Episode Details

The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe: 12 Virginia Gentlemen who embarked upon the Transmontane Expedition with Governor Alexander Spotswood as he sought to open new lands to settlement, defeat the attempt of the French to box Virginia in, and bend the Topping People to his will. A romantic adventure story populated by frontier guides, swaggering Cavaliers, and a frolicking tavern of an expedition through primeval forests!

It is a riotous tale of high living on the frontier, from the travelling tavern that the expedition became known as with its many toasts and bottles of everything from claret to rum, to the great work these beknighted Virginians did in opening frontier lands for new settlement. It's a story of adventure and high living that explains why America became a continental empire.

Further, this is also the tale of Gov. Alexander Spotswood, the most influential Royal Governor of Virginia in the 18th century. This is the story of how a veteran of Marlborough's campaigns who was wounded at Blenheim, a consummate Cavalier dedicated to High Tory principles, bent the "haughty" ruling classes of Virginia to his will, and did so in such a way that they loved him for it and became all the wealthier and more powerful for it.

So, listen in to hear how 12 gentlemen, 14 rangers, 4 Indian guides, a governor, and a bevy of dozens of servants and porters pierced the rocky veil of the Blue Ridge for the first time ever, and did so with goblets of rum in hand, one of the most romantic adventure stories of American history.

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Sources Referenced in this Episode:

• Fontaine, John: The Journal of John Fontaine, 1710-1718 (Edited by Edward P. Alexander).

• Evans, Emory G.: The Topping People: The Rise and Decline of Virginia's Old Provincial Elite.

• Bruce, Philip Alexander: Economic History of Virginia in the Seventeenth Century.

• Isaac, Rhys: The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790.

• Morton, Richard L.: Colonial Virginia.

• Bruce, Philip Alexander: The Virginia Plutarch, Vol. I

• Dabney, Virginius: Virginia: The New Dominion