USA > Virginia > Rockbridge County > Rockbridge County > A history of Rockbridge County, Virginia > Part 2
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The names borne by the streams and mountains of Rockbridge have in a number of instances undergone no change since the exploration by the white pathfinders. North River was for a while styled the North Branch of the James. Until about 1760, South River was the River Mary, and Kerr's Creek was Tees Creek. The pioneers seem to have given names to all the water-courses, small as well as large, but some of their designations have gone out of usc. In several instances some peculiar happening appears to have suggested the name. Thus, Whistle Creek was at first known as Can't Whistle Creek.
As a place for white occupancy, Rockbridge has natural advantages of a superior character. The climate is temperate and invigorating. Much of the soil is fertile, and the hillsides not brought under tillage are very useful for pas- turage and as a forest reserve. The mineral wealth is very considerable, as is also the water power. And finally, the passes at Balcony Falls and Panther Gap have caused the county to be traversed by important railway lines.
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SCENIC FEATURES ROCKBRIDGE LANDSCAPES-THE NATURAL BRIDGE-GOSHEN PASS-BALCONY FALLS-HOUSE MOUNTAINS-THE JUMP
Appalachian America is renowned for its scenic beauty, and Rockbridge county has been granted an ample share. The Blue Ridge and the AAlleghanies are geologically very old and have been eroded into a very great complexity of outline. Because of this wearing-down process, they do not exhibit the great elevations and the rugged features of young mountain systems, such as the Rockies and the Alps. But on the other hand there is more gracefulness of contour, the effect of which is greatly aided by the loveliness of the AAppalachian forests in the summer season.
The five points of interest we are about to describe do not hy any means exhaust the list of scenic attractions in Rockbridge county. Monotony is never present in the landscape. In touring this region, the visitor travels many miles in the thriving agricultural expanse of the Central Lowlands, dotted with its scores of comfortable farm homes ; he passes through areas of more fertile bottom land, like the "Egypt field" of Kerr's Creek ; he crosses the deep valley of the Buffalo, and follows the narrow, thickly populated creek valleys that lie in the evening shadows thrown by the North Mountain. And when his road crosses a mountain ridge, there is likely to be a delightful view that sweeps far out upon the lower levels.
Foremost among the scenic features is the world-famous Natural Bridge. to which the county owes its name. John Marshall, the chief justice, called this natural curiosity, "one of God's greatest miracles in stone." It was almost as well known to the Americans of three-fourths of a century ago as it is to those of the present day. It was represented by crude woodeuts in their school geographies, and in some other books of wide distribution. In the school reader was a thrilling account of how some foolhardy person tried to carve his name in the rock at a greater height than anyone else had reached. Ever since illustrated books on America have been on the market, the Natural Bridge has ranked with Niagara Falls as one of the most prominent subjects of pictorial art. By common consent it is one of the wonders of the Western World It is, however. no more remarkable than the twin Tower Rocks of Pendleton county, West Virginia ; but these are concealed in an almost unknown mountain hollow. It is less stupendous than the recently discovered natural bridges in Utah ; but these lie in an arid and almost inaccessible region.
7
SCENIC FEATURES
An explanation of the Natural Bridge of Virginia is not at all difficult. The Central Lowland of Rockbridge owes its existence and its peculiarities to the thick stratum of limestone that is not everywhere concealed by the surface soil. This layer, in common with the sandstones and shales of the mountain ridges, has been bent into almost every possible angle by upward thrusts coming from the interior of the earth. These titanic forces seam the rocks with fines of cleavage, both lateral and vertical. Into these narrow openings water forces its way, and when in the form of ice it acts as a lever to pry the seams farther apart. When charged with acids drawn from the air and from vegetable matter, water is a powerful solvent of limestone. The narrow crevice becomes broad; the shallow parting becomes deep. The rock deposit becomes honey- combed with water-channels, small and large. The water from the clouds ceases to flow on the surface, and finds its way into underground passageways. Ex- tensive caverns are thus eaten into the limestone, and as these spread themselves laterally, the roof becomes weak, and here and there it falls. On the surface a limited area of subsidence is indicated by a sinkhole. When the underground stream has grown large and powerful, the roof gives way entirely for long dis- tances. The creek now becomes visible, though flowing in a deep gorge. But atmospheric agencies begin at once to lessen the steepness of the walls of the canyon.
It is to the working of the process just described that the Natural Bridge owes its existence. Cedar Creek is a mountain stream rising in the Short Hills. After a quite direct course of hardly more than six miles it falls into the James at Gilmore Station. At some remote day it behaved like certain of the present watercourses in Monroe county, West Virginia. A short distance below its source it was drawn into a sinkhole and reappeared near the bank of the river. Little by little the roof of the subterranean channel collapsed. Nothing is now left but the arch where the support was thickest and strongest. This fragment is the Natural Bridge. It is significant that for a short distance, above and below, there is a precipitous wall on either side of the little stream. But although the slopes soon become much less abrupt, there is an extent of perhaps three miles within which it would be very difficult to build a road across the valley. The massive arch comes to the rescue by providing a perfectly casy passage, and a county road has used it since a very early day.
To view the bridge from below the visitor starts from the Natural Bridge Hotel and follows a path leading down a ravine to the brink of the creek. Look- ing upward, a sheet of limestone, sixty to 150 feet broad and with a span of ninety feet, is seen to connect the opposing cliffs. It is 215 feet to the arch, which is forty-eight feet thick. Almost overhanging the upper edge of the arch are the tops of trees and shrubs. Because of these the stranger traveling
8
A HISTORY OF ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA
the county road is hardly aware when he is upon the bridge. The surface of the rock-wall under the arch scarcely permits any foothold for vegetation. The stone presents some diversity of color, the yellowish and reddish tims being due to iron oxide, better known as iron rust. When the trees are in full leaf, the gorge is shaded and cool, and the ruggedness of the canyon is greatly soft- ened But at any season the visitor can hardly fail to be impressed with the grandeur of the spectacle.
The Rockbridge pioneers must have known of the bridge from an early day. but we have no evidence that it made much impression on their matter-of-fact minds. The earliest published mention is by the English traveler, Burnaby, who wrote in 1759. It was twenty years later that lightning struck the arch and threw down a large mass of rock. The original patentee of the bridge, in- cluding some land immediately around, was not an actual settler, but a non- resident living in Albemarle. This was Thomas Jefferson, and the date of his patent is July 5, 1774. During the Revolution the bridge was twice visited by French scientists. The picture made from their measurements and diagrams was widely copied and was about the only one known prior to the invention of photography.
After Jefferson became President, he surveyed and mapped his patent with his own hands. The next year he built a two-roomed log cabin, and left it in charge of a negro named Patrick Henry. One of the rooms was to be kept open for the entertainment of visitors. He also left a large book in which visitors might record their "sentiments." This was written full, but was ac- cidentally destroyed in 1845. The property did not pass out of the Jefferson estate until 1833. It is to be regretted that the author of the Declaration of Inde- pendence did not convey this ground to the State, or to the National government. so that it might at all times be freely open to the public, as in the case of the Yosemite Valley of California.
It was in 1802 that Jefferson built the cabin above mentioned. Ever since that time the bridge has been much visited. Marshall. Monroe. Clay. Van Buren. Jackson, Benton, and Houston were among the earlier of the American notabilities who have viewed this "bridge not made with hands."
When he was a young man, the agile and well-muscled Washington climbed to a niche some twenty feet above the waters and carved his name. This exploit was very much exceeded by Thomas Piper, a foolhardy student. He placed his name Higher than anyone else had done, and finding he could not return he ac- compli bed the almost incredible feat of climbing to the top. A very narrow . Tedge, perhaps a hundred feet above the creek level, is pointed out as the place another per on reached, but he had to be rescued by means of a rope let down from the top of the cliff. Several other individuals have been less fortunate.
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SCENIC FEATURES
and a few fatalities are on record. In 1843 a stranger leaped from the bridge. If he intended to commit suicide, he accomplished his purpose.
Goshen Pass was formerly known as Dunlap's Gap and then as Strickler's Pass. It extends from near the mouth of the Little Calfpasture to Wilson's Springs, a distance of five miles. Just below the mouth of the tributary men- tioned, North River begins its sinuous passage of the North Mountain. The heights, which sometimes tower a thousand feet above the swirling waters, are not generally so steep as to be destitute of a growth of wood, and in summer the forest verdure adds much to the grace and beauty of the scene. Yet here and there is a vertical ledge exhibiting the flexures worked into the stratum by the up- ward pressure of the earth's crust in remote geologic periods. The river is constantly flowing over or among masses of rock and is a continuous cascade. A new vista opens with every bend in the road, and the stranger who goes from one end of the pass to the other and then retraces his steps finds the return nearly as replete with interest as the advance. There is not a house and not an acre of tilled land within the pass, and the view is well-nigh as primeval as it was in the day of the Indian. And yet the road was once a busy thoroughfare, a line of stages running between Lexington and Goshen.
When Matthew F. Maury was a resident of Lexington, he liked to visit this watergap in early summer. His admiration for it was so great that one of his final requests was that his remains should be taken to their permanent resting place by way of Goshen Pass, and when the laurel should be in bloom. This direction was faithfully carried out. In going through the pass the procession halted a while at the foot of a low cliff and below a sharp point of rock pro- jecting over the road. Soon afterward, an anchor, taken from the pontoon bridge left at East Lexington by General Hunter ; was suspended from the pro- jection. With a strange want of consideration, this suitable memento was at length taken down by some person and carried away. It was the abundance of rhododendron along the river border that caused a very narrow belt of low ground to be named Poison Bottom. Fresh herbage is so eagerly devoured by domestic animals in early spring that they will eat laurel leaves when nothing else is to be had and sickness is the result.
Another interesting watergap is the pass at Balcony Falls. This is one of the two places in Virginia where the Blue Ridge opens to its base, so as to permit the passage of a river. Looking from the town of Glasgow, a stranger might not suspect the existence of the gap. He will imagine that an exceedingly nar- row valley is making a zigzag approach to the west from the axis of the Blue Ridge. As in the case of Goshen Pass, there is not a house in the four miles of the passage. The mountain slopes are unbroken by clearings, and except for the railway and the county road, the scenery is that of the virgin wilderness. The
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HISTORY OF ROCKBRII.E COUNTY, VIRGINIA
James falls about 200 feet in going through the defile, and in the days of batteau navigation it was a danger point.
To the person standing on College Hill at Lexington, the view toward the west is dominated by an imposing height of unusual form. This is Little House Mountain, and it has carried this name ever since the day of the white explorer. The name was evidently suggested by the shape of the elevation. The summit. half a mile long, is almost horizontal. At each end there is an abrupt falling away, the mountain terminating in either direction in a concave slope of heavy grade. The eastward and westward slopes are likewise steep, and all the way around the mountain is an unbroken forest rising from a stony surface. When the observer changes his point of observation to Fancy Hill or to the divide be- tween Kerr's Creek and North River, he discovers the existence of Big House Mountain, which from Lexington is almost completely eclipsed by its companion. The two mountains lie side by side, and are parallel to North Mountain. The distance from summit to summit is less than a mile, and the valley between is very deep. Big House Mountain is camel-backed and is the higher of the two, although the difference in altitude is not conspicuous. Since the House monn- tains rise like islands from the floor of the Valley of Virginia, their isolation. their lofty summits, and their exceptional form render them a striking feature in a Rockbridge landscape. They may be seen to good advantage from the Matthews mansion near Glasgow, fifteen miles away as the crow flies, and on a clear day they are in plain view from Flag Rock on Warm Springs Mountain, almost twenty miles distant. Conversely, a very large portion of Rockbridge may be viewed from the summit of Little House Mountain. The view from its companion is less satisfactory because of its less favorable position. From Lexington the twin heights are so conspicuous and so imposing that the residents regard them with a feeling akin to affection.
Certain legends are associated with the House Mountains. One of these relates to a man named Shepherd, who lived a while at the high-lying rock which ever since has borne his name. He was often noticed poring over a small book carried in a leather pouch At intervals not frequent he came down to Col- lier's Creek and paid for provisions in bright new coins. He was at first su pected of being a horse-thief. but he turned out to be a counterfeiter of silver quarters Shepherd found it expedient to go away, but the credulons continued to ser lights on Shepherd Rock which would vanish when approached. Some searching has here been done for pots of silver.
Jump Mountain has a very precipitous face toward the cast It is so named because of a legend of a battle between Indians at the mouth of Walker's Creek The story relates that an Indian woman watched the conflict from the mountain, and when she saw her husband fall she threw herself over the precipice.
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SCENIC FEATURES
But she must have possessed telescopic eyes to recognize her mate at a distance of at least two miles. As for the alleged battle, it probably rests on no more sub- stantial basis than the former existence of the Walker's Creek mound, an ac- count of which is given in Chapter VIII.
Of Crystal Spring in Arnold's Valley, there is the following beautiful legend. An Indian warrior loved a maid of a hostile tribe, and gave her a gem which his people had brought from beyond the Father of Waters. It was trans- parent, and she wore it in her necklace of beads. The trysting-place was a spring. A jealous lover of her own tribe found her here and snatched away the jewel. She caught his hand, recovered the crystal, and threw it behind her into the spring, where it dissolved, and gave to the water its purity and its sparkle.
IJI
THE ULSTERMAN AND THE PATHFINDERS
STRATHCLYDE AND ULSTER-SCOTLAND IN 1600-THE LISTERMIN-THEIR RELATIONS WITH THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT-THE EMI.RATION TO AMERICA-AMERICA AND VIRGINIA
IN 1716-PENNSYLVANIA AND THE IMMIGRANTS-THE AMERICAN HIGHLANDER-SPOTTSWOOD-SALLING
In the story of the world's progress, the American Republic is a colonial ex- tension of Europe. As a white man's country, its history has therefore a European background. This background must be studied if the development of our country is to be properly understood.
For the history of the upper Valley of Virginia the European background is to be sought in the southwest of Scotland and the north of Ireland; in Strathclyde and in Ulster, respectively. In latitude, and in surface, soil, and climate, the two regions are much alike. In each there are mountains, usually dleforested and sometimes gaunt and gloomy, which are similar in height to the elevations rising above the floor of the Valley of Virginia. In cach there are fine swift streams, comparable in volume to the North River at Lexington, or to its tributary, the Buffalo. In each the surface alternates from mountain 10 valley, and from broken ridges to small tracts comparatively level. In each the soil is often stony, sometimes excessively so, and in general is not highly fertile or easily tilled. The mean annual temperature is fifty degrees, as against fifty-four at Lexington. The winter temperature is noticeably milder than that of Rockbridge, but the summer is very much cooler, being scarcely so warm as a Rockbridge May. The climate, cool, cloudy, and humid, is suited to grass, oats, and root crops, and either region is better adapted to grazing than to tillage. A domestic rather than an outdoor life is indicated, while the stony and often spongy soil compels habits of industry and thrift. And since the aspect of nature is stern rather than smiling, and the sky more often cloudy than fair, it need not surprise us that these lands have nurtured a sober, thought- ful, matter-of-fact, unemotional race, with a higher appreciation of the obviously useful than of the merely beautiful.
The above description of the countries on the two sides of the North Chan- nel suggests a certain measure of resemblance to the Shenandoah Valley and the Appalachian uplands The rock formations are of the same geologic periods and the soils are similar in texture. The degree of resemblance goes far to ex- plain why the immigrant from Ulster has so successfully adapted himself to Appalachian America. The sky proved to be warmer and sunnier, yet the new
13
THE ULSTERMAN AND THE PATHFINDERS
home was not strikingly dissimilar, as was found to be the case with the Missis- sippi Basin and the plains and mountains beyond.
The southwest of Scotland was once Strathclyde, a petty kingdom about the size of Connecticut. It was at length overrun by the neighboring kingdom of Northumbria, and the native Celtic speech gave place to the Saxon. This cir- cumstance does not imply that the old population was displaced. The pre- valent idea that the people of Scotland and England are predominantly Ger- manic is incorrect, and was disproved before the late war had burst upon the world. Consequently the experts who have investigated the matter did not have this tragedy to bias their conclusions. The population of the British Isles is mainly of the elements that held possession in the days of Cæsar. The invading bands of Anglen, Saxons, and Jutes overran the lowlands on the in- stalment plan, and full success did not come for many years. By assimilating with the natives they gave the country a new language and new institutions. But whether Highlanders or Lowlanders, the Scottish people are essentially one with respect to origin. The Lowlands gave up the old speech, while the Highlands retained it. And it is worthy of notice that the dialect of English spoken in the Lowlands differs little from the everyday speech of the north of England.
When Jamestown and Plymouth were being founded, Scotland had about one-sixth of its present population, perhaps 200,000 of the number being in Strathclyde. But this corner of Scotland has furnished a disproportionate share of the great names that occur in Scottish history. Its people of this period were tall, lean, hardy, and sinewy. They were ignorant of high living and had good nerves and digestion. They were combative, and not casy to get along with to those who did not fall in with their ways. They were strong- willed and strongly individualistic, and were therefore fierce sticklers for per- sonal liberty. By the same token they were more democratic in thought than the English and were less inclined to commercial pursuits. To challenge this Scotsman's views of right and wrong roused him to speedy action. He was either quite bad or quite good. In the former respect, he fought, swore, was given to gaming and racing, and drank plentifully from his whiskey jug. In the lat- ter respect, his morality had a solid groundwork, being based on general educa- tion and on regular attendance at his house of worship. Outwardly he was un- emotional and not given to displays of affection. Yet there was more sun- shine in his life than is commonly believed.
It had been only a few years since John Knox had caused the Protestant Reformation to triumph in Scotland. Nowhere in Europe was this movement effected more peacefully. In England the Reformation was like an inverted pyramid, in that it began with the sovereign and the court party. In Scotland
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A HISTORY OF ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA
it began with the common people, and was in reality a return to the form of Christianity first preached in the land. It has been said, and perhaps without much exaggeration, that Scotland emerged from barbarism within the span of a single generation of human life. Knox insisted on a school in every parish. And as thrift has been a watchword of Protestantism from the first, the Scotch fell into the habit of mending their clothes till they would no longer hold to- gether, and of saving every nubbin and potato. From a coarse, rough, unruly horde of semi-barbarians, scornful of steady labor, the Scotch became a re- ligious, industrious, energetic people, mindful of the main chance, and able to hold their own against all comers. Yet the change was slow to make them recognize that a cottage looks better for having a flowering vine climbing up the gable, or that a house of worship should have a higher degree of architectural grace than the "little red schoolhouse" that is not as yet forgotten in America.
Scotland united with England on her own terms. Ireland, on the contrary. was subdued, and to the impoverishment by absentee landlords was added the oppression of harsh laws with respect to religion and industry. Under James the First, whose reign began in 1603, an unsuccessful rising of the Irish was punished by the confiscation of more than 3,000,000 acres of Ulster soil. This area had become partially depopulated, and the English king made successful efforts to re-people it with settlers from the other side of the Irish Sea. Al- ready some lawless Highlanders had flocked in, but they were a most undesirable dement, and preference was now given to the Lowlanders.
When the descendants of these colonists began coming to America, they were called Irish for the very practical reason that they came from Ireland. Irishmen of the original stock were scarce in the United States before the enor- mous immigration caused by the potato famine of 1845. The term Scotch- Irish came into use to distinguish the earlier inflow from the later. This term is firmly fixed in popular usage, and yet it is rather misleading. It implies that the people thus styled are the descendants of Scotchmen who settled in Ireland. This is true only in part. The Scotch of Strathclyde were the most numerous dement and they gave their impress to the entire mass. But there were nearly as many settlers from the north of England, and there were a few from Wales. There were also not a few Huguenot refugees from France. It was the tal- ented French Protestants, coming at the instance of William of Orange, who introduced the linen industry into Ulster and made it the basis of its manufactur- ing prosperity. And finally, some of the native Irish blended with the immigrant population. It is customary to deny any such fusion, and so far as religion is concerned, there was none. The newcomers were Presbyterians, while the natives were Catholics. In Ulster these two elements have never ceased to dislike one another. Yet the rather frequent occurrence of native Irish names among
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