SPECULATION AND DEVELOPMENT
In the Quarter century, between 1730 and the French and Indian War of
1755, the lands of the future Loudoun became progressively more
populous. Although Truro Parish had been created as recently as 1732,
this pressure of incoming settlers seemed to call for the division, in
its turn, of Truro and in 1748 the government of the Colony set off the
upper part of Truro, beyond Difficult Run, as a new parish which was
named Cameron in delicate compliment to the Lord Proprietor's Scotch
Barony. Most unfortunately, the first vestry book of the new parish,
which would be invaluable source material for the Loudoun student
seeking information for the period from 1748 until the Revolution, has
vanished or been destroyed. The first parson of Cameron was the Rev.
John Andrews, probably the hero of a convivial incident soon to be
related.[47]
[47] See Mrs. Browne's narrative in next chapter.
Increasing population meant rapidly rising land values, exercising an
irresistible lure to many of the more active speculators of the Northern
Neck. Such men of substance as Aubrey and Noland were developing the
lands they purchased; but in another class were Benjamin Grayson,
Catesby Cocke, George Eskridge, the wealthy Potomac trader John Colvil
of Cleesh, that turbulent though gifted son of Dublin John Mercer and
even William Fairfax himself, all of whom, so far as Loudoun was
concerned, were active in land ventures rather than development. The
Germans we have met coming over the Blue Ridge were more intent upon
subduing the wilderness than skilled in the niceties of land titles;
hence they, in common with many of the other pioneers, appear to have
frequently omitted to secure grants from the proprietor for their
holdings, giving Cocke, Grayson, Mercer and even Aubrey the opportunity,
knowingly or otherwise, to secure the legal title to the lands of which
they had taken possession.
In 1740 John Colvil bought out Cocke and his colleagues and, writes
Fairfax Harrison "many lesser men and by pre-arrangement divided the
territory with William Fairfax. Keeping for himself the lands lying
between Catoctin Creek and the Catoctin Ridge and stretching from the
Potomac to Waterford, he conveyed to William Fairfax 46,466 acres,
constituting all the territory on the Potomac lying between Catoctin
Creek and the Shenandoah River, including the Blue Ridge from Gregory's
Gap to Harper's Ferry. The purchaser divided the property at the Short
Hills into two estates, naming the northern one 'Shannondale' and the
southern one 'Piedmont' and administered them as manors, on leases for
three lives. By his will he left these lands, with his mansion house,
Belvoir, to his eldest son, and the latter in turn, by his will of 1780,
entailed them, with the intention that they should constitute the
'plantation' of Belvoir House, always to be held with it. But soon after
this last will was written, the success of the American Revolution made
it necessary for George William Fairfax, by codicil, to change his
testamentary dispositions and his proposed entail was never made
effective."[48]
[48] _Landmarks of Old Prince William_, 273.
After Colvil had settled with William Fairfax, he still held 16,290
acres along Catoctin Creek, to say nothing of 1,500 acres on Difficult
Run, his plantation on Great Hunting Creek known as Cleesh and other
lands in the Northern Neck. Born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, he was closely
related to the Earl of Tankerville, through the latter's mother being
his first cousin--a matter in which he took some pride and which was to
be of even more moment to the Earl; for when Colvil came to make his
will in 1755, he left his plantation Cleesh, then containing about 1,000
acres, to his own brother, Thomas Colvil, for life with remainder over
"to the Right Honourable the present Earl of Tankerville and his heirs
forever" and also "in consideration of my relation and alliance to the
said Earl of Tankerville son of my father's brother's daughter," he left
to him outright his 16,000 acres of land on the Catoctin, his 1,500
acres on Difficult and his interest in a certain nearby copper mine.[49]
Thenceforth these lands remained in the Earl's family until after the
Revolution. Thus originated the Earl of Tankerville's title to certain
Loudoun lands, reference to which occasionally yet is heard.
[49] The will is on record in Fairfax County.
About 1739 Josias Clapham, of an ancient family of Yorkshire (which long
has been associated with the Fairfaxes there) bought land near the Point
of Rocks and before his death owned much land in the Northern Neck. He
died sometime prior to the 27th December, 1749, when his will, dated the
29th October, 1744, was proven in Fairfax County. In that will he left
"to my brother's son Josias Clapham two hundred fourty three Achres of
four hundred joyning to Madm. Mason commonly called the Flat Spring to
him and his heirs forever."
A codicil added to the will reads
"I leave my hole real Estate and Parsonable Estate to my brothers son
Josias Clapham and if he dont come in, it is my desire that his brother
Joseph should have it."[50]
[50] _Landmarks_, 502; also Fairfax County Wills A1, 309 and B1, 26.
Nicholas Cresswell, the journalist, as we shall see in Chapter XI,
states that the younger Josias lived in Wakefield in Yorkshire and was
much in debt. He decided to "come in" by emigrating to Virginia and soon
appeared on his lands in the upper country. He became a great leader in
Loudoun affairs. Toward the end of his long life he, in 1796, deeded to
his son Samuel the estate later known as Chestnut Hill and the latter,
soon thereafter, built the beautiful mansion which became another of
Loudoun's outstanding and stately family seats and which still stands,
in all its old-time charm, not far from the Point of Rocks, in one of
the most fertile and captivating regions of Loudoun. Through the
marriage of Betsy Price, a granddaughter of Josias Clapham, to Thomas F.
Mason of the Gunston Hall branch of that family (and therefore cousin to
that Thomson Mason of Raspberry Plain who we are about to meet) the
house and estate, until very recent years, continuously was occupied by
these Mason descendants of Clapham.[51]
[51] C. O. Vandevantner in _Northern Virginian_, winter issue, 1932.
A few years after the death, in 1741, of Francis Aubrey, much of his
great estate lying between the old Ridge Road (where it now passes
through Leesburg under the name of Loudoun Street) north to the
Limestone Branch and from the Potomac westerly to the Catoctin Hills,
came into the possession of Mrs. Ann Thomson Mason, widow of the third
George of that ilk; thus introducing to our frontier of that day another
of the most prominent of the Tidewater families and one which also was
to play a very notable role in Loudoun for at least a century. This
George Mason, at the age of forty-five, had been drowned while
attempting to cross the Potomac in a sailboat in the year 1735. In 1721
he had married, as his second wife, Ann Thomson, daughter of Stevens
Thomson of Hollins Hall, Staffordshire, England, who had served as
Attorney-General of Virginia for some years during Queen Anne's reign.
He, in turn, was the son of Sir William Thomson of the Middle Temple, a
Sergeant at Law who, to his credit, in 1680 had had the courage to act
as counsel for the defendants Tasborough and Price in the malodorous
Popish Plot trials of disgraceful memory. By this second wife, Mason had
six or seven children, of whom only three were to survive him: George
his eldest son (for his first wife had been childless) who later was to
build Gunston Hall and become the author of the famous Bill of Rights;
Thomson, later to become at least a part-time resident of Loudoun and a
famous lawyer in his day; and Mary, who, on the 11th April, 1751, was to
marry Samuel Selden of Salvington in Stafford County, near
Fredericksburg. She died at her mother's plantation Chipawamsic, on the
5th day of January, 1758, leaving two children, Samuel and Mary Mason
Selden, the latter inheriting her Loudoun lands.
When George Mason met his accidental death he left no will. Under the
Colonial law of primogeniture, his extensive holdings of land therefore
went to his eldest son. According to the family historian, his younger
children were left penniless. His widow thereupon bent all her energies
to create an estate for each of them. Saving what she could, through
every available economy and acting under the advice of her late
husband's friends, she acquired "ten thousand acres of what was then
called 'wild lands' in Loudoun County, for which she paid only a few
shillings per acre." She, during her lifetime, divided these lands
between her two younger children "for the reason assigned by her that
she did not wish her children to grow up with any sense of inequality
among them in regard to fortune. The investment turned out a most
fortunate one, and she thereby unwittingly made her younger children
wealthier than their elder brother."[52]
[52] _Life of George Mason_, by Kate Mason Rowland.
It is thus so many of the beautiful modern estates between Leesburg and
the Limestone Branch trace their title back to the Mason family. Mrs.
Ann Thomson Mason died on the 13th November, 1762, "leaving a reputation
among her connections and neighbours for great prudence and business
capacity, united to the charms of an amiable, womanly, character." Her
Rector, friend and relative, the Rev. John Moncure, described her as "a
good woman, a great woman, and a lovely woman."[53]
[53] _Idem._, 79.
Though she planted the Mason line in Loudoun, she herself does not
appear ever to have lived in that rough and for those days remote
frontier country. The actual seating of her line on her large purchase
was left to her son Thomson who, after going to England to acquire his
training in law and being admitted to the Middle Temple on the 14th
August, 1751, as its records show, returned to Virginia, practiced law
at Dumfries, became, perhaps, the most eminent lawyer of his time at the
Virginia Bar and vigourously aided the American Revolution. He either
had improved and extended the first Raspberry Plain home or, as
Lancaster says, built a new one for he deeded the existing structure
with the supporting land to his son Stevens Thomson Mason, confirming
the grant in his will, together with the plate and furniture then in the
dwelling; which indicates a more impressive home than the first
building.
Thomson Mason died at Raspberry Plain on the 26th February, 1785, and
was there buried; but the first mansion and burial place were not where
the imposing modern house of the same name now stands but rather much to
the north, near the fine spring and branch for a long time included in
the present Selma lands, for the latter estate was, of course, at that
time and long afterward but another part of the extensive Mason
holdings. It is of interest to note that this original Raspberry Plain
holding was never acquired by Francis Aubrey nor was it part of Mrs. Ann
Thomson Mason's purchase. On the contrary, it comprised a small grant,
stated to be 322 acres, made by the Proprietor to one Joseph Dixon, a
blacksmith, by patent dated the 2nd July, 1731.[54] Dixon, in turn, sold
it to Aeneas Campbell by deed dated the 15th July, 1754, for a
consideration nominally stated as "five shillings"--the old-time
equivalent of our "One Dollar and other good and valuable
considerations"--and Campbell was living there when commissioned the
first sheriff of Loudoun in 1757. In the deed to him the plantation is
described as being "On the branches of Limestone run called and known by
the name of raspberry plain" and the grant goes on to give the exact
location by metes and bounds. It apparently had been more carefully
surveyed and found to have more area than first believed, for it is
further described as containing "393 acres as appears by a survey
thereof" and the grant specifically includes "all houses, buildings,
orchards, ways, waters, water-courses," etc. Therefore Dixon may be
credited with having built the first Raspberry Plain house, a matter
long in doubt locally.[55] The estate was subsequently sold by Campbell
and Lydia his wife to Thomson Mason, by deed dated the 15th day of May,
1760, for 500 pounds current money of Virginia.
[54] Liber 3, Fol. 181, N. N. Grants.
[55] Fairfax County Land Records Liber C1 p. 806.
Around 1750 there came from Scotland to this same country, north of the
present Leesburg, that William Douglass who is to be so frequently
mentioned by Nicholas Cresswell in his journal at the time of the
Revolution. Colonel Douglass, as he afterward became, was the son of
Hugh Douglass of Garalland in Ayshire who, in turn, was sixth in descent
from the Earl of Douglas and also a descendant of the Campbell Barons of
Loudoun, thus making the Douglass family of Loudoun County kinsfolk to
the Earl of Loudoun for whom the county was to be named. Our William
Douglass owned the estates of Garalland and Montressor in Loudoun,
served as one of her justices (1770) and as sheriff in 1782. He died in
the latter year, leaving a will which was probated on the 24th September
1782.[56]
[56] _Douglass Family_, by J. S. Wise.
In the meanwhile the settlement of the Quakers was increasing rapidly in
population. As early as 1736, it is said, Hannah Janney, the wife of
Jacob Janney, held the services of her sect twice a week on a tree-stump
in the forest "and on that spot a log house was built in 1751 and a
meeting established" which was and still is known as the Goose Creek
meeting. This log hut in 1765 was superseded by a stone building and as
the congregation grew and the latter building was found too small, it
was replaced, in 1817, by a brick meeting-house; but the old stone
building of 1765 still stands and is owned by the Friends. Remodelled as
a dwelling house it is now occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Taylor.
A monument today marks the place, now in the village of Lincoln, where
the good Hannah Janney worshipped. It stands in a grove of trees and
reads:
"Here on a log in the unbroken forest Hannah Janney, wife of Jacob
Janney, worshipped twice weekly in 1736. In 1738 Friends meetings were
held in a private house once a month. Then a log meeting house. Then the
old stone house in 1765 and the brick house in 1817."
By 1743 or 1744 the Friends had erected a church, known as the Fairfax
Meeting, at Waterford, where as we have seen in a prior chapter (V),
they soon had become very numerous and through their energy and thrift
had really established that little settlement's early character and
prosperity. This first meeting house of the Friends followed the fate
which appeared to hover over so many of Virginia's early structures; it
duly disappeared in flames and in its place in 1868 there was
constructed the present substantial and commodious edifice, now only too
seldom used because of the dwindling of the Quaker population there.
Concurrently another religious organization had been growing rapidly in
the colonies. The Baptists had experienced the well-proved truth that
religious persecution is a most fertile soil for religious growth.
"Magistrates and mobs, priests and Sheriffs, courts and parsons all
vainly combined to divert them from their object," writes one of their
historians. The Baptists in Virginia are said to have originated from
three sources--emigrants in 1714, directly from England, settling in the
southeasterly part of the Colony, others from Maryland about 1743 going
to the northwesterly part, and still another group leaving New England
about 1754 and going to what is now Berkely County in West Virginia.
Between 1750 and 1755 John Gerrard, a Baptist preacher of Maryland, is
said to have gone to Berkely County and thence journeyed over the Blue
Ridge into the present Loudoun "where he found the people ready to
listen to the proclamation of the gospel." The first Baptist church in
Loudoun (and perhaps in Virginia as well) was built at Ketocton in 1756
or 1757, according to tradition, to be followed by a stone building in
1815 and then, in 1856, by the present brick edifice.
Until 1765 the Baptist congregations in Virginia were united to the
Philadelphia Association but in that year obtained their dismissal and
set about the task of building their own association in Virginia. Their
first convention was held "in Ketocton in Loudoun" the old church there
thus giving the first Baptist Association in Virginia its name. At that
time the Colony had only four Baptist churches but all of them were
represented at this first convention by the following delegates
Ketocton: John Marks and John Loyd.
Smith and Lynsville Creek: John Alderson.
Mill Creek: John Garrard and Isaac Sutton.
Broad Run: David Thomas and Joseph Metcalf.
A resolution was adopted to seek from the parent association in
Philadelphia instructions for the guidance of the new organization. As
their association grew in membership, it "was divided into two in 1789
by a line running from the Potomac a south course." The westerly portion
retained the Ketocton name and that to the east was known as the
Chappawamsick. This division continued until 1792 when the districts
were again united.[57]
[57] _Baptists in Virginia_, by R. B. Semple; also 3 Balch Library
Clippings, 64.
It is believed that a congregation of the German Reformed Church at
Lovettsville was organized before 1747 and possibly at once on the
arrival of the first German settlers in the Lovettsville neighbourhood,
about 1731. Again we are faced with the loss or destruction of early
records; but the Rev. Michael Schlatter, one of the early founders of
the Reformed Church in America, kept a journal from which it appears
that he preached to a Reformed congregation in our German Settlement at
the home of Elder William Wenner in the month of May, 1747. It is
believed that there was, at a very early day, a building of logs used as
a church and as a schoolhouse as well and that this continued to serve
its congregation until 1810, when a larger brick building was erected
which gave way in 1901 to another structure.[58]
[58] Balch Library Clippings, IV, 4.
By patent dated the 7th day of December, 1731, Rawleigh Chinn of
Lancaster County acquired from Lord Fairfax 3,300 acres near Goose Creek
and adjacent to a huge patent of 13,879 acres lying along the east side
of Goose Creek which already had been granted to Colonel Charles
Burgess, also of Lancaster. This grant to Chinn was on the Proprietor's
usual terms, reserving to the latter "yearly and every year on the feast
day of Saint Michael the Archangel the fee rent of one shilling sterling
money for every fifty acres of Land hereby granted and so for a greater
or lesser quantity"; and also meticulously reciting, "Royal mines
excepted and a full third part of all lead, copper, tin, coals, iron
mines and iron ore that shall be found thereon." Raleigh Chinn had
married Esther, a daughter of Colonel Joseph Ball of Epping Forest,
Lancaster County, an older sister of Mary Ball who was to marry
Augustine Washington; and he, although never living on his purchase of
forest lands in the "upper country," appears to have been so well
pleased with his investment that he subsequently added heavily thereto;
so that at the time of his death in August, 1741, he left to his
children a large estate in what later became Loudoun and Fauquier
Counties. One of Raleigh Chinn's sons, Joseph, in January, 1763, sold to
Leven Powell 500 acres of his inheritance and on a part of this land
Colonel Powell later (1782) laid out the town of Middleburg. Thomas
Chinn, a brother of Joseph, lived on the land on Goose Creek he had
inherited from his father and according to family tradition, employed
his young cousin, George Washington, to survey it for him, Washington
occupying "an office on a beautiful hill," built for him by Chinn.
Another surveyor who had run out the Chinn lines was Colonel Thomas
Marshall who was the first county surveyor of Fauquier, subsequently
became its burgess and sheriff, played a most gallant part in the
Revolution and became the father of the famous Chief Justice.[59]
[59] Depositions in Powell vs. Chinn, Loudoun Archives.
Leven Powell, at the time of his purchase from Joseph Chinn, was no
stranger to Loudoun, for his father, William Powell, had acquired land
in the neighbourhood of the present Middleburg as early as 1741.
Although these lands had been repeatedly surveyed from the time of the
original patents to Raleigh Chinn, Charles Burgess and others, in a day
when forest surveys customarily ran to a red or white oak, an ash or a
walnut tree, it may be supposed that boundary lines, in spite of
"processioning," not infrequently became the subject of vigourous
dispute; so in the Middleburg neighbourhood the Chinn and Powell heirs
fell out, in 1811, over their dividing lines and the accuracy of the
survey made in 1731 by John Barber for Charles Burgess, William Stamp,
Thomas Thornton and Rawleigh Chinn the burgess. About 500 acres of
arable land and 500 acres of forest were involved and hot was the legal
warfare and very numerous the depositions from distant witnesses in
Virginia and Kentucky obtained and filed in Loudoun's Superior Court. At
the end, the litigation appears to have resolved itself into some sort
of compromise; for on the 7th April, 1814, we find the Superior Court
ordering "this Day came the Parties by their Attorneys and this suit is
discontinued being agreed between the Parties."[60] But the memory of
their warfare still ruffled the litigants' minds; for upon the
settlement being effected, "Sailor" Rawleigh Chinn, grandson and
namesake of the patentee, proceeded to build upon the land set off to
him "Mount Recovery" which, burned in the Civil War, was afterwards
rebuilt and became the home of Mr. Thomas Dudley, subsequently being
sold to Mr. Oliver Iselin; while Burr Powell, the other litigant, built
on the tract set off to him a house he called Mount Defiance which in
later years was owned by the Thatcher and Bishop families.
[60] Loudoun Superior Court Orders C 38.
In 1744 John Hough, according to family tradition, settled in these
Fairfax backwoods "and served for many years as surveyor for the vast
estate of Lord Fairfax." He became the progenitor of the family which
has become numerous in Loudoun and includes Emerson Hough, well known
American novelist, though the latter was born in Iowa.[61] His surveys
were much needed, for by 1750 the pressure of settlers for grants in
these uplands had so increased that "Lord Fairfax's land office was
crowded with applicants" we are told.[62]
[61] Balch Library Clippings, II, 84.
[62] _Virginia Land Grants_, 130.