USA > Virginia > Loudoun County > Loudoun County > History and comprehensive description of Loudoun County, Virginia > Part 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14
The total area devoted to nursery products in 1899 was 014 acres and the amount of sales therefrom $2,225.
101
LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA.
FARM LABOR AND FERTILIZERS. LABOR.
The scarcity of efficient labor is one of the most serious troubles with which the farmers of this County have to cope. In the northern portion the labor is principally white, while in the southern part there is a greater proportion of the negro race.
Some farmers employ men by the month, paying from $15 to $18 and board, but at a distance from centers of population this transient labor is hard to secure, and even fancy wages sometimes fail to attract a sufficient supply. In other cases a laborer and his family are allowed to live on the farm, and he is paid by the day for such work as is required of him, the usual wage being 75 cents or $1, with the opportunity of working throughout a considerable part of the year. The laborer usually pays a small rent for his cottage, but is allowed a piece of ground free for a garden. Where the farms are small the greater part of the work is done by the farmer and his family, and the situation is less difficult; but with the large farms it is often impossible to secure sufficient labor, especially during harvesting.
The total and average expenditures for labor on farms in 1899, including the value of the board furnished, was $292,150, an average of $149.97 per farm and 93 cents per acre.
FERTILIZERS.
Commercial fertilizers are used extensively throughout Loudoun. These consist chiefly of phosphatic fertilizers, although some nitrogenous mixtures are used. Barn- yard and green manures are employed to a considerable extent. Lime is applied freely to many of the soils. It is brought into the area in cars, hauled from there to the farms by wagon, and thrown in small piles over the land, the usual application being twenty-five or thirty bushels to the acre. It is almost always put on the land in the fall, and after be- coming thoroughly slaked by air and rain, is spread over the land as evenly as possible. Applications are made every fifth or sixth year. Where farms are situated at considerable
102
HISTORY OF
distances from the railroads but little lime is used on account of the difficulty of transportation.
The total amount expended for fertilizers in 1900 was $107,490, an average of $55.18 per farm and 34 cents per acre and amounted to 3.8 per cent of the total value of the prod- ucts. In 1879, only one other county in the State, i. e., Norfolk, spent as much for the enrichment of its soils. The amount expended for fertilizers in that year was $133,349.
EDUCATION AND RELIGION.
Education.
Few of the early settlers of Loudoun enjoyed any other advantages of education than a few months' attendance at primary schools as they existed in Virginia previous to the Revolution. But these advantages had been so well improved that nearly all of them were able to read and write a legible hand, and had acquired sufficient knowledge of arithmetic for the transaction of ordinary business. They were, in gen- eral, men of strong and penetrating minds and, clearly per- ceiving the numerous advantages which education confers, they early directed their attention to the establishment of schools. But for many years there were obstacles in addition to those incident to all new settlements, which prevented much being done for the cause of education. The contro- versies in which they were involved and the war of the Revo- lution employed nearly all their thoughts and all their ener- gies previous to the State's admission into the Federal Union.
Of the real efficiency of the Colonial schools of Loudoun but little can be learned. Teachers, as a rule, were on a par with their surroundings. If they could read, write and cipher to the "single rule of three" their educational qualifications were deemed sufficient. They generally canvassed the neigh- borhood with a subscription paper, forming the schools them- selves and furnishing the few necessary books. The rates were from $1 to $2.50 per scholar by the month, and lower
103
LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA.
when the schoolmaster "boarded around." But he was most likely to succeed in forming a school who contracted to take his pay in produce.
Few schools were taught by women in Colonial times and female teachers were still rare until a comparatively recent period.
The salaries of regularly appointed tutors varied according to the nature of the schools and the ability of the district to meet the expense.
After the Revolution, with increasing prosperity, came a spirit of general improvement and a new interest in the cause of education.
The present condition of education in Loudoun is hopeful, public instruction being now popular with all classes. Intelli- gence is more generally diffused than at any previous period of the County's history, and happily, the progress of moral education has, on the whole, fully kept pace with intellectual culture. Our boys and girls are reared in a home atmosphere of purity, of active thought, and intelligent cultivation; all their powers are keenly stimulated by local and national pros- perity and unrestricted freedom in all honest endeavor.
With the improvement in the school system has come a bet- ter style of school-houses. The "little red school-house on the hill" has given place to buildings of tasteful architecture, with modern improvements conducive to the comfort and health of the scholars, and the refining influences of neat sur- roundings is beginning to be understood. Separate schools are maintained for colored pupils and graded schools sus- tained at populous places.
With free schools, able teachers consecrated to their call- ing, and fair courses of instruction; with a people generous in expenditures for educational purposes, and a cooperation of parents and teachers; with the many educational periodicals, the pedagogical books, and teachers' institutes to broaden and stimulate the teacher, the friends of education in Loudoun may labor on, assured that the new century will give abundant fruitage to the work which has so marvelously prospered in the old.
104
HISTORY OF
Total Receipts of School Funds for the Year Ending July 31, 1908. (From report of Division Superintendent of Schools.)
From State funds. $13,968 92
County school tax.
12,355 38
District school tax. 14,640 82
All other sources.
322 30
Balance on hand August 1, 1907.
6,644 60
Total. $47,931 97
Total expenditures.
42,788 58
Balance on hand August 1, 1908. $5,143 39
School population, Number of Schools, Enrollment and Attendance by Races and Districts, 1906-1907. (From report of State Superintendent of Schools.
School Popula- tion.
No. of schools opened.
Whole number enrolled.
Districts.
Total.
White.
Colored.
White.
Colored.
White.
Colored.
Broad Run
748
228
19
4
538
131
669
Jefferson
619
216
15
4
446
196
642
Leesburg
381
143
9
3
358
107
465
Lovettsville
614
34
13
1
498
24
522
Mercer
628
482
15
7
467
277
744
Mt. Gilead.
695
457
16
6
493
231
724
Town of Leesburg ..
255
130
6
3
196
121
317
Total
3,940
1,690
93
28
2,99€
1,087
4,083
Religion.
The Church, with her faiths, her sacraments, and a part of her ministry, was an integral part of the colonization of the County from the beginning and continuously. Everywhere, with the spreading population, substantial edifices for public worship were erected and competent provision made for the maintenance of all the decencies and proprieties of Christian religion. The influence of these institutions, and of the faith which they embodied, was most benign and salutary. They gave to the age of the Revolution its noble character and its deep-seated principles, the force and momentum of which have come down, with gradually decreasing power, to our own day. But with these institutions and with their proper effect and influence was mingled the fatal leaven of secularity.
105
LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA.
All the leading denominations are represented in Loudoun by churches and congregations to the extent shown by the following table of statistics, representing conditions as they existed at the close of the calendar year 1906, and based upon the returns of individual church organizations so far as received by the Census Office, through which Bureau they were obtained for initial publication in this work.
Denomination.
Total number of organi- zations.
Total num- ber re- ported.
All denominations
97
7,606
Baptist bodies:
Baptists-
Southern Baptist Convention
11
1,199
National Baptist Convention (colored)
15
1,235
Free Baptists
2
55
Primitive Baptists.
6
171
Friends:
Society of Friends (Orthodox)
2
122
Religious Society of Friends (Hicksite). Lutheran bodies:
3
278
General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America Methodist bodies :*
4
645
Methodist Episcopal Church
19
1,179
Methodist Episcopal Church (South)
21
1,716
Colored Methodist Episcopal Church
1
45
Presbyterian bodies:
Presbyterian Church in the United States (South) ..
4
345
Protestant Episcopal Church
7
416
Reformed bodies:
Reformed Church in the United States.
1
140
Roman Catholic Church.
1
60
Communi- cants or members.
*Leesburg had, until a year or so ago when it was razed, one of the oldest Methodist churches in America. The building, a large stone structure, long abandoned. with galleries around three sides, stood in the midst of an old Methodist graveyard in which are tombstones more than a century old. It was built, according to report, in 1780.
Leesburg is the oldest Methodist territory in the bounds of the Balti- more Conference in Virginia, and it was here that the first Methodist Conference held in the State convened May 19, 1778.
45-8
historical.
FORMATION.
In 1742, Prince William County, a part of the stupendous Culpeper grant, was divided and the county of Fairfax created and named in honor of its titled proprietor. Commencing at the confluence of the Potomac and Occoquan rivers, the line of demarcation followed the latter stream and its tributary, Bull Run, to its ultimate source in the mountain of that name, from which point it was continued to the summit of said mountain, pursuing thereafter a direct course to the thorough- fare in the Blue Ridge, known as "Ashby's Gap."
In 1757, Fairfax was divided and the territory west of its altered boundary christened "Loudoun County." The new line followed the stream called Difficult Run, from its junction with the Potomac to its highest spring-head, and from that point was continued in a direct line to the northeast border of Prince William County. This boundary was afterwards changed and the present line between Loudoun and Fairfax substituted (see "Boundaries," page 17).
The following are excerpts from the proceedings of the Virginia House of Burgesses that led to the creation of Lou- doun County in May, 1757. The act authorizing the division of Fairfax and establishment of Loudoun is given intact:
On April 20, 1757, a "petition of sundry Inhabitants of Fairfax County, praying a Division of the said County, was presented to the House and read, and referred to the Consideration of the next Session of Assembly."
(107)
108
HISTORY OF
On Friday, April 22, 1757, "Mr. Charles Carter, from the Committee on Propositions and Grievances, reported, that the Committee had had under their Consideration divers Propositions, from several Counties, to them referred, and had come to several Resolutions thereupon, which he read in in Place, and then delivered in at the Table, where the same were again twice read, and agreed to by the House, as follow:"
"Resolved, That the Petition of sundry Back-Inhabitants of the said County of Fairfax, praying the same may be divided into two distinct Counties, by a Line from the Mouth up the main Branch of Difficult- Run to the Head thereof, and thence by a streight Line to the Mouth of Rocky-Run, is reasonable."
The following Monday the bill was again presented to the House by Charles Carter, of the Committee of Propositions and Grievances, and Friday, April 29, 1757, was ordered engrossed and read a third time.
Monday, May 2, 1757, the engrossed Bill, entitled, "An Act for dividing the county of Fairfax," was read a third time, passed by the House, and sent to the Council for their "concurrence." It received the assent of the governor Wednesday, June 8, 1757.
An Act for Dividing the County of Fairfax. (Passed May 2, 1757.)
I. WHEREAS, Many inconveniences attend the upper inhabitants of the county of Fairfax, by reason of the large extent of the said county, and their remote situation from the court house, and the said inhabi- tants have petitioned this present general assembly that the said county may be divided: Be it, therefore, enacted, by the Lieutenant-Governor, Council, and Burgesses of this present General Assembly, and it is hereby enacted, by the authority of the same, That from and after the 1st day of July next ensuing the said county of Fairfax be divided into two counties, that is to say: All that part thereof, lying above Difficult run, which falls into Patowmack river, and by a line to be run from the head of the same run, a straight course, to the mouth of Rocky run, shall be one distinct county, and called and known by the name of Loudoun: And all that part thereof below the said run and course, shall be one other distinct county, and retain the name of Fairfax.
II. And for the due administration of justice in the said county of Loudoun, after the same shall take place: Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That after the first day of July a court for the said county of Loudoun be constantly held by the justices thereof, upon the second Tuesday in every month, in such manner as by the laws of this colony is provided, and shall be by their commission directed.
109
LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA.
III. Provided always, That nothing herein contained shall be con- structed to hinder the sheriff or collector of the said county of Fairfax, as the same now stands entire and undivided, from collecting and mak- ing distress for any public dues, or officers fees, which shall remain unpaid by the inhabitants of the said county of Loudoun at the time of its taking place; but such sheriff or collector shall have the same power to collect or distrain for such dues and fees, and shall be answerable for them in the same manner as if this act had never been made, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.
IV. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That the court of the said county of Fairfax shall have jurisdiction of all actions and suits, both in law and equity, which shall be depending before them at the time the said division shall take place; and shall and may try and determine all such actions and suits, and issue process and award execu- tion in any such action or suit in the same manner as if this act had never been made, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.
V. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That out of every hundred pounds of tobacco, paid in discharge of quit rents, seere- tary's, clerk's, sheriff's, surveyor's, or other officers fees, and so pro- portionably for a greater or lesser quantity, there shall be made the following abatements or allowances to the payer, that is to say: For tobacco due in the county of Fairfax ten pounds of tobacco, and for tobacco due in the county of Loudoun twenty pounds of tobacco; and that so much of the act of the assembly, intituled, An Act for amending the Staple of Tobacco, and preventing frauds in his Majesty's customs, as relates to anything within the purview of this act, shall be, and is hereby repealed and made void.
DERIVATION OF NAME.
Loudoun County was named in honor of Lord Loudoun, a representative peer of Scotland, who, the year before its establishment, and during the French and Indian war, had been appointed captain-general and governor-in-chief of the province of Virginia, and commander-in-chief of the British military forces in the Colonies.
His military avocations, however, prevented him from en- tering upon the duties of the gubernatorial office, and it is believed that he never visited the colony of Virginia. Din- widdie continued in the control of its affairs, while Loudoun
110
HISTORY OF
turned his attention to military matters, in which his indo- lence, indecision, and general inefficiency were most conspicu- ous and disastrous. Franklin said of him: "He is like little St. George on the sign-boards; always on horseback, but never goes forward."
Until his early recall to England, contemporaneous writers and brother officers mercilessly criticised Loudoun "whom a child might outwit, or terrify with a pop-gun."
Hardesty's Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia con- tains the following succinct account of the public services rendered by this noted Scotchman:
"John Campbell, son of Hugh, Earl of Loudoun, was born in 1705, and succeeded his father in the title in November, 1731. In July, 1756, he arrived in New York with the appointment of governor-in-chief of Virginia, and also with the commission of commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, but, proving inefficient, returned to England in 1757. He was made Lieutenant-General in 1758, and General in 1770. He died April 27, 1782, and was succeeded by Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, as governor of Virginia, in 1768."
SETTLEMENT AND PERSONNEL.
The permanent settlement of Loudoun began between the years 1725 and 1730 while the County was yet a part of Prince William and the property of Lord Fairfax, the immigrants securing ninety-nine-year leases on the land at the rate of two shillings sterling per 100 acres. The above-noted interim saw a steady influx of the fine old English Cavalier* stock, the settlers occupying large tracts of land in the eastern and southern portions of the County or most of the territory extending from the Potomac River southward to Middleburg and from the Catoctin and Bull Run mountains eastward to the eastern border of the County. It is more to this noble and chivalric strain than to any other that Loudoun owes her present unrivalled social eminence.
*This stock was the first to introduce and foster slavery in the County .- Goodhart's History of the Loudoun Rangers.
111
LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA.
John Esten, Cooke's faithful and eloquent delineation of Virginia character is peculiarly applicable to this Cavalier element of Loudoun society. Some conception of that au- thor's grandiose style and intimate knowledge of his subject may be gained from the following passage:
"The Virginian of the present time has ingrained in his character the cordial instincts and spirit of courtesy and hospitality which marked his ancestors. He has the English preference for the life of the country to the life of the city; is more at home among green fields and rural scenes than in streets; loves horses and dogs, breeds of cattle, the sport of fox hunting, wood-fires, Christmas festivities, the society of old neighbors, political discussions, traditions of this or that local celebrity, and to entertain everybody to the extent of, and even beyond, his limited means. Many of these proclivities have been laughed at, and the people have been criticised as provincial and narrow-minded; but after all it is good to love one's native soil, and to cherish the home traditions which give character to a race. Of the Virginians it may be said that they have objected in all times to being rubbed down to a uniformity with all the rest of the world, and that they have generally retained the traits which characterized their ancestors."
The northwestern part of the County, known as the "Ger- man Settlement," a section of about 125 square miles, extend- ing from Catoctin Mountain westward to the Short Hill Mountains and from the Potomac River southward to near Wheatland, was originally settled by a sturdy and vigorous race of Germans,* principally from Pennsylvania, but a few from New York, in which two colonies they had settled on their arrival, only a few years before, from the Palatine states of Germany. They came to Loudoun between the years 1730 and 1735,1 about the time of the Cavalier settlements.
These German settlers were a patient, Godfearing people, naturally rugged, and very tenacious in the preservation of their language, religion, customs and habits. Every stage in their development has been marked by a peaceable and orderly deportment-a perfect submission to the restraints of civil authority.
*The first sheep were brought to the County by these settlers .- His- tory of the Loudoun Rangers.
+ 1732 was most likely the year in which the earliest of these German settlers arrived in Loudoun.
112
HISTORY OF
The earliest of these German arrivals, with native foresight and a proper appreciation of the dangers incident to border settlement in that day of bloody Indian atrocities, came to Loudoun in an organized body, embracing sixty or more families.
Many of the males were artisans of no mean ability, and plied their respective trades as conscientiously and assiduously as others, in the rude manner of the times, tilled their newly- acquired acres.
In this way, a congenial, stable, and self-sustaining colony, founded on considerations of common safety and economic expediency, was established amongst these storied hills of frontier Virginia.
Almost simultaneously with these settlements came other emigrants from Pennsylvania and the then neighboring colon- ies, among them many members of the Society of Friends or Quakers .* Not a few of this faith came direct from England and Ireland, attracted by the genial climate, fertile soils and bountiful harvests, accounts of which had early gained wide- spread circulation. They chose homes in the central portion of the County, southwest of Waterford and west of Lessburg, that section being generally known as the "Quaker Settle- ment."
Each summer brought them new accessions of prosperity and devout brethren to swell their numbers; and soon they had caused the wilderness to blossom as the rose. Here they found freedom of religious and moral thought, a temperate climate, and the wholesome society of earnest compatriots.
Then, as now, a plain, serious people, they have left the impress of their character-thrifty, industrious, and con- spicuously honest-upon the whole of the surrounding dis- trict.
No concerted violence, it is believed, was offered these
*The term Quaker, originally given in reproach, has been so often used, by friend as well as foe, that it is no longer a term of derision, but is the generally accepted designation of a member of the Society of Friends .- Loudoun Rangers.
113
LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA.
settlers by the Indians who seem to have accredited them with the same qualities of honesty, virtue, and benevolence, by the exercise of which William Penn, the founder of the faith in Pennsylvania, had won their lasting confidence and esteem.
The Quaker is a type with which all the world is familiar and needs no particular portrayal in this work. The Quakers of Loudoun have at all times remained faithful adherents of the creed, their peculiar character, manners, and tenets differ- ing to no considerable extent from those of other like colon- ies, wherever implanted.
It is doubtful if any race has done more to stimulate and direct real progress, and to develop the vast resources of Loudoun, than that portion of our earlier population known as the Scotch-Irish. Their remarkable energy, thrift, staid- ness, and fixed religious views made their settlements the centers of civilization and improvement in Colonial times; that their descendants proved sturdy props of the great cause that culminated in the independence of the United States is a matter of history.
EARLY HABITS, CUSTOMS, AND DRESS. HABITS.
The earliest permanent settlements of Loudoun having been separately noted in the foregoing paragraphs a generalized description of the habits, customs, and dress of these settlers, as well as their unorganized pioneer predeces- sors and the steady promiscuous stream of homeseekers that poured into the County until long after the Revolution, will now be attempted.
The early settlers, with but one class exception, had no costly tastes to gratify, no expensive habits to indulge, and neither possessed nor cared for luxuries. · Their subsistence, such as they required, cost but little of either time or labor. The corn from which they made their bread came forth from the prolific soil almost at the touch of their rude plows. Their
114
HISTORY OF
cattle and hogs found abundant sustenance in the broad pastures which, in the summer, yielded the richest grass, and in the woods where, in the fall, the ground was strewn with acorns and other like provender.
The pioneer lived roughly; the German from the Palatinate kept house like the true peasant that he was; the planter lived somewhat more sumptuously and luxuriously; but, in nearly every case, the table was liberally supplied. Hominy, milk, corn-bread, and smoked or jerked meats seem to have been most popular with the humbler classes.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.