"Ordered that the respective Ordinary keepers in this County do sell according to the above rates in Money or Tobacco at the rate of 12s 6d per hundred and that they do not presume to demand more of any Person whatsoever."

The first deed recorded in Loudoun but on page 2 of the first volume of Deed Books, is dated the 6th day of August, 1757, from Andrew Hutchison "of Loudoun County and Cameron Parish" and runs to his sons John and Daniel, also of Loudoun; it conveys a piece of land "containing by estimation seven hundred acres more or less whereon now lives the said John Huchison and to be equally divided between them." Thus another old and well-known Loudoun family is introduced.

The first will recorded was that of "Evan Thomas of Virginia Coleney in Loudoun County." It was proved at the court held on the 8th day of November, 1757, and its record is followed by a long and interesting inventory of his estate.

For some time prior to the organization of the county there had been a small backwoods settlement, perhaps only a few scattered log houses, near the intersection of the Carolina and old Ridge Roads. This tiny hamlet had dignified itself with the name of George Town in rugged loyalty to King George the Second. Deck and Heaton say that in 1757 a little fort was built there. Protection from attack by the French and Indians was deemed necessary to every frontier settlement. Nicholas Minor, who was a captain in the Virginia Militia and in active service at this period, may have had a hand in the building of this fort and it is probable that he was in military command there. He lived on his nearby plantation of Fruitland and his estate included some sixty acres or more at the intersection of the Carolina and Ridge Roads. In the year 1756, it is believed, he employed John Hough (who, as stated in the last chapter, had in 1744 settled in these backwoods and was acting as a surveyor for Lord Fairfax) to survey this land for a town site. Hough thereupon made his survey and perhaps mapped his first rough draft in 1757, probably making a more carefully detailed copy in 1759, after the establishment of the Town had been formally authorized by the Legislature and Minor had sold off a number of the lots as plotted on the plan. If so, this first rough draft is now lost or has been destroyed and the copy of 1759 was destined for many years also to be involved in mysterious disappearance. Though constantly in use for the first forty years of its existence, through oversight or negligence neither this 1759 "edition," nor the original draft, had been entered on the county records. Then in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the 1759 copy was used as an exhibit in the suit of Cavan vs. Murray, involving land adjacent to the town and in 1798 folded up and filed with the county clerk together with other exhibits in that litigation. The story of its disappearance and recovery is attached to a photostatic copy of the map now before me:

"For generations the mystery of its disappearance has been a subject of speculation and many believed that it had been withdrawn from the public records into private lands, and there held or possibly lost. In November 1928, the bundle containing the papers in the above suit was opened by Charles F. Cochran, and the old plat brought to light, just 130 years after it had been placed there. The paper was worn through at many of the creases, being completely in two through the middle, many minute bits were turned under or hanging only by a shred, and in places there has been shrinkage. Through the courtesy of Dr. Herbert Putnam, Librarian of Congress, and Col. Lawrence Martin, Chief of the Division of Maps, and in return for permission to file a photostat of the plat in the Library of Congress, the plat was mounted by Mr. William F. Norbeck, the Library's expert in the restoration of old maps. It was due to Mr. Henry B. Rust of Rockland, near Leesburg that the extended search of the Loudoun County records was made, in which the plat was brought to light, and he has had it framed."[80]

This framed map of 1759 was presented to the county, by delivery to Mr. B. W. Franklin, then county clerk of Loudoun, on the 30th December, 1928, by Mr. E. Marshall Rust, the brother of Henry B. Rust.

Upon the organization of the county, the matter of location and establishment of a county seat had to be determined. It was not, however, until the 15th June, 1758, that the Council of the Colony, by deciding to locate the courthouse of Loudoun on the lands of Nicholas Minor on the old Carolina Road near the crossing of the Alexandria-Keys Gap Highway, fixed the importance of what was to be known as Leesburg. The order of the Council reads:

"The Council having this day taken under Consideration the most proper Place for establishing the Court House of Loudoun County, it appearing to them that the plantation of Captain Nicholas Minor was the most convenient place and agreeable to the Generality of the People in that County, it was their opinion, and accordingly Ordered, That the Court House for the said County be fixed on the land of the said Minor."

When this order of the Council was made on the 15th June, 1758, the Loudoun Court, as we have seen, had been duly organized and from time to time was meeting for the performance of its duties since the preceding 12th July. Where these early meetings were held does not appear on the records, nor so far as I can learn, is now known. The record of the court's sittings at the time generally begin "At a court held at the courthouse" so that the presumption arises that, for the time being, the residence of one of its members may have been used for that purpose. Apparently the court was becoming impatient to have an official home and weary of the Council's delay; for at the court's session of the 11th day of July, 1758, or four days before the date of the Council's order, we find that it is, by the Loudoun Court,

"Ordered that the Sheriff of this County Advertise for Workmen to build a Courthouse to meet here at the next Court to agree for the same."

The proposed edifice was so carefully described that we can get a very clear idea of its appearance from the specifications recorded at this session of the 9th August, 1758. It was to be a brick building 28 x 40, with a jury room added sixteen feet square, having "an outside chimney and fireplace, eight feet in the clear from the foundation to the surface, two feet from the surface to the water table four feet, from thence to the joist ten feet." There significantly follows "and also a Prison and Stocks of the same Dimensions as those in Fairfax County for this County."[81]

A month later, at the court's sitting of the 12th September, 1758, it was

"Ordered that the courthouse for this County be Built on a Lott of Captain Nicholas Minor's No. 27 and 28 and that he convey the same to William West and James Hamilton Gent. as Trustees in Fee for the use of the County."[82]

Nevertheless no deed from Minor actually was obtained until nearly three years later, as will subsequently appear. That shrewd and careful Founder of Leesburg well might have been unwilling to give to the county two of the best lots in his new subdivision until he was abundantly protected; so the deed was not given until the new courthouse was built and any lingering doubt removed from his mind that the county's project would be carried out. At the court's session of the 13th September, 1758, a contract to build the courthouse was confirmed to "Aeneas Campbell Gent." for the sum of 365 pounds current money to be paid in two equal payments, the first on the first day of August next ensuing and the remaining half in the year 1760, Campbell having given a bond for the due performance of his contract. At the same session the contract to build the "Goal and stocks for this county" was confirmed to "Daniel French Gent" for 83 pounds current money to be paid on or before the 20th day of August then next; and it is noted that Campbell and French were the lowest bidders.

The building operations duly progressed. At the court held on the 15th November, 1759, a levy was laid in tobacco for the compensation of county officers and of 29,200 pounds of tobacco for the balance due Campbell, referred to as being "late sheriff" and succeeded by "Nicholas Minor Gt."

Upon completion of the building in 1761 the cautious Captain Minor felt assurance to execute his deed to the county. On the 17th day of June in that year he conveyed to "Francis Lightfoot Lee Gentleman the first Justice named and nominated in the Commission of the Peace for the said County of Loudoun for and in behalf of him the said Francis Lightfoot Lee and the rest of the Justices in the said Commission named and their and his successors" for the nominal consideration of five shillings, "Current Money of Virginia, the two Lots of Land situate lying and being in the Town of Leesburg in the County and Colony aforesaid being the same whereon the Courthouse and Prison now stand laid off and surveyed by John Hough to contain each Lot half an Acre and numbered twenty seven and twenty eight." There were some formal rites attending the transfer of the land and the ancient "livery of seizin" ceremony was duly enacted. Then, following the signature of Minor and his witnesses to the deed:

"Memorandum that on the Eleventh Day of June Anno Domini one Thousand seven hundred and sixty one full peaceable and Quiet possession of the within mentioned premises was given by Nicholas Minor Gent to Francis Lightfoot Lee and the other Justices within named by delivery to him and them Turf and Twig on the said premises in the presence of the underwritten Persons then Present."[83]

And finally, at the court held on the 12th November, 1761, it was

"Ordered that Nicholas Minor Gen't. and John Moss Junr. Agree with Workmen to clear away the Bricks and Dirt about the Courthouse and likewise for building a Necessary House and Posting and Railing in the Courthouse Lott and bring in their Account at the Laying of the next Levy."[84]

And from that day to this the Loudoun courthouse, in its various and successive reconstructions, has always stood on these lots of Captain Nicholas Minor, thus granted by him to the county for that purpose. In the process of time the prison, the stocks and the "Necessary House" have been removed.

In September, 1758, the Assembly passed an act "erecting" Leesburg as a town, in the same measure "erecting" Stephensburg and enlarging Winchester, which act reads, in part, as follows:

"An Act for erecting a town on the land of Lewis Stephens, in the county of Frederick: For enlarging the town of Winchester, and for erecting a town on the land of Nicholas Minor, in the county of Loudoun....

"III And whereas Nicholas Minor of the county of Loudoun, gentleman, hath laid off sixty acres of his land, adjoining to the court-house of the said county into lots, with proper streets for a town, many of which lots are sold, and improvements made thereon, and the inhabitants of the said county have petitioned this general assembly that the same may be erected into a town, Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, that the land so laid off into lots and streets, for a town, by the said Nicholas Minor, be and the same is hereby erected and established a town, and shall be called by the name of Leesburg; and that the free holders and inhabitants thereof shall for ever hereafter enjoy the same privileges which the inhabitants of other towns, erected by act of Assembly, now enjoy.

"IV And whereas it is expedient that trustees should be appointed to regulate the buildings in the said towns of Stephensburg, Winchester and Leesburg: Be it therefore enacted by the authority aforesaid, ... And that the honorable Philip Ludwell Lee, esquire, Thomas Mason, esquire, Francis Lightfoot Lee, James Hamilton, Nicholas Minor, Josias Clapham, Aeneas Campbell, John Hugh, Francis Hague, and William West, gentlemen, be constituted and appointed trustees for the said town of Leesburg; and that they, or any five or more of them, are hereby authorized and empowered, from time to time, and all times hereafter, to settle and establish such rules and orders for the more regular and orderly building of the houses in the said town of Leesburg, as to them shall seem best and most convenient. And in the case of death or removal, or other legal disability of any one or more of the trustees above mentioned, it shall and may be lawful for the surviving or remaining trustees of the said towns of Stephensburg, Winchester, and Leesburg, respectively, from time to time, to elect and choose so many other persons in the room of those so dead, removed or disabled, as shall make up the number of ten; which trustees, so chosen, shall by all intents and purposes be vested with the same power as any other in this Act particularly named."[85]

Of the members of the Lee family participating in the early affairs of the town and county or owning land in Loudoun, it is generally held that the new town was named in honour of Francis Lightfoot Lee, the first county lieutenant. Thus the Lees are appropriately and locally commemorated, though their river still remains Goose Creek and the county of their large holdings goes by another and less congruous name.

Now it must be remembered that in this year of 1758 which marked the formal recognition and naming of Leesburg, the French and Indian menace was a very real and terrible anxiety in the minds of the Loudoun settlers and had been responsible for the erection of the small frontier fort at this point which has been mentioned. The local tradition that the little town, when first built, was surrounded by a timber stockade seems not only plausible but highly probable.[86] It was a well established custom of the English Colonists on the Indian frontier, north and south, to protect their outlying villages in that manner. Leesburg people always insist that the noticeable crowding together of houses in the older part of the town and the pronounced local custom of building immediately on the street line is a survival of this very early need of concentration for protection.

Where the two main roads, to which the town owes its existence, passed through its future site, they followed the old Virginia custom in being decidedly indefinite in their bounds; and their condition was further complicated by the ground at this point being marshy and fed by numerous springs. Therefore even before Leesburg was laid out or Loudoun organized, the people living in the neighborhood had petitioned the Fairfax Court for the construction of a highway at that point in such manner as would be most convenient for the travel from Noland's Ferry to the Carolinas. When Loudoun was organized the petition was certified to the court of the new county which, in its November term of 1757, ordered that the roads leading from Alexandria to Winchester and from Noland's Ferry to the Carolinas be opened to go through that neighbourhood "in the most convenient manner;" and James Hamilton, John Moss and Thomas Sorrell were ordered "to view the most convenient way for the same and make report to the Court." These viewers proceeded to so efficiently fulfill their duties that when they eventually reported to the court, on the 12th April, 1758, that they had "viewed the most convenient way for the Roads to pass through the Town and find them convenient and good with proper clearing,"[87] a corduroy road had been constructed through the marshy ground and Hough was thus able to have his King Street in definite bounds when he mapped his survey for Minor.

CHAPTER X

ADOLESCENCE

Our upper country, at last, has graduated from being classified as merely part of the backwoods of Lord Fairfax's Northern Neck and is now enrolled in the rapidly growing roster of colonial Virginia's counties. Unfortunately the conferring of that dignity did not alter the social problems of the frontier nor change, to any great degree, the turbulence and heterogeneous character of its population. The Irish element, particularly, appears to have been pugnacious and lawless, if one may judge from the frequency of proceedings before the Court for "battery" wherein defendants carry distinctly Hibernian names. There was no dearth of business, civil or criminal, awaiting the court's sessions.

Those of the poorer class, however, were not alone in taking the law into their own hands. Cameron Parish, as heretofore appears, was set up in 1748. Whether its vestry was more arbitrary and tenacious of office or merely less diplomatic than was the rule elsewhere is not clear; but that there developed great dissatisfaction with its activities the records show. The Parish vestry, it will be remembered, exercised many powers of civil government. Originally the vestry of twelve gentlemen and their successors were chosen by vote of the parishioners; but gradually the practice developed in existing vestries, upon the death or resignation of a member, for the survivors themselves arbitrarily to appoint his successor. There never was unanimity of religious belief in Cameron the Parish nor in Loudoun the county. From the very beginning, as we have seen, the land was peopled by men and women of definitely divergent religious views—the Churchmen from Tidewater with some Baptists and Presbyterians, a large number of Quakers from Pennsylvania, Germans from overseas and no small number whose religious convictions, if existent, were of nebulous tenuity. Had the vestries stood annually for election the populace might have felt more closely represented; but with their membership exclusively taken from the landowning class which had migrated from the lower country, the Quakers, the Scotch-Irish, the Germans accepted a somewhat arbitrary rule less willingly than were they all churchmen and meeting together in common worship. The friction was not confined to Cameron. Similar troubles had developed elsewhere and petitions had been sent to Williamsburg for relief. In 1759 the Legislature decided to act. "Whereas" reads the preamble to Chapter XXI of the Laws of 1758-59

"it has been represented to this present General Assembly, that the Vestries of the parish of Antrim, in the County of Halifax; of the parish of Cameron in the County of Loudoun; of the parish of Bath, in the County of Dinwiddie; and of the parish of Saint-Patrick, in the County of Prince Edward, have been guilty of arbitrary and illegal practices to the great oppression of the inhabitants of said parishes ... and the inhabitants of said parishes have respectively petitioned this Assembly that the said vestries may be dissolved;"[88]

the Legislature thereupon dissolved the vestries named, their future acts were "declared utterly void to all intents and purposes whatsoever" and the freeholders and housekeepers of the respective parishes authorized to meet, on notice, and "elect twelve of the most able & discreet persons of the said parishes respectively to be vestrymen of the same." So far was the Legislature willing to go; but the orthodox rulers of Virginia did not for a moment propose to turn over control of the vestries in the dissatisfied parishes to a dissenting element; there was a further provision that should any vestrymen dissent from the communion of the Church of England and join "themselves to a dissenting congregation, and yet continue to act as vestrymen" they should be displaced.

During the ensuing ten years Loudoun's population grew rapidly and a parish extending from Difficult Run to the Blue Ridge covered so much territory that it made it difficult for a vestry, chosen from different parts of the parish, to assemble frequently for business. The project of dividing Cameron was the subject of a petition to the Legislature in 1769 but because of opposition and disagreement the division was not made until June, 1770, when an act was passed creating a new parish beyond Goose Creek and running to the Blue Ridge.[89] It was given the name of Shelburne in compliment to the British statesman William Petty-FitzMaurice, Lord Shelburne.

This contemplated division of Cameron had repercussions in the relations between that parish and its mother parish Truro. The new Shelburne would take from Cameron many of its tithables or taxpayers and suggested intensive study of its remaining economic resources. In November, 1766, or twenty-eight years after the creation of Cameron, the Legislature passed an act empowering Truro's vestry to sell its parish Glebe and church plate and divide the proceeds between Truro and Cameron; while three years later, in the act creating Shelburne, it was provided that as the Cameron Glebe was then located inconveniently, the latter's vestry was authorized to sell it and use the proceeds "toward purchasing a more convenient glebe, and erecting buildings thereon, for the use and benefit of the minister of the said parish of Cameron, for the time being, forever."[90]

The parish well may continue to take satisfaction in having been named worthily. Shelburne came of an historical and noble family, being a direct descendant of the very ancient Lords of Kerry. Born in Dublin on the 20th May, 1737, his childhood is said to have been "spent in the remotest parts of the south of Ireland and according to his own account when he entered Christ Church, Oxford in 1755 he had both everything to learn and everything to unlearn." Perhaps his friendship and conciliatory attitude always shewn toward the American Colonies arose from his naturally amiable and considerate disposition, perhaps from his participation under Wolfe in campaigns against the French. However that may be, he was well-liked and trusted in Virginia. He succeeded his father as Earl of Shelburne in 1761. During the critical years of 1766 and 1767 he was serving, under Pitt, as Secretary of State and sought, as a friend of the Colonies, to avoid the crisis which was surely developing. Unfortunately his efforts toward conciliation were blocked by others of the ministry and the King and in 1768 Shelburne was dismissed. In 1782 he reassumed office under Lord Rockingham, with the express understanding that the independence of the American Colonies should be recognized; an attitude requiring courage and strength to maintain. When Rockingham died, Shelburne succeeded him as Premier but through an alliance of Fox with Shelburne's old enemy North, he was forced to resign that position in 1783. A year later, when Pitt returned to power, he caused Shelburne to be created first Marquis of Landsdowne with which his public career ended. He was succeeded in his titles and estates, upon his death on the 7th May, 1805, by his eldest son.[91]

More fortunate in its fate than the early vestry books of Cameron, which have been destroyed or lost, the first vestry book of Shelburne, covering the period from 1771 to 1805, has been preserved and after being for many years in the library of the Episcopal Theological Seminary at Alexandria was sent to the State Library in Richmond. A photostatic copy has been made and is held in Loudoun.[92]

By way of contrast to the first vestry books of Virginia's older parishes, the earliest entries in that of Shelburne do not yield a great amount of interesting material. Its pages are largely filled with details of the levy of taxes and there is a protracted quarrel over the sites to be chosen for new church buildings which, in the event, prevented action until the Revolution and its aftermath deprived the Vestries of much of their authority. A few entries in the Vestry book have been abstracted:

"30th November 1772 Ordered that the Church Wardens for the Present Year do provide Benches to accomodate the persons who come to attend Divine Service at the Court House in Leesburg."

And then, to shew what a Church the Parish might have had but did not, there is this entry on the 30th December 1774. (Page 30) "Ordered that there be a Church built at or near the place where the Chapple now stands at Stephen Rozels and that it be 50 feet long & 40 feet broad in the clear. To be built either of brick or stone. To be of Sufficient Pitch for two rows of Windows, if built of brick the wall to be 2¹/₂ brick thick if built of stone the walls to be 2 feet thick; the Pews & all the Carpenter work to be of pine plank (framing excepted) The Base to be of Stone 2¹/₂ feet thick & to be finished off in such manner as the person appointed shall direct."

From the 10th day of June, 1776, no meeting of the vestry is recorded until the 1st day of April 1779.

At the meeting of the 4th November, 1795, Mr. Jones, the minister was ordered to preach "one Sunday at the Church at Rozels & the rest at Leesburg."

Thus the county was divided into two parishes. A little later Cameron secured the services, as Parson, of a member of another well-known family of the Northern Neck when, in 1771, the Rev. Spence Grayson returned from his theological studies and ordination in England and assumed that position. He was the son of Benjamin Grayson and Susan Monroe and had inherited from his father his home, Belle Air, in Prince William County which he left to go to England to enter the church. He married Mary Elizabeth Wagener, sister to Colonel Peter Wagener (clerk of Fairfax County and subsequently an officer in the Revolution) and became one of the original trustees in 1788 of the town of Carrborough on the south side of the mouth of Quantico Creek, where now are situated the Marine Corps Barracks. His nephew was the well-known Colonel William Grayson who, after serving with distinction in the Revolution, became one of the original two senators from Virginia.

But Shelburne was not to be cast in the shade in this matter of Parsons. In 1771 there was inducted there as minister the man who, of her long line of clergy, has left in Church, State, and Nation the most prominent name of all. The Rev. Dr. David Griffith had been born in the city of New York in 1742. Like the Rev. Charles Green, early minister of Truro, Dr. Griffith first became a physician, taking his medical degree in London and then returning to New York and beginning his practice as a physician there in 1763. Determining to enter the church ministry, he returned to England and was ordained in London by Bishop Terrick on the 19th August, 1770. Again he returned to America and worked as a missionary in New Jersey, whence he came to take charge of Shelburne Parish in 1771. When the Revolution came on, he, in 1776, became Chaplain of the 3rd Virginia Regiment and, in December of that year, he "was acting as a surgeon in the Continental Army in Philadelphia." Long a close and confidential friend of George Washington, he became the Rector of Christ Church, Alexandria, in 1780, in which position he continued until his death. He was a leader in building up the church in Virginia from its depressed condition after the Revolution, was a member of its first convention in Richmond in 1785 and was elected first Bishop of Virginia at the second annual convention of the Diocese in May, 1786. Unfortunately there were no funds available to pay his expenses to England and thus he was never formally consecrated. He died at the house of Bishop White in Philadelphia, while attending a church convention there, in 1789. He has been described as "large and tall in person but firm in manner. Without perhaps being brilliant, he was an able man of sound judgment and consecrated life, who had the esteem and affection as well as the confidence of his contemporaries. His memory ought to be held by us in highest honour."[93]

In those days Loudoun shared, with other of Virginia's frontier counties, a pest of numerous wolves which indeed penetrated into the older counties as well. There was a broad demand that the bounty for killing the animals be increased and in 1765 the Assembly passed an act authorizing Loudoun and six other counties to pay larger bounties, providing that a person killing a wolf within their respective boundaries "shall have an additional reward of fifty pounds of neat tobacco for every young wolf not exceeding the age of six months, and for every wolf above that age one hundred pounds of neat tobacco, to be levied and paid in the respective counties where the service shall be performed."[94] The act was to continue in force, however, only three years.

Five years later the hunting activities of Leesburg, at least, took on a more domestic hue. The inhabitants of the little town were busy in building up the reputation of a famous Virginia delicacy but apparently were rather overdoing it. "It is represented" reads an act of 1772 "that a great number of hogs are raised and suffered to go at large in the town of Leesburg, in the county of Loudoun to the great prejudice of the inhabitants thereof;" so the act forbade owners from allowing such liberties to their porkers and permitted any person to "kill and destroy such swine so running at large."[95]

That Francis Aubrey established the first ferry from Loudoun's shore across the Potomac prior to 1741 has been noted in Chapter IV. It was at the Point of Rocks and was inherited by Thomas Aubrey, son of its founder, who obtained a license for its operation in 1769. By 1775 the travel was very light at that point and complaint was made of inadequate equipment. In 1834 it, with the surrounding land on the Loudoun side, was in the possession of Rebecca Johnson and in 1837 in that of Margaret Graham. The construction of the Point of Rocks bridge by the Potomac Bridge Company in 1847 ended its usefulness.

A second ferry, also across the Potomac and heretofore recorded, became far more famous than that of the Aubreys. When Philip Noland acquired land on that river where travel over the old Carolina Road had, from time immemorial, crossed it, he had the most valuable and frequented ferry-site in the neighborhood. He had sought, but unsuccessfully, a ferry license as early as 1748; in 1756, with or without a license, he was operating his ferry. Its operation was eventually authorized by the Legislature in 1778 to the land of Arthur Nelson in the State of Maryland. No other ferry from Loudoun's shores acquired the fame that did Noland's. At the height of its activities the travel at that point is said to have supported a country store, a blacksmith's shop, a wagon shop, a tailor and a shoemaker. The coming of the railroads and the construction of the Point of Rocks Bridge together were responsible for its ultimate abandonment. We have a suggestive glimpse of conditions there. In May, 1780, the Moravian emissary John Frederick Reichel, in the course of his ministrations to those of his faith in America, undertook a journey from Bethlehem in Pennsylvania down the Carolina Road to the present Winston-Salem in North Carolina. One of his companions kept a journal from which we learn that upon successfully crossing into Virginia at Noland's Ferry, Bishop Reichel and his company "made camp near Mr. Th. Noland's house close to the road which turns to the right from the Foart road towards Noland's Ferry which crosses the Patomoak two miles from here. So far our journey had been very pleasant. Now, however, the Virginia air brought storms." While the weary travelers were resting that night from their journey, some of Noland's negroes left their "Quarters" and proceeded to lay their hands on the strangers' equipment. The diarist on the next day indignantly records the following "Note. Mr. Th. Noland and his father and father in law have 200 negroes in this neighbourhood on both sides of the Potomoack and this neighbourhood is far-famed for robbery and theft." On their return the travellers found that Mr. Noland had busied himself in recapturing much of the loot and duly returned the articles to their rightful owners.[96]

Between Noland and Josias Clapham there was a controversy for many years over which of the two should control the very profitable ferry business over the nearby stretches of the Potomac. Both had powerful associations and friends and both were, through their own activities and characters, outstanding figures in the Loudoun of their day. Noland as the son-in-law of the most prominent of Loudoun's earliest settlers, Francis Aubrey, and through his wife in possession of part of Aubrey's great land-grants, could well have entertained a conviction that he was Aubrey's representative and as such entitled to especial consideration as well as for his own accomplishments; while, on the other hand, Clapham's inherited friendship with Lord Fairfax and his own recent military services as a lieutenant in the troublous times following Braddock's defeat and death, his early and continued ownership of extensive tracts of land, his sound personal qualities and the high esteem in which he was held by his neighbours, made him a formidable opponent and rival. He successfully fought Noland's application to the Legislature for a ferry license in 1756 and in 1757 obtained one himself for the operation of a ferry below that of Noland, "from the lands of Josias Clapham, in the County of Fairfax, over Potowmack river, to the land on either side of Monochisey creek, in the province of Maryland; the price for a man four pence & for a horse the same."[97] Though this license was afterwards suspended, Clapham appears to have operated his ferry until 1778 when the Legislature ordered it discontinued as inconvenient. As Clapham at that time was himself a member of that body, it is probable that the old rivalry between the neighbours had ended.

We learn something of yet another ferry from this same act of the Legislature passed in the war year of 1778. Therein it was also provided "that publick ferries be constantly kept at the following places and the rates for passing the same be as follows, that is to say: From the land of the earl of Tankerville, in the County of Loudoun (at present in the tenure of Christian Shimmer) across Potowmack river to the opposite shore in the state of Maryland, the price for a man eight pence, and for a horse the same: ..." The act authorized Noland to collect the same tolls at his ferry, thus permitting the doubling of the ferry charges by the act of 1757.[98]

CHAPTER XI

REVOLUTION

When the American Colonies joined issue with Great Britain in the controversy which was to result in American independence, Loudoun's population, beginning with a thin trickle of adventurers, had been growing for over fifty years, during which time, save for the short period before and after Braddock's defeat, her sure but steady development and increase of people had received no serious reversal. The exact number of her inhabitants in 1775 is unknown; but fifteen years later she was credited with 14,747 whites and 4,030 slaves or a total of 18,777 individuals. One writer goes so far as to assert that the county was one of the most densely populated in the Colony at that period.[99] Toward the close of the conflict, in 1780 and 1781, her militia numbered no less than 1746 men, which is claimed by Head to have been "far in excess of that reported by any other Virginia County." When it is remembered that her present population does not greatly exceed 20,000 inhabitants and that, in the years which have intervened, the towns have substantially increased in number and size, it is probable that the country districts were quite as populous in 1775 as they are today.

With her early diversity of population, it might well be expected that the county's inhabitants would be divided in their attitude as to the wisdom of war with England. There seems, however, to have been practically a solid front, save for the Quakers who, because of their oppugnance to all war, opposed the Revolution in Loudoun as elsewhere and suffered bitterly in consequence as later will be related.

As it was, Loudoun lost no time in placing herself on record, as the following amply demonstrates:

"At a meeting of the Freeholders and other inhabitants of the County of Loudoun, in the Colony of Virginia, held at the Courthouse in Leesburg, the 14th June 1774—F. Peyton, Esq., in the chair—to consider the most effective method to preserve the rights and liberties of N. America, and relieve our brethren of Boston, suffering under the most oppressive and tyranical Act of the British Parliament, made in the 14th year of his present Majesty's reign, whereby their Harber is blocked up, their commerce totally obstructed, their property rendered useless

"Resolved, That we will always cheerfully submit to such prerogatives as his Majesty has a right, by law, to exercise, as Sovereign of the British Dominions, and to no others.

"Resolved, That it is beneath the dignity of freemen to submit to any tax not imposed on them in the usual manner, by representatives of their own choosing.

"Resolved, That the Act of the British Parliament above mentioned, is utterly repugnant to the fundamental laws of justice, in punishing persons without even the form of a trial; but a despotic exertion of unconstitutional power designedly calculated to enslave a free and loyal people.

"Resolved, That the enforcing the execution of the said Act of Parliament by a military power, must have a necessary tendency to raise a civil war, and that we will, with our lives and fortunes, assist our suffering brethren of Boston, and every part of North America that may fall under the immediate hand of oppression, until a release of all our grievances shall be procurred; and our common liberties established on a permanent foundation.

"Resolved, That the East India Company, by exporting their tea from England to America, whilst subject to a tax imposed thereon by the British Parliament, have evidently designed to fix on the Americans those chains forged for them by a venal ministry, and have thereby rendered themselves odious and detestable throughout all America. It is, therefore, the unanimous opinion of this meeting not to purchase any tea or other East India commodity whatever, imported after the first of this Month.

"Resolved, That we will have no Commercial intercourse with Great Britain until the above mentioned Act of Parliament shall be totally repealed, and the right of regulating the internal policy of N. America by a British Parliament shall be absolutely and positively given up.

"Resolved, That Thompson Mason and Francis Peyton, Esqs., be appointed to represent the County at a general meeting to be held at Williamsburg on the 1st day of August next, to take the sense of this Colony on the subject of the preceeding resolves, and that they, together with Leven Powell, William Ellzey, John Thornton, George Johnston and Samuel Levi, or any three of them, be a committee to correspond with the several Committees appointed for this purpose

"Signed by

The names of the following men, composing the Committee for Loudoun, are taken from the record of its meeting on the 26th May, 1775: