The Virginia Germans

The Virginia Germans by Klaus WustThe University Press of Virginia1969Contents:Part One: 17th Century Forerunners covers the First Germans in Virginia.Part Two:In the PiedmontIn the valley of VirginiaFirst ConsolidationIndian WarsRevolutionary WarPart Three:Distribution of Colonial StockBilingual PoliticsSlaveryThe German ChurchesCultural ResourcesFolkways, Crafts & ArtsVanishing TracesPart Four:Isolation and NativismCivil War and ReconstructionGerman AmericanismProhibition and World WarNotesBibliographyIndexMaps:German Settlements 1714-1745German Congregations in 1810

This is a great foundational work on the beginnings of the German element in Virginia. Sections cover the beginnings in the early 1600s and follow through to WWI. Most of the focus is on pre 1850 German settlements but also included is a chapter on the Civil War. If you can find it, get it!

I bought this book when my wife and I visited the Mennonite culture center in Lancaster County, Pa., in Jan. 1992. I've rarely enjoyed a book more, primarily because I was able to read it in very general information about the roots of part of my family, colonial era German-Americans living near persent-day Bristol, Va.-Tenn. who migrated over the Appalacians into Harlan County, Ky., around 1800. Wust describes the migration of the Germans down the Shenandoah Valley, settling the Allegheny side and leaving as remnants 3 isolated Va. German-speaking villages (non-Mennonite) even today. We did not visit those villages, but according to a Mennonite harness-maker in Dayton, Va., two of them still existed at that time. This is not something that you can learn about from official tourist info centers. Many of the German family names mentioned by Wust still exist in E. Ky., often in Anglicized form (Stambach=Stumbo or Stambaugh, Diehl=Deal, Joachim=Yoakim, etc). Written for hillbillies (and others) in search of their roots.