USA > Virginia > Albemarle County > Albemarle County > Albemarle County in Virginia; giving some account of what it was by nature, of what it was made by man, and of some of the men who made it > Part 5
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at a house near the Ridge to procure the means of refreshing their weary frames after their hard ride. The mother of the household, while superintending a supply for their wants, learned that they were members of the Legislature, and were escaping from the dreaded Tarleton. She eyed them with evident contempt, and at length declared her firm belief, that if Patrick Henry had been there, he never would have quailed before the foe. "Why, madam," said one of his friends, laughing, "there is the man himself!" The announcement received no credit, till the silence of the dis- tinguished fugitive brought about a reluctant assent. The looks of the woman betrayed her utter amazement, and she no doubt thought that things were indeed fast rushing to ruin, when the idol of her trust had so wofully failed.
It seems there were owners of land in Albemarle, whose sympathies ran on the British side during the Revolution. Under the law confiscating the property of such persons to the State, six inquisitions were held in the year 1779 before Peter Marks, the public escheator. One of these referred to eight hundred acres of John Lidderdale on Buck Mountain Creek, and was held on the premises; another to Lot Twenty- Two in Charlottesville, on which the former Presbyterian Church stands, and which belonged to Robert Bain; another to seven and a half acres ad joining Charlottesville on the east, belonging to Donald Scott & Co., the property afterwards owned by Judge Dabney Carr, and later the home of Ira Garrett; both of these inquisitions were held in Charlottes - ville. Another referred to more than three thousand acres on Ivy Creek, and fifty -two negroes, the property of Francis Jerdone, including the Farmington estate, and was held at the house of his steward, James Garland, Jr .; another to two hundred acres on the south fork of Hardware, and the last to four hundred and fifty acres on James River, both tracts belonging to Henderson, McCaul & Co., the inquisition on the former being held on the premises, and that on the latter at the house of Charles Irving. In all these cases the juries rendered a verdict of condemnation. Robert Bain however appears to have made his peace with the State, as in 1781 the
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Legislature by a special act restored his estate, or made com- pensation for whatever part had been sold, on condition of his taking the oath of allegiance. Francis Jerdone too must in some way have made proper amends in the public eye, as he himself sold the same property to George Divers in 1785. It may be interesting to mention the names of the jury which sat in Charlottesville : James Kerr, foreman, James Marks, Thomas Garth, Bennett Henderson, Charles Lilburn Lewis, Benjamin Dod Wheeler, Richard Woods, Charles Statham, John Key, Benajah Gentry, Isham Lewis, William Grayson and Jacob Oglesby. In this connection it may be stated, that in August 1785 a deed from Thomas Meriwether, heir-at-law of Captain David Meriwether, to Chiles Terrell was ordered to be recorded, and a note was entered at the same time, that the same deed had been presented at November Court 1777, but its record had been refused, because of the suspicion that Mr. Terrell had not taken the oath of allegiance. In all ages, such differences of opinion have occurred in the trying ordeals of warm political strife.
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CHAPTER III.
A weather-beaten stone lies near the centre of Maplewood Cemetery in Charlottesville, inscribed with the name of Letitia Shelby, and the statement that she departed this life on September 7th, 1777. This Cemetery was not laid out until 1831. Previous to that time families of the town were generally in the habit of interring their dead in their own lots. A public graveyard however is said to have existed on the road to Cochran's Mill, about where the residence of . Drury Wood now stands, and from this place this stone was removed after Maplewood was established. It is declared by descendants of the Shelby family, that this Letitia was the wife of General Evan Shelby, and mother of General Isaac Shelby, the first Governor of Kentucky. A curious inquiry arises how she came to be in Charlottesville, or in Albe- marle County, at the time of her death.
Evan Shelby was an immigrant from Wales, and at first settled in Maryland, near Hagerstown. There his sou Isaac was born in 1750. In the year 1771 father and son were both in southwestern Virginia, in the neighborhood of Bristol; and there the home of Evan Shelby continued to be during his life. It is natural to suppose that his wife, whose maiden name was Letitia Cox, accompanied them to their new home in the West. Whether she was visiting friends in Albemarle, or was passing through on a journey, at the period of her last sickness, it is perhaps impossible now to ascertain. But the plain, well preserved inscription on her tombstone leaves no doubt that this vicinity was the place of her death. A tradition in the Floyd family states, that about 1680 a Nathaniel Davis, who was also a native of Wales, married a child of Nicketti, a daughter of the Indian Chief, Opechan - canough, the brother of Powhatan. Robert Davis was a son of these parents, and an ancestor of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy; and a granddaughter of Robert Davis
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was the wife of Evan Shelby. Probability is lent to this account by the fact, that Robert Davis had a son named Samuel, who would thus be the uncle of Letitia Shelby ; and Samuel Davis was the owner of several tracts of land in Albemarle, on the north fork of Rockfish, on Green Creek, and on both sides of Moore's Creek, adjoining the Carter lands. At the time of her death, Mrs. Shelby may have been visiting the family of this man.
General George Rogers Clark, the famous conqueror of the North West Territory, first saw the light in Albemarle. His grandfather, Jonathan Clark, of King and Queen County, joined with Hickman, Graves and Smith, as already men - tioned, in patenting more than three thousand acres of land on the north side of the Rivanna, opposite the Free Bridge. . In the division of this land, the upper portion fell to Clark; and in a house situated a short distance from the present residence of Captain C. M. McMurdo, John Clark, the son of Jonathan, lived, and George Rogers was born. The wife of John Clark, and mother of George, was Ann Rogers, a sister of Giles, George and Byrd Rogers, all of whom pos- sessed land in Albemarle, in the Buck Mountain region. The birth of George Rogers Clark occurred in 1752, and when he was about five years of age his father removed to Caroline, where a kinsman had devised to him a handsome estate. It is not known that in his active and eventful life, the General was ever again in the county of his birth but once. In the fall of 1777 he travelled from Kentucky to Richmond, to procure means for setting on foot the expedi- tion to Illinois, which he had already conceived, and which he carried out the next year. His route lay through Cum - berland Gap, and the Holston country. He came down the Valley, and crossed the Blue Ridge at Rockfish Gap, or one of the gaps just above. He states in his diary that he spent the night at a Mr. Black's, who was beyond question James Black, a son of the old Presbyterian minister, who kept a tavern on the place afterwards owned by Alexander Garrett, and his son, Dr. Bolling Garrett. On his way to Richmond next day he passed through Charlottesville, where he tarried
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long enough to purchase a pair of shoes. During this visit to Richmond he became acquainted with Mr. Jefferson, and deeply impressed him with his vigorous and heroic qualities. In a letter Jefferson wrote to Judge Innes, of Kentucky, in 1791, he says,
"Will it not be possible for you to bring General Clark forward? I know the greatness of his mind, and am the more mortified at the cause which obscures it. Had not this unhappily taken place, there was nothing he might not have hoped; could it be surmounted, bis lost ground might yet be recovered. No man alive rated him higher than I did, and would again, were he to become again what I knew him. We are made to hope he is engaged in writing the account of his expedition north of the Ohio. They will be valuable morsels of history, and will justify to the world those who have told them how great he was."
William Clark, who was associated with Meriwether Lewis in his exploring tour across the Rocky Mountains, was a brother of George, but he was born in Caroline in 1770.
Albemarle was the place of residence of Doctor Thomas Walker, one of the most remarkable men of his day. With his expeditions to southwest Virginia were connected some inter- esting and romantic facts of personal history. In the course of these travels he made the acquaintance of William Inglis, who married a Draper, planted the first white settlement west of the Alleghanies at Draper's Meadows, near the present site of Blacksburg, and subsequently spent his remaining days at Inglis's Ferry on New River. Inglis and his family suffered the common penalty of those who led the way in t. peopling the wilderness. His wife and children were cap- tured by the Indians, his wife marvellously escaped the same year, but his son Thomas was retained among them for a period of thirteen years. Being in the plastic season of childhood, the latter became so thoroughly inured to the 1 habits of Indian life, that it was difficult to break their power ; in fact, it never was wholly broken. However, when his father penetrated the remote forests of Ohio to effect his ransom, he seemed to feel the promptings of natural affection, and
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returned with him to the old home. After being taught his native language, and the rudiments of learning, he was sent to Castle Hill, and placed under Doctor Walkers's care. Here he continued for three or four years, and made consid - erable progress in the elementary branches of education. But here he was also brought under a spell, which softened him far more than all the endearments of parental love, and all the mollifying influence of letters. He fell in love with a young woman of the neighborhood named Eleanor Grills. A John Grills in 1745 and subsequent years, became the owner by patent and purchase of more than two thousand acres of land in the county, part of it lying on Moore's Creek, where he built a mill, and where one has continued ever since, on the present site of Hartman's Mill. He was also the original purchaser of Lot Eighteen in the new county seat, the western half of the square on which Lipscomb's stable stands. Although he seems to have sold his possessions in Albemarle about the time Thomas Inglis came to the county, it is likely he continued to reside here or in Louisa, and that Eleanor was his daughter. At all events young Inglis, when he returned to his father's house in 1772, was bound to her by a promise of marriage. He was a Lieuten - ant in Colonel Christian's regiment in the battle of Point Pleasant in 1774; and the next year, crowned with the lau- rels of successful warfare, he returned to Albemarle, and secured the hand of his bride. He first settled on Wolf Creek of New River; but unable to repress the roving disposition contracted during his sojourn among the Indians, he soon removed to Burke's Garden, where in an incursion of the savages he nearly lost his wife, then to Knoxville, and finally to Natchez in Mississippi, where at length he closed his wanderings with the close of his life.
Another incident of personal history may be noted, illustrat- ing the progress of the early settlements, and the fortunes of individuals. As previously stated, a Dennis Doyle patented in 1741 eight hundred acres of land on the north fork of Moorman's River, and from him the stream acquired its name. In 1749 Doyle conveyed to Williain Battersby, the lawyer, a
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tract of four hundred acres on Biscuit Run, another of four hundred in North Garden, and another of eight hundred on Totier Creek. He appears to have been a man of means, and to have been still living in the county in 1760; as in that year was born within its limits John Doyle, who was in all probability a son of Dennis. At the age of eighteen, John accompanied the march of General George Rogers Clark into the North West Territory. Returning to Albemarle, he joined the army, and served to the close of the Revolu - tionary War. The year after the surrender at Yorktown, he was a private in Colonel Crawford's disastrous expedition against the Ohio Indians, but fortunately got back to the settlements in safety. In 1786 he went to Kentucky near Maysville, was a friend of Simon Kenton, and for three years occupied the post of captain of scouts on the Ohio River. He was in service with General Harmar in 1790, and under Scott with General Wayne in 1794. He then settled in what is now Lewis County, Kentucky, where he discharged the duties of a magistrate for more than twenty years. But his active and adventurous life was not yet ended. In 1813 he enlisted again under General Shelby, and took part in the battle of the Thames. He survived until May 1847, having nearly com- pleted his eighty-seventh year, and blest with the vigorous exercise of his powers to the end. In all his long life he was seldom sick, and in all his exposure to peril he was never wounded.
The depreciation in the paper money of the country at the close of the Revolution, was apparent in the enormous prices paid for land. One hundred acres in the southern part of the county, not far from Heard's Mountain, sold for five thousand pounds, fifty acres on Buck Mountain Creek for four thou- sand, and a hundred and eighty-eight acres on Moorman's River for six thousand. Samuel Dedman sold to James Lewis ten acres on the Ragged Mountains beyond the Uni- versity, for ten thousand pounds, while Samuel Muse sold to Andrew Monroe, a brother of the President, two hundred and seven acres at the head of Mechum's River for twenty thou- sand, the same tract which two years before, also in war times,
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brought eight hundred and thirty, and which sixteen years before, with two hundred acres in addition, brought only thirty-five. At the same time John Curd sold to John Coles two hundred acres for fifty pounds "hard money," and Matthew Mills, of Guilford County, North Carolina, sold to William Leigh five hundred and seventy-five acres, not far east of the Miller School, for two hundred pounds sterling. All these sales took place the latter part of 1781. The story is told by tradition, that George Divers rode from Philadel - phia to Albemarle, and broke down five horses in the ride, to purchase Farmington with paper money, and that the pur- chase had scarcely been consummated when the money became worthless ; but as this transfer did not occur till 1785, the story may admit of some doubt.
A large part of the business of the County Court immedi - ately after the Revolution consisted in certifying to bills for supplies furnished the army and the Barracks prisoners, to the value of articles taken for public use, and to pensions for soldiers disabled in the service. The location of the prison camp in the county proved a great pecuniary benefit to the inhabitants. From a long distance in the surrounding coun- try they carried thither, and to the different places where the officers lodged, quantities of corn, flour, meal, beef, pork and wood. In the prostration of business, and the consequent hard times occasioned by a state of hostilities, the demand for these commodities afforded a convenient market, of which most other parts of the country were destitute. It is said that Colonel William Cabell mainly paid for the fine Oak Hill estate in Nelson with the various kinds of produce fur- nished the Barracks, the land having been confiscated because the former owners were alien enemies. Colonel John Coles was allowed three hundred pounds for horses taken by Baron Steuben. Hastings Marks received remuneration for horses and wagons employed in the service. Joseph Morton was allowed five pounds, six shillings, and eight pence for his gun, "taken for the militia in 1781," and Edmund Woody was recompensed for his, "taken during the late invasion." Captain John Martin was awarded an allowance for conduct-
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ing the Convention troops, that is, the Barracks prisoners, to Frederick, Maryland. The detachments of the army men- tioned as having been supplied in this vicinity, were Baron Steuben's Command, Colonel Armand's Legion, and Captain Walker's Company. John Burton and Richard Marshall were assigned pensions at the rate of forty dollars a year. For the purpose of establishing proper lines of inheritance, it was certified that Charles Goolsby, corporal, and James and John Goolsby, privates, died in the service, Charles and James having been taken prisoners at Germantown, and that William Hardin was killed at Ninety Six, and John Gillaspy, of the Ninth Virginia, at Germantown.
The statute guaranteeing religious freedom having been enacted, the law which required all marriages to be solemn - ized by ministers of the established Church was abolished, and the courts were authorized to license ministers of all denominations to perform that ceremony. In accordance with this provision, William Irvin, Presbyterian, was licensed to celebrate the rite in 1784, and Matthew Maury, Episco - palian, and William Woods, Benjamin Burgher and Martin Dawson, Baptists, the next year. The first Methodist min- ister mentioned as receiving such a license, was Athanasius Thomas, who lived near the present site of Crozet. This occurred in 1793, and was followed in 1797 by the licensing of William Calhoun, Presbyterian, and John Gibson, Metho- dist. John Shepherd, Methodist, was licensed in 1798.
The migratory spirit which characterized the early settlers, was rapidly developed at this period. Removals to other parts of the country had begun some years before the Revo - lution. The direction taken at first was towards the South. A numerous body of emigrants from Albemarle settled in North Carolina. After the war many emigrated to Georgia, but a far greater number hastened to fix their abodes on the fertile lands of the West, especially the blue grass region of Kentucky. For a time the practice was prevalent on the part of those expecting to change their domicile, of applying to the County Court for a formal recommendation of character, and certificates were given, declaring them to be honest men
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and good citizens. Among those who were thus commended to the people of Georgia, were James Marks, one of the magistrates, Abraham Eades, William Sandridge, Christo- pher Clark, Bennett Henderson, and William and Samuel Sorrow. James Marks was not long after followed by his brother, Colonel John Marks, who removed during his in- cumbency in the office of Sheriff. An act of the Legislature was passed in November 1788, which recited that no sale of lands in Albemarle County delinquent for taxes for the years 1786 and 1787, was legally possible, because of John Marks, Sheriff of said county, removing some time within those years to Georgia, and which therefore authorized William Clark, one of his deputies, to make such sales.
The increasing business of the colonies, the desire to develop their resources, and perhaps the threatening aspect of their relations with the mother country, led to early efforts to manufacture iron in this county. Three men from Balti- more, Nathaniel Giles, John Lee Webster, and John Wilkin- son, bought land for this purpose in the latter part of 1768. Giles and Webster disappear after the first purchase. The next year Wilkinson was joined by John Old, from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and they made further purchases along the Hardware in the vicinity of North Garden and the Cove. In 1771 the Albemarle Furnace Company was formed, with a capital of two thousand pounds, the following gentlemen being stockholders, James Buchanan to the amount of three hundred pounds, Dr. William Cabell of two hundred, Colonel William Cabell of two hundred, Joseph Cabell of one hundred, Edward Carter of three hundred, Allen Howard of two hundred, Thomas Jefferson of one hun- dred, Nicholas Lewis of one hundred, John Scott of one hundred, John Walker of one hundred, and Dr. Thomas Walker of three hundred. Larger areas of mineral land were purchased on the lower Hardware, and among the Ragged Mountains. As far as can be ascertained, three furnaces were built, one about a mile below Carter's Bridge, giving to a colonial church erected near by the name of the Forge Church, another where the old Lynchburg Road crosses the
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north fork of Hardware, long known as Old's Forge, and the third on the south fork of Hardware below the Falls, and south of Garland's Store. The last still remains in a toler- able state of preservation, though covered with a thick growth of bushes and small trees. Local traditions yet linger, that ore was excavated near North Garden and the Cove during the Revolutionary War. Mr. Jefferson states in his Notes, that among the iron mines worked in Virginia at the time of their composition, was "Old's, on the north side of James River in Albemarle." The enterprise however ap- pears not to have been successful. Colonel Old soon became a farmer, instead of an iron-master. A suit instituted in the County Court under the style of Cabell v. Wilkinson to wind up the affairs of the Company, was determined in 1796, and Andrew Hart and Samuel Dyer as Commissioners made sale of all the lands, Nicholas Cabell becoming the purchaser. Of all the mines opened by Wilkinson and Old, the only one now remaining is that known as the Betsy Martin Mine in Cook's Mountain, near North Garden; and though its ore seems rich and plentiful, it has not been worked for a number of years, because of some foreign ingredient which impairs its utility.
In 1789, and the years succeeding, an eager ambition was manifested to build up towns in the county. At the first mentioned date an act of the Legislature was passed, vesting one hundred acres of the land of Bennett Henderson at a place on the Rivanna called the Shallows, in Wilson C. Nicholas, Francis Walker, Edward Carter, Charles L. Lewis, William Clark, Howell Lewis and Edward Moore, to be laid out as a town, and sold in half acre lots, and to be called Milton. More than twenty lots were sold in the next ten years. The first disposed of was bought by. Christian Wertenbaker, and among others who became lot holders were Joel Shiflett, Edward Butler, Richard Price, James and John Key, William Clark, Jacob Oglesby, George Bruce and Joseph J. Monroe. The village was soon in a thriving state, rapidly growing, and transacting a prosperous business. Up to the war of 1812 it was the chief commercial centre of the county. Except in
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time of freshets, it was the head of navigation on the Rivanna, and became the shipping port of perhaps three- fourths of the county, and of a large section of the Valley. Some who have but recently been gathered to their fathers, could remember the long lines of wagons that formerly passed over Swift Run and Brown's Gaps, and crossed the South West Mountain at Hammock's (Thurman's) Gap, bringing their loads of grain, flour and tobacco to the warehouses of the newly erected town. The brook on the north side of the river, which at first bore the romantic name of Mountain Falls Creek, became at this time Camping Branch, from the multi- tude of wagoners who camped with their teams along its banks. Milton was the seat of a public Tobacco Warehouse, called Henderson's, long after the Henderson family had removed to Kentucky, and regularly equipped with a corps of inspectors; for many years William D. Fitch, Jacob Oglesby, John Fagg and Richard Gambell discharged the functions pertaining to that office. A large merchant mill was also erected by the Hendersons. A number of firms conducted the trade of the place, and in some cases laid the foundation of large fortunes ; among these were Fleming and McClanahan, Henderson and Conard, Peyton and Price, Divers, Rives & Co., Brown, Rives & Co., Martin Dawson, William and Julius Clarkson, David Higginbotham & Co. Its business gradually declined as Charlottesville grew ; and when the town of Scottsville was established, and the site of the University fixed near the county seat, its prestige was completely broken, and it quietly subsided into the straggling hamlet which now crowns the river hill.
About the same time Warren was projected by Wilson C. Nicholas on James River, at the mouth of Ballenger's Creek. A few lots were sold and a few houses built. An extensive mill and distillery were erected and carried on for some years by Samuel Shelton & Co. A large stone tavern was built by Jacob Kinney, afterwards of Staunton, rented for some time, and finally sold to William Brown, under whose management it made a prominent figure in its day. At this village was located another Tobacco Warehouse called Nicholas's, which
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