Three or four years after the grant was made to Buckner and Royston the "Grande Assemblie at James Cittie" took official cognizance of the Colony by ordering Major Lawrence Smith and one hundred and eleven men to the Falls of the Rappahannock for the purpose of protecting the colonists. Records in regard to this say, "At a Grande Assemblie at James Cittie, between the 20th of September, 1674, and the 17th of March, 1675, it was ordered that one hundred and eleven men out of Gloucester be garrisoned at one ffort or place of defense, at or near the falls of the Rappahannock river, of which ffort Major Lawrence Smith is to be captain or chief commander." It was also ordered that "the ffort be furnished with four hundred and eight pounds of powder and fourteen hundred pounds of shott." A few years later, in 1679, Major Smith was authorized by the Jamestown government to mark out, below the falls of the Rappahannock, a strip of land one mile long and one-fourth of a mile wide, to be used as a colony and, together with eight commissioners, he was empowered to hold court and administer justice. Within this confine he was instructed to build habitations for two hundred and fifty men, fifty of whom were to be kept well armed and ready to respond to the tap of a drum. It would appear that the "ffort" mentioned in the earlier meeting of the "Grande Assemblie" was not built until this year. The contention that it was erected on the Stafford side of the river seems to be without any foundation of fact. That the community was now growing seems to be proven by the fact that the same act, defining the limits mentioned above, also mentioned a larger district, defined as extending three miles above the fort and two miles below it for a distance of four miles back, over which Major Smith and his commissioners were to have jurisdiction. Two years later, in 1681, the little town received a great impetus when two hundred families came to join the colony. From this time forward, the community began to take an important part in the life of the Colonies. In 1710, upon the invitation of Baron de Graffenried, a friend of Governor Spotswood, twelve German families came to America and settled on the Rapidan river, eighteen miles above Fredericksburg, opening the first iron mines and establishing the first iron works in America. They named the place Germanna, and, according to an account left by one of the party, "packed all their provisions from Fredericksburg," then the principal trading point of the section.