USA > Virginia > Washington County > Washington County > History of southwest Virginia, 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870 > Part 4
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The act establishing the county of Augusta provided that the organization of the county should take place when the Governor and Council should think there was a sufficient number of inhabi- tants for appointing justices of the peace and other officers and creating courts therein.
While the act establishing Augusta county was passed in 1738, the county was not organized until 1745. The first court assem- bled at Staunton on December 9, 1745, at which time the following magistrates were sworn in, having been previously commissioned by the Governor of Virginia-viz. : James Patton, John Buchanan, George Robinson, James Bell, Robert Campbell, John Lewis, John Brown, Peter Scholl, Robert Poage, John Findley, Richard Woods, John Christian, Robert Craven, John Pickens, Andrew Pickens, Thomas Lewis, Hugh Thompson, John Anderson, Robert Cun- ningham, James Kerr and Adam Dickenson.
43
Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
James Patton was commissioned high sheriff, John Madison, clerk, and Thomas Lewis, surveyor of the county.
It is worthy of note that James Patton, the first sheriff of Au- gusta county. was the first man to survey and locate lands within the boundaries of Washington county as originally formed, and the land by him acquired composed a considerable part of the best lands within this county.
The idea of offering the dissenters from the Church of England inducements to settle the lands west of the mountains had often been suggested and earnestly advocated by many of the promi- nent men in the Virginia Colony, but no move in that direction was taken until about the time of the first settlement of the lower Valley, at and after which time the Governor and Council of Vir- ginia, with but little hesitaney, permitted the erection of dissenting churches in the Valley, and encouraged the immigration of settlers whenever possible.
The result of this action was a flood of settlers, emigrants from Scotland and Ireland, who came by way of Pennsylvania, mostly Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in belief. They passed into and settled in the Valley, and in a few years the Valley from Harper's Ferry to New river was populated with a progressive, liberty-loving peo- ple second to none on earth.
Colonel James Patton, who came from the north of Ireland in 1736, was one of the first and most influential settlers of the Val- ley of Virginia.
In the year 1745, he secured a grant from the Governor and Council of Virginia. for one hundred and twenty thousand acres of land west of the Blue Ridge, and he and his son-in-law. John Buchanan, who was also deputy surveyor of Augusta county, lo- cated lands on the James river, and founded and named Buchanan and Pattonsburg, villages that were built on the opposite sides of the James river, now in Botetourt county.
In the year 1748, Dr. Thomas Walker, who afterwards, on the 29th day of September, 1752, qualified as a deputy surveyor of Augusta county : Colonel James Patton. Colonel John Buchanan. Colonel James Wood and Major Charles Campbell, accompanied by a number of hunters, John Findlay being of the number. ex- plored Southwest Virginia and East Tennessee, and located and
44
Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
surveyed a number of very valuable tracts of land by authority of the grant to Colonel James Patton.
We give below a list of the first surveys made on the waters of the Holston and Clinch rivers.
This information is derived from the surveyor's records of Augusta county at Staunton, Va. Each of the above surveys is signed by Thomas Lewis, surveyor of Augusta county, and in the left-hand corner of the plot, recorded with each survey, are written the letters J. B., the initials of John Buchanan, deputy surveyor of the county.
It is evident from this record that John Buchanan surveyed the several tracts of land first located in Washington county, and that he was on the waters of the Indian or Holston river surveying as carly as the 14th day of March, 1746.
It will be observed from an inspection of this list of surveys that on April 2, 1750, there was surveyed for Edmund Pendleton 3.000 acres of land lying on West creek, a branch of the South Fork of Indian river, which tract of land now lies in Sullivan county, Tennessee.
This tract was patented to Edmund Pendleton in 1756 upon the idea that the Virginia line, when run, would embrace these lands.
It is worthy of note that these early explorers and the many hunters and traders who had previously visited this section called the Holston river the Indian river, while the Indians gave it the name of Hogoheegee, and the French gave it the name of the Cherokee river.
All of the lands surveyed in this county previously to 1.748 are described in the surveys as being on the waters of the Indian river. These explorers returned to their homes delighted, no doubt, with the excellent lands they had visited, but nothing resulted from their efforts save the acquisition of a knowledge of the country.
At the time Dr. Walker and his associates made their trip of exploration above described they were followed as far as New river by Thomas Inglis and his three sons, Mrs. Draper and her son and daughter, Adam Harman, Henry Leonard and James Burke, pio- neers in search of a home in the wilderness. Lands were surveyed for each of them, which lands are described in the respective sur- veys as lying on Wood's river, or the waters of Wood's river. Here
DATE.
NAME.
LOCATION.
LOCAL NAME.
ACRES.
Mar. 19, 1748. .
James Davis
Head' Branch Indian River
Davis' Fancy
1,300
Nov. 16, 1746.
James Patton
N. W. side Indian R., Mouth Cedar Run.
640
Mar. 14, 1746.
James Patton
Waters South Fork Indian River.
Crab Apple Orchard'
770
Mar. 14, 1746
James Patton
Middle Fork Indian River
Kilmackronan
2,600
Mar. 29, 1750.
Thomas Walker
Castles Creek, Branch Indian River
Burk's Garden
6,780
Mar. 26, 1747 .
James Wood
Holston or Cedar Creek
2,193
Mar. 24, 1749.
James Wood
Holston or Cedar Creek
2,800
Dec. 19, 1750.
John Shelton
Mockizen Creek, Branch Indian River. .
1,400
Mar. 15, 1748. John Shelton
Indian River
995
Oct. 16, 1750. John Shelton
Branch Clinch River
1,000
Oct. 14, 1750.
John Shelton
Crabapple Orchard, Waters Clinch R.
650
Oct. 2, 1748. John Shelton
Middle Fork Indian River
940
Oct. 17, 1748 . . John Shelton
South Side North Fork Indian River
150
Jan. 15, 1751. Jos. and Esther Crockett
Head South Fork Indian River
450
Mar. 14, 1748.
Charles St. Clair
South Fork Holston River
996
April 2, 1750.
Edmund Pendleton
Branch Indian River
950
April 2, 1750.
Edmund Pendleton
Branch Indian River
Renfro's Creek
676
April 6, 1750.
Edmund Pendleton
Middle Fork Indian River
Shallow Creek
3,000
Feb. 22, 1749.
John Taylor
Waters Indian River
Sapling Grove
1,946
Feb. 23, 1749.
John Taylor
Shallow Creek
Timber Grove
1,000
Mar. 19, 1749. John Taylor
Shallow Creek
Forks
720
Feb. 19, 1749. John Taylor
Middle Fork Indian River
1,150
Dec. 31, 1748 ..
Chas. Campbell
North Fork Indian River
Campbell's Choice
1,400
Dec. 12, 1748.
Chas. Campbell
Branch of North Fork
Buffalo Lick
330
Nov. 24, 1747. John Buchanan
Indian River
Wasp Bottom
1,000
Nov. 21, 1747. John Buchanan
Indian River
Richland
550
Oct. 14, 1747. John Buchanan
Middle Fork Indian River
Royal Oak
740
Nov. 10, 1748.
John Buchanan
Middle Fork Indian River
Holly Bottom
1,250
Mar. 15, 1748 Chas. Campbell
Indian River .
Gooseberry Garden
130
Mar. 21, 1749. ..
Chas. Campbell
Middle Branch Indian River
Buffalo Bottom
220
Mar. 23, 1749. Chas. Campbell
Middle Branch Indian River
Papau Bottom 300
Oct. 23, 1750. . ..
Chas. Campbell
Middle Branch Indian River
Indian Camp
135
.
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46
Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
they made a settlement, the first west of the Alleghany divide and the first on Wood's or New river.
The name given to this new settlement was "Draper's Meadows."
The surveys, with accompanying plats for these, the first set- tlers on any of the waters flowing into the Mississippi, are exceed- ingly interesting and instructive.
These first settlers were immediately followed by a large num- ber of other persons.
The Alleghany mountains having been crossed and the waters flowing into the Mississippi reached, the pioneer rapidly sought to bring the wilderness under his dominion. The first company of settlers at Draper's Meadows were at once increased by new ar- rivals, and numerous tracts of land west of New river and near what were afterwards known as the Lead Mines occupied. Among the early settlers in that section of Southwest Virginia were the Crocketts, Sayers, Cloyds, McGavocks and McCalls.
James Burke, with his family, settled in 1753 in what has since been known as Burk's Garden, and Charles Sinclair in Sinclair's Bottom. Stephen Holston built his cabin within thirty feet of the head spring of the Middle Fork of Indian, since called Holston river, some time previous to 1748, and thus Burke, Sinclair and Holston gave names to the localities of their early settlements.
A colony of people called "Dunkards" settled on the west side of New river near Inglis' Ferry, and in the year 1750 Samuel Stal- naker, with the assistance of Dr. Walker and his associates, erected his cabin on the Holston nine miles west of Stephen Holston's cabin.
It is worthy of mention in this place that in this year, 1749, the commissioners appointed by the Legislatures of Virginia and North Carolina continued the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina to a point on Steep Rock Creek,* in this county.
Dr. Walker and his associates had met Samuel Stalnaker on the waters of the Holston in April, 1748, between the Reedy Creek settlement and the Holston river, at which time it is evident, from a journal kept by Dr. Walker, that Stalnaker told Walker and his associates of the Cumberland Gap, and made an engagement with Dr. Walker to pilot him upon a trip to Kentucky at a subsequent date.
*Now Laurel Fork of Holston river.
47
Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
The French had established settlements on the waters of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and claimed, by right of discovery and occupancy, as territory belonging to the French crown, all the lands west of the Alleghany mountains, and were actively as- serting their right to all of this territory at all times and by every possible means. It is claimed that the French had established a fort near the Broad Ford of the Tennessee river, and had opened and operated mines in the territory now included in Eastern Ken- tucky ; and it is well known that the French traders were to be found in nearly all of the Indian villages east of the Mississippi river and west of the Alleghany mountains.
The English Government and the American Colonies denied the pretensions of the French crown, and looked with jealousy upon every movement made by France in the direction of the accom- plishment of her claim.
As a result, on the 12th day of July, 1749, the Governor and Council of Virginia granted to the "Ohio Company" 500,000 acres of land, to be surveyed and located south of the Ohio river, and to forty-six gentlemen, styling themselves the "Loyal Company," leave to take up and survey 800,000 acres of land in one or more surveys, beginning on the bounds between this State and North Carolina and running to the westward and to the north scas to include the said quantity, with four years' time to locate said land and make return of surveys.
The "Ohio Company" employed Christopher Gist, one of the most noted surveyors of that time, to go, as soon as possible, to the westward of the Great Mountains, and to carry with him such a number of men as he thought necessary, in order to search out and discover the lands upon the river Ohio and other adjoining branches of the Mississippi, down as low as the Great Falls thereof, now Louisville, Kentucky.
He was also directed to observe the passes through the mountains, to take an exact account of the soil and products of the lands, the width and depth of the rivers, the falls belonging to them, the course and bearings of the rivers and mountains, and to ascertain what Indians inhabitated them, with their strength and numbers.
Pursuant to his instructions, he set out from the old town on the Potomac river, in Maryland, in October, 1750, and spent many days on the lands south of the Ohio river, in the present State
48
Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
of Kentucky; he finally came to the Cumberland mountains at Pound Gap, at which gap he crossed and passed down Gist's river to Powell's and Clinch valleys. On Tuesday, the 7th day of May, 1751, he came to New river and crossed the same about eight miles above the mouth of Bluestone river. On Saturday, the 11th, he came to a very high mountain, upon the top of which was a lake or pond about three-fourths of a mile long northeast and south- west, and one-fourth of a mile wide, the water fresh and clear, its borders a clean gravelly shore about ten yards wide, and a fine meadow with six fine springs in it.
From this description it is evident that Gist visited Salt Lake mountain, in Giles county, Va., as early as 1751, and found the lake as it now is.
It is evident from this journal that the traditions that we so often hear repeated about this lake are nothing more than mythi- cal, and that this lake existed as it now is at the time of the earliest explorations of the white man. Colonel Gist then passed south about four miles to Sinking Creek and on to the settlements.
In the meantime the "Loyal Company" were not idle, but, hav- ing employed Dr. Thomas Walker for a certain consideration, sent him on the 12th day of December, 1749, in company with Ambrose Powell, William Tomlinson, Henry Lawless and John Hughes, to the westward in order to discover a proper place for a settlement. A journal of this trip will be found in the Appendix to this work, and the reader will find a perusal of this journal ex- cecdingly interesting, as Dr. Walker and his associates passed di- rectly through what might reasonably be termed the centre of Washington county.
It will be necessary, in speaking of this journal of Dr. Walker's, to call the reader's attention to only a few incidents connected with the trip, which we will do as briefly as possible.
On March 15, 1750, they came to the "Great Lick," now the present site of the city of Roanoke, Va., at which place they bought corn of Michael Campbell for their horses, at which time Dr. Walker remarks: "This Lick has been one of the best places for game in these parts, and would have been of much greater advantage to the inhabitants than it has been if the hunters had not killed the buffaloes for diversion and the elks and deer for their skins."
49
Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
It has been the prevailing opinion that there were no buffaloes east of the Blue Ridge, and while the Great Liek, or Roanoke City, is west of the Blue Ridge, it is altogether probable that buf- faloes in their range did oftentimes travel beyond the mountains; at any rate it is known that Colonel Byrd killed buffaloes in 1729 on the boundary line between Virginia and North Carolina and south of Roanoke.
They thence went up the Staunton river, now called the Little Roanoke river, to William Inglis. Dr. Walker, at this point, notes the fact that William Inglis had a mill which is the fur- thest back, except one lately built by the sect of people who called themselves of the Brotherhood of Euphrates, or "Duncards," who are the upper inhabitants of the New river and lived on the west side of the same.
It is well to note at this point that the present village of Blacks- burg is near the locality occupied by William Inglis in 1450. The Dunkards spoken of by Dr. Walker lived on the west side of New river opposite Inglis' Ferry, several miles above the crossing of the Norfolk and Western railroad. Their next stopping point was on a small run between Peak Creek and Reed Creek, or between Pulaski city and Max Meadows of the present day. They next camped near James McCall's on Reed Creek, and on the 22d of March they reached a large spring about five miles below Davis' Bottom, on the Middle Fork of Holston river, where they camped ; they moved thence down the Middle Fork of Holston, where they again camped, and Ambrose Powell and Dr. Walker went to look for Samuel Stalnaker and found his camp, he having just moved out to settle. They assisted Stalnaker in building his house, and spent the Sabbath about one-half a mile below him. On Monday, the 26th, they left the frontiers of civilization, Stalnaker's settlement being the farthest west at that time. Their trip was not eventful until the 30th, on which day they caught two young buffaloes, and on the 31st they traveled down the Reedy creek to the Holston river at the foot of Long Island, where they measured an elm tree twenty-five feet in circumference three feet from the ground. They crossed the North Fork of the Holston about one-half a mile above the junction of the North and South Fork rivers at a ford. At this point they discovered evidences of Indians. They found, in the fork between the North and South Forks of Holston
50
Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
river, five Indian houses built with logs and covered with bark, around which there were an abundance of bones and many pieces of mats and cloth. On the west side of the North Fork of Hol- ston river they found four Indian houses, and four miles south- west of the junction of the North and South Forks of Holston river they discovered an Indian fort on the south side of the main Holston river.
On April 2d they left the Holston river and traveled in a north- west direction toward Cumberland Gap, passing over Clinch moun- tain at Loony's Gap, it is thought. They reached the Clinch river above the present location of Sneedsville, in Hancock county, Ten- nessee, and on the 12th day of April they reached Powell's river, ten miles from Cumberland Gap. It is well to note at this point that Ambrose Powell, one of Dr. Walker's companions, cut his name upon a tree on the bank of this river, which name and tree were found in the year 1770 by a party of fifteen or twenty Vir- ginians on their way to Kentucky on a hunting expedition, from which circumstance the Virginia Long Hunters gave it the name of Powell's river, which name it still retains. On the 13th they reached Cumberland Gap, which gap Dr. Walker afterwards named Cumberland Gap in honor of the Duke of Cumberland, the son of George II, and the commander of the English forces, on the 16th of April, 1746, at Culloden, where he defeated, with great slaughter, the Highland forces, refusing quarter to the wounded prisoners.
On the 17th of April he reached the Cumberland river and named it at that time. On the 23d a part of this company was left to build a house and plant some peach stones and corn. On the 28th Dr. Walker returned to his company and found that they had built a house 12x8 feet, cleared and broken up some ground and planted corn and peach stones.
This was the first house built by an Anglo-Saxon in the State of Kentucky, and it was used and occupied as late as 1835. The location of this house is on the farm of George M. Faulkner, about four miles below Barboursville, Ky. They thence traveled in a northeast direction, crossing Kentucky river and New river and striking the waters of the Greenbrier, and on the 13th day of July Dr. Walker reached his home. On this journey they killed thirteen buffaloes, eight elks, fifty-three bears, twenty deer, four
51
Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
wild geese and about a hundred and fifty turkeys, and could have killed three times as much meat if they had wanted it.
It is to be recollected that this trip and the building of the cabin in the wilderness of Kentucky was all in the interest of the "Loyal Company."
About this time the "Ohio Company" entered a caveat against the "Loyal Company," and the Loyal Company got into a dispute with Colonel James Patton, who had an unfinished grant below where this company were to begin, and no further progress was made by the company until June 14, 1753.
In the year 1748, Mr. Gray, Mr. Ashford Hughes and others obtained a grant from the Governor and Council for 10,000 acres of land lying on the waters of the New river, which grant was soon afterwards assigned to Peter Jefferson (father of Thomas Jefferson), Dr. Thomas Walker, Thomas Merriweather and David Merriweather, which lands were surveyed and principally settled in the early days of the settlement of this section.
About the same time the Governor and the Council of Virginia granted to John Lewis, of Augusta, and his associates 100,000 acres of land to be located on the Greenbrier river, and thus the English Government sought to displace the French in their efforts to settle and hold the lands west of the Alleghany mountains.
On the other hand, the movements of the English were closely watched by the French, who were equally determined to defeat them in their aspirations. A company of French soldiers in 1752 were sent south as far as the Miami river to notify the English traders among the Indians to leave the country, which they re- fused to do, and thereupon a fight ensued between the French and Indians, in which fourteen Miami Indians were killed and four white prisoners were taken, and thus began the contest which re- sulted in the loss to France of all her possessions in Canada and east of the Mississippi river.
In April of the year 1749, the house of Adam Harmon, one of the first settlers near Inglis' Ferry, on New river, was visited by the Indians, and his furs and skins stolen.
*This was the first Indian depredation committed on the white settlers west of the Alleghany mountains.
In the month of November, 1753, the House of Burgesses of
*Dr. Hale's "Trans-Alleghany Pioneers.
52
Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
Virginia passed an act for the further encouraging of persons to settle on the waters of the Mississippi, which act we here copy in full :
1. Whereas, it will be the means of cultivating a better cor- respondence with the neighboring Indians if a farther encour- agement be given to persons who have settled on the waters of the Mississippi, in the county of Augusta; and, whereas, a con- siderable number of persons, as well his majesty's natural born sub- jects as foreign Protestants, are willing to come into this Colony with their families and effects and settle upon the lands near the said waters in case they can have encouragement for so doing; and, whereas, the settling of that part of the country will add to the security and strength of the Colony in general and be a means of augmenting his majesty's revenue of quit rents ;
2. 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 all persons being Prot- estants who have already settled or shall hereafter settle and reside on any lands situated to the westward of the ridge of mountains that divide the rivers Roanoke, James and Potowmack, from the Mississippi in the county of Augusta, shall be and are exempted and discharged from the payment of all public county and parish levies for the term of fifteen years next following, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary thereof, in any wise notwithstanding .*
The English Government were exceedingly anxious to encourage the settlements on the waters of the Mississippi and thereby strengthen their frontiers and fortify their claim to the lands lying west of the Alleghany mountains, and, in keeping with this desire, the Governor and Council of Virginia, on June 14, 1753, renewed the grant to the "Loyal Company" and allowed them four years' farther time to complete the surveying and seating of said land, and on the 6th day of July following Dr. Thomas Walker, their agent, proceeded with all convenient speed to survey said land and to sell the same to purchasers at three pounds per hundred acres, exclu- sive of fees and rights. The basis of the operations of Dr. Walker was in Southwest Virginia, and by the end of the year 1754 he had surveyed and sold 224 separate tracts of land containing 45,249 acres, which surveys were made in the name of the several pur-
*Hen. S., p. 356.
53
Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786.
chasers from him, and many of the said tracts of land were actually occupied by settlers.
During this time James Patton was actively at work surveying and selling lands to settlers under his grant from the Governor and Council, and the tide of emigration was fast settling towards South- west Virginia, when the French-Indian war of 1734-1763 came on, which war began in all its fury about this time, and thereby Dr. Walker, agent for the "Loyal Company," and James Patton and others were prevented, for the time being, from further prosecuting their enterprises in surveying and settling this portion of Virginia.
In the spring of 1754, numbers of families were obliged, by an Indian invasion, to remove from their settlements in Southwest Virginia, and these removals continued during the entire war. It will be well here to note the fact that the lands held by Stephen Holston, James McCall, Charles Sinclair and James Burke, the earlier settlers of this portion of Virginia, were held by them under what were known at that time as "corn rights-that is, under the law as it then stood, each settler acquired title to a hundred acres for every acre planted by him in corn, but subsequent settlers, as a general rule, held their lands under one of the above-mentioned grants. Stephen Holston, who settled at the head spring of the Middle Fork of Holston some time prior to 1748, did not remain long at this place, but sold his right to James Davis, who, on the 19th of March, 1748, had John Buchanan, deputy surveyor of Augusta county, to survey for him at this point a tract of land con- taining 1,300 acres, to which he gave the name of "Davis' Fancy," and the descendants of James Davis occupy a portion of this land to this day.
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