In this period of confusion there came to Shelburne parish in 1869, as its Rector, the Rev. Richard Terrell Davis of Albemarle who had served as a Chaplain in the Confederate Army and whose sympathetic ministrations to his new neighbours were of county-wide solace. About that time the late Charles Paxton of Pennsylvania came to Loudoun, purchased that part of Exeter which lies near the northerly boundary of Leesburg and began the building of the great house which he named Carlheim and which many years later was to become the Paxton Memorial Home for ailing children, established and endowed by his widow in her will in memory of their daughter. Dr. Davis and Mr. Paxton became firm friends and through that friendship and Dr. Davis' knowledge of those most needing help, many a poor man in Loudoun was able to earn a sadly needed living wage during the long construction of Carlheim. It is remembered that on Dr. Davis' greatly lamented death in 1892, so deeply had he engaged the affections of his adopted county, the negroes, upon learning of a project of his white friends to erect in his memory a suitable tombstone, begged that they too might contribute to its cost. It was during the rectorship of Dr. Davis, and largely through his influence, that the building of the present large gray stone church edifice of Saint James in Leesburg was undertaken.
Slowly, very slowly, the people doggedly fought their way up the long and often discouraging hill of recovery. The Spanish-American War, petty in itself, was in its foreign and, particularly, in its domestic implications, of major importance; for it showed that, with a new generation of Americans taking its place, the old sectional tears and rents were growing together and that the national fabric once again was becoming truly restored. In the last decade of the nineteenth century there was a notable inflow of new residents, new money, new determination, which continued with the succeeding years and of which the most significant result was the vigorous growth of the horse and sport-loving community in and around Middleburg, resulting in the development of one of the great, perhaps the greatest, centers of fox-hunting and horse-showing in America. It should be here recorded that to the purchase by Mr. Daniel C. Sands of an estate near Middleburg in 1907 and to his love of horses and country life, as well as his tireless energy in spreading among his many Northern friends knowledge of the charm of his new neighbourhood and building on the Loudoun horse-loving traditions, existing since early settlement, may be ascribed the great prosperity and international repute of the Middleburg environment of today. But the county at large, as well as Middleburg, has reason to be grateful to Mr. Sands. During his more than thirty years of residence here he, consistently and continuously, has been not only one of the county's most constructive citizens but one of the most generous and public-spirited as well.
Again we are reminded of the extraordinary part horses and the various sports connected with them play in Loudoun's life. And all that is no matter of present day chance but the legitimate flowering of very old and greatly cherished traditions. Archdeacon Burnaby, in writing of his travels in Virginia in 1759-1760, was moved to remark that Lord Fairfax's "chief if not sole amusement was hunting; and in pursuit of this exercise he frequently carried his hounds to distant parts of the country; and entertained any gentleman of good character and decent appearance, who attended him in the field, at the inn or ordinary, where he took up his residence for the hunting season."[186] One of the ordinaries thus frequented by Lord Fairfax was West's on the old Carolina Road, just south of the present Lee-Jackson Highway, and in the territory now hunted by the Middleburg pack.
The county supports two hunts—the great Middleburg Hunt, turning out upon occasion a field of over three hundred riders, under the joint mastership of Miss Charlotte Noland and Mr. Sands and hunting the territory around that town; and the smaller but hard-riding Loudoun Hunt, covering the Leesburg neighborhood and of which Judge J. R. H. Alexander is Master. In legitimate succession to those of long ago, annual horse shows are held at Middleburg, Foxcroft, Leesburg, and Unison-Bloomfield, the great Llangollan races are run annually on that beautiful and historic estate, while just over the Fauquier boundary is Upperville with its annual horse show, the oldest in America. In short Loudoun is and always has been a horse-loving county and thus very naturally it is widely known as the Leicestershire of America. Today the raising and training of fine horses, together with the maintenance of numerous herds of dairy cattle (especially of the Guernsey breed) the fattening of great numbers of beef cattle, the raising of hogs, sheep and poultry, the growth and development on her many hillsides of extensive and well cared-for apple orchards, all augment the agricultural revenue Loudoun derives from her ever smiling fields of corn and wheat, grass and clover.
In the year 1900 the Southern Railway Company, then in control of the old Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad, extended it to Snickersville, encouraged by many people from Washington and elsewhere who had built summer homes at and around Snickers' Gap. The railroad company named its new station near the village Bluemont and the postoffice authorities were persuaded also to adopt the new name. Thereafter the old but not very euphonic appellation disappears, save in history and memory of the inhabitants, and the village became known by its new and present designation.
In the World War the county played its part in a manner worthy of its heritage. Her sons to the number of nearly six hundred joined the military and naval forces and during that period the local Red Cross Chapters and other civilian organizations were active and efficient. The list of those Loudoun patriots who responded to their country's call at that time is too long and their services too varied to be fully recounted here; but no narrative, however greatly curtailed, should fail to name those who then laid down their lives for their country. A dignified monument, now standing in the grounds surrounding Loudoun's courthouse in Leesburg, bears these words in letters of bronze:
'Their Bodies are buried in peace
but their names liveth for evermore.'
1917-1918.
The people of Loudoun County
in memory of
Her Sons who made the Supreme Sacrifice
In the Great War."[187]
Memory also should be kept afresh of the names of eleven Loudoun men who between them, for their services in the war, received no less than nineteen American and foreign decorations: Colonel Arthur H. Carter, Captain Edward C. Fuller, Major William Hanson Gill, William R. Grimes, Samuel C. Hirst, First Lieutenant William P. Hulbert, First Lieutenant James F. Manning, Jr., Colonel Thomas Bentley Mott, Bryant Rust, Captain Edward H. Tebbs, Jr., and Lieutenant Colonel Harry Aubrey Toulmin. This list is incomplete; as given it is copied from the publications of the Virginia War History Commission, Source Volume I, 1923.
During the war, as Federal Food Administrator of Virginia, there also served Colonel Elijah B. White of Selma so effectively that among the recognitions of his work that he received was the Agricultural Order of Merit bestowed by the Republic of France.
In 1918, in the midst of the war, a new State Administration assumed the reins of government under the leadership of Westmoreland Davis of Loudoun who became Governor of Virginia in that year and whose administration was accepted by the people as efficient, sound and well balanced.
In culture the county is recovering the position it proudly held one hundred years ago before ground down by war and poverty. Its public schools, then nonexistent, now under the supervision of Superintendent O. L. Emerick, grow and improve and are supplemented by several excellent private institutions of which Foxcroft, near Middleburg, has been described and the very successful Llangollan School for younger children, opened in 1937 near Leesburg by Mrs. Frances L. Patton (Miss Louise D. Harrison) also may be mentioned. Loudoun has produced a naval architect of international reputation in Lewis Nixon (1861- ), two well known artists in Hugh A. Breckenridge (1870-1937) and the late Lucian Powell and a number of writers upon her history whose works have been referred to frequently in the foregoing pages. Supplementing her schools and extending their educational work the county has two large libraries, the older founded in Leesburg in 1907 as the Leesburg Library largely through the efforts of the late Mrs. Levi P. Morton and her daughter, Loudoun's benefactress, Mrs. William C. Eustis of Oatlands. In the year 1918 the Thomas Balch Library was incorporated and at once, on land bought for that purpose through public subscription, the late Edwin Swift Balch and Thomas Willing Balch of Philadelphia, sons of Thomas Balch of international arbitration fame (who was born in Leesburg in 1821) began the construction for it of the beautiful library building on West Market Street, Leesburg, which so enhances the charm of the town. Mr. Waddy B. Wood, a Washington architect of recognized authority on the early Federal period of American architecture, drew the plans and in 1922 the building was completed and dedicated and the collection of books of the old Leesburg Library was presented and moved to the new institution. That collection, since then much enlarged, now numbers well over 10,000 volumes and is of a very definite value to town and county.[188]
There had been a small library at Purcellville for a number of years when in 1919 it was reorganized as the Blue Ridge Library and continued its activities until about 1926. There followed a period in which the library was closed. Then in 1934, largely through the leadership of Mrs. Clarence Robey, a Federal grant was obtained which, with about twice its amount in many smaller private subscriptions, made possible the completion in 1937 of the present imposing Purcellville Library building at a cost of nearly $30,000. It is rapidly augmenting its collection of books and to its primary function of library is adding that of civic centre, where lectures, concerts and other entertainments are frequently given and enthusiastically attended by the people of the neighbourhood. The new building is expected to be dedicated during the summer of 1938.
St. John's Roman Catholic Church, the first of its faith in Loudoun, was erected in Leesburg in 1878 and was dedicated on the 13th October of that year by the Right Rev. John J. Keane who was an orator of wide reputation and who later became the Archbishop of Dubuque. Among those most active in raising the necessary funds for its construction was Miss Lizzie C. Lee of Leesburg. Until 1894 mass was said but once a month by priests who came from Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. In the latter year it became a mission of St. James' Catholic Church at West Falls. Later, through the untiring efforts of Father A. J. Van Ingelgem, masses were said each Sunday. Father Van Ingelgem continued to guide the congregation and church until Father Govaert was appointed the first regular pastor in July, 1926. Soon thereafter the frame church was greatly enlarged and beautified, largely through the generosity of the late Mrs. Henry Harrison (Miss Anne Lee) of Leesburg, and was opened with services conducted by the Right Rev. Andrew J. Brennan of Richmond. At that same time the attractive rectory, adjoining the church, was also opened. The Leesburg parish of this church covers a territory of 2,000 square miles, extends from the West Virginia line to that of Maryland and operates two missions, one of which is at Herndon and the other at Purcellville. The Rev. Father John S. Igoe, a native Virginian who enjoys the affectionate esteem of the whole community, is the present pastor.[189]
As throughout Virginia, hospitality is inherent in the people of Loudoun. Especially is this so at Christmas time when, from early days, the old English custom of stopping all farm work (save only necessitous care of the live stock) from Christmas Eve to the second day of January still obtains. Then scattered Loudoun folk seek to return, if but for a day, to their native soil bringing back with them friends and acquaintances that they may show their birthright; then open house prevails, time-honoured eggnogg and appletoddy greet all guests and the Leesburg Assembly, following its custom handed down through the generations, holds its eagerly awaited Christmas Ball.
With an unusually healthy climate the county is fortunate in the rarely efficient and devoted corps of physicians, both general practitioners and specialists, who faithfully guard the physical condition of its people. Of their number the Virginia State Medical Society has honored itself and Loudoun by electing as its President Dr. G. F. Simpson of Purcellville. And to the marked ability of her physicians is added the Loudoun Hospital, founded in 1912, first occupying a building on Market Street, Leesburg, and later erecting and in 1917 moving into the fine modern hospital building it now occupies. "To Mr. P. Howard Lightfoot's interest and untiring efforts" wrote the hospital's historian "is due the actual bringing together of those factors and conditions which developed into the Leesburg Hospital." Now called the Loudoun County Hospital, it has a large nurses' home, beautiful grounds, fruitful gardens and withal has so splendidly grasped its opportunities for service that it has become essential to the county's welfare. To the physicians of the county, many very generous contributors and to the selfless and untiring work of Loudoun's women may all this great success be ascribed. To add to this full measure, Mrs. Eustis supports in memory of her mother Mrs. Morton, a visiting nursing service in and around Leesburg through which the kindly professional care of a registered nurse (now Mrs. Louise King) is at all times at the disposal of the people for cases of an emergency nature or those not needing continuous attention, entirely without cost to the patient, irrespective of the desire and ability of its beneficiaries to pay therefor.[190]
In this all too brief summary of her present day institutions at least a word should be said of the county's banks. The Peoples National Bank, the Loudoun National Bank, both in Leesburg; the Middleburg National Bank, the Purcellville National Bank, the Hamilton National Bank and the Round Hill National Bank, each in its community, serves the local interest and all unite in this enviable record: that not one bank in the County failed during the great financial depression of recent and unhappy memory.
The exceptionally healthy climate, the rich and well watered lands of Loudoun, together with the fine sport for horse lovers carried on through its long hunting season, have proved a potent magnet to draw new residents to the county. Country homes are constantly being created or restored and surrounding farms are, for the most part, self-sustaining and well handled. With Virginia's assumption of the rôle of a leader in good roads, the old reproach of impassable highways has vanished.
And Loudoun is proud of her people. It is an American community, its roots very deep in soil and tradition. It believes that it occupies that part of the Commonwealth and Nation most conducive to a sane and healthy life. Its sons and daughters sometimes, in following the beckoning finger of fortune, wander far afield; but are prone to return equally convinced with those who seldom leave the county that all in all no better homeland anywhere can be found—devoutly believing that though God might have made a fairer land, yet remaining strong in their reasonable conviction that God never did.