USA > Virginia > Tazewell County > Tazewell County > History of Tazewell county and southwest Virginia, 1748-1920 > Part 16
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Illinois Indians sold him to Spanish traders who wanted to use him as an interpreter. They took him to Canada, where he was purchased from the Spaniards by the French governor, and was sent by him to the Dutch settlement at New York. From New York he made his way to Williamsburg, and from thence to Win- chester, arriving there after an absence of six years.
In 1730, John and Isaae Vanmeter, who were German Hugue- nots, and then located in Pennsylvania, procured from Governor Gooeh, of Virginia, a grant for 40,000 acres of land to be located in the lower Valley and within the present boundaries of Frederick County, Virginia, and Jefferson County, West Virginia. The Van- meters sold, in 1731, their warrant for the 40,000 aeres to Joist Hite, also of Pennsylvania. He began to survey and loeate valuable tracts of land, and offered extraordinary indueements to immigrants . to settle upon the lands. But the strongest inducement was the removal of his own family from Pennsylvania to the Valley. He settled with his family, in 1732, a few miles south of where Win- chester is now located; and this is supposed to be the first per- manent settlement made by a white man in the splendid Valley of Virginia. Waddell says:
"Population soon flowed in to take possession of the rich lands offered by Hite; but a controversy speedily arose in regard to the proprietor's title. Lord Fairfax claimed Hite's lands as a part of his grant of the 'Northern Neek.' Fairfax entered a caveat against Hite, in 1736, and thereupon Hite brought suit against Fairfax. This suit was not finally decided till 1786, long after the death of all the original parties, when judgment was rendered in favor of Hite and his vendees. The dispute between Fairfax and Hite retarded the settlement of that part of the Valley, and indueed immigrants to push their way up the Shenandoah River to regions not implicated in such controversies."
About the year 1732 John Lewis, whose descendants after- wards figured so conspicuously in the affairs of Virginia, settled in the Shenandoah Valley. Local historians designate him as the first white settler in that region. He beeame acquainted with John Salling shortly after the latter returned to Winchester from eap- tivity; and was so pleased with Salling's deseription of the Upper Valley that he and John Mackey made a visit to the country under the guidance of Salling; and all three of these men determined to
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make their homes there. There was an abundance of fertile land with no one elaiming ownership to any portion of it, and Lewis and his companions were free to choose what they wished.
John Lewis was a native of the county of Donegal, Province of Ulster, Ireland, was of pure Seotch descent, and came to this eoun- try from Portugal, first settling with his family in Pennsylvania. He had been forced to leave Ireland on aceount of killing an Irish landlord from whom he had rented land. The landlord was trying to eviet Lewis from his holdings by force and shot into the house. killing a brother of Lewis and severely wounding his wife. There- upon Lewis rushed out of the house, killed the Irish lord, and drove his retainers away. His eonduet was fully justified by the authori- ties, but he thought it best to leave the country. When he moved his family to the Shenandoah Valley he brought with him three sons, Thomas, Andrew and William; and a fourth son, Charles, was born at the new home. Andrew commanded the Virginians at the battle of Point Pleasant, and won distinetion as a general in the Revolutionary War. Charles commanded a regiment at Point Pleasant, and was killed in the engagement. In his Annals of Augusta county, Waddell says: "Concurrently with the settle- ment of Lewis, or immediately afterward, a flood of immigrants *
poured into the country.
* * It is believed that all the earliest settlers came from Pennsylvania and up the Valley of the Shenandoalı. It was several years before any settlers entered the Valley from the east, and through the gaps in the Blue Ridge." A large majority of the pioneer settlers of the Clinch Valley and of all Southwest Virginia were of the same stock as those who first came to the Shenandoah Valley. In fact, Pennsylvania and Mary- land furnished nearly all of them, but many located for a time in the Valley before coming here.
These settlers were not by any means all of the Scotch-Irish blood. There was a strong element of Germans among them, who shared equally with the men from Ulster the glory of making the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia two of the most noted and delightful sections of the United States. The Seoteh and German pioneer settlers were, alike, men of great energy and dauntless courage; and filled with such intense political and relig- ious convictions that they and their descendants have made an indelible impression upon the social, political and moral life of America. Fiske, the historian, says: "Jefferson is often ealled the father of modern American demoeraey; in a certain sense the T.H .- 11
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Shenandoah Valley and adjacent Appalachian regions may be called its cradle. In that rude frontier society, life assumed many new aspects, old customs were forgotten, old distinctions abolished, social equality acquired even more importance than unchecked individualism. The notions, sometimes crude and noxious, some- times just and wholesome, which characterized Jacksonian demo- cracy, flourished greatly on the frontier and have thence been propagated eastward through the older communities, affecting their legislation and their politics more or less according to frequency of contact and intercourse." This Jeffersonian democracy of the pioneer settlers of the Appalachian regions, including the Clinch Valley, was scattered by their descendants throughout the West and Northwest. And in the middle of the last century it was given added impulse by Abraham Lincoln, who is the only peer of Jeffer- son, as a leader and teacher of a pure democracy, the world has ever produced.
In 1734 an event occurred which greatly accelerated the west- ward movement. This was the creation of a new county to be taken from Spottsylvania. On the 20th of September of that year the General Assembly of Virginia passed an act for that end, and its provisions, in part, were as follows :
"Whereas divers inconveniences attend the upper inhabitants of Spottsylvania county, by reason of their great distance from the courthouse, and other places usually appointed for public meetings, Be it therefore enacted, by the Lieutenant Governor, Council and Burgesses of this present General Assembly, and it is hereby cnacted, by the authority of the same, that from and immediately after the first day of January, now next ensuing, the said county of Spottsylvania be divided, by the dividing line, between the parish of St. George, and the parish of St. Mark; and that that part of the county, which is now the parish of St. George, remain, and bc called, and known by the name of Spottsylvania county; and that all that territory of land adjoining to, and above the said line, bounden southerly by the line of Hanover county, northerly by the grant of Lord Fairfax, and westerly by the utmost limits of Vir- ginia, be thenceforth erected into one distinct county and be called and known by the name of the county of Orange." The county seat was afterwards located at the site of the present Orange, Vir- ginia.
That the intention of the act was to encourage settlements to
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the westward of the Shenandoah, called in the act the "Sherrendo" river, is evidenced by the recital: "That all inhabitants that shall be settled there after the first day of January succeeding shall be free and exempt from the paiment of public, county, and parish levies by the space of three years, from thence next following."
This act brought into existence the largest county that was ever established in the world. In fact, it was extensive enough in terri- tory to be called an empire, but had no white inhabitants, except the few settlers in the Shenandoah Valley and a few hundreds east of the Blue Ridge. Its bounds extended as far northerly and westerly as the utmost limits of Virginia. The charters given by James I. to the London Company fixed the northern limits at the Great Lakes and the western limits at the Pacific Ocean.
The British Government grew more restless as the French continued to push south from Canada with their forts and trading posts, locating them on Virginia territory; and the policy of advanc- ing the English settlements as far north and west and as rapidly as possible was adopted. In pursuance of this policy, first sug- gested by Governor Spottswood, the General Assembly of Virginia determined to erect two distinct counties west of the mountains, and to hold out stronger inducements for settlers to locate with their families in the unexplored and indefinite regions. On the 15th of December, 1738, an act was passed by the General Assembly for erecting two new counties west of the Blue Ridge, to be called Frederick, and Augusta, respectively. The title declared it to be: "An Act for erecting two new Counties, and Parishes, and granting certain encouragements to the inhabitants thereof;" and the pre- amble declared that, "Whereas great numbers of people have set- tled themselves of late upon the rivers of Sherrendo, Cohongorton, and Opeckon, and the branches thereof, on the northwest of the Blue Ridge mountains, whereby the strength of this colony, and its security upon the frontiers, and his Majesty's revenue of quit- rents are like to be much increased and augmented: For giving encouragement to such as shall think fit to settle there, Be it enacted," etc.
After outlining the bounds of the two counties, several impor- tant provisions were incorporated in the enacting clauses. One of these provided that the two new counties should remain attached to Orange County and Saint Mark's parish until it was made known
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to the governor and council that there was "a sufficient number of inhabitants for appointing justices of the peace and other officers and erecting courts therein." The act also provided that the inhabitants should be exempted from "the payment of all public, county and parish levies for ten years." And it was further pro- vided that all levies and officers' fees could be paid "in money, or tobaeeo at three farthings per pound, without any deduction."
The erection of these two counties confined the bounds of Orange County to a comparatively small area cast of the Blue Ridge. As left by the act, which called Frederick and Augusta into existence, its territory was composed of the present counties of Orange, Culpeper, Rappahannock, Madison and Green. All the Virginia territory west of the Blue Ridge, exeept that portion of the Valley east of Rockingham and Page counties and a small part of the present State of West Virginia, constituted Augusta county. This made the extreme limits of Augusta reach westward to the Pacific Ocean and northward to Canada. Thus did the entire Clinch Valley become a part of Augusta County. By the treaty of Paris, negotiated in 1763, the limits of Augusta were reduced so as to embraec only the present State of Virginia west of the Blue Ridge, nearly all of the present State of West Virginia, all of Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois; and Michigan and Wisconsin, except the portions of these two states that lie west of the Mississippi. The county was not regularly organized until 1745. On October 30th of that year Governor Gooch issued "a Commission of the Peace" to twenty-one citizens of the county. namely: James Patton, John Lewis, John Buchanan, George Robin- son. Peter Scholl. James Bell. Robert Campbell, John Brown, Robert Poage. John Pickens, Thomas Lewis. Hugh Thompson, Robert Cunningham, John Tinla (Finley?) Richard Woods, John Christian, Robert Craven. James Kerr, Adam Dickinson, Andrew Piekens and John Anderson.
James Patton and John Buchanan, two of the men named in this Commission of the Peace, came from Ireland to the Shenan- doah Valley about 1735 or 1736, where they soon became leaders in the affairs of that region, and of Augusta County after its organi- zation in 1745. A few years thereafter they became the leading spirits in the exploration and settlement of the Trans-Alleghany regions. Patton was a seafaring man and had been a lieutenant in the British navy, and was the son-in-law of Benjamin Burden, the latter being the agent of Lord Fairfax in the management of his
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great "Northern Neck" grant. Buchanan was a skilled surveyor, and was the son-in-law of Colonel Patton. In 1745 Patton was made county lieutenant and commander of the militia for Augusta County ; and a little later secured from the Crown a grant for 120.000 acres of land to be located in Virginia, west of the Alle- ghany Mountains. He organized an exploring and surveying expedi- tion in the spring of 1748 to locate lands under the grant. His party, in addition to himself, consisted of Colonel John Buchanan, Charles Campbell, who was son-in-law of Colonel Buchanan; Dr. Thomas Walker, James Wood, and an ample number of hunters, chain-carriers, cooks, etc. They had pack-horses in sufficient num- bers to carry provisions, ammunition and other things that were needed for a long journey and a protracted stay in the wilderness. The late Colonel Thomas L. Preston, a great-grandson of Charles Campbell, in his "Reminiscences of An Octogenarian," thus speaks of the four leading characters of the expedition:
"Colonel Patton was about fifty-eight years old, of. a tall and commanding figure and great physical strength and vigor. He was wealthy and well educated, and well fitted for the long and arduous expedition he planned. His party was also well chosen for the same purpose. John Buchanan (his son-in-law) was a surveyor, as was also Charles Campbell, both of whom had the spirit and courage of the early pioneers, with the physical attri- butes of strength and power of endurance.
"Dr. Thomas Walker, born January 15, 1715, was thirty-three years old and in the prime of manhood. He was richly endowed with every qualification for such an expedition, mentally and phy- sically, and, as physician and surveyor, a great accession to the party."
The expedition started out from Colonel Patton's home, near the present Waynesboro, Augusta County, where he had a splendid estate of 1,398 acres, which had been a part of the historic "Manor Beverley" grant, and which Patton had acquired from William Beverley for the sum of five shillings (831/2 cents).
If any diary or written record was made of the movements and accomplishments of this expedition, it was not preserved; and, therefore, such incidents as are of sufficient moment to become written history have to be collected from well authenticated tradi- tions. This was not the first expedition that had crossed the Alle- ghany Mountains in Virginia; but it was the first that was followed
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with practical results in the way of introducing settlers into the splendid section now known as Southwest Virginia. It is a well established historical fact that Major Abram Wood, who lived at the falls of Appomattox River, where Petersburg, Virginia, is now situated, made a trip of exploration and discovery to the Upper New River Valley in 1654, and that the stream he then discovered was afterwards known as Wood's River. No written record was preserved of Major Wood's expedition but it is authenticated by traditions and circumstances as substantial, comparatively, as those connected with the expedition of Colonel Patton. Summers in his history of Southwest Virginia says:
"It is reasonable to believe that Colonel Wood made this trip, and, to support this view, three circumstances may be mentioned. First, The House of Burgesses of Virginia had authorized Colonel Wood, along with others, in July of the preceding year to discover a new river of unknown land 'Where no English had ever been or discovered.' Secondly. A gap in the Blue Ridge, lying between the headwaters of Smith river, a branch of the Dan, in Patrick county, and of Little river, a branch of New river, in Floyd county, is to this day called Wood's Gap. Thirdly. The present New river was known at first as Wood's river."
There is but little doubt that Major Wood was hunting for a river west of the Blue Ridge that was believed to exist and flow into the Pacific Ocean, just as Captain Newport, in 1609, and Governor Spottswood, in 1716, had sought and expected to find such a stream. In 1666 another exploring expedition visited the Upper New River Valley. It was composed of Captain Henry Batte, Thomas Wood and Robert Fallen. They acted under a com- mission issued by Governor Berkeley, had an Appomattox Indian for a guide, and traveled on five horses. On the 1st of September, 1666, the expedition started from the falls of the Appomattox, as did that of Major Wood, twelve years previous. Captain Batte kept a journal, in which he stated that the object of the expedition was "for ye finding out of the ebbing and flowing of ye waters behind the mountains in order to the discovery of the South Sea." The Virginia colonists, even their governors and other officials, still adhered to the belief that the South Sea (the Pacific Ocean) would be found a short distance west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Batte and his companions failed, of course, to find the South Sea, but they did re-discover New River, then known as Wood's River.
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From their brief description of the country about where they came upon the river, historians have been unable to locate the exact, or approximately, correct point. It is possible that it was at or near the place now known as Austinville, in Wythe County, at the Lead Mines. Batte says they found Indian fields with corn stalks in them. There was a heavy flood in New River in 1916, and the river overflowed the bottom lands doing great damage to crops along the shores for a hundred or more miles down the valley. At a point not far from Austinville, in a river bottom, a channel was cut by the flood, revealing an Indian graveyard and exposing a number of skeletons. Evidently there had been a Cherokee village in the locality, and hence the corn fields. Spottswood's expedition was not the first to cross the Blue Ridge, but it was the first to enter the Shenandoah Valley. It is also evident that Colonel Pat- ton's was not the first expedition to cross the Alleghany Mountains. but it was the first that crossed New River, and it was the first to enter the territory now embraced in Tazewell County.
It is claimed by local historians that many years previous to the Patton expedition that traders came from east of the mountains and visited the Cherokee towns in Tennessee. These traders em- ployed Indian guides, and transported their merchandise on pack- horses, traveling along the Holston Valley while going to and from the Cherokee country. Many hunters had also made hunting trips from the eastern part of Virginia to the Clinch Valley and Holston Valley previous to the visit of Colonel Patton and his company. They were attracted here by the great abundance of game, which they killed largely for their hides, furs then being very valuable for exportation to Europe. Among these hunters was one William Clinch, whose name was given to the great valley and the beautiful river that has its source in Tazewell County.
But to return to Colonel Patton and his expedition, made in 1748. After leaving his home in Augusta County, Patton traveled through Rockbridge County until he reached the James River Val- ley. Surveys had been made some ten years previously of valuable tracts of land where the towns of Pattonsburg and Buchanan are now located. Pattonsburg was named in honor of Colonel Patton, and is on the north side of the river in Rockbridge County. Buch- anan is on the south side of the James, directly opposite Pattons- burg, in Botetourt County; and received its name from Colonel John Buchanan. These two towns are among the oldest in Virginia,
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not ten years younger than Richmond and Petersburg. Patton on this occasion also located lands in the Catawba Valley and at Amsterdam in Botetourt County. From thence he went to the Roanoke Valley, and made surveys on Stroubles Creek, and located a large boundary at the present Blacksburg, which was first ealled Draper's Meadows and afterwards Smithfield. the latter name being given the place at the time Colonel William Preston beeame its owner. Leaving Draper's Meadows, the Patton party erossed New River at Ingles' Ferry, which is about a mile up the river from Radford, and traveled on toward the Holston River, or, as it was then known, Indian River, locating choice lands at different points on the route. A large survey was made just south of Max Meadows, in Wythe County, and Colonel Patton named the tract "Anchor and Hope," and gave it to his daughter, who was the wife of Colonel Buchanan. A few years later Colonel Buchanan moved from Pattonsburg, where he had previously settled, and built himself a home near where the present "Anchor and Hope Church" now stands.
From "Anchor and Hope," Colonel Patton and his party made their way to the headwaters of the Middle Fork of Holston River. In that loeality a very fine boundary of land, consisting of 1.300 acres was surveyed and given the name of "Davis' Fancy." It was patented to James Davis, who may possibly have gone there with the Patton party. A large portion of this traet is now owned and occupied by George W. Davis, great-great-grandson of James Davis. From "Davis' Fancy." Colonel Patton led his party down the Hol- ston Valley to the beautiful country about the present Seven Mile Ford, in Smyth County. While camping at that place they were visited by Charles Sinelair, a hermit hunter, who had built himself a cabin on the South Fork of Holston River three miles south of Seven Mile Ford. The Hon. B. F. Buchanan, of Marion, Virginia, and whose aneestress was a sister of Colonel John Buchanan, had frequent interviews with the late Colonel Thomas L. Preston; and from him learned certain interesting facts that transpired after Sinclair joined the Patton party. As related by Colonel Preston to Mr. Buchanan, they are substantially as follows:
"Colonel Preston told me that on reaching some point on the Holston this exploring party was visited by a man named Sinclair, who told the party that he was well acquainted with this section of the country and knew the best lands, as he had hunted all over it;
.
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that he was on friendly terms with the Indians and could insure the party against attacks by them; and proposed to guide them and show them the choice lands, if they would make a survey and have the patent issued to him of a traet of land on the South Fork of the Holston River, where he was located. This was agreed to, the survey was made, and a tract still known as St. Clairs Bottom, three miles south of Seven Mile Ford, was surveyed and afterwards patented to Sinelair."
Colonel Preston, who was the great-grandson of Charles Camp- bell, one of the explorers in the party, stated, from family traditions, what transpired after the expedition reached Cumberland Gap. He said that: "On reaching the summit of the mountain where the three states of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee now join, they pitched their tents, and Patton, in gratitude for the prineely grant which had been given him, named the mountain and river that rises along its western base for the Duke of Cumberland." The traditions ir. the Preston and Campbell families also held that when the Patton party returned from Cumberland Gap they were shown the choice lands on the North Fork of Holston River in the present Smyth County, and were also condueted to Burke's Garden by the hunter, Sinelair. These oeeurrenees as related by Colonel Preston are substantially as follows:
On the return of the party from Cumberland Gap, Sinclair conducted it aeross Walker's Mountain into Rich Valley, by way of Saltville, where they located a tract of 330 aeres of land, in the name of Charles Campbell and named it the "Buffalo Lick." They then traveled up the North Fork of Holston River, located the Taylor bottoms near and above the present Broadford, which included "Campbells Choice," a boundary of 1,400 acres of, pos- sibly, the finest land in Virginia. After surveying "Campbells Choice," the party went into and through Loeust Cove; and all of the Cove was located for Colonel John Buchanan. He gave this magnificent boundary, which is underlaid with the finest gypsum on earth, to his sister, Martha Buchanan, the wife of Captain John Buchanan. A few years later Captain Buchanan and his wife moved to the cove, and Archibald Buchanan, a brother of the captain, also located in that vicinity. The greater part of "Loeust Cove" is still owned and oeeupied by descendants of Captain Buchanan and his wife, Martha; and practically all the Buchanans in Tazewell and Smythi counties are their descendants. From the Cove the party
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