USA > Virginia > Augusta County > Augusta County > Annals of Augusta county, Virginia, from 1726 to 1871 > Part 4
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Mrs. Agatha Towles, a granddaughter of Colonel John Lewis, in a brief memoir, written by her in 1837, states that Colonel Lewis pre- ceded his family to America, and lived in Pennsylvania and Virginia three years before their arrival. A brother of his went from Wales to Portugal, and from thence probably to America, but Colonel Lewis came directly from Ireland. After his encounter with "the Irish Lord," he took refuge in a house on the banks of the Boyne, and as soon as a ship was ready to sail, embarked for America. Mrs. Lewis and her children came over in a vessel with three hundred passengers, all Presbyterians, and landed on the Delaware river, after a voyage of three months.
It is a question what number of sons John Lewis had. Various writers state that he brought with him to America fonr 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 moth- er, 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. Mrs. Towles also gives the names of Colonel Lewis's children, four sons and two daughters, but says nothing of a son named Samuel. 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 nar- rative.
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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 early settler, after two similar hills in County Tyrone, Ireland.
Concurrently with the settlement of Lewis, or immediately after- ward, a flood of immigrants poured into the country. There was no landlord or proprietor to parcel out the domain.
The world was all before them where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide ;
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 im- agination, these immigrants on their way from the settlements north of the Potomac, through the wilderness, to their future home. There was, of course, 110 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 select- ing 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 bedding, 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. We may imagine the leaders of each band, on arriving at a well-wooded and well-watered spot, exclaiming : "This is my rest, and here will I dwell." In the meanwhile there was no shelter from rain and storm. The colonial government encouraged the settlement of the Valley as a means of protecting the lower country from Indian in- cursions. 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 Dissen- ters from the Church of England, of the Presbyterian faith, and vic-
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tims of religious persecution in their native land. They were general- ly a profoundly religious people, bringing the Bible with them, what- ever they 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.
The first settlers located in the hilly and rocky parts of the coun- try on account of the wood and water found there ; the comparatively level and more fertile sections were treeless and without numerous springs.
Although the Church of England was established by law through- out the colony, and a spirit of intolerance inseparable from such a sys- tem prevailed in lower Virginia, the Dissenters of the Valley, as far as we know, had comparatively little to complain of in this respect.
As early as 1734, Michael Woods, an Irish immigrant, with three sons and three sons-in-law, came up the Valley, and pushing his way through Wood's Gap, (now called Jarman's,) settled on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge. Two of the sons-in-law were Peter and Wil- liam Wallace. Samuel Wallace, son of Peter, removed to the Cald- well settlement, now Charlotte county, married Esther Baker, and was the father of Caleb Wallace, a distinguished man in Kentucky, born in 1742.
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 denomina- ted Cohees, from their common use of the term "Qnoth he," or "Quo her," for "said he."
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 halcyon time, the young Lewises, McClanahans, Mathewses, Campbells, and others were growing up and maturing for many a desperate encounter and field of battle.
The early settlers in the Valley probably thought little and cared less as to what county of Virginia their lands belonged-Spotsylvania county, however, had jurisdiction from the dates of the first settle- ments-1726-1732-till 1734, when Orange county was constituted. After that date, for some years, the Valley was a part of Orange, and from the records of the Court of that county we have obtained some items of more or less interest.
The County Court of Orange was opened January 21, 1734, and among the justices included in the "Commission of the Peace," issued
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by Governor Gooch, were James Barbour, Zachary Taylor, Joist Hite, Morgan Morgan, Benjamin Borden and the ubiquitous Jolin Smith.
James Barbour was the grandfather of Governor James Barbour and Judge P. P. Barbour.
Zachary Taylor was the grandfather of the twelfth President of the United States of the same name.
Joist Hite and Morgan Morgan lived in the lower Valley. The latter was a native of Wales, and about 1726 (it is said) removed from Pennsylvania to Virginia, and erected the first cabin in the Valley south of the Potomac, and in the present county of Berkeley. He also erected the first Episcopal church in the Valley, about 1740, at the place now called Bunker Hill. He died in 1799, leaving a son of the same name.
According to tradition, Colonel John Lewis met Benjamin Borden in Williamsburg in 1736, and invited him to accompany him home, which led to the acquisition by Borden of a large tract of land in the present county of Rockbridge, known as "Borden's Grant." We think it likely, however, that Colonel Lewis first encountered Borden at Orange Court. In 1734, Borden probably lived in the lower Valley, then a part of Orange county, as he certainly did ten years later. When justices of the peace were appointed for Frederick county, in November, 1743, he was named as one of them, but did not qualify, having died about that time. His will was admitted to record by Frederick County Court at December term, 1743, and his son, Ben- jamin, succeeded to the management of his Rockbridge lands.
John Smith cannot be located. We only know certainly that he was not the Captain John Smith, of Augusta, who figured in the In- dian wars after 1755. He may have been the "Knight of the Golden Horseshoe," named Smith, who accompanied Governor Spotswood in his visit to the Valley in 1716.
The first allusion in the records of Orange to Valley people is un- der date of July 20, 1736. On that day Morgan Morgan presented the petition "of inhabitants of the western side of Shenando," which was ordered to be certified to the General Assembly. What the petition was about is not stated. The name now written "Shenandoah" was formerly put in various ways-"Shenando," "Sherando," "Sherun- do," etc.
The early settlers in the Valley were in the eye of the law mere "squatters on the public domain." But the authorities at Williams- burg had by no means relinquished 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
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of the Valley to resist, on September 6, 1736, William Gooch, "Lieu- tenant-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 Jolin Randolph, 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 Sheran- do," 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 historian of Virginia, and grandson of the Robert Beverley who commanded the royal forces at the time of "Bacon's Rebellion." 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-Lieu- tenant of Essex. He died about the first of March, 1756. At the time of his death, his only son, Robert, was a minor .*
The question is often asked, in what part of the county was Bev- erley'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 descrip- tion, which, although not perfectly accurate, will answer the present purpose : Beginning at a point on the east side of South river, about four miles below Waynesborough, thence up the same side of the river to a point opposite to or above Greenville ; thence by several lines west or southwest to a point near Summerdean ; thence northeast to Trim- ble's, three miles south of Swoope's Depot ; thence northeast by sev- eral lines, crossing the Staunton and Parkersburg turnpike, five or six miles, 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
*Robert Beverley died near the close of the century, leaving several sons, two of whom, Robert and Carter, were bis 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 fur- niture and equipage were sold by the sheriff under executions. He then left Staun- 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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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 riv- er, and thence north seventy degrees west, etc.
From the familiar mention in the patent of various natural feat- ures 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. Beverley, however, seems to have dealt towards the people with a liberal spirit ; at any rate, there is no proof or tradi- tion of anything 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.
Benjamin Borden,* a native of New Jersey, and agent of Lord Fair- fax in the lower Valley, obtained from Governor Gooch a patent dated October 3, 1734, for a tract of land in Frederick county, which was called "Borden's Manor." At the same time he was promised 100,000 acres on the waters of James River, west of the Blue Ridge, as soon as he should locate a hundred settlers on the tract. The story of his visit to John Lewis in the spring of 1736, taking with him to Williams- burg a buffalo calf which he presented to the Governor, and thus re- ceived his grant, often repeated, is now generally discredited.
Beverley and Borden were indefatigable in introducing settlers from Europe. James Patton was a very efficient agent in this enter- prise. He was a native of Ireland, was bred to the sea, and had served in the royal navy. Afterward he became the owner of "a pas- senger ship," and traded to Hobbes' Hole, Virginia, on the Rappa- hannock river. He is said to have crossed the Atlantic twenty-five times, bringing Irish immigrants, and returning with cargoes of pel- tries 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 * His name is often erroneously written Burden. From one of the family Bordentown, N. J., was so called.
# Some persons of this class were well educated, and were employed as teach- ers. The maternal grandfather of the Rev. Dr. Baxter purchased a young Irish- man, 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.
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in the county previous to the Revolutionary 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.
Borden's tract was South of Beverley's Manor, and in the present county of Rockbridge. The first settlers on the tract 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 McDowell, had come into Beverley's Manor during the spring of 1737, and planted a crop of corn, near Woods' Gap; and in the fall her father, her brother John, and her husband and herself came to occupy the settlement. Before they reached their destination, and after they had arranged their camp on a certain evening at Linnville Creek, (now Rocking- ham, ) Borden arrived and asked permission to spend the night with them, being doubtless on his way to his tract from his home in the lower Valley. He informed them of his grant, and offered them induce- ments 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. Ephraim McDowell was then a very aged man, and lived to be over one hundred years old. When a youth of 16 he was one of the defenders of Londonderry. He and his family located on Timber Ridge, originally called "Timber Grove," being attracted by the forest trees on the ridge, which were scarce elsewhere in the region. Borden offered a tract of one hundred acres to any one who should build a cabin on it, with the privilege of purchasing more at fifty shil- lings per hundred acres. Each cabin secured to him one thousand acres. Mrs. Mary Greenlee related in her deposition, referred to, that an Irish girl, named Peggy Millhollan, a servant of James Bell, dressed herself in men's clothes and secured five or six cabin rights. John Patterson, who was employed to count the cabins, was surprised to find so many people named Millhollan, but the trick was not discov- ered till after the return was made. Among the settlers in "Borden's grant" were William McCausland, William Sawyers, Robert Camp- bell, Samnel Woods, John Mathews (father of Sampson and George), Richard Woods, John Hays and his son, Charles and Samuel Walker. Borden obtained his patent November 8, 1739 .*
* He died in the latter part of 1743, in Frederick, leaving three sons, Benja . min, John and Joseph, and several daughters. The next spring his son Benja- min appeared in Rockbridge (as it is now) with authority under his father's will to adjust all matters with the settlers on the grant. He had, however, been in the settlement before his father's death.
Mrs. Greenlee says Benjamin Borden, Jr., was "altogether illiterate," and did not make a good impression on his first arrival, but he proved to he an upright
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On May 21, 1737, the Grand Jury of Orange presented the Rev. John Beckett "for exacting more for the marriage fee than the law di- rects." . On publication of the banns he exacted fifteen shillings. The trial came off on the 22d of September following, and the minister, be- ing found guilty, was fined five hundred pounds of tobacco. But Mr. Beckett's troubles did not end there. On November 25, 1738, he was reported to court "for concealing a tithable."
In his work called "Old Churches and Families," etc., Bishop Meade says that the Rev. Mr. Beckett was regularly elected ininister of St. Mark's parish, in May, 1733, and continued until the year 1739. He says further : "From something on the vestry book a year or two before, there would seem to have been a serious cause of complaint against Mr. Beckett." The proceedings in court above mentioned give a clew to the cause of trouble.
Under date of September 22, 1737, we have the following : "Wil- liam Williams, a Presbyterian minister, Gent., having taken the oaths appointed by act of Parliament," etc .. "and certified his intention of holding his meetings at his own plantation and on the plantation of Morgan Bryan," it was admitted to record, etc. From subsequent mention of Mr. Williams, it appears that he lived in what is now Fred- erick or Berkeley. He was engaged in trade, probably as a merchant, and was evidently too busy a trader to do much preaching. For sev- eral years he furnished more business to the court than any other per- son. He brought suit after suit against his customers, it is presumed, and was uniformly successful, obtaining judgment in every case. On the 23d of February, 1738, two men "sent up" by Morgan Morgan, J. P., on the charge of robbing the house of Mr. Williams, were exam- ined and acquitted. At July court, 1738, a suit brought by Mr. Wil- man, and won the confidence of the people. The saying: "As good as Ben. Borden's bill," passed into a proverb. He married Mrs. Magdalene McDowell, (originally a Miss Woods, of Rockfish), widow of Johu McDowell, who was killed by Indians in December, 1742, and by her had two daughters, Martha and Han- nah. The former became the wife of Robert Harvey, the latter never married.
Benjamin Borden, Jr., died of small-pox in 1753. His will was admitted to re- cord by the County Court of Angusta, November 21, 1753. The executors ap- pointed were John Lyle, Archibald Alexander and testator's wife, but the first named declined to serve. His personal estate was large for the time. During her second widowhood Mrs. Magdalene Borden contracted a third marriage with Col- onel John Bowyer.
Joseph Borden, brother of Benjamin, Jr., was frequently in the settlement after the latter's death. In course of time he instituted the chancery suit of Bor- den vs. Bowyer, &c., out of which grew the cause of Peck vs. Borden, both of which have been pending in the courts of Angusta county for a hundred years, more or less.
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liams against the inevitable John Smith and some thirty or forty more, "for signing a certain scandalous paper reflecting on ye said Williams," came on. The preacher was again triumphant. Many of the signers of the "scandalous paper" humbly acknowledged their error, begging pardon, were excused, paying costs." At September Court the suit was abated as to John Smith on account of his death. Which John Smith this was we have no means of ascertaining. He probably was a neighbor of Mr. Williams.
We next find Jolin Smith (probably the Squire) and Benjamin Borden in limbo. On October 22, 1737, "Zachary Lewis, Gent., at- torney for our Sovereign Lord, the King, informed the Court that, at the houses of Louis Stilfy and John Smith, certain persons, viz : the said John Smith, John Pitts, Benjamin Borden" and others "do keep unlawful and tumultuous meetings tending to rebellion," and it was ordered that the sheriff take said persons into custody. At November Court, "Benjamin Borden, Gent.," and his roistering and rebellious companions appeared, were examined, and, "acknowledging their er- ror," were dismissed with costs. Whether the Benjamin Borden re- ferred to was the father, or his son of the same name, we do not know.
On the 28th of April, 1738, it was "ordered that ordinary keepers at Shenendo sell their Virginia brandy at the rate of six shillings per gallon." All the country west of the Blue Ridge was then known by the various names afterwards written Shenandoah.
William Beverley's deed to "William Cathrey," the first of a long series of deeds by Beverley to various persons, was admitted to record September 28th, 1738.
On the same day it was "ordered that the Sheriff of Sharrando give public notice"-exactly what cannot be made out from the writ- ing. It related, however, to tithables, a list of whom was to be de- livered to William Russell, Gent. It is presumed that a deputy sher- iff of Orange county lived west of the Blue Ridge.
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 Presbytery of Done- gal, 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 vis- ited the settlements in the Valley, and during that year, 1738, at the
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house of Joli 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,¿ 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 favor in behalf of our inter- est iu 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, Lientenant-Gover- nor of the Province of Virginia, the humble address of the Presbyteri- an ministers convened in Synod May 30th, 1738. May it please your Honour, we take leave to address you in belialf of a considerable 1111m- ber of our brethren who are meditating 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 at- tachment to the house of Hanover, and have upon all occasions mani- fested an unspotted fidelity to our gracious 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 recom- mend them to your Honour's countenance and protection, and merit the free enjoyment of their civil and religious liberties. We pray for the divine blessing upon your person and government, and beg to sub- scribe ourselves your Honour's most humble and obedient servants."
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