The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe

by Gillian

Alexander Spotswood became Royal Governor of Virginia in 1710, by which pressure on the colony to expand was high.  In 1716, Governor Spotswood and 62 other men and 74 horses led an expedition of the Rappahannock river valley.  On the eighth day they found they were surrounded on all four sides by steep mountain terrain.  The men began to clear the way with axes next to a creek named Swift Run. 

     The men came to a rock-covered place between several peaks along the top o the Blue Ridge at the Swift Run Gap (elevation approximately 2,265 feet) on September 5, 1716.  There on the mountain they drank special toasts to the King and to Governor Spotswood and named a peak for each man.  One of the taller summits was named Mount George in honor of the King George II.   This is probably today’s High Top Mountain. 

As the expedition descended into a portion of the Shenandoah Valley on the east of the Massanutten Mountain they reached a point near the current town of Elkton where they celebrated their arrival on the banks of the Shenandoah River with lots of wine, brandy and clarets.  On the banks of the river they buried a bottle.  Inside the bottle they put a paper declaring that the whole valley belonged to George I, King by the grace of God of Great Britain, France, Ireland and Virginia.

After the journey Spotswood was believed to have given each officer of the expedition a stickpin made of gold and shaped like a horseshoe on which he had inscribed in Latin “Sic jurat transceendere montes.” This translates into English as “Thus he swears to cross the mountains.”  The horseshoes were encrusted with small stones and were small enough to be worn from a watch chain.  The members of Governor Spotswood’s expedition soon were known as the “Knights of the Golden Horseshoe”. 

*Information obtained from   www.wikipedia.org