USA > Virginia > Rockbridge County > Rockbridge County > A history of Rockbridge County, Virginia > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62
Section 4. (A court for Rockbridge, first Tuesday of every month, the first court to be held at the house of Samuel Wallace. The justices, or a majority of them, being present and duly sworn, shall fix on a place as near the center as the situation and convenience shall admit, and proceed to erect the necessary public buildings).
Section 5. (Making it lawful for the governor with the advice of the Council to appoint the first sheriff.)
Section 6. And be it further enacted, that at the place which shall be appointed for holding court in the said county of Rockbridge, there shall be laid off a town to be called Lexington, 1300 feet in length and 900 in width. And in order to make satisfaction to the proprietors of the said land, the clerk of the said county shall by order of the justices issue a writ directed to the sheriff commanding him to summon twelve able and discreet freeholders to meet in the said land on a certain day, not under five nor more than ten days from the date, who shall upon oath value the said land, in so many parcels as there shall be separate owners, which valuation the said sheriff shall return, under the hands and seals of the said jurors, to the clerk's office, and the justices, at levying their first county levy, shall make provision for paying the said proprietors their respective portions thereof, and the property of the said land shall on the return of such valuation, become vested in the Justices and their successors, one acre thereof to be reserved for the use of said county, and the residue to be sold and conveyed by the said justices to any persons, and the
A HISTORY OF ROCKBRIINGHI COUNTY, VIRGINIA
money arising from such sale shall be apphed towards lessening the county levy, and the pubhe buildings for the sail county shall be erected on the lands reserved. as aforesaid.
Section 7. t Relates to suits and petitions now depending. Dockets of such to be made out in Augusta and Botetourt )
Section 8 tNo appointment of clerk of the peace, nor of place for holding court, unless a majority of the justices be present )
(Another section dissolves the vestry of Augusta, and instructs the inhabitants of Augusta, Botetourt, Rockbridge. Rockingham, and Greenbrier to meet at places appointed by their sheriffs before May 1, 1778, to clect twelve able and discreet persons as a vestry for cach county.)*
The boundaries of Rockbridge, as set forth in the above act, have since undergone but one change. In October. 1785, all the county west of the top of Camp Mountain was annexed to Botetourt.
There is a belief that the killing of Cornstalk at Point Pleasant led to the establishment of Rockbridge. The perpetrators of that deed were some of the Rockbridge militia, and as there was an attempt to punish them, the trial would have been at the county seat of Greenbrier. The erection of a new county would insure a trial among friends and not among strangers. But the killing of Corn- stalk took place November 11, 1777. It would have taken several weeks for the news to reach Williamsburg and for a movement to take shape in Rockbridge which would bear fruit in legislative action. The act authorizing Rockbridge had been passed in October of the same year.
Nevertheless, the event should have mention in this chapter.
The Shawnces, "the Arabs of the New World." were a small but valiant tribe dwelling on the lower Scioto. In mental power they stood much above the average level of the red race, and it was an ordinary occurrence for a member of the tribe to be able to converse in five or six languages, including English and French. According to the Indian standard, the Shawnees were generous livers, and their women were superior housekeepers. They were so conscious of their prowess that they held in contempt the warlike ability of other Indians. It was their boast that they caused the white people ten times as much loss as they received.
At the time of which we write, the most eminent war-leader among the Shawnces was Cornstalk. It is not probable that he headed the band that struck Kerr's (reck in 1759, although the warriors may have been of his people. We do know, however, that he was the leader in the terrible raid of 1763. Within a few days his band blotted out the settlements on the Greenbrier, won a victory over two companies of militia at Falling Springs in Alleghany county,
" The first sestry for Rockbridge included James Buchanan, Charles Campbell, Samuel Meld well. John Gilmore, John Lyle, Samuel Iyle, Major William Paxton, Alexander Stuart, and John Trimble.
79
ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY ESTABLISHED
raided the valleys of Jackson's River and the Cowpasture, and then crossed Mill Mountain to work still further havoc on Kerr's Creek. With slight loss to themselves, they killed, wounded, or carried away probably more than 100 of the whites. At Point Pleasant, the Shawnees were the backbone of the Indian army, and Cornstalk was its general-in-chief. It was only because of loose dis- cipline in the camp that the Virginians were not taken by surprise. Technically, the battle was little else than a draw. Cornstalk effected an unmolested retreat across the Ohio, after inflicting a loss much heavier than his own. But his men were discouraged and gave up the campaign. Cornstalk was not in favor of the war, but was overruled by his tribe. During the short peace that followed, he from time to time returned to Fort Randolph at Point Pleasant horses and cattle that had been lost by the whites or stolen from them.
In 1777 the Shawnees were again restless. They had been worked upon by British emissaries and white renegades. Cornstalk came with a Delaware and one other Indian and visited Fort Randolph under what was virtually a fiag of truce. He warned Captain Arbuckle, the commandant, of the feeling of the tribesmen. His mission was an effort to avert open hostilities. According to the Indian standard, Cornstalk was an honorable foe, and he knew he ran a risk in putting himself in the power of the whites. Arbuckle thought it proper to detain the Indians as hostages. One day, while Cornstalk was drawing a map on the floor of the blockhouse, to explain the geography of the country beyond the Scioto, his son Ellinipsico hallooed from the other bank of the Ohio and was taken across. Soon afterward, two men of Captain William McKee's company, a Gilmore and a Hamilton, went over the Kanawha to hunt for turkeys. Gilmore was killed by some lurking Indian, and his body was carried back. The spectacle made his comrades wild with rage. They raised the cry of, "Let us kill the Indians in the fort," and without taking a second thought they rushed to the door of the blockhouse. They would not listen to the remonstrances of Arbuckle, and threatened his life. When the door was forced open, Cornstalk stood erect before his executioners and fell dead, pierced by seven or eight balls. His son and his other companions were also put to death. The slain chieftain was about fifty years of age, large in figure, commanding in presence, and intellectual in countenance. Good contemporary judges declare that even Patrick Henry or Richard Henry Lee did not surpass Cornstalk in oratory.
By the people of Kerr's Creek the raids into their valley were remembered with horror. Homes had been burned. Families had partially or wholly been blotted out. Women and children had been tomahawked and scalped. Friends and relatives had been carried away, and some of these had never returned. Even at the present day, the scenes of 1759 and 1763 are referred to with more impatience than is usually found along what was once the frontier.
A HISTORY OF ROCKERIIME COUNTY, VIRGINIA
The Indian method of making war was unquestionably cruel. The impulses of the native were those of the primitive man. Like the child, he was sometimes swept by gusts of passion. Deceit has ever been deemed legitimate in warfare The Indian played the game withom restraint and was consistent. The white man assumes to conduct war according to rules suggested by Christian civiliza- tion and laid down in time of peace. But in time of war he does not live up to these rules. It had been little more than a century since Cromwell had carried fire and massacre from one end of Ireland to the other, and with a fury that would have made Cornstalk "sit up and take notice." It was within the memory of living men that the Highlanders of Scotland gave no quarter in their mur- derous clan fights. It seems instinctive for nations of the Baltic stock to hold the colored races in contempt. To the frontiersman of America, the Indian was not only a heathen but an inferior. The comparatively humane treatment to which he thought the French and the British were entitled, because of their color, he held himself justified in withholding from the redskin. The practical effect of this double standard was most unfortunate. It reacted with dire effect upon the white population. It was more often the white man than the Indian who was responsible for the cause of border trouble. The Indian's version is much less familiar to us than our own.
Despite his proclivity to tomahawk the woman as well as the man, the child as well as the adult, the Indian in his war-paint was a gentleman when com- pared with the German soldier in the present war. The latter, who professes to be a civilized man, wars against the very foundations of a civilization that the red man knew next to nothing of. The Indian kept his word He respected bravery. The children he spared and adopted he loved, and not infrequently the adult captive was unwilling to return to his own color. Women were never violated by the Indians of the tribes east of the Mississippi, and when a child was born in captivity to the white female, the mother was looked after as though she were one of their own kind.
The deed of Hall's men at Point Pleasant is a painful incident in Rockbridge history. It bore the same relation to open warfare, whether civilized or savage. that a lynching does to a fair trial in a courtroom. There was nothing to show that Cornstalk had anything to do with the killing of Gilmore, or that the perpe- trator of that deed was a member of his tribe. Had Cornstalk been a British officer, his government would have pronounced his murder an inexcusable assassi- natien, and would have avenged it with the execution of some captive Ameri- can officer. The plea, which is not confined to the book by Kercheval, that it was right for the frontiersman to lay aside the restraints of civilization when dealing with the Inthan, would, if it had been used in the present war, been made a ju tification for matching German atrocity by allied atrocity. Even at Point
81
ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY ESTABLISHED
Pleasant, where we might expect the feeling against the native to be acute, it was long considered that the town lay under a curse. So late as 1807 it had only a log courthouse, twenty-one small dwellings, and a few ague-plagued inhabitants. It now contains a monument to Cornstalk.
Only a few years since, a contributor to one of the Lexington papers spoke rather harshly of Colonel Roosevelt for mentioning the killing of Corn- stalk as "one of the darkest stains on the checkered pages of frontier history." Roosevelt is no apologist for Indian cruelty. The writer was probably unaware of the fact that Patrick Henry, who was then governor of this state, denounced the deed in words that were much more vehement. He regarded it as a blot on the fair name of Virginia, and announced that so far as he was concerned. the perpetrators should be sought out and punished. But as will appear later in this chapter, his efforts were nullified by the friends of the persons responsible.
A sequel to the episode deserves mention. In an attempt to avenge the death of their chieftain, the Shawnees besieged Fort Randolph in the spring of 1778. An Indian woman known among the whites as the Grenadier Squaw, and who was understood to be a sister to Cornstalk, had come to the fort with her horses and cattle. By going out of the stockade and overhearing the natives she was able to tell their plans to Captain McKee, then the commandant. McKee offered a furlough to any two men who would make speed to the Greenbrier and warn the people. Jolin Insminger and John Logan undertook the perilous errand, and started out, but not seeing how they could get past the Indians, they returned the same evening. John Pryor and Philip Hammond then agreed to go. The Grenadier Squaw painted and otherwise disguised the men, so that they would look like Indians. The two messengers reached Donally's fort a few hours in advance of the Shawnces, and though a severe battle quickly fol- lowed, the foe was repulsed and the settlement was saved.
We will let the order-book tell the story of the organization of Rockbridge and relate the local annals during the remaining years of the War for Inde- pendence.
First court at the house of Samuel Wallace, April 7, 1778. Justices present : Archibald Alexander, John Bowyer, John Gilmore, Samuel Lyle, Samuel McDowell. Archibald Alexander qualified as sheriff, Andrew Reid as clerk, John Bowyer as county lieutenant, and John Gilmore as lieutenant-colonel. Sheriff's bond, 1000 pounds. Next day James McDowell qualified as surveyor, and the following constables were appointed: Richard Williams in Captain James Hall's company ; Samuel Wilson in Captain Samuel Wallace's company ; Robert Robertson in Captain John Paxton's company; Robert Faris in Captain John Lyle's company ; William Dryden in Captain David Gray's company; Isaac Anderson in Captain Alexander Stuart's company ; William McCampbell in Captain John Gilmore's old company. John Ward was also made a constable.
Moses Collier was continued as road surveyor from John Thompson's to David Logan's.
82
A HISTORY OF ROCKBRIEF COUNTY, VIRGINIA
New road surveyors appointed Andrew Taylor, from North River to Stuart's store. Capram John Taylor, from Stuart's old store to Colonel Samuel McDowell's; John McClung. from sail McDowell's to the forks of the road at John McClung's, Andrew Moore, from said forks to the county line: James Gilmore, from Buffalo Creck to his own house. Charles Campbell, from Robert Kirkpatrick's to the county line; Hugh Barclay. Sr, from said Gilmere's to the county line: Samuel McCampbell, from head of Kerr's Creek to Andrew McCampbell's; William Mckemy, from Andrew McCampbell's to ford on North River ; Alexander Tedford, from Robert Kirkpatrick's to North River : Alexander Willson. from Captain Charles Campbell's to Hugh Weir's; Samuel Caruthers, from Buffalo Creek to the forks of the road above James Gilmore's.
Captain John Lyle. John Lyle, Henry McClung, and James L.sle, or any three of them. to view a way from Robert Kirkpatrick's, by way of Alexander Stuart's merchant mill. to Stuart's storc.
April 9-Survey of the town site ordered given in at next sitting.
April 18 -Called court to examine Captain James Hall, bound in recognisance for felony, the specific charge being the murder of Cornstalk. Hall did not appear.
April 28 .- Hall appeared, there were no witnesses for the commonwealth, and he was acquitted Hugh Galbraith bound in recogmsance on the same charge.
May 5 .- No witnesses appeared against Galbraith and he was acquitted.
Thomas Vance appointed road surveyor from the great road below William Sprowl's to the other great road near James Thompson's.
Grand jury : David Gray ( foreman), Joseph Moore, Thomas Wilson, William Porter. Alexander Tedford, David McClure, Samuel McCorkle, William Walker. David McCroskey. James Patton. Hugh Weir, Doctor Patrick Vance, Andrew Hall, Samuel Paxton
Citizens appointed to take the lists of tithables : Captain John Gilmore, for his own and John Paxton's companies ; John Trimble, gentleman, for the companies of William Paxton, Samuel Wallace, and James Hall: Samuel Lyle, gentleman, for the companies of John Lyle and David Gray. Alexander Stuart, gentleman, for the Calfpasture and for the companies of Samuel Steele and James Gilmore : Charles Campbell, gentleman, for his own company and Andrew Moore's.
Rates to be observed by keepers of ordinaries :
"Hot "diett" with small beer 3 shillings
Cold "diett" with no beer 2 shillings
Stablage and hay or fodder for twenty-four hours
2 shillings
Good pasturage for twenty four hours 1 shilling 8 pence per horse 1 shilling 3 pence per cow
Lodging with feather bed and clean sheets 1 shilling
Lodging with chaff bed and clean sheets .6 pence Cern per gallon 1 shilling 3 pence
Oats per gallon 1 shilling Samuel Wallace granted ordinary license
May 14 - Mary, wife of John Walker, found guilty of uttering words sustaining the authority of king and parhament Damage penalty of fifteen and one half pounds and costs.
May 19 -Malcolm McCown bound on the same charge as in the case of Captain Hall, and with the same result.
July 7 -Malcolm Mctown acquitted on the charge of raising an alarm on Kerr's ( reck
Mary and Richard, orphans of Wilham Butt ordered bound
John Kirkpatrick granted ordinary licen c.
83
ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY ESTABLISHED
Joseph Moore, William Paxton, and John Gilmore, Jr., qualify as justices, Jolin Trimble as coroner, Harry Innis as attorney, and William Stuart as constable. William Rowan bound as implicated in the murder of Cornstalk, but with the same result as in the other instances.
August 5 .- Samuel Lyle, John Lyle, and Alexander Stuart instructed to let a contract for a courthouse, the specifications being as follows : twenty feet long, sixteen wide, and ten in pitch; well-framed, and weatherboarded with feather-edged plank; roof of lap shingles : house well floored above and below with pine or oak plank one and one-half inches fick ; two plain wooden doors; two windows of twelve lights each, and shutters; iron hinges for both doors and windows; house set two feet above the ground on good oak blocks; at one end of the room a convenient bench for the magistrates to sit on; other benches for jury and lawyers ; a seat and a table for the clerk ; the house to be finished in a workinanlike man- ner by November 1st.
September 1 .- John Houston qualifies as justice.
November 3 .- John Gay qualifies as justice.
Ordinary license granted to William Alexander and Alexander Stuart.
Presented for selling liquor without license : William Alexander, William Montgomery, John Lyle, Mary Greenlee, John McClung, John Paul, James Thompson, Jane Lakin, William Paxton.
November 14 .- Christopher Meath and Hannah, his wife, acquitted of stealing some linen cloth, but thirty lashes on the bare back were ordered for cach of the other parties called up.
February 13, 1779 .- A charge against Catharine Coster of stealing goods worth $110 in specie was not fully proved, but the circumstances appearing against her, she was ordered to be given twenty-five lashes on the bare back at the public whipping post and then dis- charged.
March 2 .- Michael Bowyer, Esq., qualifies as attorney.
March 3 .- William McKee qualifies as justice.
April 6 .- James Buchanan qualifies as justice.
April 7 .- Plan for the new courthouse ordered approved and contract let.
Bastardy charge by M- C- against W- made good.
June 2 .- John Lyle qualifies as justice.
July 6 .- John Greenlee qualifies as justice.
August 3 .- John Bowyer, gentleman, qualifies as escheator.
Smith Williamson, Richard Williamson, and Henry Black, having served in Colonel William Byrd's regiment-in French and Indian war-were each given an order for fifty acres of the public land.
Robert Edmondson and Abraham Gasden qualify as assessors.
October 5 .- John Trimble, Esq., qualifies as assessor.
Isaac Campbell given ordinary license.
Josiah East, who served in Colonel Washington's regiment, given an order for fifty acres of public land; the same to Richard Walker, a private in Captain John MeNeil's Grenadiers. William Alexander, a non-commissioned officer of the Second Virginia under Colonel Byrd, given an order for 200 acres.
James Grigsby and William Brown given ordinary license.
John Bowyer qualifies as sheriff and William McDowell as his deputy.
December 7 .- Levy, 2376 pounds, 8 shillings, 6 pence ($7921.42).
Poll tax, $7.00.
March 9, 1780 .- Tavern rates : hot dinner, $10; hot breakfast, $8; cold diet, $7; lodging,
8-4
A HISTORY OF ROCKBRIIN,E COUNTY, VIRGINIA
with feather bed, $2; lodging, with chaff bed, $1 ; corn or oats, per gallon, 44 cents ; whiskey, per gallon, ยง0. (These sums were in depreciated paper money ).
Samuel Wallace allowed $40 for twenty -eight days spent in making roads.
May 2 .- Samuel Jack presented for saying, "God damn the army to hell."
June 6 .- Isaac Campbell, jailor, ordered to be paid $1179 George Kelly allowed $70 for making a table for the clerk and sundry repairs on the courthouse
June 6 .- Lashes, "well land on," to the number of twenty-five, were ordered to be administered to Elizabeth Berry.
John Templeton and Robert Ewing granted tavern license.
December 5 .- Samuel McDowell, sheriff, protects against the insufficiency of the jail.
Tavern rates : hot dinner, $15; hot breakfact, $12; cold diet, $10; lodging, with feather bed, $6; lodging, with chaff bed, $2; pasturage for twenty-four hours. $4. corn or oats, per gallon, $6.
Joseph Walker qualifies as justice.
Jonathan Whitley bound in his own recognisance on a charge of disloyalty
George Campbell excused from further payment of county levy.
March 7, 1781 .- Tavern rates : hot dinner, $20; hot breakfast, $15; cold dict, $12; rum, per gallon, $200; whiskey, per gallon, $60; all good wines, per gallon, $100.
July 3 .- Archibald Stuart qualifies as attorney, Samuel Wallace as heutenant-colonel. and Wilham Mckee as sheriff. Sheriff's bond, $5000.
Samuel Lyle and John Caruthers appointed commissioners of the specific tax.
October 2 .- James Gilmore given tavern license
November 6,-Captain John Bowyer presented for preventing men from going on militia tour when lawfully called.
Samuel Todd, gentleman, allowed $90.42 in specie and two per cent. of the tax for collecting the specific tax, the rent of storehouses, and finding barrels and packing them with flour.
December 4 .- Roger McCormick, servant to Robert Campbell, presented for speaking disloyal words. No witnesses. Remanded to jail and soon discharged.
January 1, 1782 .- View ordered from Samuel Carter's near the county line to Mc- Dowell's.
April 3 .- Tavern rates. hot dinner, one and one-fourth shilling; hot breakfast, one shilling ; cold dict, one shilling ; corn or oats, per gallon, six pence; lodging, with feather bed, seven and one-half pence ; lodging, with chaff bed, four pence ; wine, per gallon, fifteen shillings; cider, per gallon, one and one-fourth shilling.
May 4 .- Samuel Todd qualifies as justice.
October 1 .- Robert Eastham ordered to pay John Ramsay, for one day as witness for Andrew Ramsay and eighty miles travel, 185 pounds of tobacco.
November 5-James Bailey presented for saying that "the sending of the eighteen months men was the domg of the damn'd Congress "
November 8 .- Tithables, 1145. Poll tax, sixteen pounds of tobacco. Levy 18,320 pounds of tobacco ( $610.70).
Tavern rates : hot dinner, twenty-five cents, hot breakfast, twenty-two cents; cold diet, seventeen cents.
January 7, 1783 -Adam, the mulatto bastard of Catharme E- , ordered to be bound out.
May 6. William Gras, hving near Barclay's mill, presented for "driving his wagon on the Sabbath Day." and Israel C- prevented for having two wives.
November 2 -For stealing fodder, Henry Navils ordered to be given twenty lashes
Y
THE CALFPASTURE
THE PASTURES-EARLY SETTLEMENT-THE PATTON AND LEWIS SURVEY-PIONEER HISTORY-EMIGRATION
Geographically distinct from the rest of Rockbridge, and not properly a part of the Valley of Virginia, is the section of the county west of North Mountain and above the lower Goshen Pass. In the very dawn of settlement it became known as the Calfpasture, or simply as "the Pastures," because it already com- prised a large area of open ground. Its leading watercourses were first known as "the Great River of the Calfpasture" and "the Little River of the Calfpas- ture." It will thus be seen that the valley named the streams and not the streams the valley. In what manner the names Calfpasture, Cowpasture, and Bullpasture came into existence is not clearly known. The Cowpasture was first known as Clover Creek and the Bullpasture as Newfoundland Creek.
Great and Little rivers head in Augusta and Mill Creek in Bath. But the larger and more important share of the Calfpasture basin lies in this county, and with respect to the pioneer families it will be treated as a whole. In the timbered and sparsely peopled valley of Bratton's Run is the resort of Rockbridge Alum Springs. At the mouth of Mill Creek is the town of Goshen. A little above is Panther Gap, utilized by the first railroad to cross the Alleghanies in this latitude. On Great and Little rivers is a considerable arca of low-lying land, somewhat thin, but otherwise well suited to agriculture.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.