Census (Indiana)

So here's my first contribution of data to the site...a digital copy of the 1870 Census for Indiana (Clark Township, Johnson County). This is a detail of George Washington Vaught's household.

I have blurred out the other families on the picture to make it easier to find George, though if you look closely, he's really listed as "Washington Vought". What confirms that he is really George Washington Vaught are the names of his wife (Mary) and children. As an added bonus, the last name on the list for that household is one Jonathan Snow (soon to be the subject of another post) who is the father of George's wife, Mary.

Sadly, just four years later, George Washington Vaught would die at the age of 55.