USA > Virginia > Augusta County > Augusta County > Annals of Augusta county, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871 > Part 3
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The winter of 1739-40 is known in Ulster as "the time of the blackfrost," from the unusually dark appearance of the ice, and be- cause the sun seldom shone during its continuance. In the fall of 1739, many of the more industrious and enterprising inhabitants fled from scarcity and oppression in Ireland and came to America, landing on the Delaware river in Pennsylvania. Many of these soon found their way into the wilderness of Augusta County. Then came the Prestons, Breckinridges, Poages, Bells, Trimbles, Logans, Browns, Pattersons, Wilsons, Andersons, Scotts, Smitlis, and others .* They came first to Pennsylvania, because they had heard of it as a province where civil and religious liberty was enjoyed. But jealousies arose in the minds of the original settlers of Pennsylvania, and restrictive measures were adopted by the proprietary government against the Scotch-Irish and German immigrants. # Hence many of the former were disposed, in 1732, and afterwards, to seek homes within the lim-
* The author's great-grand-father came at that time, but settled in Penn- sylvania. His son James came to Virginia in 1758.
¿ The Pennsylvania Quakers are said to have especially disliked Presby- terians.
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its of Virginia, and run the risk of the church establishment here. They were generally farmers and mechanics, with a few merchants. There was not a so-called cavalier among them, nor a sprig of nobility.
The historian of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland remarks that the circumstances of ministers in Ulster must have been exceedingly unfavorable, if they could calculate upon bettering their temporal con- dition by coming to America. In 1760, an appeal was made to the Ulster Presbyterians to contribute to the relief of their brethren in the New World, who were suffering the hardships of poverty aggravated by the miseries of the Indian war ; and the former, "ont of their deep poverty," raised upwards of £400 for the purpose.
The grievances of the Ulster people continued, and from 1772 to 1774, thousands of them sought homes on this side of the Atlantic, and a few years afterwards appeared in arms against the mother country in behalf of the independence of the American Republic. A recent his- torian has stated that Gen. Anthony Wayne's famous brigade of the "Pennsylvania line," might better be called the "Irish line," as it was composed almost exclusively of refugees from Ulster.
Yielding to her fears in a time of national peril, in 1780, England repealed the Test Act ; and in 1782, an act was passed declaring the validity of all marriages celebrated among Protestant Dissenters by their own ministers. It was then too late; the damage had been ac- complished ; the American Colonies had been wrested from the control of England in a large measure by the prowess of the people she had driven away.
"We shall find," says Bancroft, "the first voice publicly raised in America to dissolve all connection with Great Britain came, not from the Puritans of New England, or the Dutch of New York, or the planters of Virginia, but from Scotch-Irish Presbyterians." Vol. V, P. 77.
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ANNALS
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Augusta County, Virginia.
CHAPTER I.
FROM THE FIRST SETTLEMENT TO FOUNDATION OF THE COUNTY.
As far as known, the country now embraced in Augusta county, was never entered by white men until the year 1716. Six years earlier, however, some portion of the Valley of Virginia had been seen from the top of the Blue Ridge by Europeans. Governor Spotswood, writing to the Council of Trade, London, December 15, 1710, says that a con- pany of adventurers found the mountains "not above a hundred miles from our upper inhabitants, and went up to the top of the highest mountain with their horses, tho' they had hitherto been thonght to be nnpassable, and they assured me that ye descent on the other side seemed to be as easy as that they had passed on this, and that they could have passed over the whole ledge (which is not large), if the season of the year had not been too far advanced before they set out on that expedition."-[Spotswood Letters, Vol. I, page 40.] It wonld seem that the adventurers referred to looked into the Valley from the mountain in the neighborhood of Balcony Falls, but no description of the country seen by them is given.
This portion of the Valley was then entirely uninhabited. The Shawnee Indians had a settlement in the lower Valley, at or near Win- chester, and parties of that tribe frequently traversed this section on hunting excursions, or on warlike expeditions against Southern tribes; but there was no Indian village or wigwam within the present limits of the county. At an early day, Indians, or people of some other race, had doubtless resided here, as would appear from several ancient mounds, or burial places, still existing in the county.
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The face of the country between the Blue Ridge and the North Mountain was, of course, diversified by hill and dale, as it is now; but forest trees were less numerous than at the present time, the growth of timber being prevented by the frequent fires kindled by hunting parties of Indians. Old men living within the writer's recollection, described this region as known by them in their boyhood. Many acres, now stately forests, were then covered by mere brushwood, which did not conceal the startled deer flying from pursuit.
At the time of which we speak, wild animals abounded in this sec- tion. The buffalo roamed at will over these hills and valleys, and in their migrations made a well-defined trail between Rockfish Gap, in the Blue Ridge, and Buffalo Gap, in the North Mountain, passing by the present site of Staunton. Other denizens of the region at that day were the bear, wolf, panther, wildcat, deer, fox, hare, etc. It would appear that wolves were very numerous. There were no crows, black- birds, nor song birds, and no rats, nor honey bees till the coming of the white people .*
The first passage of the Blue Ridge, and entrance into the Valley by white men, was made by Governor Spotswood in 1716.į About the last of July, or first of August in that year, the Governor, with some members of his staff, starting from Williamsburg, proceeded to Germanna, a small frontier settlement, where he left his coach and took to horse. He was there joined by the rest of his party, gentlemen and their retainers, a company of rangers, and four Meherrin Indians, com- prising in all about fifty persons. These, with pack-horses laden with provisions, journeyed by way of the upper Rappahannock river, and after thirty-six days from the date of their departure from Williams- burg, on September 5th, scaled the mountain at Swift Run Gap, it is believed. Descending the western side of the mountain into the Val- ley, they reached the Shenandoah River and encamped on its bank. Proceeding up the river, they found a place where it was fordable, crossed it, and there, on the western bank, the Governor formally "took possession for King George the First of England." The rangers made further explorations up the Valley, while the Governor, with his im- mediate attendants, returned to Williamsburg, arriving there after an
* The mocking-bird, common in Albemarle county, is still not found in a wild state west of the Blue Ridge in Augusta.
# It is claimed that several parties at different times, long before Spotswood's expedition, came from the falls of Appomattox, now Petersburg, crossed the mountains near the line of North Carolina, and penetrated as far as New River. The country traversed, although west of the mountain, is, however, no part of the Valley.
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absence of about eight weeks, and having traveled about 440 miles out and back. 1.
The only authentic account we have of the expedition is the diary of John Fontaine, and that is very meagre. The gentlemen 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 Governor 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 riverside, andt he 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 drunk by the party. He says : "We had a good dinner" [on the 6th], "and after it we got the men together and load- ed 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, canary, cherry punch, cider, &c." Bears, deer and turkeys were abundant, and in the Val- ley the foot-prints of elk and buffalo were seen .- [Dr. Slaughter's History of St. Mark's Parish.]
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 Indians whom he encountered, or was grossly de- ceived by them in regard to the geography of the country. In his let- ter 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
+ In 1870 a silver knee buckle, of rare beauty and value, set in diamonds, pro- nounced genuine by competent jewelers, was found near Elkton, Rockingham county. It is believed that this buckle was lost by one of the Spotswood caval- cade. The silver was discolored by age, and the brilliants somewhat deteriorated by long exposure to the elements. It was found, and is now held, by one of the Bear family .- [Letter from Charles W. S. Turner, Esq.]
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lakes. Having on that occasion found an easy passage over that ridge of mountains w'ch before were judged impassable, I also dis- covered, 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'cli 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 practicable, 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."-[Spotswood 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 "Knight 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 glowing accounts given by Spotswood's followers, if not by himself, of the beauty and fertility of the Valley, attracted immediate attention, and induced hunters and other enterprising men to visit the country. Of such transient excur- sions, however, we have no authentic account ; and at least sixteen years were to pass before any extensivive settlements were made by Europeans in this region.
In Vol. 1 of Palmer's Calendar of Virginia State Papers we find various documents throwing some light upon the history of Augusta county, and from them make the following extracts:
First, in regard to the early settlement of the country. In 1727, Robert Lewis, William Lynn, Robert Brooke, Jr., James Mills, Wil- liam Lewis and Beverley Robinson petitioned the Governor and Coun- cil as follows: "That your Petitioners have been at great Trouble and Charges in making Discoveries of Lands among the Mountains, and are desirous of taking up some of those Lands they have discovered ; wherefore your petitioners humbly pray your Honours to grant him an order to take up Fifty Thousand Acres, in one or more tracts, on the head branches of James River to the West and Northwestward of the Cow Pasture, on seating thereon one Family for every Thousand Acres, and as the said Lands are very remote and lying among the great North Mountains, being about Two Hundred Miles at least from
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any landing-Your Petitioners humbly pray Your Honours will grant them six years' time to seat the same."
Whether or not the petition was granted does not appear ; but it shows that the country west of Staunton, and now in Bath county, had been explored, and that the Cowpasture river was known and named as early as 1727. It is certain that white people located in that region about the time, or soon after. settlements were made immediately around Staunton in 1732. The explorers no doubt came up the valley of James River, but it is strange they did not ask leave to take up some of the rich lands east of the North Mountain.
The first permanent settlement by white people in the section of country which became Augusta county, was made by natives of Ger- many, in 1726, on the Shenandoah River, a few miles below the pres- ent village of Port Republic. The proof of this is found in several doc- uments published in the first volumn of the work just quoted.
The first in order of the papers referred to is a letter of William Beverley, dated April 30, 1732, to a person whose name is not given, but probably his lawyer. He says : "I am persuaded that I can get a number of people from Pennsilvania to settle on Shenandore, if I can obtain an order of Council for some Land there, and I beg ye fa- vour of you to get me an order at the first Council held after you re- ceive this, for fifteen thousand acres of Land, lying on both sides of ye main River of Shenandore to include an old field called and known by ye name of 'Massanutting Town,' (an Indian name), and running back and above and below the same on ye said river to include the · Quantity ; ye s'd main river being yt which runs at ye foot of the great ridge of mountains commonly called the blue ridge and being those we know in this Colony by ye name of ye high mountains; and because I would not have a dispute with anybody, or endeavor to sup- plant them, I desire you will please to search in ye Council Office, whether any order, now in force has been granted for the said Massan- nutting, and if there has not, then I hope I shall obtain my desire ; for ye northeru men are fond of buying land there, because they can buy it, for six or seven pounds pr. hundred acres, cheaper than they can take up land in pensilvania and they don't care to go as far as Wmsburg." He goes on to claim the land by right of discovery and survey, and says he has already sold some of the. land "to a pensil- vania man for 3 lbs. of their money pr. hundred."
But a colony of sturdy "Dutchmen" were ahead of Mr. Beverley, having settled several years before near "Massannutting." In a pe- tition to the General Court, composed of the Governor and Council, in 1733, they say: "That about four years past they purchased five
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thousand acres of land, of one Jacob Stover, and paid him a great Sum of Money for the same, Amounting to Upwards of four hundred pounds : that y'r petitioners were informed and believed the s'd Stov- er had a good right and title in the said land ; that immediately after the s'd" (purchase, they sold) "all their lands and sev'll other things in the county of Lancaster and Province of Pensylvania, where they then lived, and came and seated on the land they had bought of the s'd Stover ; and cleared sev'l Plantations and made great improve- ments thereon,-Since which, they have been Informed that the s'd land (know by the name of Massanutting) is claimed by one Wm. Bev- erley, Gent .- and that the s'd Beverley hath brought suit ag'st the s'd Stover for the same, in the Hon'ble the Generall Court. Y'r Petition- ers further shew that should the s'd Beverley recover the said land, that he will turn y'r Pet'rs out of Doors, or oblige them to give much more for their lands and plantations then they are worth, Which will intirely ruin y'r Pet'rs. And yo'r Pet'rs cannot recover anything of the s'd Stover, to make them amends for the Loss of their s'd lands, plantations, etc., he being very poor, and is Daily Expected to Run away. Wherefore y'r Petitioners humbly hope that as they are not Privy to any frand done by the s'd Stover in obtaining the s'd Land and yo'r pet'rs being Dutchmen and not acquainted with the laws here concerning lands, and Imagined the s'd Stover's right to be good and have run the hazard of their lives and estates in removing from Pen- sylvania to the s'd land, being above two hundred miles, at a time when there were very few Inhabitants in them parts of Shenando, and they frequently visited by Indians. And at this time y'r pet'rs have nine Plantations fifty-one people, old and young, thereon, and expect to have two more familys to seat on the s'd land this spring, nor did y'r pet'rs hear of the s'd Beverley's claiming the said land till they had made plantations thereon." Among the petitioners were Milhart Rangdmann, Matthew Folk and Adam Muller (Miller?) Other names are illegible.
All this shows that fifty-one white people were settled on nine plantations on the Shenandoah, near the Massanutten mountain, in 1733 ; that the settlement was made four years before, in 1729; and that previous to the latter date there were some, "although very few," white inhabitants there.
Among the few white inhabitants previous to 1729, was Adam Miller. He resided at and owned the place now known as Bear's Lithia Springs, near Elkton. The certificate of his naturalization is- sued under the hand of Governor Gooch, March 13, 1741, sets forth that he was a native of Scherstien, in Germany, and had lived on the
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Shenandoah for fifteen years next before the date of the paper. Therefore, Miller must have come to the Valley ill 1726. He and his associates, if any, locating out of the track of the tide of immigra- tion which afterwards poured in, remained unknown, or unnoticed, by the English-speaking people. It is probable that Jacob Stover's title to the land was established, as both Thomas Lewis and Gabriel Jones who bought lands, in 1751, and made their homes on the Shenandoah, derived their title indirectly from him. The deed to Mr. Jones sets forth that Stover had obtained by patent a grant of 5,000 acres.
In the year 1730, John and Isaac Vanmeter, of Pennsylvania, 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 Freder- ick, 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 re. inoved his family to Virginia, in 1732, and fixed his residence a few miles south of the present town of Winchester.
Population soon flowed in to take possession of the rich lands of- fered by Hite ; but a controversy speedily arose in regard to the pro- prietor'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 origi- nal parties, when judgment was rendered in favor of Hite and his ven- dees. The dispute between Fairfax and Hite retarded the settlement of that part of the Valley, and induced immigrants to push their way up the Shenandoah river to regions not implicated in such controver- sies. 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), undertakes to relate the events somewhat minutely, but falls into obvious mistakes. He says: "Shortly after the first settlement of Winchester (1738), John Marlin, a peddler, and Jolin Salling, a weaver, two adventurous spirits, set out from that place" (Winchester) "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 immigrants
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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 im- mediately all three located here.
Whatever the truth may be in regard to other matters, Campbell's dates are entirely erroneous. He would seem to postpone the settle- ment of Lewis in the valley to the year 1744, although he immediate- ly 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 macadamized turnpike. Thence lie 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 making 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 Valley, 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 Salling's captivity :
Salling, he says, was taken to the country now known as Tennes- see, where he remained for some years. In company with a party of Cherokees he went on a hunting expedition to the salt licks of Ken- tucky, 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 Mis- sissippi river, below the mouth of the Arkansas, and once to the Gulf of Mexico. The Spaniards in Louisiana desiring an interpreter, pur- chased him of his Indian mother, and some of them took him to Cana- da. 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 somewhat at variance with Foote's narra- tive. 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,- ooo acres of land in the Valley. * * Lewis joined this party, came to the Valley, and was the first white settler of Augusta." Lewis is
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represented as coming, not from Williamsburg, but from Lancaster, 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, Province of Ulster, Ireland, and of Scottish descent. He came to America after a bloody affray with an oppressive landlord in Ireland. It is stated, however, that upon 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 re- paired to the place, and on the refusal of the tenant to vacate, fired in- to the house killing an invalid brother of Lewis and wounding his wife. Thereupon, Lewis rushed from the house and dispersed his as- sailants, but not until their leader and his steward were killed.
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