lson's Bed, Staunton, Virginia 78

Natural Bridge 81

Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia 90

Virginia Military Institute 92

"Monticello", near Charlottesville, Virginia 99

Rotunda of University of Virginia 102

"Kenmore", the Home of Fielding Lewis and Betty Washington
Lewis, Fredericksburg, Virginia 107

James Monroe's Law Office 109

"The Mary Washington House", Fredericksburg, Virginia 116

"Rising Sun Tavern", Fredericksburg, Virginia 118

Scenic Highway in Southwest Virginia 126

Hungry Mother State Park 130

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[Illustration]

Knights of The Golden Horseshoe

Alexander Spotswood was the first Virginia Governor to become interested
in the glowing accounts which the hunters and trappers brought back from
the hill sections of the colony. He determined to see for himself those
distant blue ridges.

And while historians have not told us who guided him to the upper or
western boundary of what was then Essex County, we are told that he
became enthusiastic over the rich iron ore which he found in the
peninsula formed by the Rapidan River. He decided to build iron furnaces
at a point near the river. Later he had his agent, Baron de Graffenreid,
go to Germany and bring master mechanics and their families to Virginia.

The first German colony came in 1714 to Virginia and journeyed to
Germanna, as they called their new home on the bank of the Rapidan
River. They were made up of twelve families and numbered forty-two
people in all, men, women and children.

The Virginia Council passed an act which provided protection for the
Germans. A fort was built for them, ammunition and two cannon were sent
and an order was given for a road to be made to the settlement.

These men and women were brave, loyal and deeply religious. They
belonged to the German Reformed Church, which was a branch of the
Presbyterian family of churches. Here they organized the first
congregation of that faith in America and here they built their church.
They had come from Westphalia, in Germany, and of course had