Note 35 — JOURNAL.

Dutch.—As early as 1730 there was a considerable settlement in the Shenandoah valley, of German immigrants and their descendants, who had first settled in Pennsylvania and then removed to, and taken up lands in, the valley of Virginia. They selected, chiefly, the good limestone lands with their centers of population near the head-waters of the Opequon creek, in Shenandoah, and the south-western part of Frederick county. They were all Protestants in religion. The town of Woodstock was originally and exclusively settled by Germans. The bill for its incorporation was reported to the House of Burgesses of Va., by Col. George Washington in 1761. For many years the German language was exclusively spoken in their settlement, and German customs and religious observances were retained with tenacity, their remoteness and seclusion securing to them almost perfect freedom from innovations. The Revolution found them patriotic supporters of the colony as against the pretensions of Great Britain. It was in the town of Woodstock, Shenandoah county, that Maj.-Gen. John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg, minister of the Lutheran church, dressed in his uniform and with his sword buckled on, preached a farewell sermon in 1776, to a sympathizing and patriotic congregation, and the next day marched as colonel at the head of his German regiment, known subsequently as the 8th Virginia, to join the Continental army. Such names of places as Strasburg, Hamburg, Mecklenburg, the latter now known as Shepherdstown, etc., perpetuate the fact that many of the earliest settlers in that section were German.—See Kercheval, p. 158.