USA > Virginia > Augusta County > Augusta County > Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, with reminiscences illustrative of the vicissitudes of its pioneer settlers (A Supplement) > Part 2
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The only authentic account we have of the expedition is the diary of John Fontaine, and that is very meagre. The gentle- men of the party were: Governor Spotswood, Robert Beverley, the historian, Colonel Robertson, Dr. Robinson, Taylor Todd, Fontaine, Mason, Clouder, Smith and Brooke. They crossed the Shenandoah river on the 6th of September, and called it Euphrates. The river is said to have been very deep, and "fourscore yards wide in the narrowest part." The Gover- nor had graving irons, but could not grave anything, the stone was so hard. " I," says Mr. Fontaine, "graved my name on a tree by the river side, and the Governor buried a bottle with a paper enclosed, on which he writ that he took possession of this place in the name of King George First of England." The most astonishing thing related by the diarist, however, is the quantity and variety of liquors lugged about and drank by the party. He says : "We had a good dinner" [on the 6th], "and after it we got the men together and loaded all their arms, and we drank the King's health in champagne and fired a volley, the Princess's health in Burgundy and fired a volley, and all the rest of the royal family in claret and a volley. We drank the Governor's health and fired another volley. We had several sorts of liquors, viz : Virginia red wine and white wine, Irish usquebaugh, brandy, shrub, two sorts of rum, champagne, can- ary, cherry punch, cider, &c." Bears, deer and turkeys were abundant, and in the Valley the foot-prints of elk and buffalo were seen .- [Dr. Slaughter's History of St. Mark's Parish.]
4 In 1870 a silver knee buckle, of rare beauty and value, set in dia- monds, pronounced genuine by competent jewelers, was found near Elkton, Rockingham county. It is believed that this buckle was lost by one of the Spotswood cavalcade. The silver was discolored by age, and the brilliants somewhat deteriorated by long exposure to the ele- ments. It was found, and is now held by one of the Bear family .- [Letter from Charles W. S. Turner, Esq.]
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It was in commemoration of this famous expedition that Governor Spotswood sought to establish the order of "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe" But the Governor's account of the expedition, as far as we have it, is very tame and disappointing. He was thinking chiefly of protecting the English settlements from the encroachments of the French, and apparently cared little for anything else. He also either misunderstood the In . dians whom he encountered, or was grossly deceived by them in regard to the geography of the country. In his letter to the Board of Trade, under date of August 14, 1718, he said :
"The chief aim of my expedition over the great mountains, in 1716, was to satisfye myself whether it was practicable to come at the lakes. Having on that occasion found an easy pas- sage over that great ridge of mountains w'ch before were judged unpassable, I also discovered, by the relation of Indians who frequent those parts, that from the pass where I was it is but three days' march to a great nation of Indians living on a river w'ch discharges itself in the Lake Erie; that from ye western side of one of the small mountains w'ch I saw, that lake is very visible, and cannot, therefore, be above five days' march from the pass afore-mentioned, and that the way thither is also very prac- ticable, the mountains to the westward of the great ridge being smaller than those I passed on the eastern side, w'ch shews how easy a matter it is to gain possession of those lakes."-[ Spots- wood Letters, Vol. II, pp. 295-6. ]
The country thus discovered by Governor Spotswood, and claimed by him for the British crown, became a part of the county of Essex, the western boundary being undefined. Spotsylvania was formed from Essex and other counties in 1720, and Orange from Spotsylvania, in 1734.
The expedition of the "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe," trivial as it may now appear, was at the time regarded as very hazardous; and it no doubt led to important results. The glow- ing accounts given by Spotswood's followers, if not by himself, of the beauty and fertility of the Valley, attracted immediate atten- tion, and induced hunters and other enterprising men to visit the country. Of such transient excursions, however, we have no authentic account; and at least sixteen years were to pass before any extensive settlements were made by Europeans in this region.
At length John and Isaac Vanmeter, of Pennsylvania, in 1730,
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obtained from Governor Gooch a warrant for 40,000 acres of land to be located in the lower valley, and within the present counties of Frederick, Jefferson, etc. This warrant was sold in 1731, by the grantees, to Joist Hite, also of Pennsylvania. Hite proceeded to make locations of his land, and to induce immigrants to settle on his grant. He removed his family to Virginia, in 1732, and fixed his residence a few miles south of the present town of Win. chester, which is generally believed to have been the first perma- nent settlement by white men in the Valley.
Population soon flowed in to take possession of the rich lands offered by Hite; but a controversy speedily arose in regard to the proprietor's title. Lord Fairfax claimed Hite's lands as a part of his grant of the "Northern Neck." Fairfax entered a caveat against Hite, in 1736, and thereupon Hite brought suit against Fairfax. This suit was not finally decided till 1786, long after the death of all the original parties, when judgment was rendered in favor of Hite and his vendees. The dispute between Fairfax and Hite retarded the settlement of that part of the Valley, and in- duced immigrants to push their way up the Shenandoah river to regions not implicated in such controversies. In 1738 there were only two cabins where Winchester now stands. That town was established by law in 1752.
A strange uncertainty has existed as to the date and some of the circumstances of the first settlement of Augusta county. Campbell, in his " History of Virginia " (pages 427-9), under- takes to relate the events somewhat minutely, but falls into ob- vious mistakes. He says: "Shortly after the first settlement of Winchester (1738), John Marlin, a peddler, and John Salling, a weaver, two adventurous spirits, set out from that place " (Win- chester) "to explore the ' upper country,' then almost unknown." They came up the valley of the Shenandoah, called Sherando, crossed James river, and reached the Roanoke river, where a party of Cherokee Indians surprised and captured Salling, while Marlin escaped. Salling was detained by the Indians for six years, and on being liberated returned to Williamsburg. "About the same time," says Campbell, "a considerable number of immi- grants had arrived there, among them John Lewis and John Mackey. * * Pleased with Salling's glowing picture of the country beyond the mountains, Lewis and Mackey visited it under his guidance," and immediately all three located here.
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Whatever the truth may be in regard to other matters, Camp- bell's dates are entirely erroneous. He would seem to postpone the settlement of Lewis in the valley to the year 1744, although he immediately refers to him as residing here in 1736.
Foote, in his " Sketches of Virginia," is silent as to the date of the settlement. He mentions, upon the authority of the late Charles A. Stuart, of Greenbrier county, a descendant of John Lewis, that the latter first located on the left bank of Middle river, then called Carthrae's river, about three miles east of the mac- adamized turnpike. Thence he removed to Lewis' Creek, two miles east of Staunton, where he built a stone house, known as Fort Lewis, which is still standing. According to Foote, Mackey and Salling came with Lewis, or at the same time, Mackey mak- ing his residence at Buffalo Gap, and Salling his at the forks of James river, below the Natural Bridge.
We are satisfied that Mackey and Salling did explore the Val- ley, but that it was about the year 1726, before there was any settlement by white people west of the Blue Ridge. Withers, in his " Border Warfare," gives the following account of Sal- ling's captivity :
Salling, he says, was taken to the country now known as Ten- nessee, where he remained for some years. In company with a party of Cherokees he went on a hunting expedition to the salt licks of Kentucky, and was there captured by a band of Illinois Indians, with whom the Cherokees were at war. He was taken to Kaskaskia and adopted into the family of a squaw whose son had been killed. While with these Indians he several times accompanied them down the Mississippi river, below the mouth of the Arkansas, and once to the Gulf of Mexico. The Span- iards in Louisiana desiring an interpreter purchased him of his Indian mother, and some of them took him to Canada. He was there redeemed by the French governor of that province, who sent him to the Dutch settlement in New York, "whence he made his way home after an absence of six years."-[ Border Warfare, page 42.] Peyton, in his "History of Augusta County," gives an account of the coming of Lewis to the Valley quite different from Campbell's version of the matter, and some- what at variance with Foote's narrative. He says Lewis " had been some time in America, when, in 1732, Joist Hite and a party of pioneers set out to settle upon a grant of 40,000 acres
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of land in the Valley. * * Lewis joined this party, came to the Valley, and was the first white settler of Augusta." Lewis is represented as coming, not from Williamsburg, but from Lan- caster, Pennsylvania, and the date of his arrival here is given as "the summer of 1732." These statements and the authority upon which they are made appear conclusive of the matter.
John Lewis and his sturdy sons were just the men 'to battle with the adverse circumstances which surrounded them in this wilderness country. He was a native of Donegal county, Prov- ince of Ulster, Ireland, and of Scottish descent. He came to America from Portugal, in which country he had taken refuge after a bloody affray with an oppressive landlord in Ireland. It is stated, however, that upon an investigation of the affray, Lewis was formally pronounced free from blame. The story as related is briefly as follows : An Irish lord who owned the fee of the land leased by Lewis undertook to eject the latter in a lawless manner. With a band of retainers he repaired to the place, and on the refusal of the tenant to vacate, fired into the house killing an invalid brother of Lewis and wounding his wife. Thereupon, Lewis rushed from the house and dispersed his assailants, but not until their leader and his steward were killed.
It is a question what number of sons John Lewis had. Vari- ous writers state that he brought with him to America four sons, viz: Samuel, Thomas, Andrew, and William, and that a fifth, Charles, was born after the settlement here, but others mention only four, omitting Samuel. Ex-Governor Gilmer, of Georgia, a great- grandson of John Lewis, gives an account of the family in his book called " Georgians," printed in 1854, and is silent as to Samuel. Governor Gilmer's mother, a daughter of Thomas Lewis, lived to a great age, and it is hardly possible that she could have been ignorant of an uncle named Samuel, and that her son should not have named him if there had been such an one. All the others were prominent in the early history of the country, and we shall have occasion to speak of them often in the course of our narrative.
The permanent settlement of Lewis was in the vicinity of the twin hills, "Betsy Bell and Mary Gray," which were so called by him, or some other early settler, after two similar hills in County Tyrone, Ireland.
Concurrently with the settlement of Lewis, or immediately
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afterward, a flood of immigrants poured into the country. There was no landlord or proprietor to parcel out the domain; the land was all before them where to choose, and for several years the settlers helped themselves to homes without let or hindrance. It is believed that all the earliest settlers came from Pennsylvania and up the Valley of the Shenandoah. It was several years before any settlers entered the Valley from the east, and through the gaps in the Blue Ridge. We may accompany, in imagina- tion, these immigrants on their way from the settlements north of the Potomac, through the wilderness to their future homes. There was, of course, no road, and for the first comers no path to guide their steps, except, perhaps, the trail of the Indian or buffalo. They came at a venture, climbing the hills, fording the creeks and rivers, and groping through the forests. At night they rested on the ground, with no roof over them but the broad expanse of heaven. After selecting a spot for a night's bivouac, and tethering their horses, fire was kindled by means of flint and steel, and their frugal meal was prepared. Only a scanty supply of food was brought along, for, as game abounded, they mainly "subsisted off the country." Before lying down to rest, many of them did not omit to worship the God of their fathers and invoke His guidance and protection. The moon and stars looked down peacefully as they slumbered, while bears, wolves and panthers prowled around. It was impossible to bring wagons, and all their effects were transported on horseback. The list of articles was meagre enough. Clothing, some bed- ding, guns and ammunition, a few cooking utensils, seed corn, axes, saws, &c., and the Bible, were indispensable, and were transported at whatever cost of time and labor. Houses and furniture had to be provided after the place of settlement was fixed upon. In the meanwhile there was no shelter from rain and storm. The colonial government encouraged the settle- ment of the Valley as a means of protecting the lower country from Indian incursions. The settlers were almost exclusively of the Scotch-Irish race, natives of the north of Ireland, but of Scottish ancestry. Most of those who came during the first three or four decades were Dissenters from the Church of Eng- land, of the Presbyterian faith, and victims of religious persecu- tion in their native land. They were generally a profoundly religious people, bringing the Bible with them, whatever they
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had to leave behind, and as soon as possible erected log meeting houses in which to assemble for the worship of God, with school-houses hard by.
Although the Church of England was established by law throughout the colony, and a spirit of intolerance inseparable from such a system prevailed in lower Virginia, the Dissenters of the Valley, as far as we know, had comparatively little to com- plain of in this respect.
For about twenty years the immigrants were unmolested by the Indians. "Some," says Foote, " who had known war in Ireland, lived and died in that peace in this wilderness for which their hearts had longed in their native land." During this hal- cyon time, the young Lewises, McClanahans, Mathewses, Camp- bells, and others were growing up and maturing for many a desperate encounter and field of battle.
But the authorities at Williamsburg had by no means relin - quished the rights of the British crown, as held by them, to the paramount title to the lands of the Valley. In assertion of those rights, and without ability on the part of the people of the Valley to resist, on September 6, 1736, William Gooch, "Lieutenant- Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Colony and Domin- ion of Virginia," in pursuance of an order in council, dated August 12, 1736, and in the name of "George II, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith," etc., issued a patent for the " Manor of Beverley." The patentees were William Beverley, of Essex ; Sir John Ran- dolph, of Williamsburg; Richard Randolph, of Henrico, and John Robinson, of King and Queen ; and the grant was of 118,491 acres of land lying " in the county of Orange, between the great mountains, on the river Sherando," etc. On the next day, September 7, the other grantees released their interest in the patent to Beverley. This patent embraced a large part of the present county of Augusta, south as well as north of Staun- ton.
William Beverley was a son of Robert Beverley, the histo- rian of Virginia, and grandson of the Robert Beverley who commanded the royal forces at the time of "Bacon's Rebel- lion." He was a lawyer, clerk of Essex County Court from 1720 to 1740, a member of the House of Burgesses and of the Governor's Council, and County-Lieutenant of Essex. He
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died about the first of March, 1756. At the time of his death, his only son, Robert, was a minor. 5
The question is often asked, In what part of the county was Beverley's Manor? Readers generally could not ascertain from a perusal of the patent, and we have applied to several practical surveyors, the best authorities on the subject, for information. To Messrs. John G. Stover and James H. Callison we are indebted for the following description, which, although not perfectly accu- rate, will answer the present purpose : Beginning at a point on the east side of South river, about four miles below Waynesbo rough, thence up the same side of the river to a point opposite to or above Greenville ; thence by several lines west or southwest co a point near Summerdean ; thence northeast to Trimble's, three miles south of Swoope's Depot; thence northeast by several lines, crossing the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike, five or six iniles, and the Churchville road about three miles, from Staunton, to a point not known to the writer ; and thence east by one or more lines, crossing the macadamized turnpike at or near Augusta church, to the beginning. The description given in the patent begins at five white oaks on a narrow point between Christie's creek and Beaver run (Long Meadow creek), near the point where those streams enter Middle river, and thence north seventy degrees ; west, etc.
From the familiar mention in the patent of various natural features of the country-"Christie's Creek," " Beaver run," "the Great Springs," "Black Spring," etc., it is evident that the country had by that time, in the short space of four years, been explored and to a great extent settled. The grant, of course, covered the lands already occupied by settlers, who were in the view of the law and of the patentee, mere "squatters " on the public domain. Beverley, however, seems to have dealt towards the people with
" Robert Beverley died near the close of the century, leaving several sons, two of whom, Robert and Carter, were his executors. Carter came to Staunton, and lived for some time in considerable style at the place now called " Kalorama." He, however, became involved in debt, and about the year 1810. his handsome furniture and equip- age were sold by the sheriff under executions. He then left Stann- ton, and afterwards was prominently implicated in the famous charge of "bargain and corruption" preferred against Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams.
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a liberal spirit; at any rate, there is no proof or tradition of any- thing to the contrary. On February 21, 1738, he conveyed to John Lewis 2,071 acres, a part of the Beverley Manor grant, the deed being on record in Orange county, within which the grant then lay.
In the spring of 1736, Benjamin Borden,6 the agent of Lord Fairfax, came up from Williamsburg, by invitation, on a visit to John Lewis. He took with him, on his return, a buffalo calf, which he presented to Governor Gooch, and was so successful in ingratiating himself with the Governor as to receive the royal patent for a large body of land in the Valley, south of Beverley Manor. The first settlers in Borden's grant were Ephraim McDowell and his family. His daughter, Mary Greenlee, related in a deposition taken in 1806, and still extant, the circumstances under which her father went there. Her brother, James McDow- ell, had come into Beverley Manor during the spring of 1736, and planted a crop of corn, near Woods' Gap; and in the fall her father, then a very aged man, her brother John, and her husband and herself came to occupy the new settlement. Before they reached their destination, and after they had arranged their camp on a certain evening, Borden arrived and asked permission to spend the night with them. He informed them of his grant, and offered them inducements to go there. The next day they came on to the house of John Lewis, and there it was finally arranged that the party should settle in Borden's tract.
As early as 1734, Michael Woods, an Irish immigrant, with three sons and three sons-in-law, came up the Valley, and push- ing his way through Woods' Gap, settled on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge.
At an early day, the people living on the east side of the Blue Ridge received the soubriquet of Tuckahoes, from a small stream of that name, it is said, while the people on the west side were denominated Cohees, as tradition says, from their common use of the term "Quoth he," or "Quo' he," for "said he."
Beverley and Borden were indefatigable in introducing settlers from Europe. James Patton was a very efficient agent in this enterprise. He was a native of Ireland, was bred to the sea,
6 This name is generally written Burden, but erroneously. From one of the family Bordentown, New Jersey, derived its name.
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and had served in the royal navy. Afterward he became the owner of "a passenger ship," and traded to Hobbes' Hole, Virginia, on the Rappahannock river. He is said to have crossed the Atlantic twenty-five times, bringing Irish immi- giants, and returning with cargoes of peltries and tobacco .- [R. A. Brock, "Dinwiddie Papers," Vol. I, page 8.]
Most of the people introduced by Patton were the class known as "Redemptioners," or "indentured servants," who served a stipulated time to pay the cost of their transportation." The records of the county court of Augusta show that this class of people were numerous in the county previous to the Revolution- ary war. They were sold and treated as slaves for the time being. Up to the Revolution there were comparatively few African slaves in the Valley.
Missionaries, says Foote, speedily followed the immigrants into the Valley. "A supplication from the people of Beverley Manor, in the back parts of Virginia," was laid before the Pres- bytery of Donegal, Pennsylvania, September 2, 1737, requesting ministerial supplies. "The Presbytery judge it not expedient, for several reasons, to supply them this winter." The next year, however, the Rev. James Anderson was sent by the Synod of Philadelphia to intercede with Governor Gooch in behalf of the Presbyterians of Virginia. Mr. Anderson visited the settle- ments in the Valley, and during that year, 1738, at the house of John Lewis, preached the first regular sermon ever delivered in this section of the country.
The proceedings of Synod, just referred to, were taken " upon the supplication of John Caldwell, 8 in behalf of himself and many families of our persuasion, who are about to settle in the back parts of Virginia, desiring that some members of the Synod may be appointed to wait on that government to solicit their
" Some persons of this class were well educated, and were employed as teachers. The maternal grandfather of the Rev. Dr. Baxter pur- chased a young Irishman, who called himself McNamara, and the father of the Rev. Dr. Alexander purchased another named Reardon, and to these, respectively, were Drs. Baxter and Alexander indebted for their early instruction in Latin, &c.
8 Grandfather of John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina. Mr. Caldwell, however, never lived in the Valley, but in Charlotte county.
2
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favor in behalf of our interest in that place."-[Extract from records of Synod, quoted by Foote, First Series, page 103.]
Mr. Anderson was the bearer of the following letter :
"To the Honourable William Gooch, Esquire, Lieutenant- Governor of the Province of Virginia, the humble address of the Presbyterian ministers convened in Synod May 30th, 1738. May it please your Honour, we take leave to address you in behalf of a considerable number of our brethren who are medi. tating a settlement in the remote parts of your government, and are of the same persuasion as the Church of Scotland. We thought it our duty to acquaint your Honour with this design, and to ask your favour in allowing them the liberty of their consciences, and of worshipping God in a way agreeable to the principles of their education. Your Honour is sensible that those of our profession in Europe have been remarkable for their inviolable attachment to the house of Hanover, and have upon all occasions manifested an unspotted fidelity to our gra- cious Sovereign, King George, and we doubt not but these, our brethren, will carry the same loyal principles to the most distant settlements, where their lot may be cast, which will ever influence them to the most dutiful submission to the government which is placed over them. This, we trust, will recommend them to your Honour's countenance and protection, and merit the free enjoy ment of their civil and religious liberties. We pray for the divine blessing upon your person and government, and beg to subscribe ourselves your Honour's most humble and obedient servants."
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