John Fontaine visited the Germanna settlement in November, 1715, reporting that "The Germans live very miserably."
"[T]he town...is pallisaded with stakes stuck in the ground, and laid close the one to the other, of substance to bear out a musket shot. There is but nine families and they have nine houses built all in a line, and before every house about 20 feet from the house they have small sheds built for their hogs and hens, so that the hog stys and houses make a street. This place that is paled in is a pentagon, very regularly laid out, and in the very centre there is a blockhouse made with five sides which answers to the five sides of pales or great inclosure. There is loop holes through it, from which you may see all the inside of the inclosure. This was intended for a retreat for the people in case they were not able to defend the pallisadoes if attacked by the Indians. They make use of this Blockhouse for divine service. They go to prayers constantly once a day and have two sermons a Sunday. We went to hear them perform their service, which was done in their own language."1
Fontaine returned with the Kinghts of the Golden Horseshoe expedition in 1716. He reported that Mine Run was named because "there was an appearance of a silver mine by it."1