USA > Virginia > Historical collections of Virginia : containing a collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes, &c. relating to its history and antiquities ; together with geographical and statistical descriptions ; to which is appended, an historical and descriptive sketch of the District of Columbia. > Part 70
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ROCKBRIDGE COUNTY.
Burden returned forthwith to England for emigrants, and the next year, 1737, brought over upwards of one hundred families to settle upon the granted lands. At this time the spirit of emigration was particularly rife among the Presbyterians in the northern parts of Ireland, in Scotland, and in the adjacent parts of England. Most of Burden's colonists were Irish Presbyterians, who, being of Scottish extraction, were often called Scotch Irish. A few of the pure Scotch and northern English were mixed with the early settlers, but all, or nearly all, of the same Presbyterian stamp. Among the primi- tive emigrants to Burden's grant we meet with the names of some who have left. a nu- merous posterity, now dispersed far and wide from the Blue Ridge to the Mississippi- such as Ephraim M'Dowell, Archibald Alexander, John Patton, Andrew Moore, Hugh Telford, John Matthews, &c .* X
The first party were soon joined by others, mostly of their connections and acquaint. ances in the mother country. These again drew others after them ; and they all in- creased and multiplied, until, ere the first generation had passed away, the land was filled with them. Then they began to send forth colonies to new lands, southward and westward, until now there is scarce a county in the great valley of the Mississippi where some of their descendants may not be found.
Although some lands on the upper branches of the Shenando were not included in Burden's grant, yet from the German settlements upwards to the vale of James River, the population was generally Presbyterian ; so that the whole mass, for 60 miles or more along the valley, was scarcely less homogeneous and peculiar than the mass of Gerinans below them. Few of the old colonists of Virginia migrated to these parts of the valley. They lived by the cultivation of tobacco ; tobacco was the sole staple of their trade ; tobreen was their money. An Arcadian life among green pastures and herds of cattle. had no charms for them : tobacco was associated with all their ideas of pleasure and of profit. But how was a hogshead of tobacco to be rolled to market through the rugged defiles of the Blue Ridge ? Not until roads and navigation offered new facilities for trade, and the Indian weed itself lost some of its importance, did the valley cease to repel settlers from the lowlands of Virginia. Hence the mixture of heterogeneous ele- ments in the population has never, until lately, been sufficient to vary the true-blue hue of their primitive Scotch and Irish Presbyterianism. When, in addition to the names before mentioned, we give others of the more numerous families long settled on Bur- den's grant-the Prestons, the Paxtons, the Lyles, the Grigsbys, the Stuarts, the Craw- fords, the Cumminses, the Browns, the Wallaces, the Willsons, the Carutherses, the Campbells, the M'Campbells, the M'Clungs, the M'Cues, the M'Kees, the M'Cowns. &c. &c .--- no one acquainted with the race who imbibed the indomitable spirit of John Knox, can fail to recognise the relationship.
One who is of a different race, may be permitted to speak freely of their character- istics.
They had no sooner found a home in the wilderness, than they betook themselves to clearing fields, building houses, and planting orchards, like men who felt themselves now settled, and were disposed to cultivate the arts of civilized life. Few of them ever ran wild in the forests, or joined the bands of white hunters who formed the connecting link between the savage aborigines and the civilized tillers of the soil. They showed less disposition than the English colonists to engage in traffic and speculative enterprises. Without being dull or phlegmatic, they were sober and thoughtful, keeping their native energy of feeling under restraint, and therefore capable, when exigencies arose, of call. ing forth exertions as strennous and as persevering as the occasion might demand.
In their devotion to civil liberty, they differed not from the majority of their fellow colonists. Their circumstances, in a new country planted by themselves, far remote from the metropolitan government fostered and strengthened their ancestral spirit of freedom. As Presbyterians, neither they nor their forefathers would submit to an eccle- siastical hierarchy ; and their detestation of civil tyranny descended to them from the covenanters of Scotland. Hence, in the dispute between the colonists and the mother country, the Presbyterians of the valley-indeed, of the whole country -- were almost
* Among others (says Withers) who came to Virginia at this time, was an Irish girl named Polly Mul- hoilin. Oa her arrival she was hited to James Bell, to pay her passage ; and with whom she remained during the period her servitude was to continue. At its expiration, she attired herself in the habit of a man, and, with hunting-shirt and moccasins, went into Burden's gran' for the purpose of making improve. ments and acquiring a title to land. Here she erected thirty cabins, by virtue of which the held one hundred acres adjoining each. When Benjamin Burden the younge came op to make deeds to those who held cabin rights. He was astonished to see so many of the name of Muitoihn. Investigation to to a discovery of the mystery to the great mirth of the other claraants. She resumed her Christian name and feminino dress, and many of her respectacie descendants wil reside within the lindis of Bur den's grant-fi. H.
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unanimously Whigs of the firmest and most unconquerable spirit. They were among · the bravest and most effective militia, when called into the field. Gen. Washington sig- nified his opinion of them when, in the darkest day of the revolutionary struggle, he expressed his confidence, that if all other resources should fail, he might yet repair with a single standard to West Augusta, and there rally a band of patriots who would meet the enemy at the Blue Ridge, and there establish the boundary of a free empire in the west. This saying of the father of his country has been variously reported ; but we have no reason to doubt that he did, in some form, declare his belief that, in the last resort, he could yet gather a force in western Virginia which the victorious armies of Britain could not subdue. The spirit of these sires still reigns in their descendants, as the day of trial, come when it may, will prove.
Another characteristic of these people was their rigid Calvinistic, or, as some would call it. Puritanical morality. Founded on religious principle, this morality was sober, firm, and consistent, though, in some of its aspects, too stern to be altogether winning, and often unadorned by that refinement of manners which imparts a charm to the exer- cise of virtue in the common intercourse of life. But much of their austerity should be forgiven, in consideration of the precious substance of virtue within it. Their moral character was a rough diamond, but, nevertheless, a diamond which would brighten most under the hardest rubs.
The root of their morality, as we have intimated, was religious principle, deeply grounded by education, and nurtured by constant attendance on religious exercises. No sooner had they provided necessary food and shelter for their families, than they began to provide for the regular and decent service of God. They built churches and called pastore to the full extent of their ability. While their settlements were sparse and fee- ble, their churches were necessarily few and far asunder. Consequently, some families had to go an inconvenient distance to church. But they went, notwithstanding, male and female, old and young, on horses, some of them ten or twelve miles, to the house of God regularly on the Lord's day. These were the right sort of people to found a commonwealth that should stand the wear and tear of a hundred ages.
Some of the churches built by the first generation are yet standing, substantial monu- ments of their pious zeal. They are built of the solid limestone of the valley. Others have been replaced by larger and fairer structures of brick. In building some of the primitive stone churches, before roads, wagons, and saw-mills could facilitate the co !- lection and preparation of materials, they had to adopt some singular modes of convey. ance. For example, the Providence congregation packed all the sand used in their church from a place six miles distant, sack by sack, on the backs of horses ! and, what is almost incredible, the fair wives and daughters of the congregation are said to have undertaken this part of the work, while the men labored at the stone and timber. Let not the great-grand-daughters of these women blush for them, however they would deeply blush themselves to be found in such employment. For ourselves, we admire the conduct of these females : it was not only excusable, not only praiseworthy -- it was almost heroic. It takes Spartan mothers to rear Spartan men. These were among the women whose sons and grandsons sustained the confidence of Washington in the most disastrous period of the revolution.
Their social intercourse was chiefly religious. When the Lord's Supper was adminis- tered in a church, the service usually continued four days. A. plurality of ministers was present, and the people would flock to the place from all the country around-those who lived near giving hospitable entertainment to those from a greater distance. It was cus- tomary to have two of these sacramental meetings annually in each of the churches --- one in the spring and one in the autumn. The meetings of the presbytery, which circu- lated through the principal churches, drew together a larger. concourse, and were cele- brated as the chief religious festivals of the country.
But except these solemn festivals, and the weekly mestings at church, the families of the country had little social intercourse, except occasional visits and the occurrence of marriage feasts Nothing was known of the gay amusements common among the lower Virginians. The careful and religious education of their children was one of the most important features of their domestic policy. Common schools arose among them, therefore, as soon as the state of the population admitted them.
The first academy established in the valley of Virginia was lo- cated on Timber Ridge, near the present village of Fairfield, in this county. It is the one alluded to in the preceding historio
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sketch of Washington College, and was founded in 1776. Its first rector was the Rev. Win. Graham .* This institution, the germ whence sprung Washington College, is thus described in the work of Dr. Rutfner :
The schoolhouse was a log cabin. A fine forest of oaks, which had given Timber Ridge its name, cast a shade over it in the summer, and afforded convenient fuel in win- ter. A spring of pure water gushed from the rocks near the house. From amidst the trees the student had a fine view of the country below, and of the neighboring Blue Ridge. Ju short, all the features of the place made it a fit habitation of the woodland innse, and the hill deserved its name of Mount Pleasant. Hither about thirty youth of the moun- tains repaired, " to taste the Pierian spring," thirty-five years after the first settlement of Burden's Grant. Of reading, writing, and ciphering, the boys of the country had before acquired such knowledge as primary schools could afford ; but with a few late ex- ceptions, Latin, Greek, algebra, geometry, and such like scholastic mysteries, were things of which they bad heard-which they knew perhaps to lie covered up in the learned heads of their pastors-but of the nature and uses of which they had no conception whatever. .... It was a log hut of one apartment. The students carricd their dinner with them from their boarding-schools in the neighborhood. They conned their lessons either in the school-room, where the recitations were heard, or under the shades of the forest, where breezes whispered and birds sang without disturbing their studies. A horn -- perhaps a real cow's horn -- summoned the school from play, and the scattered classes to recitation. Instead of broadcloth coats, the students generally wore a far more grace- inl garment, the hunting-shirt, homespun, homewoven, and homemade, by the industri- ous wives and daughters of the land. Their amusemcuts were not the less remote from the modern tastes of students-cards, backgammon, flutes, fiddles, and even marbles, were scarcely known among these homebred mountain boys. Firing pistols and rang- ing the fields with shot-guns to kill little birds for sport, they would have considered a waste of time and ammunition. As to frequenting tippling-shops of any denomination, this was impossible, because no such catchpenny lures for students existed in the coun - try, or would have been tolerated. Had any huckster of liquors, knickknacks, and explo- sive crackers, hung out his sign in those days, the old puritan morality of the land was yet vigorous enough to abate the nuisance. The sports of the students were mostly gym- nastic, both manly and healthful-such as leaping, running, wrestling, pitching quoits, and playing ball. In this rustic seminary a considerable number of young men began their education, who afterwards bore a distinguished part in the civil and ecclesiastical affairs of the country.
SAMUEL HOUSTON, late president of the republic of Texas, was born
* A correspondent has furnished us with the following original anecdote :
in the sunimier of 1981, Col. Tarleton e; me near capturing the whole of the Virginia legislature, with Mr. Jefferson, our governor, then assembled at Charlottesville. All of these, however, except seven. made their escape, and reassembled'in Staunam, where they resumed their labors, supposing it a place of safety. But soon after they commenced bu dress, a messenger arrived with the information that Lek. Tarleton was in tud march for that place. Intimu-dated by their tate narrow escape, they precipitately fed, each caring most for his own safety. "It so happened that on that day a Presbyterian clergyman from Lexington. 35 miles distant, was on his way to a meeting of his presbytery, at the Augusti church. 8 Dilies north of Strunton. Meeting with sour of his brethren, who informed him ot what had occurred, he inquired of them whether any measures had been taken by the legislature before they dispersed. to e-Hout the mulitis, and being answered is the besttive, he expressed great surprise, and said something must be done, and proposed that they should each take different roads, and attend to it at once. This was accordingly done, and the call as promptly obeyed : and the men assembled at Staunton the same evening, prepared to match with a view of writing the enemy. The clergyman alluded to reached Les- ington, 35 miles distant, the same evening, and having spread the word in different directions. a large com- pany assembled at his house the next morning. To the e he delivered an address sulted to the occasion. But they were without an officer, and no one being willing to act in that capacity, the clergyman offeret his own service, which being accepted, he gort on his sword, and they immediately set out for the scene of action. On reaching Rockfish Gap. (the price where the road leading from Charlottesville to Staun- ton erosses the Blue Ridge.) they found the mountain covered with riflemen, determined that no hostle time should enter their borders with itpanty. Intelligence, however, soon arrived that Tarlet & rod changed his course, and was retreating down the country. Some supposed it was a feint, and that he would attempt to eross the mountain at another place, and immediately set out to guard the pen. Others returned home. But the clergyman aliuded io, and his company, with others, went in pursuit of the fe. treating enemy, and joined the Marquis Lafayette below Chiratessile. The caution, however leter likely to be protracted, they did not continue long with the army, but returned home. The dietary with rally arises, Who was this cherrymoon ? Answer-It was the learned and pious Rec. fine. Graham, wow of Virginia's most asefal and glited sons -- then principi of Liberty Hall herirmy, (now Wasin ugine College,) whose voice has been heard 's almost every part of the valley, announcing the idings of nasty and who, with hundreds of his spiritual children is now rejoicing around the throne.
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in this county, in a dwelling now occupied by the Rev. Horatio Thompson, near Timber Reach church. six miles NE. of Lexington. Ilis father was a farmer in good circumstances, and of Scotch Irish descent. Samuel received an ordinary school education, and when a young man removed to Nashville, Tenn., and studied law. His energy and talents raised him to the many prominent stations which he has held.
The Rev. ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER, D. D., President of the Theo- logical Seminary at Princeton, N. J .. was a native of this county, and married a daughter of the " Blind Preacher," (see p. 417.)
The Hon. ANDREW MOORE, of Rockbridge, was the only Virginian ever chosen a member of the United States Senate, west of the Blue Ridge. He was a member during the administration of Jef- ferson. In the Falling Spring church-yard, on the forks of James River, is the grave of Gov. M'Nurr, who died in 1811. He was a lieutenant in the company of Capt. John Alexander, (father of Dr. Archibald Alexander.) in the " Sandy creek voyage," (see p. 352,) in 1757. Shortly after, he was appointed governor of Nova Sco- tia, where he remained until the commencement of the American revolution. In this contest he adhered to the cause of liberty, and joined his countrymen in arms under Gates, at Saratoga. He was .afterwards known as a valuable officer in the brigade of Baron de Kalb in the south.
The first road over the Blue Ridge from Burden's Grant, was a pack-horse road through Rock Fish Gap. It was made by Ephraim M'Dowell, ancestor of Gov. James M'Dowell. There are Indian monuments, formed by piles of small stones, on Salling's mountain, on the Blue Ridge, on the North mountain, and on various other mountains in this section. All these occur at the gaps of the mountains, where the Indians were accustomed to cross. There are various Indian mounds in the county. The largest is on Haze's creek, about 10 miles northerly from Lexington, on the farm lately owned by Dr. Alfred Leyburn. It is about 4 feet high, and 90 in diameter. It is almost white with bleached bones; stone pipes and other relics have there been found.
The beauty of the scenery of the valley of Virginia has often been commented upon ; but we have not met with a more just de- scription than this from the work of a foreign traveller. He had been travelling from the Kanawha country through the White Sul- phur Springs, and when within about twenty miles of Lexington, in crossing the North mountain, saw the view described below :
The great point of sight is called the Grand Turn. It is an angular projection from the side of the mountain, and is supplied with a low parapet of loose stones, to protect . you from the precipice below. The old jagged pine of the forest, which has braved the tempest, age atter age, stands up in its clustered grandeur behind you. The lone and · ravenous vulture is wheeling over your head in search of prey. The broken rock -work falls away abruptly, some eighty feet immediately beneath your standing, and then runs down in softer lines to the glens below. You look to the left, and there stand, in. all their majesty, the everlasting mountains, which you have traversed one by one, and sketching ou the blue sky one of the finest outlines you ever beheld. You look to the right, and there lies expanded before you one of the richest and most lovely valleys
THE NATURAL BRIDGE.
This celebrated curiosity is in the valley of Virginia, near the centre of the Sixte. one hundred and seventy-two miles west of Richmond. Its mean height, from the stream below to its upper surface, is two hundred and fifteen feet and six inches
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which this vast country boasts. You look opposite to you, and the great and prominent mountains just break away so as to form the foreground to a yet more distant prospect, which is bathed in sunlight and in mist, promising to be equal to any thing you see. Everywhere, above, around, beneath, was the great, the beautiful, the interminable forest. Nothing impressed me so much as this. The forest had often surrounded and overwhelmed me ; I had never before such command of it. In a state so long settled. I had expected to see comparatively little of it ; but there it was, spreading itself all around like a dark green ocean, and on which the spots that were cleared and cultivated only stood out like sunny islets which adorned'its bosom.
On the whole, I bad, as you will see, been travelling for three days over most delight- fui country. For 160 miles you pass through a gallery of pictures, most exquisite, most varied, most beautiful. The ride will not suffer in comparison with a run along the finest portions of the Rhine, or our own drive from Shrewsbury to Bangor. It is often. indeed, compared with Switzerland ; but that is foolish ; the best scenery in that land is of an- other and a higher class. I was not at all aware that I should be thus gratified ; and therefore, perhaps, had the more gratification. I am thankful that I have seen it, and for the same reasons that I am thankful to have seen something of the west ; because they contribute greatly to form just conceptions of America.
The NATURAL BRIDGE is 14 miles southwesterly from Lexington, 172 from Richmond, and 213 from Washington. The mean height of the bridge, from the stream below to its upper surface, is 215 feet 6 inches ; its average width is 80 feet, its length 93 feet, and its thickness 55 feet.
" The stupendous arch constituting the bridge is of limestone rock, covered to the depth of from 4 to 6 feet with alluvial and clayey earth, and based upon huge rocks of the same geological character. the summits of which are 90 feet, and their bases 50 feet asunder, and whose rugged sides form the wild and awful chasm spanned by the bridge, The bridge is guarded, us if by the design of nature, by a parapet of rocks, and by trees and shrubbery, firmaly embedded in the soil ; so that a person travelling the stage road running over it. would, if not informed of the curiosity, pass it unnoticed. It is also worthy of remark. that the creation of a natural bridge at this place has contributed, in a singular manner, to the convenience of man, inasmuch as the deep ravine over which it sweeps, and through which traverses the beautiful ' Cedar creck,' is not other- wise easily passed fer several miles, either abore or below the bridge ; and, consequently, the road running from north to south with an acelivity of 35 degrees, presents the same appearance in soil, growth of trees, and general character, with that of the neighboring scenery."
The Natural Bridge is higher, by 55 feet, than the Falls of Niagara. It is, in the opinion of at least one who has seen both, a greater curiosity, and more an object of wonder. That derives its chief interest from its magnitude, and is but, after all, a vast sheet of falling water :-- by comparison with other cataracts only, wonderful. But the Natural Bridge is nature like art, with the proportions of art; on the very spot where art would otherwise have been required for the construction of a bridge. It is unique. No structure exists like it. As " a freak of nature" it is, perhaps, unparalleled, and therefore a greater natural curiosity and more wonderful than Niagara, although not so sublime an object ; and, therefore, one does not experience that overwhelming sense of mi- significance as in contemplating the latter.
The subjoined eloquent description, originally published in Eu- rope, will strike the intelligent visitor as containing impressions similar to those he received on first viewing the Natural Bridge :
This famous bridge is on the head of a fine limestone hill, which has the appearance of having been rent asunder by some terrible convulsion in nature. The fissure thus made is about ninety feet; and over it the bridge runs, so neediul to the spot, and so
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unlikely to have survived the great fracture, as to seem the work of man ; so simple, so grand, so great, as to assure you that it is only the work of God. The span of the arch runs from 45 to 60 feet wide ; and its height, to the under line, is about 200 feet, and to the head about 210! The form of the arch approaches to the elliptical ; and it is car- ried over on a diagonal line, the very line of all others so dithcult to the architect to realize ; and yet so calculated to enhance the picturesque beauty of the object !
There are chiefly three points of sight. You naturally make your way to the head of the bridge first ; and as it is a continuation of the common road, with its sides cov- ered with fine shrubs and trees, you may be on it before you are aware. But the mo- ment you approach through the foliage to the side, you are filled with apprehension. It has, indeed, a natural parapet ; but few persons can stand forward and look over. You instinctively seek to reduce your height, that you may gaze on what you admire with security. Even then it agitates you with dizzy sensations.
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