USA > Virginia > Orange County > Orange County > A History of Orange County, Virginia > Part 12
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SUMPTER, GEN. THOMAS. Born in Orange, 1734; died in South Carolina 1832; was probably at Braddock's Defeat, and was known, like Gen. Francis Marion, as the Swamp Fox of the Revolution; was Mem- ber of Congress and United States Senator from South Carolina; Minister of I States to Brazil. (VII. Va. Hist. Mag. 243.)
TALIAFERRO, JAMES PIPER. Son of Dr. Edmund P. Taliaferro, was born at Orange Courthouse, Sep- tember 30, 1847; was educated at William Dinwid- die's classical school at Greenwood, in Albemarle, leaving school in 1864 to enter the Confederate army, where he served to the end of the war. Soon after the war he engaged in business at Jacksonville, Florida, and was elected to the United States Senate from that State in 1899, and re-elected in 1905, as a democrat.
TAYLOR, JOHN, "of Caroline." Nearly all the Ency- clopædias allege that this eminent statesman was born in Orange. This statement is, after most careful inquiry,
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ascertained to bean error. The Taylor family of Orange was a distinguished one from the beginning, which prob- ably gave rise to the statement. A letter from his grand daughter, Mrs. Hubard, confirmed by his great- grandson, Mr. Henry T. Wickham, seems to establish the fact that his birthplace was "Mill Farm" in Caro- line ; so Orange will have to resign this distinction.
TAYLOR, ZACHARY. Twelfth President of the United States; was born in Orange, November 24, 1784; son of Lieut .- Col. Richard Taylor, an officer of the Revo- lution and one of the first settlers of Louisville, Ken- tucky, where Zachary was taken in early childhood and grew up to his twenty-fourth year, working on a planta- tion, with only the simplest rudiments of an education. His elder brother, a lieutenant in the regulararmy, died in 1808, and he was appointed to the vacancy ; promoted captain in 1810. In 1812, with fifty men, two-thirds of them ill with fever, he defended Fort Harrison, on the Wabash, against a large force of Indians, led by the famous Tecumseh. Promoted major for gallantry, he was employed during the war of 1812 in fighting the Indian allies of Great Britain. In 1832 he served as colonel in the Black Hawk War, and in 1836 he gained an important victory over the Seminole Indians at Okechobee, and was made a brigadier and commander of the United States forces in Florida. In 1846 he defeated General Arista at Palo Alto, with a force of 2,300 against 6,000, and, a few days after this battle, drove him across the Rio Grande at Resaca de la Palma ; September 9, being now a major-general, with 6,625 men
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he attacked Monterey, defended by 10,000 regular troops, and after ten days' siege, and three of hard figh- ting, the city capitulated. General Scott, advancing on the city of Mexico, withdrew a portion of Taylor's troops, leaving him only 500 regulars and 5,000 volun- tiers to meet an army of 21,000 commanded by Presi- dent Santa Anna. Taking a strong position at Buena Vista he fought a desperate battle and won a signal victory. This victory, against enormous odds, created great enthusiasm and General Taylor, popularly called "Old Rough and Ready," was nominated for the presi- dency over Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and Gen. Winfield Scott, and was triumphantly elected over Lewis Cass, the Democratic nominee, and Martin Van Buren and Charles Francis Adams, Free Soil candidates.
Worn down by the unaccustomed turmoil of politics, the good-natured old soldier did not long enjoy his honors. He died of bilious colic within less than five months after his inauguration. (Chambers's Ency- clopædia)
In 1848 the General Assembly of Virginia voted him a sword with the inscription: "Presented by Virginia, to her distinguished son, Major-Gen. Zachary Taylor, for his gallantry and conduct at Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey and Buena Vista." He was also presented, as the chief hero of the Mexican war, with the splendid silk sash on which the body of General Brad- dock was borne from the field of his defeat; which, stained with Braddock's blood, is still the property of his granddaughter, who was lately living in Winches- ter, Virginia.
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WADDEL, JAMES. Born 1739, either in Ireland or else on the Atlantic while his parents were en route to this Country. It is not known that he ever resided in Orange, but his name is indelibly associated with that of the County by reason of William Wirt's cele- brated apotheosis of him in the "British Spy", which follows. He built the church, known as "Belle Grove" of which there is a picture and description herein. His home was "Hopewell," the residence of the late Mr. Clay Baker, on the Charlottesville road, near the corner of Orange with Louisa and Albemarle. He was buried at Hopewell, and an imposing but unpretentious marble shaft marked his grave. The "Waddell Mem- orial" Church near Rapidan was named for him, and permission was got from his heirs to remove his remains thither. Mr. Baker superintended the exhumation. He told me that after having dug very deep in the grave, no sign, even of a coffin, could be found. After the closest scrutiny something that looked like the dust of decayed wood was discovered, and then a few nails, nearly consumed by rust, and a button. A spadeful of dust was taken out of the grave along with the nails and button, and reverently deposited in the church- yard. He had been buried about seventy-five years. Mr. Madison's remains, after twenty years' interment, showed little sign of dissolution. (See the paragraph about his tomb.)
The following extract from Mr. Wirt's writings has long been considered a masterpiece of rhetoric, and it ought to be read, marked, learned and inwardly digested by every citizen of Orange; and though it has been
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often published in sundry books, no history of the County ought to omit it.
It was one Sunday, as I travelled through the county of Orange, that my eye was caught by a cluster of horses tied near a ruinous old wooden house in the forest, not far from the roadside. Having frequently seen such objects before, in travelling through these States, I had no difficulty in understanding that this was a place of religious worship.
Devotion alone should have stopped me, to join in the duties of the congregation; but I must confess that curiosity to hear the preacher of such a wilderness was not the least of my motives. On entering, I was struck with his preternatural appearance. He was a tall and very spare, old man. His head, which was covered with a white cap, his shrivelled hands, and his voice, were all shaking under the influence of a palsy; and a few moments ascertained to me that he was perfectly blind.
The first emotions which touched my breast were those of min- gled pity and veneration. But ah! sacred God! how soon were all my feelings changed! The lips of Plato were never more worthy of a prognostic swarm of bees than were the lips of this holy man! It was a day of the administration of the sacrament; and his sub- ject, of course, was the passion of our Savior. I had heard the sub- ject handled a thousand times. I had thought it exhausted long ago. Little did I suppose that in the wild woods of America I was to meet with a man whose eloquence would give to this topic a new and more sublime pathos than I had ever before witnessed.
As he descended from the pulpit to distribute the mystic symbols, there was a peculiar, a more than human solemnity in his air and manner, which made my blood run cold, and my whole frame shiver.
He then drew a picture of the sufferings of our Savior; his trial before Pilate; his ascent up Calvary; his crucifixion, and his death. I knew the whole history; but never, until then, had I heard the circumstances so selected, so arranged, so colored! It was all new, and I seemed to have heard it for the first time in my life. His enunciation was so deliberate that his voice trembled on every syl- lable, and every heart in the assembly trembled in unison. His pecu- liar phrases had that force of description, that the original scene appeared to be, at that moment, acting before our eyes. We saw the very faces of the Jews: the staring, frightful distortions of mal- ice and rage. We saw the buffet; my soul kindled with a flame of
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indignation, and my hands were involuntarily and convulsively clenched. But when he came to touch on the patience, the for- giving meekness of our Savior; when he drew to the life, his blessed eyes streaming in tears to heaven; his voice breathing to God a soft and gentle prayer of pardon on his enemies, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do"-the voice of the preacher, which had all along faltered grew fainter and fainter, until his utterance being entirely obstructed by the force of his feelings, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes and burst into a loud and irrepressible flood of grief. The effect is inconceivable. The whole house resounded with the mingled groans, and sobs, and shrieks of the con- gregation.
It was some time before the tumult had subsided so far as to per- mit him to proceed. Indeed, judging by the usual, but fallacious standard of my own weakness, I began to be very uneasy for the situation of the preacher. For I could not conceive how he would be able to let his audience down from the height to which he had wound them, without impairing the solemnity and dignity of his subject, or perhaps shocking them by the abruptness of the fall. But no; the descent was as beautiful and sublime as the elevation had been rapid and enthusiastic.
The first sentence with which he broke the awful silence was a quotation from Rousseau, "Socrates died like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God!"
I despair of giving you any idea of the effect produced by this short sentence, unless you could perfectly conceive the whole man- ner of the man, as well as the peculiar crisis in the discourse. Never before did I completely understand what Demosthenes meant by laying such stress on delivery. You are to bring before you the venerable figure of the preacher; his blindness constantly recalling to your recollection old Homer, Ossian, and Milton, and associating with his performance the melancholy grandeur of their geniuses. You are to imagine that you hear his slow, solemn, well-accented enunciation, and his voice of affecting, trembling melody; you are to remember the pitch of passion and enthusiasm to which the con- gregation were raised; and then the few minutes of portentous, deathlike silence which reigned throughout the house; the preacher removing his white handkerchief from his aged face, (even yet wet from the recent torrent of his tears), and slowly stretching forth the palsied hand which holds it, begins the sentence, "Socrates died like a philosopher;" then pausing, raising his other hand, pressing
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them both clasped together with warmth and energy to his breast, lifting his "sightless balls" to heaven, and pouring his whole soul into his tremulous voice "but Jesus Christ like a God!" If he had been indeed and in truth an angel of light, the effect could scarcely have been more divine.
WILLIAMS, LEWIS BURWELL. The youngest son of Wil- liam Clayton and Alice Burwell Williams, was born in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, on January 27, 1802. His parents moved to the city of Richmond when he was six years old.
Mr. Williams attended school in Richmond and at the age of fourteen entered Princeton; he studied law and began the practice of his profession in Culpeper. In 1825 he removed to Orange, where he practiced his profession until his death in 1880. He represented his county in the Virginia Legislature in 1833. In 1831 he was appointed attorney for the Commonwealth, which office he filled by successive appointment and election until his death in 1880, a period of forty-nine years.
Opposed to secession, he was a candidate for the Convention of 1861, and was defeated by Jeremiah Morton, a pronounced secessionist.
After his State seceded he became an ardent sup- porter of the Southern cause, his four sons entering the army.
He was a devoted member of St. Thomas Episcopal Church. For many years he was its senior warden and frequently represented his church in the Diocesan councils.
WOOLFOLK, JOHN. Born -; died 1858; represented the county in the Reform Convention of 1850-51, and was
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greatly beloved by all his contemporaries, as the follow- ing resolutions, entered of record in the order book of January, 1858, on the motion of Lewis B. Williams, abundantly prove :
That in his death, the people of the County of Orange, have lost a friend, who in the varied relations of representative, lawyer, and citizen was able, honest and faithful, brave, generous and disinter- ested, with talents of the highest order, and an integrity of purpose and action, which was never subjected to suspicion, he has left behind him the memory which will be cherished by his county- men, of eminent ability, enlightened patriotism and incorruptible virtue.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Historic and Other Homes .*
BARBOURSVILLE. Near the village of the same name. The illustration is the least pleasing of all, failing as it does, to reproduce the fine proportions of the handsome old mansion. The water color from which it was taken was painted in the long ago, and before the fine box hedges, which have constituted a striking feature of the lawn for many years, had attain- ed any size.
The house was built by Governor Barbour, about 1822. The exterior was not unlike Frascati; the interior was far and away the handsomest in the County and probably in Virginia. From a massive pediment portico the entrance was into a spacious hexagonal salon, having a dome ceiling and an elevation to the roof; adjoining this was the drawing-room, an octagon of like stately proportions and more ornately finished, which opened on another handsome portico. On the same floor was the state dining-room with nearly as lofty a pitch.
This house, which Mr. Jefferson helped to plan, and which was the abode of refined hospitality during the Governor's time and that of his son, Mr. Johnson Bar- bour, was burned down Christmas Day, 1884. The walls and the columns of the porticos are yet stand-
*The illustrations are, with very few exceptions, after photographs taken by Mr. Cook, of Richmond, in 1907.
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ing, mantled now by a luxuriant growth of English ivy and other vines.
Remembering many happy days there, I pay the ruins the passing tribute of a tear.
BURLINGTON. Burlington, proper, is a handsome home built by James Barbour Newman, about a mile east of Barboursville. The illustration represents a house in the back yard, historic because John Ran- dolph of Roanoke lived there while at school in Orange.
In colonial times the place was owned by the Burn- leys, who are buried there, one of whom was a Burgess, and an officer in the Revolution.
CAMERON LODGE. Near Gordonsville; the seat of Col. Alexander Cameron, on the crest of the South- west Mountains. Here is a tower where all the charms of an extended and beautiful landscape may be seen. To the right, the Blue Run and Rapidan valleys, with a background of the Blue Ridge; in front the undula- tions of the Southwest range; on the left, the town at the base of the mountain and far as the eye can reach the wooded plain extending to Richmond and beyond.
The illustration shows the house; it does not show the handsome approach to it, nor the ornamental hedges which line the way, nor the fields where Jerseys and Southdowns are cropping the green herbage.
CAMPBELLTON. Near Barboursville; was the home of Captain William Campbell, of the Revolution and subsequently a major in the United States army. Here Gen. Winfield Scott was a frequent visitor.
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CHURCH OF THE BLIND PREACHER. This stood near Gordonsville, and was known as "Belle Grove" church. The illustration is from an old print in Howe's History of Virginia, published in 1845. Mr. Hunt, in his Life of Madison, narrates that the latter's mother was a frequent attendant there and a great admirer of Mr. Waddel. (See sketch of Waddel, and the chapter on Colonial churches.)
CLIFTON. Near Madison Run; said to be the oldest framed house erected in the County, though '"Bloomsbury" contests that distinction, and it is prob- able that Governor Spotswood's residence at Germanna antedated both. There is nothing notable about the house but its age, and the fact that it was built of pit- sawn lumber, with hand-wrought nails, and that some of the window-panes, said to be the first in the County, almost prove their antiquity by their greenish tint and uneven surfaces. It was built about 1729 by John Scott, whose son was a member of the Committee of Safety, captain of a company of Minute Men in the Revolution and whose record is sufficiently disclosed in the general narrative.
The oldest tombstone standing in the County is in the graveyard here-Jane, wife of John Scott "born 1699, died 1731."
FRASCATI. Near Somerset; was built some time before 1830 for Judge Philip Pendleton Barbour, the workmen being of those who had been engaged in building the University. Until long since the war,
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there was a "serpentine" brick wall around the garden, identical with those now at the University and at Barboursville house. Since Judge Barbour's death there have been many owners. Col James Magruder owned it for some years prior to the war, and there the gallant Magruder boys, whose history is sketched in another chapter, were reared. There have been some alterations in the interior, and dormer win- dows have been set in the roof in recent years. The house, as the illustration shows, is very imposing in appearance. It is constructed of such excellent mate- rial and with such fine workmanship that it is said the floors will hold water like a bucket.
It is now owned by Mr. A. D. Irving, Jr., a near relative of Washington Irving one of the most famous of American authors whose writings are cherished in every land where the English language is known.
HAWFIELD. About midway between Orange and Raccoon Ford. It was bought in 1847 by Mr. Jona- than Graves for his only daughter, Fanny Elizabeth, the wife of William G. Crenshaw, and since that time has continued in the Crenshaw family. The original house, built before 1790, was enlarged in 1881 to its present handsome proportions by Captain William G. Crenshaw, with the least possible change of the old mansion. It adorns a beautiful estate of more than three thousand acres, which constitute an object lesson in intelligent farming. A portion of the tract once belonged to the Conway family, of Revolutionary memory.
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LOCUST LAWN. On the Marquis's road in Pamunkey ; was a tavern during the Revolution. Now owned by Mrs. Margaret Pannill, widow of Dr. David Pannill, and her sisters.
MADISON'S TOMB. This monolith was erected about 1856 by private subscriptions, mostly by admir- ers of Madison outside the County The date of birth is an error, as explained in the sketch of Madison, infra. The smaller tombstone in the illustration is that of Mrs. Madison, and curious to say, Maude Wilder Good- win, in her "Life of Dolly Madison," complains of a wrong inscription on her tombstone also. She died July 12, not July 8, as the inscription reads, and she signed her name "Dolly," not "Dolley," to her will, which was dated on the 9th. She was buried first in Washington, D. C., in 1849, and her remains were not brought to Montpelier until about 1858. As her own nephew, not Madison's, erected the tombstone, the error must be imputed to him.
The inscription on Madison's tomb is:
MADISON BORN MARCH 16, 175I. DIED JUNE 28, 1836.
I have been told that when the stone was erected it was necessary to take up his remains in order to get a safe foundation. The coffin was opened, and, except that one cheek was a little sunken, his appearance was the same as in life; but disintegration began imme- diately, and the coffin had to be closed. He had been buried about twenty years.
MADIS
-
TOMB OF MADISON
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MAYHURST. Near Orange Courthouse; the resi- dence of Mr. William G. Crenshaw, Jr. This farm was embraced in the Baylor grant, and the mountain near by is still known as Baylor's Mountain. The first residence was that of Mr. Howard who married a Miss Taylor, of Orange. Col. John Willis bought the farm about 1859, and built the handsome residence shown in the illustration. Gen. A. P. Hill's headquar- ters were in the yard in the winter of 1863-64, and one of his daughters was christened in the house.
Mr. Crenshaw has furnished his countymen with an object lesson in road building by constructing a model macadamized road from Mayhurst to the county road.
MONTEBELLO. Near Gordonsville. Here was born Zachary Taylor, though a tablet has been erected to mark another spot as his birthplace, "Hare Forest," about mid- way between Orange and Rapidan and near the Southern Railway ; a mere thicket now. It can not be gainsaid that there is some ground for the claim for the latter place, but the evidence, collected many years ago, seems con- clusive as to Montebello. I was so informed nearly forty years since by Mr. Benjamin Johnson, whose ancestor owned the place and lived there when Taylor was born ; by Mr. Johnson Barbour, whose parents, were kins- people and contemporaries of the Taylors, and who had often so informed him; by Col. John Willis, who said he had often heard "Uncle Howard," another contempo- rary, who married a near kinswoman of the General, say so; and finally Major Erasmus Taylor, who died
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recently, said to me that there was no doubt as to the fact. The deed books do not show that Col. Richard Taylor, his father, ever lived at "Hare Forest," and his name does not appear in the census of 1782, though he may then have been with the army. The evidence, all of which is traditional, seems overwhelmingly in favor of Montebello. The house has been much mod- ernized. Mr. Benjamin Johnson, the proprietor, gave me this tradition certainly as long ago as 1875. The Taylor family, he said, started to remove to the West in road wagons. The Johnsons were their kinspeople, and their house was the goal of the first day's journey. One of the company became very ill during the night and this illness occasioned a delay of six weeks. During that time Zachary Taylor was born. That is the "tale as told to me," nearly forty years ago.
MONTPELIER. About four miles from Orange Court- house. The first dwelling house stood not far from the cemetery, in the direction of the present mansion. Nearly five thousand acres were patented by Ambrose Madison and Thomas Chew in 1723.
Col. John Willis, a great-nephew of James, Jr., was told by him that the nucleus of the present structure was built when he was a mere lad, capable of carrying in his hands some of the lighter furniture from the old house to the new : which would fix thedateatabout 1760. It was a plain rectangular structure, with a hall running through the centre having two rooms on each side. Its identity has been so merged in the grander house that it can not now be differentiated from it. The chief enlargements were made in 1809, after designs by Wil-
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liam Thornton, architect of the Capitol at Washington ; and Latrobe lent his assistance in further improve- ments, which included the addition of the wings. "The result was simplicity, but symmetry of proportion and faultlessness of taste." The grounds are as hand- some as the buildings, and the prospect very command- ing --- an unbroken stretch of ninety miles of the Blue Ridge, which constitutes an almost perfect crescent. Arlington is the only place in Virginia that can com- pare with it in the beauty of its immediate surround. ings.
The present owner, William du Pont, Esq., has added another story to the wings, but the addition was so artistically made that it is impossible to tell where the old work ended and the new began.
The beautifully terraced garden laid out in the form of a horseshoe was Madison's own plan. Subsequent owners sadly neglected it, to say the least. This Mr. du Pont has not only restored, but has also converted into a flower garden exclusively, which for richness and variety of color and foliage is not surpassed, if equalled, by the horticultural gardens at Washington; and he has also decorated it with pleasing statuary. The ice house, which is surmounted by an ornamental colonnade, was dug in 1809, and is believed to have been the first attempt at keeping ice made in the Piedmont section.
MOUNT SHARON. Near Nason's; the residence of Mr. C. C. Taliaferro, to whom the plantation has des- cended in a direct line from a Crown grant. The illus-
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tration shows the stately and graceful proportions of the mansion. There is a greater variety of prospect from it than from any other point known to me in the County. There are perhaps more picturesque views of the Blue Ridge at other points, but for majestic and rugged outlines there are none to compare with the outlook from Mt. Sharon; and the varied landscape of Clarke's Mountain adds another charm to the prospect.
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