USA > Virginia > Orange County > Orange County > A History of Orange County, Virginia > Part 11
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For many years, so many that the oldest inhabi- tant forty years since knew not how long, an old dismounted cannon lay on the old turnpike, a few hun- dred yards below the County seat. It was the custom of the boys, at Christmas and on the Fourth of July, to load it up and fire a round of salutes, and about 1860 it was overcharged and burst. Most probably it was left there during the Revolution, but this is only surmise. Another, just like it, was at the Orange Springs. This was not only burst by a discharge, but the man who touched it off was killed by the explosion-a valuable servant of Mr. Coleman who owned the Springs.
The name "Old Trap," the modern Locust Grove, appears as early as 1785. The old names for Poplar Run were "Baylor's Run" and "Beaver Dam Run," and the name for the bend in the Rapidan near where this run enters it was the "Punch Bowl," and it is so print- ed on the maps. Prior to 1800 there was an incor- poration of a prospective village under the name of "Mechanic." It was somewhere between Barbours- ville and the Greene line, but it never becamea village ; a "boom" perhaps in the chrysalis state. Verdiers- ville, in the grim humor of the soldiers, was known as "My Dearsville," during the war.
In the one hundred and seventy three years that the County has existed, there have been practically but five King's and Commonwealth's Attorneys; Zachary Lewis, John Walker, Gilbert H. Hamilton, Lewis B.
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Williams, and John G. Williams; an average term of nearly thirty-five years.
These are some of the old land grants in the County :
In 1772, to Bartholomew Yates, Latane, Robinson, Clouder, Harry Beverley, William Stanard, and Edwin Thacker, 24,000 acres on south side of Rapidan, one quarter of a mile below mouth of Laurel Run. To Harry Beverley, 6,720 acres, north side head of Pamun- key. To James Taylor, 8,500 acres, both sides Little Mountains, south of Rapidan, adjoining John Bay- lor's land. To same, 5,000 acres. To William Bev- erley, 2,500 acres. In 1723, to Ambrose Madison and Thomas Chew, 4,675 acres. In 1726, to William Todd, two grants of 4,673 acres each, on both sidesof Little Mountains, south of Rapidan ; grant mentions Talia- ferro's Run, and calls for a corner with Ambrose Madi- son. To Francis Conway, 576 acres. To John Talia- ferro, the younger, 935 acres, South West Mountain. To Benjamin Porter a tract adjoining Colonel Spotswood, J. and Lawrence Taliaferro; and in 1727, to John Down- er, a tract adjoining James Taylor.
In nearly all of the earlier grants, the Southwest Mountains are called the Little Mountains and Blue Run is invariably spelled "Blew."
Many more items, curious rather than historical, might be added, but these are deemed to be quite enough.
CHAPTER XXII
Biographical Sketches.
BARBOUR, B. JOHNSON. Youngest son of Governor Barbour, born 1821, died 1894; had great literary ac- complishments and extraordinary gifts as a speaker and conversationalist; was long Rector of the University of Virginia, and Visitor to the Miller School, and, like his father, was greatly devoted to the cause of general education. He was elected to Congress immediately after the war, but was not permitted to take his seat under the proscriptive régime that then prevailed. He represented the County in the Legislature and was one of the earliest supervisors; was the orator on the occasion of the dedication of the Clay statue in the Capitol Square in Richmond; and such was his elo- quence and scholarship that he was always in demand as an orator.
BARBOUR, JAMES. Born June 10, 1775; died June 7, 1842; served in the legislature from 1796 to 1812, and during his service in that body was the strenuous advocate of Madison's famous "Resolutions of 1798-99;" was elected Governor, January, 1812, and served as such with patriotic zeal, practically until the end of the War of 1812; was elected United States Senator
18I
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in 1815, where he served until 1825, then becoming Secretary of War until 1828, when he was sent as Minister Plenipotentiary to England, whence he was recalled in 1829 on the election of Andrew Jackson to the Presidency; was chairman of the National Con- vention which nominated William Henry Harrison in 1839, and for years the president of the Orange Humane Society, in which position he fostered education in every possible way. Though others claim that distinction, there is little reason to doubt that he was the originator of the Literary Fund of Virginia which has been the mainstay of popular education from its creation until now, greatly supplemented, certainly, since the public free schools have become a State institution. His wish was that public service only should constitute his epitaph. He is said to have been a majestically hand- some man, of great eloquence, and a wonder as a con- versationalist. He lies buried at Barboursville in an unmarked grave. It would be a just tribute to his memory, and a tardy recognition of his great services to the cause of education in his County and State, for the school authorities to erect some memorial over it.
BARBOUR, PHILIP PENDLETON. Born May 25, 1783; son of Thomas and brother of the Governor. After he had been admitted to the Bar and had practiced law, he studied at William and Mary College; member of the Legislature 1812-14; of the United States House of Representatives 1814-21, and Speaker of the House; resigned in 1825, and was appointed United States District Judge; again Member of Congress from
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1827 to 1830; was President of the Virginia Convention of 1829, succeeding James Monroe, and was a notable member of that eminent body of statesmen; appoint- ed associate justice United States Supreme Court by Andrew Jackson in 1836; and was found dead in his bed in Washington, February 25, 1841. He is buried in the Congressional Cemetery.
BARBOUR, THOMAS. Born 1735, about one and one- fourth miles east of Barboursville village, and one- fourth mile south of the turnpike; died at Barbours- ville, 1825; appointed King's Justice in 1768, and was continuously in the commission until his death. More minutes of court are signed by him than by any other justice. He long represented the County in the House of Burgesses, was a member of the Conventions of 1774 and 1775, and County Lieutenant, with the rank of colonel, in the later years of the Revolutionary War. He was the father of Governor James and Judge P. P. Barbour.
BARTLEY, JAMES AVIS. Author of two volumes of poems which have now become quite rare; was edu- cated at the University of Virginia shortly before the war, and died not long afterwards.
CHEW, COLBY and LARKIN. Sons of Col. Thomas Chew, sheriff of Orange in 1745, and Martha Taylor, great-aunt of President Madison and great-grand-aunt of President Taylor. Colby served in the expedition against the Shawnees in 1756, was ensign in Washing- ton's regiment in 1757, was wounded near Fort Du- quesne in 1758, and falling into the river, was drowned.
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Larkin, his brother, had his arm shattered by a ball in battle in 1754, and was a lieutenant in the Second Vir- ginia Regiment. (VI. Va. Hist. Mag. 345.)
CLEVELAND, BENJAMIN. Born and raised in Orange, some six or eight miles from the mouth of Blue Run. He married Mary Graves, also of Orange; was a gal- lant and efficient officer during the Revolution and one of the commanders at Kings Mountain. (VII. Va. Hist. Mag, 4, 128.)
Wheeler (History of North Carolina) says he was born in Prince William County, Virginia, but the fact of his birth in Orange seems incontestible. Cleveland's Run, about a mile northeast of Barboursville, was doubtless named for him or his family, as his parents and grand- parents lived near it. They were Baptists, and doubt- less members of old Blue Run church.
CRENSHAW, CAPTAIN WILLIAM G. Born July 7th, 1824, in Richmond, Virginia, and married, May 25th, 1847, Miss Fanny Elizabeth Graves of Orange County. He died May 24th, 1897, at Hawfield, about six months after his wife, and both are buried in Hollywood, at Richmond.
He was a man of remarkable ability. When the Civil War broke out, though not yet thirty-seven years of age, he was the senior member of Crenshaw & Co., whose business extended over a large part of the world, much of their foreign trade being done in vessels built and owned by himself and his brothers.
As soon as Virginia seceded he determined to discon- tinue business and go into the army, and raised and
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equipped at his own expense a battery of artillery, known as "Crenshaw's Battery," which became famous. After the ardous campaign of 1863, having participated in every battle from Mechanicsville to Sharpsburg, he was detailed by the Confederate Government to go to Europe as its commercial agent. This position he held to the end of the war, accomplishing large results in obtaining ordnance, clothing, provisions, and other supplies for the government; in building steamers to get these supplies into the blockaded ports; and also building several notable privateers for the Confederacy. He remained in England until the summer of 1868, and was thereafter for many years engaged in business in New York.
Throughout his life he was an ardent, enthusiastic and successful farmer and stock breeder, spending all the time he could spare at Hawfield, where he resided permanently the last ten years of his life.
FRANKLIN, JESSE. Born in Orange, March 4, 1760; died 184 -; was adjutant to his uncle, Colonel Cleveland, at the battle of Kings Mountain; member of North Carolina Legislature, and Member of Congress; was United States Senator for two terms and president pro tempore of the Senate, 1805, and Governor of North Carolina in 1820. (VII. Va. Hist. Mag., 128.)
FRY, PHILIP S. Born -; died July 1859; was long the honored and beloved clerk of the county and circuit courts. He was deputy clerk in 1821, a justice in 1834, and was elected clerk in February, 1844, by the full bench of justices, receiving eighteen votes, to one for John M. Chapman.
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GORDON, JAMES. Planter, of Germanna, known as "James of Orange," to distinguish him from his first cousin, the second James of Lancaster, was born in Richmond County in 1759. He was the eldest son of John Gordon, who emigrated to Virginia from County Down, Ireland, where his progenitors had been seated at "Sheepbridge," near Newry, since 1692. John Gor- don married in Middlesex County, in 1756, Lucy Churchill, daughter of Col. Armistead Churchill and his wife, Hannah Harrison, of Wakefield. James Gor- don represented Richmond County in the House of Delegates in 1781; and Orange, as the colleague of James Madison, in the Virginia Convention of 1788 which ratified the Federal Constitution. He died at Germanna, December 14, 1799, and was buried there in the Gordon family burying ground.
GORDON, WILLIAM FITZHUGH. Planter, lawyer, and statesman; was the second son of James Gordon, of Orange. He was born at Germanna, January 13th, 1787, and after reading law in Fredericksburg practised for several years at Orange. He was a member of the House of Delegates from Albemarle, serving for a long period as chairman of the judiciary committee, and was instrumental in the enactment of legislation estab- lishing the University of Virginia. For several sessions he was a member of the United States House of Repre- sentatives, and was the originator of the Independent or Sub-Treasury system. He was a member of the famous Convention of 1829-30, and formulated the scheme of representation, which was finally accepted by the Convention, known as as the "Mixed Basis."
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He was brigadier, and later, major-general of the State Militia. He married, first, December 12, 1809, Mary Robinson Rootes, "Federal Hill," Fredericksburg, who died without issue; second, January 21, 1813, Elizabeth Lindsay, daughter of Col. Reuben Lindsay, of Albemarle County, and of this marriage were born twelve children.
General Gordon was a democrat of the States' Rights school, and a fervid and eloquent speaker. He died at his residence, "Edgeworth," in Albemarle, five miles west of Gordonsville, August 28, 1858.
KEMPER, JAMES LAWSON. Born in Madison County in 1824; descended from one of the German colonists at Germanna of 1714; educated at Washington Col- lege, Virginia ; commissioned Captain by President Polk in 1847, and joined General Taylor's army in Mexico, but too late for active service; served ten years in the House of Delegates and was Speaker of the House; Colonel of the Seventh Virginia Infantry in 1861 ; Brigadier-general in 1862 ; desperately wound- ed and left on the field in Pickett's charge at Gettys- burg. Major-general, March, 1864, in command of reserve forces around Richmond; elected Governor of Virginia in 1873, defeating Judge Robert W. Hughes, and, after the end of his term, residing at "Walnut Hills," near Orange Courthouse, until hisdeath in 189-, practicing law in Orange and adjacent counties. He was a gentleman of fine presence, something didactic in manner, and a speaker of excellent ability. He was the first Governor from among our own people after the war.
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LELAND, JOHN. A Baptist preacher, born in Massa- chusetts in 1754. He came to Culpeper in 1775, and was made pastor of Mt. Poney church, where he soon had trouble, and came to Orange in 1776.
There is a local tradition of an all-day-long discus- sion between him and James Madison, when the latter was a candidate for the Convention of 1788, at a famous spring near Nason's. A fine oak tree, still standing near the spring, is known locally as "Madison's Oak."
As neither the "Life" of Leland, nor the sketch of him in Sprague's "American Pulpit," makes any mention of this discussion, the incident is believed to be wholly apocryphal; and had not Judge Dabney, who married a great-niece of Madison's, attempted to dignify the myth by publishing an account of it over- loaded with errors in Harper's magazine, this sketch would have been wholly unnecessary.
MADISON, JAMES. Born March 16, 1752; died June 28, 1836; was the son of James Madison of Orange, and Nelly Conway, of King George, in which latter County he was born while his mother was on a visit to her pa- rental home at Port Conway. The place of his birth has been marked in recent yearsby the Federal govern- ment. The encyclopædias and all of his biographers state that he was born in March, 1751, but inasmuch as there was no month of March in that year, the "New Style" of reckoning the calendar year from January 1, instead of from March 25, beginning with 1752, having cut out March from 1751, it is manifest that their date
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is incorrect. Even so painstaking a historian as Charles Campbell locates his birthplace as "near Port Royal, in Caroline County."
The biographies of Madison are so numerous that no sketch of him is a necessary part of this book, but extracts from a remarkable panegyric by the late emi- nent Virginian, Hugh Blair Grigsby, in his excessively rare "Discourse on the Virginia Convention of 1829-30," published by the Virginia Historical Society in 1853, is substituted.
Perhaps the most important act in our history was the adoption of the Federal Constitution, an act the full purport of which was not known at the time of its adoption, if indced it is fully known at present, and the history of that instrument and of the measures of those who carried it into execution, was wrapped up in the lives of the men who then sat in that hall. If to any one individual more than another the paternity of the Federal Constitution may be ascribed, James Madison was that man. It may be that the present form of that paper is from the pen of Gouverneur Morris, but Madi- son was the inspiring genius of the new system. He it was who, while a member of the old Congress, drew the celebrated appeal to the people at the close of the war to adopt some efficient mode of paying the debts of the Confederation; who procured in 1786 the passage of the resolution of this Commonwealth, inviting the meet- ing at Annapolis, which resulted in the assembling of the Conven- tion at Philadelphia; who attended the sessions of that body, and as much as any one man, if not more, guided its deliberations. He, too, was the author of the letter accompanying the Constitution signed by Washington, and addressed to the President of Congress, He it was who, with Jay and Hamilton, sustained the Constitution by those essays, which under the name of the "Federalist," have attained the dignity of a text-book and a classic He it was who, more than any one man, braced the nerves of the Convention of 1788, while Henry, George Mason, Grayson and Monroe were breath- ing awful imprecations on the head of the new system; and who drafted the form of ratification of that instrument by the body, a form destined to be known better hereafter than it is at present.
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[This was prophetic, as the people of Virginia learned to their sor- row in 1841.] He it was who repaired to New York and assisted in the deliberations of the first Congress. He it was whose influence was felt in the Federal councils, either by his personal presence as a member of the House of Representatives, Secretary of State, and President, or by his writings from 1786, when Virginia adopted his resolution inviting the meeting at Annapolis, to the moment of the assembling of the body of which he was then a member. The history of that one man was the history of his country. There, to the extreme left of the chair, as it then stood, dressed in black, with an olive-colored overcoat, now and then raising his hand to his powdered hair, and studiously attentive to every speaker, he was sitting before you.
When Mr. Madison took his seat in the Convention, he was in the seventy-ninth [78th] year of his age; yet, though so far advanced in life, and entitled alike by age and position to ease, he attended the meetings of the body during a session of three months and a half, without the loss, so far as I now remember, of more than a single day. That he was entitled to the chair, and that the univer- sal expectation was that he should receive that honor, none knew better, or could have acknowledged more gracefully, than Mr. Monroe. He spoke but two or three times, when he ascertained that his voice was too low to be heard; possibly, too, he might have been averse from mingling too closely in the bitter strifes of a new generation. When he rose to speak, the members, old as well as young, left their seats, and, like children about to receive the words of wisdom from the lips of an aged father, gathered around him. That he still retained the vigor of his intellect, and that unap- proachable grace in his written compositions, his two short speeches, written out by himself, and his letters to Mr. Cabell, Mr. Everett, and Mr. Ingersoll, on the tariff, bank and nullification controver- sies, show clearly enough.
As a speaker, Mr. Madison was more distinguished by intellect- ual than physical qualities. * * * Several of the finest pas- sages in his speeches in the Virginia Federal Convention are lost to posterity from the weakness of his voice.
*
When it is remembered that the favorable vote of Virginia was alone wanting to save the Constitution, eight States having already ratified it, and that North Carolina and Rhode Island afterwards
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refused to adopt it, it is more than probable that its rejection by the largest State in the Union, as Virginia then was, would have settled its fate, and the Federal Constitution would have sunk to rise no more.
If the adoption of that system were wise and proper; if it has shed boundless blessings on our own people, and lifted its cheering light to the eyes of the oppressed of every clime; and if such a glori- ous result can be traced to the action of any one State and any one man, Virginia is the State, and JAMES MADISON is the man, to whom honor is due.
Whatever he did was thoroughly done. The memorial on religious freedom, prepared by him in 1780, in which he demon- strated, perhaps for the first time, the cardinal doctrines which ought to control governments in matters of religion, was mainly efficient in putting an end to that unnatural connection between church and state to which some of the ablest statesmen of the Revo- lution, guided by early prejudices, too closely adhered, and will henceforth appear, as well from the beauty of its style as from the weight of its philosophy, among the most conspicuous religious landmarks in the history of our race. He was the delight of the social circle, and seemed incapable of imputing a harsh motive to any human being.
His wife, whose elegance diffused a lustre over his public career, and who was the light of his rural home, accompanied him to Rich- mond, and, as you left their presence, it was impossible not to rejoice that Providence had allotted to such a couple an old age so lovely.
"If I were called upon," said Chief Justice Marshall, "to say who of all the men I have known had the greatest power to convince, I should, perhaps, say Mr. Madison, while Mr. Henry had, without doubt, the greatest power to persuade." (Henry's Life of Patrick Henry, Vol. II. 376.)
He was the author, in part, of Washington's "Fare- well Address," and of the splendid inscription on Hou-
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don's statue of Washington, which has no superior of its kind :
"The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia have caused this statue to be erected as a monument of affection and gratitude to George Washington, who, uniting to the endowments of the hero the virtues of the patriot, and exerting both in es- tablishing the liberties of his country, has rendered his name dear to his fellow citizens, and given to the world an immortal ex- ample of true glory ."
MILLS, ROGER Q. Born in the Pamunkey neighbor- hood, March 30, 1832, and went first to Kentucky, and then to Texas; served through the war; Member of Congress, 1872-92; chairman of House Committee of Ways and Means and author of the "Mills Tariff Bill," which became a political issue and was defeated; United States Senator, 1892-99.
MORTON, JACKSON. Brother of Jeremiah, was United States Senator from Florida, 1849-1855; mem- ber of the Confederate Provisional Congress.
MORTON, JEREMIAH. Born 179 -; died 187 -; elected to Thirty-first Congress as a democrat over John S. Pendleton, of Culpeper, and served from 1849 to 1851; represented the County in the Convention of 1861; was a secessionist. His home was "Morton Hall," near Raccoon Ford.
NEWMAN, JAMES, of "Hilton." Born 1806, died 1886; was a noted agriculturist and a gentleman of large information; was president of the State Agricultural Society, and did much to promote the
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improvement of stock in Orange, introducing and long maintaining the notable Cotswold breed of sheep. His most important work was a series of sketches, published in a local paper, relating to the early history and tra- ditions of the County, at the request of Dr. George W. Bagby. Most diligent search has been made for these sketches, but no trace of them has been found.
SPOTSWOOD, Or SPOTTISWOOD, ALEXANDER, called by Colonel Byrd the "Tubal Cain of Virginia," the real protagonist of Orange County, was born at Tangier, in 1676. He entered the army, was wounded at the famous battle of Blenheim, and rose to the rank of lieutenant-colonel. In 1710 he was appointed Lieu- tenant-Governor of Virginia under the nominal Governor, the Earl of Orkney, and showed himself a conspicu- ously energetic administrator, laboring for the good of the Colony in divers ways. He rebuilt the college of William and Mary, of which college he makes mention in his will, recorded in Orange, and took measures for the conversion and instruction of Indian children. He was the first to cross the Appalachian Mountains, the Blue Ridge, in 1716, and he dealt resolutely with the enemies of the Colony, capturing and putting to death the famous pirate, Edward Leach, known as "Blackbeard," and holding the Indians in check on the frontiers. He was superseded as Governor in 1722 but continued to live in Virginia, and founded Ger- manna, where he carried on extensive iron works and cul- tivated vines. In 1730 he was appointed deputy postmaster for the Colonies. Commissioned major- general in 1740, he was engaged in collecting forces
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for the expedition against Carthagena, dying at Anna- polis in that year. Several of his lineal descendants still reside in Orange, and some of the products of his iron works are still preserved in the family, notably some fire backs with the family crest on them. There are portraits of the Governor, of Lady Spotswood, and of her brother, General Elliott, in the State Library, imputed to Reynolds and Sir Peter Lely, but this claim has not been substantiated. See "Dictionary of National Biography" (English) and the chapter infra, "Progress to the Mines."
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