USA > Virginia > Orange County > Orange County > A History of Orange County, Virginia > Part 3
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4I
THE COURTHOUSES
The charter was repealed some years later, the peti- tioners for the repeal asserting that it had remained a dead letter. It was again incorporated in 1855, but seems not to have assumed any special municipal functions until the present charter of 1896 was passed by the Legislature.
CHAPTER V.
The Colonial Churches.
There appear to have been four State Churches in Orange in colonial times, the first at Germanna, built under the direction of Governor Spotswood about 1724 with the fund of five hundred pounds appropriated for that and other purposes when Spotsylvania was formed.
The next oldest was in the Brooking neighborhood near (old) Cave's ford, about three miles northwest of Somerset, and was later removed to the vicinity of Ruckersville. Capt. May Burton, a Revolutionary officer, was long a lay reader there.
In Bishop Meade's "Old Churches and Families of Virginia" is a chapter by Rev. Joseph Earnest, who was for some years rector of the church at Orange, about the early churches in the County. While his information was not exact, this chapter is the most valuable account of them now obtainable. He nar- rates that he had been told that the second oldest church was frequented as a place of worship as early as 1723, which is manifestly an error. Most probably it was built about 1740 when St. Thomas Parish was cut off from St. Mark.
The "Middle, " or "Brick," church, stood on the hill near where the Pamunkey road crosses Church Run.
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THE COLONIAL CHURCHES
It was built between 1750 and 1758 of durable materials, and as late as 1806 time had made little impression on it. One of the first effects of the "freedom of worship" and the practical confiscation of the glebes and church properties was, that the people's consciences became very "free " also to do as they pleased with the church belongings.
This church was actually and literally destroyed, the very bricks carried off and the altar pieces torn from the altar and attached to pieces of household furniture. The ancient communion plate, a massive silver cup and paten, with the name of the parish engraved on it, came to be regarded as common property. Fortu- nately by the exercise of vigilance the plate was rescued, and is now in possession of St. Thomas Church at Orange.
Nor did the despoilers overlook the churchyard when the work of destruction began. Tombstones were broken down and carried off to be appropriated to unhallowed uses. The Rev. Mungo Marshall, of hal- lowed memory, rector from 1753 to 1758, was buried there, but his grave was left unmarked. Yearsafterward a connection of his bequeathed a sum of money upon condition that the legatee should not receive it until he had placed a tombstone over Mr. Marshall's grave, which condition was soon fulfilled. That slab was taken away and used first to grind paints upon, and afterwards in a tannery on which to dress hides! What an injury was done to the history of the County in the destruction of the many tombstones there! for not a vestige remains of church or churchyard.
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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY
At a meeting of the vestry of the parish Sept. 1, 1769, there were present: Rev. Thomas Martin, Erasmus Taylor, James Madison, Alexander Waugh, Francis Moore, William Bell, Rowland Thomas, Thomas Bell, Richard Barbour, and William Moore.
In 1786 the congregation in Orange, there being no Episcopal clergyman in the County, engaged the serv- ices of James Waddel, the blind Presbyterian minister, to preach for them two years. Forty pounds were subscribed, and the subscription was expected to reach sixty pounds. He not only preached for them but also administered the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper.
The Pine Stake Church, supposed to have been built about the same time as the last, was several miles below " Hawfield," and about a mile and a half east of Ever- ona, near the road to old Verdiersville. It was stand- ing in 1813. During the Revolution "Parson " Leland, as he was called, a Baptist preacher who is referred to at length elsewhere, asked to preach there, which the vestry declined to permit, James Madison, the elder, writing the letter for them.
The principal families connected with the Church in colonial times were the Barbours, Bells, Burtons, Campbells, Caves, Chews, Conways, Daniels, Madisons, Moores, Ruckers, Shepherds, Scotts, Taylors, Talia- ferros, Thomases, Waughs, Whites, and Willises.
The glebe farm was near the courthouse, and is now owned by Mr. Wambersie.
In 1739 John Becket, clerk, a synonym for clergy- man, was presented for not giving his attendance
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THE COLONIAL CHURCHES
according to law, and for not administering the Sacra- ment of the Lord's Supper at his chapel in St. Mark Parish. The presentment was dismissed.
In 1741 Rev. Richard Hartswell of the Parish of St. Thomas, lately cut off from St. Mark, was presented for being drunk on the information of one Tully Joice who had been presented the same day for swearing an oath, thus indicating spite work, as the presentment was promptly dismissed.
As early as 1763, on motion of James Madison, the loss of two duplicate bills of exchange was ordered recorded. These bills represented a subscription of twenty-five pounds sterling to the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," and show how soon missionary work was begun in Orange.
CHAPTER VI.
Other Old Churches-The Dissenters.
In a County where so many denominations exist, prudence impels strict adherence to the records in narrating their history.
When the County was formed and until the end of the Revolution, the Church of England was the Estab- lished or State Church, and church matters were regu- lated by laws passed by the "General Assembly" or law-making power. Thus it was the civil authorities, mostly composed of State Churchmen, however, not the church authorities, which enforced the law; and if this fact had always been borne in mind it is likely that much polemical asperity and recrimination might have been avoided.
The ecclesiastical regulations of those days would be deemed tyrannical and oppressive in these, but they applied alike to all citizens. The laws compelled everybody to attend religious worship, and numerous were the fines imposed with great impartiality on per- sons for absenting themselves from the parish church; Churchmen as well as dissenters. At one period, 1690 to 1720, the law was that if the fine was not paid, the offender should be imprisoned and even receive corporal punishment; so it seems that it was not dissenters
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CHURCH OF THE BLIND PREACHER
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OTHER OLD CHURCHES-THE DISSENTERS
only who were "persecuted." And, as early as 1714, the German Protestants at Germanna were exempted by statute from paying parish levies, and authorized to employ a minister of their own faith.
A special chapter has been devoted to the colonial churches of the establishment: only four others appear to have existed in colonial times; "Hebron," the Lutheran Church in Madison, built in 1740; "the church of the blind preacher," James Waddel (for so he spelled his own name) ; old "Blue Run" and "Pamunkey." In those days these were always spoken of as "Meeting Houses," even in the records.
Of these in Orange County, old "Blue Run," situated about midway between Liberty Mills and Barbours- ville, is probably the oldest. It was constituted in 1769, by the "Separate Baptists," Elijah Craig being the first pastor. As early as 1774 there is record of a motion by Zachary Burnley "to turn the road that leads from the 'Meeting House' down to Blue Run bridge;" and there is still standing near the church what appears to be an indestructible stone vault of the Webb family, erected in 1783. Since the war, the old wooden edifice, still in excellent preservation, has been turned over to the negroes, the Baptist congregation having erected a new building near Somerset.
It is not known when the Presbyterian Church of the blind preacher, rendered memorable by William Wirt, in the "British Spy," was built, but it was cer- tainly one of the earlier churches of the county. It stood on the north side of the Orange highway, about a half mile northeast of Gordonsville: proper
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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY
appreciation of its historical associations would insure a permanant marking of the site while it is yet remem- bered.
In the heyday of the "Sons of Temperance," 1850- 56, the historic old building was taken down and the lumber used to build a temperance hall at Gordons- ville, which after the war was used for some years as a schoolhouse. Finally it was condemned that a street might be opened, and the material was bought by a negro preacher, who reconverted in into another structure, a fate as pathetic as that of old Blue Run; for so we treat our historic treasures, having so many!
And it may as well be recorded here that an old Baptist church known as "Zion Meeting House," which stood about two miles south of Orange courthouse, on the Gordonsville road, was abandoned for a new church at Toddsberth shortly before the war, the lumber of which was sold and put into new buildings at the courthouse, one of which was for years used as a barroom!
North Pamunkey is another Baptist church edifice of historic association. It was organized in 1774 by Aaron Bledsoe and E. Craig with twenty members. Aaron Bledsoe was its first pastor and its original name was North Fork of Pamunkey, from the stream nearby. In 1792 the membership was about three hundred and fifty, and it was used as a place of worship for thirty- seven years before being heated in any way.
The present edifice, practically on the site of the old log structure, the fourth on the same site, was com- pleted in 1849.
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OTHER OLD CHURCHES-DISSENTERS
Modern churches abound, almost to the impoverish- ment of preachers. At Gordonsville the whites have six churches and a chapel, the negroes several; the whites have four at Orange; at and near Somerset there are three, at Barboursville three; at and near Unionville several; and the county is dotted with them from end to end, the whites having thirty-two in all, the negroes seventeen.
Saint Thomas, at the Courthouse, was frequently attended during the war by Generals Lee, Stuart, and other Confederate officers of distinction ; and New Zion, at Toddsberth, was occupied as a shoe shop in the winter of 1863-4. General Mahone bought up all the leather that he could, detailed all the shoemakers of his division, and took possession of the church. To his and their credit, no injury was done to the church, and when the campaign opened in the spring, his command was well shod.
The following items are condensed from the order books. In 1737 William Williams, Gent., a Presby- terian minister, took the oaths, subscribed the test, and likewise a declaration of his approval of such of the thirty-nine articles of religion as is required, and certified his intention of holding his meetings at his own plantation and that of Morgan Bryan.
Subsequent records show him to have been very litigious and at odds with very many people for sundry years. He brought suit at one time against nearly one hundred persons, for damages for a certain scandal- ous paper reflecting on him, but recovered nothing, though some of the signers did retract.
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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY
Here is a very curious order of 1768:
"Elijah Morton is discontinued, the Court conceiving him to be an unfit person to act as Justice of the Peace, for that in a plea of debt" he declined, when requested by James Madison to make a quorum to try the cause, because one of the parties told him he did not wish it to be tried at that term; and yet when said Madison and Zachariah Burnley went into court and made a quorum the said Morton ascended the bench and sat in the cause; "and for that," the order concludes, "the said Morton is a promoter of schisms and particularly of the sect called Anabaptists!"
In 1773 Joseph Spencer, being brought before the court by a warrant under the hand of Rowland Thomas, Gent., for a breach of his good behavior in teaching and preaching the gospel as a Baptist not having a license; and it appearing that he did teach and preach as aforesaid, he at the same time insisting that he decented [dissented] from the principles of an Anabaptist; ordered, that he be committed to the custody of the sheriff until he give bond conditioned not to teach or preach without first obtaining a license as the law directs. Bond was required in a penalty of one hundred pounds, and he was allowed the liberty of the prison bounds on giving security.
At the next term leave was given him to live in the courthouse, he indemnifying the County against loss, and on his petition, his bond was reduced to twenty pounds, and William Morton and Jonathan Davis became his sureties for his good behavior.
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OTHER OLD CHURCHES-THE DISSENTERS
In 1781 Elijah Craig and Nathaniel Sanders, dissent- ing Baptist ministers recommended by the elders of their society, were licensed to perform the marriage ceremony.
These are the only items of note in the records as to the treatment of dissenters by the Court.
CHAPTER VII.
Indian Antiquities.
There is a notable Indian Mound near the Greene line. The following description of it is condensed from a special report of the United States Bureau of Ethnology in 1894:
"The country along the upper portion of the Rappa- hannock and its tributaries was inhabited by tribes known collectively as the Manahoac. They probably migrated westward and united with tribes beyond the Ohio whose names they took. They and the Monacan were allied against the Powhatan.
"It will be proper to describe here a mound, evidently a tribal burial place, situated in the former territory of the Manahoac, and due probably to their labor.
"The mound stands on the right bank of Rapidan river, a mile east of the boundary between Orange and Greene. Originally it was elliptical in form, with the longer axis nearly east and west; but the river in shift- ing its channel some years ago, undermined and car- ried away the eastern portion, probably from one-half to two-thirds of the entire structure. For several years, some of the earth fell in at every freshet, thus keeping a vertical section exposed to view. The differ- ent strata of bone were plainly visible, and when the
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INDIAN ANTIQUITIES.
water was low fragments of human bones were strewn along the shore beneath. The river shifted again, and the mound soon assumed its natural shape. At present the base measures 42 by 48 feet, with the longer axis nearly north and south. A considerable part of it has been hauled away, leaving a depression at the middle fully 20 feet across and extending almost to the bottom of the mound. As a result, the interior was very muddy, the bones extremely soft and fragmentary, and excavation difficult.
"The highest point left by these destructive agencies was six feet; the river had probably left it fully ten feet high. If the statements concerning its original form and extent be correct, the apex was at least twelve feet above the base, the latter being not less than 50 by 75 feet.
"The earth was removed from an area 28 by 40 feet. At seven feet was found the outer edge of a bone deposit measuring 6 by 15 feet. There were indications in several places that skeletons had been compactly bundled, but most of the bones were scattered promis- cuously, as if they had been collected from some place of previous interment and carelessly thrown in, there being no evidence of an attempt to place them in proper order. In the mass were two small deposits of calcined human bones, and beneath it were graves or burial pits.
"This bone bed, which was at the level of the natural surface, was the largest found. Two feet above it, and four feet within its outer margin, was another, much smaller; and numerous others were found in all the
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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY
portion removed. There was no attempt at regularity in position or extent ; in some places only such a trace as may have resulted from the decomposition of a few bones; in others, as many as fifteen or twenty skeletons may have been deposited. They occurred at all levels below a foot from the upper surface of the mound, but no section showed more than four layers above the original surface of the ground, though it was reported that six strata had been found near the central portion, which would indicate that the burials were carried nearly to the top of the mound.
"In the skeletons all ages were represented, for among the bones were those of very young children, while of others many of the teeth were worn to the neck.
"Numerous small deposits of human bones, almost destroyed by fire, were scattered through the mound. The bones in some of the graves appeared to have been placed in their proper position, but it was impossible to ascertain this with certainty. One of the deeper pits had its bottom lined with charcoal; none of the others had even this slight evidence of care or respect.
"No relics of any kind were deposited with the bones; a rough mortar, two arrowheads, and some fragments of pottery were found loose in the debris.
"It is plain that this spot was for a long period the burial place of a small tribe or clan, among whom pre- vailed the habit of stripping the flesh from the corpse before interment, or of depositing the body elsewhere for a time and afterwards removing the bones to this ossuary. That no stated intervals elapsed between
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INDIAN ANTIQUITIES
consecutive deposits is shown by the varying position and size among the different bone beds, and by the overlapping of many of the graves beneath.
"It is impossible accurately to estimate the number of skeletons found; certainly not fewer than 200, possibly 250, which figures represent approximately one-fourth of the number deposited, if the statements as to the original size of the mound be correct.
"In its construction this mound corresponds closely with one opened by Jefferson on the Rivanna, a few miles above Charlottesville. 'The contents were such as on the whole to give the idea of bones emptied promiscuously from a bag or basket and covered with earth, without any attention to their order.' That the bones near the top were in a better state of preservation than those towards the bottom is due probably less to their being of much later deposit than to the dryness of the earth near the top. A party of Indians passing about 1751 where this barrow is, near Charlottesville, went through the woods directly to it, without any instructions or inquiry, and having staid about it some time, with expressions construed to be those of sorrow, returned to the high road, which they had left about six miles to pay this visit, and pursued their journey."
For a fuller account the reader is referred to a pamphlet of the Smithsonian Institution, entitled, " Archæologic Investigations in the James and Poto- mac Valleys."
As so little is known about the Indians who once inhabitated this section, it has been thought worth
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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY
while to transcribe the few orders relating to them made by the county court.
In 1730, "William Bohannon came into court and made oath that about twenty-six of the Sapony Indians that inhabit Colonel Spotswood's land in Fox's neck go about and do a great deal of mischief by firing the woods; more especially on the 17th day of April last whereby several farrows of pigs were burnt in their beds, and that he verily believes that one of the Indians shot at him the same day, the bullet entering a tree within four feet of him; that he saw the Indian about one hundred yards from him, and no game of any sort between them; that the Indian after firing his gun stood in a stooping manner very studdy [steady] so that he could hardly discern him from a stump, that he has lost more of his pigs than usual since the coming of the said Indians; which is ordered to be certified to the General Assembly."
1742. Sundry Indians, among them Manincassa, Captain Tom, Blind Tom, Foolish Zack, and Little Zack, were before Court for "terrifying" one Lawrence Strother, who testified that one of them shot at him, that they tried to surround him, that he turned his horse and rid off, but they gained on him till he crossed the run. Ordered, that the Indians be taken into custody by the sheriff until they give peace bonds with security, and that their guns be taken from them until they are ready to depart out of this Colony, they having declared their intention to depart within a week. They gave bond.
There is no record extant of any Indian massacre, large or small, in the original limits of the County east of the Blue Ridge.
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MOUNT SHARON
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INDIAN ANTIQUITIES.
The Tomahawk branch, which crosses the Gordons- ville road about a mile and a half south of the court- house, is a preserved Indian name, one of the very few in the County. It was here that the organization known as the "Culpeper Minute Men" camped when first on their way to join the army of the Revolution. (Slaughter's "St. Mark's.")
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CHAPTER VIII.
French and Indian Wars.
If Orange as a County ever sent an organized com- mand to any of the French and Indian Wars no record of it has been found. The records do disclose that sundry of her citizens participated in these wars, but in every instance in a company or regiment from some other county; the names of but few appear in the record-among them that of Ambrose Powell, ances- tor of Gen. A. P. Hill-who rose to the dignity of a commission during all the years that these wars were waged.
Therefore, any detailed account of these wars would be out of place here, and only such facts will be narrated as may throw some light on the services of citizens who did participate in them.
In 1758 an expedition, the second one, was set on foot for the capture of Fort Duquesne, (the modern Pittsburg, then believed to be in the limits of Augusta County), under General Forbes, a British officer. Washington was commander of the Virginia troops which consisted of two regiments, his own and Col. William Byrd's, about two thousand men in all. A Colonel Bouquet, of Pennsylvania, commanded the advanced division of the army, and Captain Hogg, of Augusta, had a company in Washington's regiment.
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FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS.
The fort was finally captured, but the loss in Washing- ton's regiment alone was 6 officers and 62 privates. Colonel Byrd was of the "Westover" family, an ances- tor of the Willises of Orange. The Captain Overton referred to in the extracts following, was from Hanover, but he was in an earlier expedition in 1755. His com- pany was the first organized in Virginia after Braddock's defeat, and the great Presbyterian preacher, Rev. Samuel Davies, addressed it by request on the eve of its departure for the frontiers. The history of these wars is narrated at large in Waddell's "Annals of Augusta County," second edition, and in Withers's "Chronicles of Border Warfare." The order books show as follows:
August, 1779. David Thompson, soldier in Captain Hogg's Rangers, 1758; sergeant in Colonel Bouquet's regiment in 1764.
Jacob Williams and Jacob Crosthwait, in Colonel Byrd's regiment, 1758.
September Term. Benjamin Powell, sergeant, Thomas Fitzgerald and John Williams, soldiers, in Colonel Byrd's regiment, 1758.
Isaac Crosthwait, Thomas Walker, Charles Walker, in Hogg's rangers.
October. Daniel McClayland, Colonel Byrd's regi- ment, 1759. William Vawter, sergeant, John Furnes, (Furnace), Hogg's rangers.
James Cowherd, ensign, Colonel Bouquet's regiment ; William Bullock and William Rogers, in Colonel Wash- ington's regiment, 1758; Francis Hackley, John Lucas, Thomas Powell, Richard Lamb, John Lamb, James
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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY
Gaines, Thomas Morris, Charles Pearcey, William Cave, soldiers, and Michael Rice, sergeant, in Colonel Byrd's regiment.
Henry Shackleford, Henry Hervey, John Warner, Simon Powell, soldiers, and James Riddle, non-com- missioned, Hogg's rangers.
1780. William Brock, in Colonel Stephen's regiment, 1762. Colonel Adam Stephen was probably from Frederick County, where Stephensburg is named for him.
Patrick Fisher, Littleberry Low, William Lamb, David Watts, Charles Watts, James Lamb, soldiers, William Cave, non-commissioned, in Colonel Byrd's regiment; William Watson, in "Captain Overton's company of regulars for defence of this State," in 1755.
William Sims and Francis Gibbs, in Hogg's rangers ; James Roberts, in "Captain Wagoner's company of regulars for defense of this State," 1757; Ambrose Powell, Gent., staff officer in Virginia forces, 1755.
William Smith, Captain Hogg's rangers.
In Thwaites's edition of Withers it is said that Col. William Russell, at one time high sheriff of Orange, did some frontier service in the early part of these wars, and in 1753 was sent as a commissioner to the Indians in the region where Pittsburg now stands. His son, of the same name, was at the battle of Point Pleasant; was second in command at King's Mountain, and retired at the end of the Revolution as brevet brigadier-general.
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