ORGANIZATION OF LOUDOUN AND THE FOUNDING OF LEESBURG
In the Virginia of England's rule, the vestry of a Parish "divided with
the County Court the responsibility of local government, having as their
especial charge the maintenance of religion and the oversight of all
things pertaining thereto in the domain of charity and morals."[74] The
parish was a territorial subdivision with large civil as well as
ecclesiastical powers and duties and when, through increasing
population, a parish came to be divided, in those days of expanding
settlement, it usually was followed by the creation of a new county. As
has been noted in a prior chapter, Truro Parish, then coextensive with
Fairfax County, was divided in 1748 by the Assembly setting off the
upper part thereof, above Difficult Run, as Cameron Parish, thus
indicating the early organization of a new county. But the politicians
of Tidewater were beginning to look askance at the rapid increase of new
counties in the upper country, fearing a diminution of their influence
and control and perhaps there was some opposition in Fairfax itself. A
petition presented to the Assembly in 1754 by the people of Cameron that
they be formed into a new county resulted in a bill being passed to that
end which, however, was disapproved by the Council. Again a petition was
presented to the next Assembly with no better success; but on the 8th
day of June, 1757 a bill was passed creating the new county. It reads as
follows:
"An Act for Dividing the County of Fairfax
"I. Whereas many inconveniences attend the upper inhabitants of the
County of Fairfax by reason of the large extent of said county, and
their remote situation from the court house, and the said inhabitants
have petitioned this present general assembly that the said county be
divided: Be it, therefore enacted, by the Lieutenant-Governor, Council
and Burgesses of this present General Assembly, and it is hereby
enacted, by the authority of the same, that from and after the 1st day
of July next ensuing the said county of Fairfax be divided into two
counties, that is to say: All that part thereof, lying above Difficult
run, which falls into the Patowmack river, and by a line to be run from
the head of the same run, a straight course, to the mouth of Rocky run,
shall be one distinct county, and called and known by the name of
Loudoun: And all that part below the said run and course, shall be
another distinct county, and retain the name of Fairfax.
"II. And for the due administration of justice in the said county of
Loudoun, after the same shall take place: Be it further enacted by the
authority aforesaid, that after the first day of July a court for the
said county of Loudoun be constantly held by the justices thereof, upon
the second Tuesday in every month in such manner as by the laws of this
colony is provided, and shall be by their commission directed.
"III. Provided always, that nothing herein contained shall be
constructed to hinder the sheriff or collector of the said county of
Fairfax, as the same now stands entire and undivided, from collecting
and making distress for any public dues, or officers fees, which shall
remain unpaid by the inhabitants of said county of Loudoun at the time
of its taking place; but such sheriff or collector shall have the same
power to collect or distrain for such dues and fees, and shall be
answerable for them in the same manner as if this act had never been
made, any law, usage or custom to the contrary thereof in any wise
notwithstanding.
"IV. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that the
court of the said county of Fairfax shall have jurisdiction of all
actions and suits, both in law and equity, which shall be depending
before them at the time the said division shall take place; and shall
and may try and determine all such actions and suits, and issue process
and award execution in any such action or suit in the same manner as if
this act had never been made, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary
in any wise notwithstanding.
"V. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that out of
every hundred pounds of tobacco, paid in discharge of quit rents,
secretary's, clerk's, sheriff's, surveyor's, or other officers fees,
and so proportionately for a greater or lesser quantity, there shall be
made the following abatements or allowances to the payer, that is to
say: For tobacco due in the county of Fairfax ten pounds of tobacco, and
for tobacco due in the county of Loudoun twenty pounds of tobacco; and
that so much of the act of the assembly, intitled, An Act for amending
the staple of tobacco, and preventing frauds in his Majesty's customs,
as relates to anything within the purview of this act, shall be and is
hereby repealed and made void."[75]
[74] _History of Truro Parish_, i.
[75] Known as Chapter XXII. See 7 Hening, 148.
The boundaries of the new county thus fixed have since that time been
changed but once, when in 1798, a part of the originally constituted
Loudoun was, by act of the Legislature, returned to Fairfax as later
will be noted.[76]
[76] See Chapter XIII post.
Thus, from the formation of Northumberland County in 1647, it had taken
110 years for a sufficient population to penetrate, settle and develop
in the backwoods to justify the organization of Loudoun. At first the
creation of new counties out of the early Northumberland had been rapid.
Lancaster along the Rappahannock was formed in 1651 and Westmoreland
along the Potomac in 1653. Out of Westmoreland came Stafford in 1664.
Then, so far as the line of descent of Loudoun is concerned, there is a
long wait. Indian warfare and Indian domination of the upper country
effectually held back settlement until Spotswood's epochal treaty of
1722. With the withdrawal of the Indians the pressure from Tidewater
rapidly had its effect. Out of the Stafford "backwoods" and those of
King George to the south was organized in 1731 Prince William with a
disputed western boundary, the Proprietor claiming much of the
Shenandoah Valley and the Virginia government holding to the Blue Ridge
but the act discretely leaving that question untouched. In 1742 the
territory above "Occoquan and Bull Run and from the head of the main
branch of Bull Run by a straight course" to Ashley's Gap became the
County of Fairfax of which, as shown, Loudoun in 1757 was born. Her
contiguous county Fauquier was, by contrast, taken directly from Prince
William in 1759.
It would have been wholly appropriate to have named the new county Lee
or Carter, honoring families and individuals which had been so active in
its development but the Lees then loved the Carters not at all nor the
Carters the Lees and doubtlessly each would, and perhaps did, prevent
the honor going to the other. So it came about that the lusty infant
became the namesake of a man whose fame, so far as Virginia and the
other American Colonies were concerned, was highly ephemeral. On the
17th February, 1756, in the winter following Braddock's defeat, John
Campbell, fourth Earl of Loudoun, had been appointed Captain-General and
Governor-in-Chief of Virginia and, on the 20th of the month following,
Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in America. He seems to have
owed his selection to his own and his family's influence with Court and
ministry; certainly nothing in his earlier career had logically earned
the bestowal of a paramount command in such a critical period for
Britain. Loudoun, the only son of the third Earl of that ilk and his
wife the Lady Margaret Dalrymple (only daughter of John 1st Earl of
Stair) had been born in 1705 and succeeded his father in the title and
estates in 1731. From 1734, until his death in 1782, he was one of the
representative peers of Scotland. At the age of twenty-two he entered
the army and had been appointed Governor of Sterling Castle in 1741,
becoming aide-de-camp to the king in 1743. When the Jacobite rebellion
broke out in 1745 he had been a staunch supporter of the House of
Hanover, raising a regiment of Highlanders of which he became colonel
and which later was cut to pieces at the Battle of Preston. Loudoun was
one of the few who came out of the fight unscathed and, shewing that
upon occasion he was capable of energy as well as loyalty, promptly he
raised a force of more than two thousand new soldiers.
When he arrived in New York on the 23rd July, 1756, he found affairs in
great confusion. After the care with which Braddock's campaign had been
planned for him and the disastrous outcome, the home authorities were
now slow to adopt measures to cope with the crisis. Not only Fort
DuQuesne but Forts Oswego and Ontario were held by the French,
aggressive and confident from their repeated successes. After spending
a year in surveying the situation, Loudoun headed an expedition against
Louisburg, going as far as Halifax and then, though a caution made to
appear the more excessive by inevitable comparison with the dash and
reckless courage of Pepperell's earlier and sensationally successful
expedition, returned to New York without striking a blow. He had
incurred great unpopularity earlier in New York and now in Halifax
although in the former, at least, his measures of quartering troops and
interference with commerce fairly could be defended on the ground of
military necessity. Of more unfortunate importance, the ineptitude and
dilatory inefficiency of his Louisburg campaign had drained its
defenders from the Hudson Valley, thus permitting a successful and
disastrous invasion of the Province of New York by the French and their
Indians and Loudoun was peremptorily recalled to England (1757), General
Jeffrey Amherst being sent over to take his place. Loudoun's indecision
inspired Benjamin Franklin's famous epigram which all down the years, to
the few who remember Loudoun, remains inseparably associated with his
name: that, "he was like King George upon the signposts, always on
horseback but never advancing." There was, however, at least one voice
publicly raised on his behalf; an effort was made in England to defend
his conduct in America through an anonymous pamphlet published in London
the following year entitled "The Conduct of a Noble Commander in America
Impartially Reviewed with the genuine Causes of the Discontents at New
York and Hallifax," one of the few surviving copies of which is now
lodged in the Library of Congress. And it was for this British general
with but a year of American experience (and that far from glorious) who
never, so far as it is known, set foot on Virginia's soil that the
fairest of Piedmont's counties was named during those brief months when
his ascendant star glowed with an all too temporary brilliance and hope
and expectation ran high. Had the county been organized when first
proposed or had its formation been further postponed, it is a fair
presumption that another name would have been chosen.
Lord Loudoun's American record seemingly did not end his influence in
London. In 1762, when war broke out between England and Spain, he was
appointed second in command, under Lord Tyrawley, of the British troops
sent to Portugal. As he never married, his title upon his death at
Loudoun Castle on the 27th April, 1782, passed to his cousin, James Mure
Campbell, a grandson of the second Earl.
Of the first officials of Loudoun County, the following men by
commission of the Virginia Council, dated the 24th May, 1757, became its
first court or governing body: Anthony Russell, Fielding Turner, James
Hamilton, Aeneas Campbell, Nicholas Minor, William West, of the Quorum,
Richard Coleman, Josias Clapham, George West, Charles Tyler, John Moss,
Francis Peyton and John Mucklehany. These men may be taken as
outstanding residents.
We can learn from the early records something concerning the actual
procedure followed in organizing the new county. The first entry in the
volume of Court Orders is a record on the 12th day of July, 1757, that a
Commission of the Peace and Dedimus of the county directed to the last
mentioned "Gentlemen, justices of the said County was produced and
openly Read, and pursuant to the Dedimus" that they took the oaths
prescribed by law.
The first county clerk was Charles Binns who served thirty-nine years in
that capacity, from 1757 to 1796; to be succeeded by his son Charles
Binns, Jr., who, in his turn, served forty-one years or from 1796 to
1837, a record indicating that Loudoun had been fortunate in the
selection for this office. It is traditional in the county that the
first clerk's office was at Rokeby, the present country seat of Mr. and
Mrs. B. Franklin Nalle.
The first sheriff was Aeneas Campbell who came to the then Fairfax
County from Saint Mary's County, Maryland, just in time to become a
lieutenant in that Fairfax company in the French War captained by
Nicholas Minor and whose home was at Raspberry Plain as already has been
shown.[77] It is also locally related that the first jail was a small
brick building about twelve feet square, in his yard there. A
ducking-spring was also a part of the new sheriff's equipment at his
home and was used to temper the enthusiasm of females too greatly
addicted to mischievous talking. A woman duly convicted of idle gossip
and slandering her neighbours, was generally fined in tobacco; if the
fine were not paid by her husband or the dame herself, she was taken to
the ducking-spring, where a long pole had a chair with arms attached to
its end. The talkative lady was then tied in the chair, the pole lowered
and she was immersed in the pond a sufficient number of times to cause
her ruefully to remember her experience and, let us hope, amend her
conduct. Alas! Alas! _Tempora mutantur_.
[77] See chapter VII ante.
Campbell's bond as sheriff occupies the place of honor in the first Deed
Book of the county on page one. He and his two sureties, Anthony Russell
and James Hamilton, bind themselves "unto our Sovereign Lord King George
the second in the sum of one thousand pounds Current Money to be paid to
our said Lord the King his Heirs and Successors." Tobacco as money was
all well enough in Virginia but apparently was not appreciated by
Royalty across the sea.
Both county clerk and sheriff qualified at this first session of the
Court.
Aeneas Campbell was one of the leading spirits in the new county. Not
only was he its first sheriff but he built its first courthouse, as
later noted, and was an original trustee of Leesburg when that town was
"erected." In those days the outstanding men in a community were chosen
for public office and the frequency of his name on the records
unquestionably confirms his influential prominence. His later career was
interesting. After he sold Raspberry Plain to Thomson Mason in 1760, we
find him, in 1776, back in Maryland and busily engaged in the work of
the Revolution. He became captain of the First Maryland Battalion of the
Flying Camp in July of that year and on the 18th of the month in
Frederick County, is credited with presenting to that command thirty-two
men, including his son Aeneas Campbell, Jr., (who held the rank of
cadet) all of whom were then reviewed and passed (accepted?) by Major
John Fulford.[78] His descendants, including the Giddings family of
Leesburg, proudly retain the tradition that Campbell raised and
accoutred this force entirely at his own expense, setting an example of
patriotism which Loudoun should remember.
[78] Archives of Maryland, Published by Maryland Historical Society
1900.
The county lieutenant, first officer in rank but, in the present
instance, the last to be chosen, was not commissioned until December,
1757, when Francis Lightfoot Lee, son of our old friend Thomas Lee, was
selected and settled himself on lands which he had inherited from his
father and which were within the boundaries of the new county. His
residence in Loudoun, however, did not prove to be permanent, for upon
his marriage in 1769, to Miss Rebecca Tayloe of Mount Airy, he removed
to Menokin on the Rappahannock where he continued to reside until his
death, without issue, in the winter of 1797; but as a result of his
frontier experience he was always thereafter called "Loudoun" by his
brothers.[79] In addition to his position as county lieutenant he and
James Hamilton served as the first Burgesses from Loudoun and
continuously so acted for a number of years.
[79] _Landmarks_, I., 327 and 344.
The first county surveyor was recognized at the court held on the 9th
August, 1757, when "George West, Gent. produced a Commission to be
Surveyor of this County and thereupon he took the Oath directed by the
Act of Assembly and entered into and acknowledged his Bond to the
President and Masters of the College of William & Mary in Virginia with
Charles Binns & Lee Massey his Sureties which is Ordered to be
recorded."
The first attorneys to qualify to practice law before the Loudoun Court
were Hugh West, Benjamin Sebastian, William Elzey, and James Keith.
Few institutions of the Northern Neck of those days of slow travel and
thin settlement were more important than the inns or as they are usually
designated "ordinaries;" and the keeper of an Ordinary was generally a
man of parts and consequence in his community. The matter of cost of
food, drink and lodging in the public inns was a subject close to the
heart of the eighteenth century colonial and Loudoun's Court lost no
time in taking control of the ordinaries within its boundaries. Already
several were in existence. As early as 1740 William West had acquired
land on the Carolina Road near the present Aldie and soon had
constructed a dwelling and was keeping an ordinary there. The Loudoun
Court on the 9th May, 1759, gave him a license to keep his ordinary for
a year--presumably to be annually renewed--but he had been acting as the
local Boniface for many years before that. The first Loudoun license for
an ordinary, however, was granted on the 10th August, 1757, "to James
Coleman to keep Ordinary at his House in this County (at the Sugar
Lands) for one Year he with Security having given Bond as the Law
directs;" but Coleman, too, had been conducting an ordinary at his
residence before then.
On the 12th September, 1759, the court licensed John Moss to keep an
Ordinary at Leesburg.
But on the 9th day of August, 1757, the day before it granted its first
license to keep ordinary to James Coleman, the court laid down its rules
and regulations for Loudoun inn keepers. That the gentlemen justices
gave far more detailed attention to the charges for alcoholic
refreshment than to the other matters regulated may or may not have been
mere coincidence.
"The Court," so runs the record, "proceeded to rate the Liquor for this
County as follows:
L S d
For a gallon of rum and so in proportion 8
Nantz Brandy Pr Gallon 10
Peach or Apple Brandy Pr Gallon 6
New England Rum Pr Gallon 2 6
Virginia Brandy from Grain Pr Gallon 4
Arrack the Quart made into Punch 8
For a Quart of White, red or Madeira Wine 2 6
For Royall and other low Wines Pr Quart 1 6
English Strong Beer Pr Quart 1 3
London Beer called Porter Pr Quart 1
Virginia Strong Beer Pr Quart 7-1/2
Cyder the quart Bottle 3-3/4
English Cyder the Quart 1 3
For a Gill of Rum made into Punch with loaf Sugar 6
Ditto with fruit 7-1/2
For ditto with Brown Sugar 3-3/4
For a Hot Diet 9
For a Cold Diet 6
For a Gallon of Corn or Oats 4
Stableage & Fodder for a horse 24 hours or one night 6
Pasturage for a Horse 24 Hours or one night 4
For lodging with clean Sheets 6d. Otherwise nothing
All soldiers and Expresses on his Majesty's service paying
ready money shall have 1/5 part deducted.
"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]
[80] I owe both the copy of the map and its history to Mr. Thomas M.
Fendall of Morrisworth and Leesburg.
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]
[81] Loudoun Orders A, 142.
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]
[82] Loudoun Orders A, 162.
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]
[83] Loudoun Deeds B, 149.
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]
[84] Loudoun Orders A, 544.
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]
[85] 7 Hening, 234.
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.
[86] Head, 72.
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.
[87] Loudoun Orders A, 91.