Germanna Foundation considers park

By: Contributed | Orange County Review
Published: August 07, 2008

Soon public schools and youth groups might have a place to camp out and learn about the first European settlers of what was once Virginia's western frontier.
Last month, 160 Germanna Foundation members descended from two groups of Germans who settled at Rapidan in colonial times in 1714 and in Fauquier County in 1717 heard a proposal to build an amphitheater and trail system at the original Germanna historical site near the border of Culpeper and Orange counties off State Route 3. The location is near Germanna Community College's Locust Grove Campus.
The Germanna Foundation is also known as the Memorial Foundation of the Germanna Colonies of Virginia. It was founded in 1956 to commemorate and research the history of the sites.
During the group's annual reunion, held over a weekend in Culpeper County at Salubria and at GCC's Daniel Technology Center, Germanna descendants heard a plan involving preparations for the 300th anniversary jubilees of the two colonies. "One of the things we've been discussing at the reunion," new Germanna Foundation President March Wheat said at last month’s reunion, "is opening up part of the forest that we have on 170 acres along the Rapidan River-the original settlement-to create some facilities for groups like the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts to camp out, take canoe trips along the Rapidan River and see it as our ancestors originally saw it.
He said the Germanna Foundation currently has about 3,000 members across America and in Europe.