Shenandoah Valley Pioneers and Their Descendants: A History of Frederick County, Virginia., Part 43

Author: Cartmell, T. K. (Thomas Kemp), 1838-1920
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: [Winchester, Va.] : [Printed by the Eddy Press Corp.]
Number of Pages: 607

USA > Virginia > Frederick County > Frederick County > Shenandoah Valley Pioneers and Their Descendants: A History of Frederick County, Virginia. > Part 43

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Edinburg is situated on the Valley Turnpike, 5 miles S. W. from Woodstock. Stony Creek, passing the place, affords many advantages for manufacturing plants. The churches, mercantile houses, schools, etc., indicate prosperity on the part of her citizens.

Mount Jackson. This town is in the heart of a wonderful agricultural and fruit section of the Valley. Situated on the great Valley thorough- fare, the visitor will find much of interest. While not so old as New Market, she has become her rival, with many attractive features. Some cele- brated river farms near by, have always sup- ported the enterprises of the town.

Hawkinstown and Quicksburg are towns South of Woodstock; while North, on the Valley Pike, we find two towns: Toms Brook and Maurerstown-both prosperous towns and no longer villages. Of the former, we mention a fact that may not be familiar to her citizens. This is much older than many other similar places. The writer, in tracing the first road ex- tending from the Potomac to the County seat of Frederick, was interested in its continuance South. This route called for certain well known

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places, such as mills and homesteads of settlers. Crossing Cedar Creek at a mill, thence South through lands of well known settlers, crossing Thomas's Brook, disclosed the fact that one Thomas owned the land where Toms Brook now stands. This road was laid out in 1764; and the Valley Pike was required to follow as nearly as possible the old roadway from Winchester South through the Valley-at all times to pass the old tavern and wagon stands.

West from the last named places, are several villages : Lebanon Church located on the Back Road, running South from Marlboro, is a thriv- ing village. A little further West, we find Cot- ton Town and "Snarrs"-the scenes of battle be- tween Jackson and Freemont. In the beautiful little valleys, hugging the mountain section, are found such places as Columbia Furnace, Tannery, etc.

Orkney Springs, about 18 miles S. W. from Woodstock, has quite a reputation as a health resort. The medicinal waters found gushing from several strong springs, possess properties highly beneficial to some invalids; while the mansion house and its cluster of attractive cottages, give it the appearance of a prosperous village. For many years, Orkney received a liberal patronage.

Seven Fountains, known in early days as Burn- ers Springs, located in the Massanutten range of mountains, romantic from its peculiar environ- ments, as well as for its approaches through Powells Fort Valley and over the high mountain going out from Woodstock, it attracts quite a number of families from the busy sections, where refreshing mountain air and the chalybeate and other waters are found in profusion.

CHAPTER XLVI

Notabilities of Old Frederick County. The Fairfax Families.

A cleaving interest will always adhere, perhaps, to perpetuators of the surname which Lord Fair- fax eternified in the nomenclature of Virginia. Here within our borders this interest naturally inheres in the well known native cohesion of our State-folk. To those that live at a distance, how- ever, it vaguely looms as a sentiment. Indeed there prevails an idealization of our Virginian Fairfaxes, who are fancifully regarded as the heritors and living symbols of Lord Fairfax's fame in history.

Romantic writers are responsible for this illu- sion; and because the Fairfax family name has become involved with the traditions of Lord Fairfax, it is thought that an interesting inclusion of these chronicles would be an outline of the ramifications of the two families of Fairfax in Virginia. The progenitors of both these family lines in America were sprouts from the same ancestral tree in England which sent forth Lord Fairfax as the head of one of its Junior branches.

And though they both-these Fairfax ancestors -antedated Lord Fairfax as Colonists, neither of them immigrated originally to Virginia, this has been shown elsewhere in this volume.

At the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, John Fairfax had established himself in the Pro- vince of Maryland. Later on in 1717, William Fairfax appeared in America and settled himself amidst the Puritans in the Colony of Massa- chusetts. This William was a near by cousin of Thomas Fairfax who, in 1710, had succeeded his father as sixth Baron of the Scotch title; Baron of Cameron. When quite a young man, William Fairfax had ventured to sea and served in the navy under a kinsman of his, a captain Fairfax. William Fairfax was twice married; firstly, in 1717, to Sarah Walker whose father, Maj. Tho- mas Walker, was stationed at that time in the island of New Providence. Fourteen years later, Sarah Fairfax died at Salem, Mass. William Fairfax's second marriage was with Deborah Clarke of Salem Mass. Several years prior to the time we are now considering Lord Fairfax had heired, in right of his mother, the vast pro- prietary estate of Lord Colepeper in Virginia. Lord Fairfax had never crossed the Atlantic, however, when, in 1732, the death occurred of Robert Carter who had long served as Steward of the proprietary under Lord Colepeper. This

placed the new proprietary in an awkward quan- dary. His sole knowledge of his vast domain which, at that time was mostly a wilderness, was the vague inception derivable from his parch- ments as we have already shown his grant em- braced specifically enough, the whole intervening country between the head-waters of the Rapahan- nock and the Potomac rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, but where were those "Headwaters"? No surveyor had yet attempted to follow this inquiry and, without official definement of the proprietary limits, a large area was being granted away as already stated by the Crown in a region which Lord Fairfax insisted to be a part of his patented possessions. Such was the new proprietaries plight when he wrote to his American kinsmen, William Fairfax, of Massachusetts, and proposed to him to go to Virginia and undertake the management of his northern Neck proprietary. This offer was accepted and William Fairfax moved with his family to Virginia in 1733. He settled upon a leased plantation in the County of King George. It was something in the nature of a problem then to obtain a cleared plantation in northern Virginia, because the Colepeper pro- prietary grant had retarded the development of that district among the foremost planters there then were the Washingtons, and of that family there were several members residing in the counties along the Potomac.

In 1739, William Fairfax purchased of Ed- ward Washington a plantation recorded then as in the County of Prince William. Three years thereafter, however, this part was taken away from Prince William to form a new County, and this county was called in honor of the new pro- prietor-Fairfax. Near by this Edward Wash- ington plantation was the "Hunting Creek" plan- tation of Augustine Washington-father of our Immortal George; and that which was then known as "Hunting Creek" plantation is to-day the World-famed, if not the World-revered, Mt. Vernon. It was just at this time, 1739, that Lord Fairfax crossed the Atlantic to institute a survey, under Crown authority, to establish his boundary limits. While on this visit it appears that plans were made for the erection upon William Fair- fax's plantation of a substantial house to serve, not alone as a residence, but as well for a place of security for the custody of the records of the

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northern neck Proprietary; as shown elsewhere this house was called Belvoir. In 1741, William Fairfax was elected a member of the House of Burgesses, he retained the management of the Northern Neck estate until his death in 1757. From both his marriages there were children. By Sarah Walker there issued two sons; George William, who married Sarah Cary, daughter of Col. Wilson Cary, and Thomas who died un- married. There were also two daughters; Anne, who married Lawrence Washington, and Sarah, who married Maj. John Carlyle. George William Fairfax became assistant with his father in the management of Lord Fairfax's property. It will right much misunderstanding to mention here that it was George William Fairfax who, while "agent for Lord Fairfax" (To use George Wash- ington's own words) who gave the first remune- rated employment to the youthful Washington. Lord Fairfax knew nothing whatever of Wash- ington until the boy's own survey report com- manded his attention. The comprehensive field notes of Washington were so unmistakably trustworthy that the boy was instructed to report himself to "His Lordships Quarters over the mountains."

Another correction of legend is, that George Fairfax and George Washington, while next door neighbors, were not "boy companions together," as often represented. George Fairfax, the full grown man employed George Washington, the boy, and scarcely more than a child was Wash- ington just 16 years of age. At the death of William Fairfax in 1757, his son George William succeeded him to the Proprietary stewardship. A few years theretofore, however, Thomas Bryan Martin, a nephew of Lord Fairfax, had come out to Virginia and established himself in his bachelor uncle's home. Three years had hardly elapsed since the death of William Fairfax, when information reached George William's ear that Martin was contriving to influence his Uncle into making a change in the Proprietary manage- ment. Shortly thereafter, the whole land Office outfit was transferred from the Belvoir House to a depository built for its purpose on his Lord- ship's manor, Greenway Court. The bitter feel- ing created in George William Fairfax by Mar- tin's influence over his lordship, is shown through letters of the former which have been published by Edward D. Neill. In 1773 George William Fairfax went with his wife to England where both of them died, there was no issue from their union. From William Fairfax's marriage with Deborah Clarke the issue: Bryan, William Henry and Hannah. William Henry died unmarried. Bryan Fairfax, the older of the two, was married twice; firstly, to Elizabeth Cary, sister to his half-brother George's wife, and secondly, to Jen-

nie Dennison. In 1754 Bryan Fairfax was ap- pointed Deputy Clerk of the County of Fairfax.

At the death of Lord Fairfax, the Northern Neck proprietary as shown in his lordship's will (as heretofore shown) to his nephew, the Rev. Denny Martin, who thereafter assumed the sur- name of Fairfax. The new proprietary appointed as his manager his brother Thomas Bryan Martin and Gabriel Jones. In consideration, however, of back claims upon Lord Fairfax's estates rendered by William Fairfax as his manager, prior to 1757, (And which were thus a quarter of a century over due at his Lordship's decease), Denny Fairfax revoked the above appointments and appointed Bryan Fairfax alone in lieu of them. The document that effected this trans- position was dated at London, Sept. 21, 1784. By it, Denny Martin was to be absolved from all back-claims whatsoever by the heirs of William Fairfax, for the stipulated consideration of Bryan Fairfax's substitution from Martin and Jones in the stewardship of Denny Fairfax's Proprietary. In the following year, however, the Legislature of Virginia practically obliterated the Northern Neck Proprietary and as shown elsewhere order- ed all records, books, documents, etc., pertaining to lands within that district, to be removed from proprietary custody and placed in the State Land Registrars Office in the City of Richmond. Bryan Fairfax was a man of profound piety. Although belonging to the military of the Colony, he de- clined to take up arms against the Crown in the Revolution. His letters reveal that during his military service he was wont to spend whole hours at night on his sentry post in prayer. In 1789, when in the 57th year of his life, he became a minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church, "having accepted the moderate Calvinistic inter- pretation of the 39 articles." From 1789 until 1792, he preached at old Falls Church in the County of Fairfax; subsequently, he became a "visitor of parishes" in his district.

On the death of Lord Fairfax, in 1782, the latter's title passed to his brother, Robert, in England. Robert, seventh Lord Fairfax, died without heir in 1793; and now the barony of Camron fell in abeyance. Five years later-in 1798 the Rev. Bryan Fairfax went to England to test the validity of a claim for himself to the heirship of the Cameron title. He addressed a petition to his Majesty King George III, and this found its way to a committee of the House of Lords under the headship of Lord Walsing- ham. On May 6, 1800, this committee submitted its report, which declared: "in favor of the peti- tioner." As this incident has supplied inspira- tion for many erroneous publications, the interest of intelligent readers would benefit by its cleari- fication as a fact. The Rev. Bryan Fairfax's

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CARTMELL'S HISTORY

petition prayed for his resignation as heir to the succession to the title. But the granting of that petition did not, per se constitute the petitioner a baron of Cameron, nor did he himself assume that he did. The instrument merely secured to him and to his heirs thenceforward, the right to assume the title subject to the legal exactions imposed, the Rev. Bryan Fairfax never exercised for himself his right to qualify for the title. On the contrary, he is on record as having declared that he had "no ambition to bear an empty title." His will, which is filed in Fairfax County, at- tests to the fact that he was known as and des- ignated both at and after his decease, as simply Bryan Fairfax.

It is only due to the honored descendants from the Rev. Bryan Fairfax, to mention here, that no bearer of his surname has ever been respon- sible for any publication which tended to senti- mentalize the "Lords" Fairfax of Virginia. The Rev. Bryan Fairfax died in 1802, leaving two sons and two daughters, Ferdinando, his second son, married Elizabeth Cary; he lived as a planter in Jefferson County, and left many descendants. The oldest son, Thomas, who was heir in line to the title was married three times; firstly, to Mary Aylett; secondly, to Louisa Washington; thirdly, to Margaret, daughter of William Herbert. From this third wife there issued all of his ten chil- dren of whom six were sons; Albert, Henry, Orlando, Raymond, Ethelbert and Reginald. Henry Fairfax, his second son, married Caroline Herbert, of Maryland, and conducted at his home, "Ash Grove" in Fairfax County, a well known boarding school for young ladies. He was Captain of a volunteer Company in the Mexi- can war and died in 1847, leaving several chil- dren. Orlando, the third son, married Mary Randolph Cary, he was a well known family physician in Alexandria in early life, and sub- sequently he practiced in Richmond, where he died leaving a large family.

Raymond, Ethelbert and Reginald, the fourth, fifth and sixth sons of Thomas Fairfax, all died unmarried. Thomas Fairfax spent his life as a planter in Fairfax County and died at his home, Vaucluse, in 1846, at the age of 84.

The oldest son, Albert, died before his father, in 1835.

Albert Fairfax married Caroline Eliza, daugh- ter of Richard Snowden of Maryland, and left by her two sons, Charles Snowden and John Contee. At the death of Thomas Fairfax, in 1846, Charles Snowden Fairfax, his grandson, became, by birth-right, the heir to the Barony. He was among the pioneers to California and, four years after the admission of that State to the Union, he was elected to its House of Delegates. In 1857, he was made Clerk of the California Su-

preme Court, he married Ada Benham of Cin- cinnati, Ohio, and died in 1869 without issue. The heirship to the title reverted then to his brother, John Contee, of North Hampton, Prince George's County, Maryland. John Contee Fair- fax studied medicine and practiced it in his home county in Maryland. He married Mary, daughter of Col. Edmund Kirby, of New York, an officer of the U. S. Army. Dr. John Contee Fairfax died at his home in Maryland in 1900, leaving three daughters, Caroline, Josephine and Charlie; and two sons, Albert Kirby and Charles Edmund. Albert Kirby Fairfax, the eldest son had attained the distinction of being the first of Rev. Bryan Fairfax's descendants to seek recognition of the heirship of the Barony of Cameron.

When preparations were making for the coro- nation of King Edward VII, an application was made to the Earl Marshall of England for a Barons summons to Albert Fairfax to appear at that ceremony. He was accordingly "Com- manded." And although prevented from attend- ing that function, he was personally addressed as Lord Fairfax by the Lord Chancellor, which recognition alone invested him with the courtesy right to "walk" as the Baron of Cameron. It yet behooves him to bear the title in actuality to legalize his signatureship of it, to renounce his American citizenship and formally declare his allegiance to the British Crown.

As much that is apocryphal has been written of the prerogatives of this title, intelligent inter- est will approve the recitation here of facts which will explain them.

In the British realm, whatever privileges are possessed by a peer, belong to the peer as a member of Parliament only, and thus, where membership in Parliament is hereditary, Peerage privileges are also, but then only.

All peers of England, absolutely, and all peers of Scotland, down to the title of Baron, were constituted, at the union of England and Scot- land, as peers of Great Britain. The Barons of Scotland remained, as they were peers of Scotland only, and the one possibility of their entering the House of Lords is through election. For each and every Parliament of the United Kingdom there are 16 Scottish representative peers elected; and the right to vote, at the Parliamentary elections, is the only hereditary privilege that inures to a baron of Scotland, and consequently to the Baron of Cameron. In the Scottish sense, that a barony implies a free hold of property, the Barony of Cameron is not indeed a Barony at all. It is a patent of baronial dignity which Charles I created, in 1627, and which he conferred in a manner not unusual to the Stuart King, for the consideration of a fee to the royal Exchequer. Albert Kirby Fairfax is, as yet, un-

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NOTABILITIES OF OLD FREDERICK COUNTY

married so is his brother Charles Edmund, and thus the primogenital line of descent from the parent colonists, William Fairfax, may be said to pause with an interrogation. In order that no entanglement may remain in the lines of the two Fairfax families, we shall now hark back to John Fairfax, in Maryland, who, although ante- rior to William Fairfax as a colonist, had no descendant in Virginia until their third genera- tion. This line of Fairfaxes did not cross the Potomac until after the Revolution and therefore they were not in Virginia during the time of Lord Fairfax. The reader may recall that, in the original grant of Maryland Cecilius Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, was given a palatinate or quasi-royal authority over that province. The Calvert family were Catholics. And, notwith- standing that Lord Baltimore established in his colony the first freedom of religious worship in America, there subsequently developed in Mary- land such bitter hostility to zelots of the Romish faith that, from 1692 to 1715, the Crown sus- pended the Charter rights of the Baltimores and abrogated their palatine authority. It was during this period of "suppression of papas rule" in Maryland that John Fairfax appeared in that Colony. He himself was a papist, and of that faith was the primogenital vein of the English Fairfaxes, the Viscounts of Emley-the Lords of Fairfax of Gilling Castle in Yorkshire. The first record of moment pertaining to John Fair- fax, is the prosecution by him of trespassers upon his property in Charles County. He is found recorded repeatedly as sponsor and surety for his co-religionists, and various pleas of "com- passion for those Catholics who have truly scrupulous consciences," are peep-holes through the imaginative mind may picture the tribula- tions endured by the then faithful adherents of the Church of Rome. John Fairfax married Catherine, daughter of Henry Norris of Mary- land, and to the former's only son, John Fairfax II, there descended the Norris homestead. John Fairfax II, of Charles County, Maryland, married Mary, daughter of Edward Scott of Baltimore County. In 1720, nine years before there existed a Baltimore Town, Mary Scott Fairfax possess- ed her parental plantations "Scott's folly" on Elk Ridge, then in the County of Baltimore John Fairfax II died at his Charles County home in 1735, leaving four daughters and one son, William. William Fairfax of Charles County, Maryland, married firstly Benedicta Blanchard, to whom there were three daughters; and two sons; Jonathan and Hezekiah. William Fair- fax's second marriage was with Elizabeth, daugh- ter of Peyton Buckner of Virginia, and by this union there issued two more sons; John and William, and three daughters. William Fairfax,

the senior, was a planter of considerable pos- sessions in Maryland and although he, and both of his older sons, were qualified for the military service, all three of them, as did the Fairfaxes in Virginia, stood loyal to the British Crown in the Revolution. In 1789, William Fairfax dis- posed of his Maryland plantation and invested in properties in Virginia whither he moved in 1791 and made his home at Occoquan. He died at his Occoquan home in 1793. Jonathan Fairfax, the oldest of William's four sons, remained for life a Marylander. His home, "Goose Bay" was near old Port Tobacco in Charles County, and there he died in 1787 having predeceased his father by six years. He married Sarah, daugh- ter of Richard Wright, by whom there issued four daughters; Lewesta, Sarah, Anne Booker and Elizabeth; and five sons, Richard Wright, Walter, John, Henry and Peter. Hezekiah Fair- fax, the second of William Fairfax's sons married Margaret Calvert. He made his home in Prince William County, Virginia, and left four sons, John Hezekiah, Minor, Thompson and Sanford, the descendants of whom we lack space to fol- low.

William Fairfax II, married Anne, daughter of Silas King of Va., and, having heired his father's home at Occoquan, he died there in 1845. John Scott Fairfax, this second William's oldest son, married Anne, daughter of Peyton Mills of Virginia, and settled in Kentucky, where John Peyton Fairfax, his eldest son, is now well known. John Fairfax, the third son of the senior William Fairfax, was the first of this family line to cross the Potomac and become a Virginian. Notwithstanding that this family were Tories, and further more that they were not even Vir- ginians, Gen. Washington, in 1783, just after resigning his command of the army, sent to Maryland for young John Fairfax and offered him the position of assistant to his nephew, Lund Washington, in the management of his extensive properties. John Fairfax, who was but 19 years of age, accepted the offer and went forthwith to Mount Vernon. Within two years, Lund Washington received an appointment in the public service and John Fairfax succeeded him. For seven years he remained with Gen. Washington, and letters now in the family well preserved attest to the regard in which he was held by the Father of his Country.

The realty holdings of Washington, at his death, aggregated something like 55,000 acres, . a fact which conveys an intelligent understand- ing of John Fairfax's responsibilities.

Just as Washington profited by acquiring garden-spots that he found while surveying the domain of Lord Fairfax, so profited young Fair- fax by his knowledge of Washington's holdings

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in the rich natural meadows of Mongalia County, known as the Glades. John Fairfax bought an extensive tract in the Monongalia Glades and, in 1790, resigned his position with Washington and went thither to live. In 1794, he was ap- pointed by Gov. Brooke a Justice of the Court, later he became the presiding Justice. Three times he was elected to the Legislature of Vir- ginia and, prior to and during the War of 1812, he was Col. of the 104th Virginia Regiment. Col. Fairfax died in 1843, having, throughout his entire manhood, occupied official positions of trust and responsibility. Persons still living, who heard Col. Fairfax's own account of it, allege that Gen. Washington told him he was actuated in befriending him by a recognition of the great debt which he, (Washington) himself, felt that he owed to a Fairfax. Let it be remembered that Lord Fairfax died in 1782, on the year be- fore this John Fairfax appointment, and he, who is memorable in history for his patronage to the young surveyor, is said to have declared, upon his death bed, that he should never look into the face of the Conqueror of Lord Cornwallis-and he never did! Was, or was not, this plaint of his old patron, a thorn in the heart of Washington which pained and rankled? And did he, when that mighty sword was hung up in the hall of Mount Vernon, did he feel that he was making atone- ment by giving his favor to young Fairfax, just as the kind old master of Greenway Court at one time favored him? Col. John Fairfax was married twice; firstly, to Mary, daughter of Sam- uel Byrne of Virginia; and secondly, to Anne Lloyd, daughter of Frances Boucher Franklin of Maryland. Two sons, William and Buckner, were born of the first marriage and two more sons, Frances Boucher Franklin and George Washington were born of the second. Both Franklin and George Washington Fairfax, held commissions as Colonel in the military service and all four of these sons attained official prom- inence by State appointment. Buckner Fairfax, in particular, was a man of leading. In 1849, the Legislature of Virginia appointed him Brig- adier General of the third Military District. General Fairfax was elected to the Legislature of Virginia five times, four terms in the Lower House and one in the Senate.

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Shenandoah Valley Pioneers and Their Descendants: A History of Frederick County, Virginia., Part 43

Author: Cartmell, T. K. (Thomas Kemp), 1838-1920 Publication date: 1909 Publisher: [Winchester, Va.] : [Printed by the Eddy Press Corp.] Number of Pages: 607

Author: Cartmell, T. K. (Thomas Kemp), 1838-1920
Publication date: 1909
Publisher: [Winchester, Va.] : [Printed by the Eddy Press Corp.]
Number of Pages: 607