EARLY FEDERAL PERIOD
From the close of the Revolution to the War of 1812, there were at least
four outstanding movements in Loudoun: the restoration of the fertility
of her soil, the disestablishment of the church, the loss of a
substantial part of her area which returned to Fairfax and the erection
of large country mansions. The great project of Washington's Potomac
Company, involving the extensive improvement of that river for
navigation, was not, of course a Loudoun enterprise, although the
welfare of her people was greatly affected and such Loudoun men as
Joseph Janney, Benjamin Shreve, John Hough, Benjamin Dulaney, William
Brown, John Harper, William Ellzey, and Leven Powell were at one time or
another, as directors or stockholders, interested in the undertaking.
In the settlement of county, the Virginians from Tidewater had brought
with them their improvident methods of farming. From the earliest days,
when land was more available than labor, scant attention had been given
by the Virginia planter or farmer to the conservation or restoration of
the fertility of his soil. A field was planted and replanted to
heavy-feeding crops, with perhaps an occasional fallow year intervening;
and when the inevitable result registered itself in the falling off of
production to a point where the planting of that field became
unprofitable, it was abandoned and new ground broken up to be put
through the same disastrous course. Rotation of crops and the manuring
of the land were seldom, if ever, practiced outside perhaps the Quaker
and German Settlements. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, so far
had this reckless agriculture gone, that even the fertile lands of the
Piedmont were recording the result in no uncertain manner. The yield of
corn and wheat to the acre had been steadily declining, followed by an
emigration of many of the Loudoun people to Kentucky and elsewhere. It
was then that there arose in the county a farmer and leader who,
measured by the results of his work, may be considered as the most
valuable man to her own interests that Loudoun has thus far produced.
John Alexander Binns was the son of Charles Binns, the first clerk of
Loudoun and of his wife, Ann Alexander, a daughter of "John Alexander
the Eldest of Stafford County. Gent." as he is described in a deed to
his daughter in 1760. The son was born probably about 1761, although the
exact date seems uncertain. In March, 1781, he was, as we have seen,
recommended by the County Court of Loudoun to the governor for
appointment as a first lieutenant in the Virginia forces and at the same
time his brother, Charles Binns, Jr., later to succeed his father as
county clerk, was recommended for a commission as second lieutenant.
After the war, John Binns turned his attention to farming and grappled
with the problem of restoring the fertility of the soil. He had learned
of the use of land plaster (gypsum) and clover for that purpose in the
Philadelphia neighborhood, whence it is said the system had been brought
from Leipsic in Saxony. As early as 1780 he began his experiments, using
not only the land plaster and clover but practicing deeper ploughing and
rotating crops. At first he was, of course, ridiculed by his farmer
neighbors, for the reluctance of the husbandman to change his methods is
an old, old story. But Binns persisted. As he improved one farm and his
profits rose, he purchased other worn-out lands from their discouraged
owners and in time was profiting handsomely from his intelligence and
industry. At length, in 1803, his labors crowned with success and the
agricultural wealth of his home county rapidly rising as a result of his
long and patient work, he sat himself down to write the story of what he
had accomplished. His little book was printed in a very small edition,
due probably to the high price and scarcity of paper, and was offered
for sale at fifty cents, under the comprehensive title "_A Treatise on
Practical Farming, embracing particularly the following subjects, viz.
The Use of Plaster of Paris, with Directions for Using it; and General
Observations on the Use of Other Manures. On Deep Ploughing; thick
Sowing of Grain; Method of Preventing Fruit Trees from Decaying and
Farming in General._ By John A. Binns Of Loudoun County, Virginia,
Farmer." It was published at "Frederick-Town, Maryland," and "Printed by
John B. Colvin, Editor of the _Republican Advocate_, 1803." "The little
book" writes Rodney H. True "is now hard to find and the first edition,
but for the copy preserved by Jefferson and now treasured among the
great man's books in the Library of Congress, would well-nigh be lost."
Thomas Jefferson, with his restless intelligence, was one of the first
to acquire the book. Having studied it and being impressed with Binns'
success, he wrote to Sir John Sinclair, the head of the English Board of
Agriculture, a letter dated the 30th June, 1803, sending with it
"the enclosed pamphlet on the use of gypsum by a Mr. Binns, a plain
farmer, who understands handling his plough better than his pen. he is
certainly something of an enthusiast in the use of this manure; but he
has a right to be so. the result of his husbandry prooves his confidence
in it well found for from being poor, it has made him rich. the county
of Loudoun in which he live(s) exhausted & wasted by bad husbandry, has,
from his example, become the most productive one in Virginia: and its
lands, from being the lowest, sell at the highest prices. these facts
speak more strongly for his pamphlet than a better arrangement & more
polished phrases would have done. were I now a farmer I should surely
adopt the gypsum...."
On the same day, in a letter to Mr. William Strictland, another member
of the English Board of Agriculture, Jefferson wrote
"You will discover that Mr. Binns is an enthusiast for the use of
gypsum, but there are two facts which prove that he has a right to be so
1. he began poor and has made himself tollerably rich by his farming
alone. 2. the county of Loudoun, in which he lives, had been so
exhausted & wasted by bad husbandry, that it began to depopulate, the
inhabitants going Southwardly in quest of better lands. Binns' success
has stopped that immigration. it is now becoming on(e) of the most
productive counties of the state of Virginia, and the price given for
the lands is multiplied manifold."
Sir John Sinclair in his reply to Mr. Jefferson, whom he addresses as
"His Highness, Thomas Jefferson" wrote from Edinburgh under date of the
1st January 1804:
"On various accounts I received with much pleasure, your obliging letter
of the 30th June last, which only reached me, at the place, on the 19th
November. I certainly feel highly indebted to Mr. Binns, both for the
information contained in the pamphlet he has drawn up; and also, for his
having been the means of inducing you to recommence our correspondence
together, for the purpose of transmitting a paper which does credit to
the practical farmers of America.
"As to the Plaster of Paris, which Mr. Binns so strongly recommends, it
is singularly, that whilst it proves such a source of fertility to you,
it is of little avail in any part of the British Islands, Kent alone
excepted. I am thence inclined to conjecture, that its great advantage
must arise from its attracting moisture from the atmosphere, of which we
have in great abundance in these Kingdoms...."
But it is time to turn to Binns' own record of his work. How desperately
poor the yield of grain had become in Loudoun is shown by his statement
that some of his unplastered land yielded but five bushels of wheat to
the acre and not more than three bushels of corn on a place so worn out,
when he took it over in 1793, that his friends thought he "must starve
on it." By 1798 he was getting from that farm 15-1/2 bushels of corn to
the acre and the next year, on that corn land, had 27 bushels of heavy
wheat per acre. In another place he notes: "I put a parcel of it"
(plaster) "on some corn in the hill which produced about 22 bushels, the
other part of the field yielding about 12 bushels to the acre."
As an interesting sidelight he indicates that tobacco was being grown
around Leesburg at that time. In 1803, as he wrote his book, he expected
a crop of 40 bushels of wheat per acre on his farms. And by way of
summarizing his work
"There are several places on the Catocton Mountain, that some few years
past the corn stalks, when the tops were taken off, were not above three
feet high, and which would not produce more than two or three barrels of
corn to the acre, and from 5 to 6 bushels of wheat; and perhaps not
yield grass enough to the acre to feed a horse for two weeks after the
harvest was taken off; but from the use of plaster will now produce from
six to eight barrels of corn, and from twenty to twenty-five bushels of
wheat per acre; the luxuriant growth of the white and red clover after
harvest gives the fields which once looked like a barren waste of
country, the appearance of a beautiful meadow."
And upon sanitation he has this to say:
"... These circumstances made me anxious to cleanse my stables,
stockyards, cow-pens, hog-pens, wood-yards and ash-heaps by the first
June. This rule I have always followed ever since I began to farm for
myself, and can say that my family have never experienced an
intermittent or remittent" (fever) "unless attacked with them from home
first, and upon their return they have immediately left them. In my
travels where ever I have discovered those kind of fevers, I have always
observed either dirty, filthy stables, hog-pens or water standing in
their cellars or ponds of water not far off; I have also observed those
places most liable to dysentaries...."
In contrast to present-day views, he was wholly opposed to growing rye
on Loudoun lands, believing that it impoverished the soil and that wheat
yielded more in bushels; that rye destroyed grass and clover and injured
orchards. He approved the growing of wheat and oats in orchards to
maturity and strongly recommended the use of plaster in them.
The result of Binns' work was acclaimed throughout Virginia. His methods
became known as the "Loudoun system" and the term became as significant
and popularly familiar as the "Norfolk system" of farming in England. Of
his work and his book True says:
"In spite of the fact that 'it is not written in a scholastic style,'
few books have been written in which more sound practical agriculture is
crowded into so small a space. Binns' chapter on the life history of the
Hessian fly stands as a piece of careful observation that might have
done credit to Dr. Thomas Say himself. The three fundamental supports on
which agriculture prosperity in Loudoun County rests were never more
clearly or soundly appreciated: gypsum, clover and deep plowing. This
was the background of the famous 'Loudoun System' which came to be
recognized as the progressive practice for that part of the country a
hundred years ago."[122]
[122] See article on Binns by Rodney H. True in 2 William and Mary
Quarterly (2) 20.
Binns died in 1813. His will, dated the 11th January in that year, was
offered for probate on the 1st November following. In it he makes
provision for freeing his slaves after a certain period. As he left his
estate to his wife and nieces, it is surmised that no children survived
him. The family, however, is still represented in Loudoun. Captain John
A. Tebbs, U.S.M.C., is a descendant of Charles Binns, Jr., the younger
brother of our agronomist.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that religious thought and
observance were at a low ebb in Virginia in the latter part of the
eighteenth century. It was an age of transition, in some respects not
unlike that of today. Old ties were being broken, tradition and old-time
loyalties no longer received their former adherence. No small
responsibility attaches to that negligent and selfish minority of the
clergy of the colonial church and to an equally reprehensible element in
the early Federal days for remissness in their duties; and their
culpable behavior tends to attract more attention than the loyal
devotion of the majority of their brethren. It was inevitable that the
established church should be regarded as a part of the repudiated
British government and when its civil powers and ecclesiastical
predominance were taken from it and much of its property ruthlessly
confiscated, there ensued a period of confusion in religious matters,
with an unfortunate colouring of vindictive animosity on the part of
other communions. Concurrently the spread of Methodism took from the
older church many of its erstwhile adherents. Indeed, for a
disconcertingly long period after its "erection" in 1758, Leesburg
appears to have had no building devoted to religious purposes, services,
when held, having been at the courthouse. Cresswell, in his journal,
confirms this as does the first Shelburne Vestry book and also an
advertisement in Leesburg's '_True American_' of the 30th December,
1800: "The Reverend Mr. Allen" it reads "intends to perform divine
service in the Court House, on the 4th January, at half past eleven
o'clock; he also proposes preaching every fortnight from that date."
This situation was repaired between 1780 and 1785, when the Methodists,
organized as a separate denomination in 1784, erected their stone church
on Cornwall Street with galleries around three of its sides and with
its interesting old-fashioned sounding board, which church came to be
endowed with many associations until its needless destruction about
1901. Then, in 1804, the "Presbyterian Society of Leesburg," which had
probably existed since 1782, was more formally organized as a church by
the Rev. James Hall, D.D., of Concord, North Carolina, at that time the
Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly. The erection of the
present quaint old brick church on Market Street, the oldest church
building now standing in Leesburg, had already been begun in 1802 and
was completed in 1804. It was dedicated in May, 1804, by Dr. Hall. Its
first pastor was the Rev. John Mines, who served until 1822 and the
first Elders were Peter Carr, Obadiah Clifford, and John MacCormack.
Through the courtesy of the Presbyterians, their neighbors of the
Episcopal faith held their services from time to time in this old church
until the erection of the first Saint James Church on Church Street in
1812, long delayed because of conflicting views as to whether the new
building should be in town or country.
This first Saint James Church "was built of brick and quite small, the
windows not arched and there was a yard in front. This church was torn
down in 1836 and a new one, much wider and larger built, the foundation
brought more to the front. It was enlarged in 1848, the vestibule built
over the remainder of the yard, bringing the front of the church even
with the street."[123] This building continued to be used until the
present Saint James Church of gray stone on the corner of Cornwall and
Wirt Streets was completed in 1897.
[123] _Old Saint James Episcopal Church_, by Miss Lizzie Worsley.
To the diversity in origin of the county's population frequent reference
has been made. The inhabitants of the southern part were far more in
sympathy in political philosophy, in manner of living, in agricultural
practices and in traditional background with the people of Fairfax than
were they with, perhaps, the majority of the heterogeneous population of
upper Loudoun. Also their leaders belonged to the class which has ruled
in Tidewater Virginia since its English beginnings and they none too
willingly faced the prospect, after the Revolution, of dividing their
authority with and perhaps losing their dominance to the upper-country
people. In 1782 they sought to create a new county coextensive with
Cameron Parish; failing in that, a compromise was reached in 1798 by
which the erstwhile area of Loudoun, south of Sugar Land Run, was
returned to Fairfax--"All that part of the County of Loudoun" reads the
act of division "lying between the lower boundary thereof and a line to
be drawn from the mouth of Sugar Land Run, to Carter's Mill on Bull Run,
shall be and is hereby added to and made a part of the County of
Fairfax."[124] This action had the immediate result of greatly
strengthening the political power of the Quakers, Germans and
Scotch-Irish in the remaining part of the county and correspondingly
diminishing the influence of the descendants of the old Tidewater
aristocracy there.
[124] 2 Shepherd, 107.
In the year 1787 Colonel Leven Powell laid out the town of Middleburg on
the road running to Ashley's Gap, for his purpose devoting fifty acres
on the southerly edge of the 500 acre tract of land he had purchased
from Joseph Chinn in 1763;[125] the town, of course, obtaining its name
from the position it occupied approximately halfway between the major
towns of Alexandria and Winchester as well as halfway between the
courthouses of Loudoun and Fauquier. The first trustees were Francis
Peyton, William Bronaugh, William Heale, John Peyton Harrison, Burr
Powell, Josias Clapham, and Richard Bland Lee.[126]
[125] See Chapter VII ante.
[126] 12 Hening, 605.
The much older town of Waterford did not receive formal legislative
sanction until 1801. Then by the fifth section of an act of the
Legislature, the place is recognized as already in existence: "the lots
and streets as the same are already laid off at the place known by the
name of Waterford." The first trustees were James Moore, James Griffith,
John Williams, and Abner Williams. Section 7 of the act further provided
"that as soon as Mahlon Janey and William Hough, shall lay off into lots
with convenient streets, so much of their lands not exceeding ten acres
adjoining the said town of Waterford, the same shall thence-forth
constitute and be deemed and taken as a part of the said town."[127]
[127] 2 Shepherd, 270.
The next year another old settlement was, in its turn, given legislative
acknowledgment. Hillsborough, somewhat belatedly, was "established" on
twenty-five acres already divided between a score or more of owners:
Mahlon Hough, Thomas Purcell, the representatives of John Jenny (sic),
deceased, Thomas Leslie, Thomas Hepburn, Joseph Tribby, Josiah White,
John Foundling, Edward Conrod, Mahlon Roach, Thomas Stevens, Thomas
Hough, Samuel Purcell, John Wolfcaile, Richard Matthews, James Prior,
John Stevens, Richard Copeland, and Mahlon Morris. The first trustees
were Mahlon Hough, Thomas Purcell, Thomas Leslie, Josiah White, Edward
Conrod, Mahlon Roach, and Thomas Stevens.[128]
[128] 2 Shepherd, 549.
In 1810 Aldie makes its appearance. It was laid out by Charles Fenton
Mercer, a great Loudoun figure in his day,[129] on a part of his
plantation to which he had given the name of Aldie in tribute to Aldie
Castle in Scotland, the seat of that Mercer family from which he
believed himself descended. The act of establishment describes the
town's location as "thirty acres of land lying on the westerly extremity
of the Little River Turnpike road, in the county of Loudoun, the
property of Charles F. Mercer, as soon as the same shall be laid off
into lots with convenient streets." The Little River Turnpike road had
been extended to that point but a few years before. The town's first
trustees were named as Israel Lacey, William Cook, Matthew Adams, John
Sinclair, James Hexon, David Gibson, Charles F. Mercer, and William
Noland.[130]
[129] See Chapter XIV post.
[130] Acts 1810, p. 37.
Bluemont, under its earlier name of Snickersville which it bore until
the year 1900, was established in 1824. As early as 1769 Edward Snickers
had obtained a grant from John Augustine Washington of 624 acres at this
point and before and after that time had acquired other lands in the
neighbourhood. He it was who, according to our local tradition, conveyed
the first bushel of wheat easterly across the Blue Ridge and gave his
name not only to the village but to the gap through the Blue Ridge and,
on the other side, to the historic ferry across the Shenandoah which he
owned for many years. He was born about 1735, married Elizabeth
Toliaferro about 1755 and died in 1790. In 1806 a postoffice had been
established at the little village with Lewis Stevens acting as
postmaster. When the town came to be formally "established" in 1824, its
location was described as being upon "ten acres at the entrance of
Snickers Gap, of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the county of Loudoun,
property of Amos Clayton, Martha Clayton, William Woodford and others,
as soon as the same shall be laid off into lots with convenient streets
and alleys." The first trustees were James Cochran senior, Craven
Osburn, Mordecai Throckmorton, Stephen Janney, Doctor E. B. Brady, Amos
Clayton, and Timothy Carrington.[131]
[131] Acts 1824-5, p. 86. For historical sketch of village see 2 Balch
Library Clippings, 1. For Snickers also see 2 Landmarks, 509.
The above list, with Leesburg, is the roll of earlier incorporated towns
of the county. Hamilton (1875), Lovettsville (1876), Purcellville
(1908), and Round Hill (1900), as the dates indicate, were not formally
organized until much later. The pleasant little village of Lincoln
remains unincorporated.
As the eighteenth century neared its end, an increasing number of
representatives of the Tidewater gentry came to Loudoun and with their
neighbours already living there, built far more pretentious homes than
the county had theretofore known. As has been stated in the preface, to
tell something of the stories of these old estates was the original
incentive to the writing of this book; but those stories, involving as
they do their share of romance, tragedy and drama, must in their more
extensive narration, be left for a later volume. It is appropriate
however, in this place, to very briefly comment on a few of these old
plantations.
SPRINGWOOD
Among the newcomers, in this post-revolution period, was Colonel Burgess
Ball, a great-grandson of that dignified old aristocrat Colonel William
Ball of Millenbeck on the Rappahannock, in Lancaster County, who had
come to Virginia in 1657. During the Revolution Burgess Ball had served
on the staff of General Washington, his first cousin, then as a captain
in the Continental Line and later had raised and equipped a Virginia
regiment at his own expense and served with it as lieutenant colonel.
After the war, his health broken and his generous fortune seriously
impaired by his expenditures for military purposes and by his
extravagant hospitality at his home, Travellers Rest in Spotsylvania
County, he in 1795, was obliged to seek refuge in what was still known
in Tidewater as the Loudoun wilderness. On the 4th November, 1795, he
purchased for L1741 (the proceeds of his back pay for military services
it is said) from Abraham Barnes Thomson Mason, only acting executor and
trustee under the will of Thomson Mason, a tract of 247 acres including
the Great Spring and running to the Potomac. Here Colonel Ball either
built a rustic lodge for his home or, as has been surmised, occupied and
improved the old home of Francis Aubrey, calling his estate Springwood.
On that same 4th November, 1795, there was purchased in trust for
Colonel Ball from Stevens Thomson Mason by William Fitzhugh, Mann Page,
and Alexander Spotswood "three of the trustees appointed by an Act of
General Assembly to sell certain lands devised by James Ball deceased to
his grandson Burgess Ball for his life," another tract of 147 acres
about two miles north of the Great Spring for L441, current money of
Virginia. Other adjacent tracts were purchased by Colonel Ball or by his
trustees until he controlled a very large estate from the Great Spring
to the Limestone Run of the most fertile land in the county.[132] Far
from his old military companions, he kept up a correspondence with them
in his distant abode and many of them visited him there from time to
time; for whether surrounded by the refinements of Travellers Rest or
the wilderness of Springwood, Colonel Ball's lavish hospitality was a
part of the very man himself. He died on the 7th March, 1800, and was
buried just outside the graveyard surrounding the old chapel above Goose
Creek on the hill above the Great Spring. This first Springwood dwelling
was not on the site of the present mansion but is believed to have been
on the south side of the present road on what is now a part of the Big
Spring estate, in recent years known as Mayfield. The existing
Springwood residence was built by George Washington Ball, later Captain
C.S.A., grandson of Colonel Burgess Ball, between 1840 and 1850. Louis
Philippe is said to have been an overnight guest there and, during the
Civil War, General Lee, a cousin of Captain Ball who had served on his
staff, held a military conference in the present dining room. The estate
was acquired in 1869 by the late Francis Asbury Lutz of Washington who
substantially remodelled the mansion very soon thereafter. Since then it
has been in the possession of the Lutz family, its present occupants
being Mrs. Samuel S. Lutz, her son-in-law and daughter, Judge and Mrs.
J. R. H. Alexander and the latter's two sons.
[132] See Loudoun Deeds W271, W263, Y132, etc.
RASPBERRY PLAIN
The genesis of Raspberry Plain, just north of Springwood, has already
been given. As shewn in Chapter VII, the property had been originally
acquired from Lord Fairfax by Joseph Dixon in 1731 and he had sold the
farm which he had improved with a dwelling, orchard, etc., to Aeneas
Campbell in 1754. Campbell, as we have seen, was Loudoun's first
sheriff. He maintained the county jail and the ducking-stool at his home
while he held that office. He sold the place in 1760 to Thomson Mason.
So far the residence, long since vanished, was near the large spring,
now a part of Selma. Mason is said by T. A. Lancaster, Jr., to have
built a new house about 1771 (on the site of the present beautiful
home). He then conveyed it to his son Stevens Thomson Mason,
subsequently confirming his action in his will. Later, according to
local tradition, another Mason descendant, Colonel John Mason McCarty
was living there when he killed his cousin, General A. T. Mason in the
famous duel in 1819, perhaps as a tenant, for the county records show
that in 1830 the estate, then of about 250 acres, was conveyed by the
executors of General Mason's will to George, John, Peter and Samuel
Hoffman of Baltimore for $8,500. It remained in the Hoffman family for
over eighty-five years and until sold by the Hoffman heirs on the
29th April, 1916, to Mr. John G. Hopkins who built the present imposing
brick edifice of colonial architecture. The estate was purchased by Mr.
and Mrs. William H. Lipscomb of Washington in 1931 and, until Mrs.
Lipscomb's death, was the scene of many a gay and picturesque hunt
breakfast given in honour of the Loudoun Hunt of which Mr. Lipscomb was
Master.
[Illustration: OATLANDS. Built by George Carter from 1800 to 1802. Now
the home of Mrs. W. C. Eustis.]
BELMONT
Ludwell Lee, a son of Richard Henry Lee, built Belmont in 1800 and lived
there until his death in 1836. He rests in its garden. Soon after he
died the estate was acquired by Miss Margaret Mercer who, born in 1791,
was the daughter of Governor John Francis Mercer of Cedar Park,
Maryland. Miss Mercer conducted a school for young ladies at Belmont
until her death in 1846. She was a woman of broad education with
pronounced views on the abolition of negro slavery and she it was who
built the nearby Belmont Chapel on a part of her estate. After passing
through the hands of many owners the property was purchased in 1931 by
Colonel Patrick J. Hurley, Secretary of War under President Hoover, and
since then he and Mrs. Hurley have made it their country home. For
several years he has invited the Loudoun Hunt to hold its annual horse
show there.
COTON
Across the highway Thomas Ludwell Lee, cousin to Ludwell Lee, about the
same time built his home Coton, naming it after an English home of the
earlier Lees. On Lafayette's visit to America in 1825, he was a guest of
Ludwell Lee and a great festival, in honor of his visit, was staged at
both Belmont and Coton. It is said that after nightfall a double line of
slaves, each holding aloft a flaming torch, was stationed between the
two mansions to light the way of the celebrants as they passed from one
house to the other. The original mansion has long since disappeared save
for parts of its foundations. A second mansion was later erected on
another part of the estate and in turn was destroyed by fire. The
present stone dwelling, the third to bear the name, was erected by Mr.
and Mrs. Warner Snider, the present owners of the estate, in 1931.
OATLANDS
George Carter, great-grandson of Robert Carter, the "King Carter" of
early Colonial days, received in 1800 from his father, Councillor Robert
Carter of Naomi Hall, a tract of 6,000 acres south of Leesburg, a small
part of the vast Carter holdings. Upon this land during the ensuing two
years he built Oatlands, the most pretentious and elaborate of the
Loudoun homes of that day. George Carter did not marry until attaining
the discreet age of sixty years when he took as his bride Mrs. Betty
Lewis, a widow, who had been a Miss Grayson. Both George Carter and his
wife are buried in the gardens of Oatlands. The estate was acquired in
1903 by the late William Corcoran Eustis of Washington and is now the
country home of his widow under whose care both residence and extensive
gardens retain their justly celebrated charm and beauty. Mrs. Eustis, a
daughter of the late Levi P. Morton, at one time Governor of New York
and later Vice-President of the United States, has long been the Lady
Bountiful of Loudoun. None of the county's residents has ever equalled
her benefactions to its poor and to its public institutions of every
kind.
ROKEBY
Rokeby, on the old Carolina Road south of Leesburg, so long the home of
the Bentley family, also belongs to this period. It acquired its claim
to fame during the War of 1812 when, in 1814, President Madison, in
expectation of the capture of Washington, sent many of the more valuable
Federal archives, including the _Declaration of Independence_ and, it is
said, the Constitution of the United States, to Leesburg for safekeeping
whence they were removed to Rokeby and stored for two weeks in its
vaults. It is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Nalle who, upon its
purchase by them many years ago, made great changes in the old building.
FOXCROFT
When, in the year 1914, Miss Charlotte Noland purchased the lovely old
estate of Foxcroft, four miles north of Middleburg, there began a new
era both in its interesting story and in the educational standards of
Loudoun. No modern institution of the county has spread more generally
knowledge of its charms than the famous school which Miss Noland then
founded; and it is particularly appropriate that the institution should
owe its inception and development to one who in singular degree is a
representative of Loudoun's founders. Those Loudoun citizens of today
who trace their descent to one of the earlier Nabobs of the county feel
a complacent satisfaction therein; but Miss Noland unites lineal descent
not only from Francis Aubrey and Philip Noland but from Colonel Leven
Powell and Burr Harrison, the earliest explorer, as well, thus
inheriting an early Loudoun background believed to be unique.
[Illustration: Photograph by Miss Frances B. Johnston
FOXCROFT, Garden Front.]
As is the case with so many of the older houses of the county, the age
of Foxcroft and the identity of its builder are uncertain; but the local
tradition is that it is one of the earliest of the many old brick houses
to be found in that part of the county and that its builder was one Kyle
who had married a daughter of the Balls. The story goes on that Mrs.
Kyle lost her mind after the birth of one of her children and that for a
long time thereafter she was enchained in the garret of the old house
until, during the absence of her husband on a journey, she freed herself
and fell to her death down the stairs. Another local story is that the
building of the house was under the supervision of William Benton, the
land-steward and friend of President Monroe who, it is said learned
brick-making in his native England, discovered good brick-clay in the
Middleburg neighborhood and made the brick for most of the early brick
houses in that part of the County.
With these local stories as a guide, an examination of the county
records show a John Kile to have been a purchaser of land as early as
1797 and also a deed to John Kile from William Shrieves, then of
Kentucky, on the 8th February, 1814, of 189 acres "on the waters of
Goose Creek" for L320. The description, running as it does from one
marked tree in the forest to another, requires a long search and careful
plotting to definitely place the property, but it suggests the Foxcroft
estate. That these Kiles or Kyles were quite certainly people of
standing is indicated by their marriages. John Kile, Jr., presumably
the son of the first John Kile, married Winney Powell, a daughter of
Elisha Powell and her sister Mary became the wife of Pierce Noland.[133]
It all goes to suggest that the old Foxcroft mansion was built by John
Kile from brick made under the supervision of William Benton sometime
during the 1820's.
[133] Loudoun Deeds Y20, 2 R287 and 2 W208.
Foxcroft School has become so much a part of Loudoun that it is as
difficult to picture the Middleburg neighbourhood without it as it would
be to think of Middleburg without its famous fox-hunting. The school has
eighty-five students, representative of the most prominent families in
the United States from coast to coast, with students from abroad as well
and there is always a long waiting list of applicants for admission. A
healthy outdoor life is combined with carefully planned study. The young
ladies are all expert riders, follow the Middleburg Hunt at its numerous
meets and every year, since 1915, have their own horse show in May at
Foxcroft which is always a brilliant affair.
LLANGOLLAN
Llangollan was built about 1810 by Cuthbert Powell, (1775-1849) a son of
Colonel Leven Powell from whom he had inherited the land upon the
latter's death at Fort Bedford, Pennsylvania, on the 6th August, 1810.
Few families in Virginia are more deeply rooted in her history than the
Powells. Captain William Powell, who, as a gentleman adventurer,
accompanied Captain John Smith to Virginia in 1607 is claimed in the
family chronicles to be one of the clan. Whether he was kinsman to that
Nathaniel Powell who was with Smith in his brush with the Manahoacs on
the Rappahannock in the summer of 1608 does not appear. After spending
some years in business pursuits in Alexandria, Cuthbert Powell returned
to Loudoun where he served as a justice, represented the county in the
Virginia Legislature as a Whig and was a member of Congress from 1841 to
1843. Chief Justice Marshall once described him as "the most talented
man of that talented family." In 1930 Llangollan was acquired by Mr. and
Mrs. John Hay Whitney of New York who have greatly enlarged the old
stone mansion and made the estate the home of one of the most famous
racing establishments in America. They organized in 1932 and hold there
each year the Llangollan Gold Cup races.
[Illustration: THE FRONT PORCH AT ROCKLAND, Home of the Rusts. Built in
1822 by General George Rust and still owned by his family.]
MORRISWORTH
The 750 acres which originally composed Morrisworth were given by
William Ellzey to his daughter Catherine who married Mathew Harrison of
Dumfries. After his death his widow, with her children, took possession
of her patrimony and in 1811 built thereon the main part of the stone
mansion. There she resided for the remainder of her life and reared her
large family. Her children continued to own the estate until they sold
it about 1870 to their kinsman Dr. Thomas Miller of Washington who,
dying about two years later, never resided there. He left the property
to his daughters, the mansion and about 550 acres going to Miss Virginia
Miller and Mrs. Arthur Fendall. In turn these ladies deeded the estate
in 1900 to Mrs. Fendall's son Thomas M. Fendall, the present owner, who,
in 1915, added the south wing to the house. Mr. and Mrs. Fendall have
greatly enlarged and developed the gardens, specializing in iris to such
an extent that Morrisworth has become widely known not only for the
beautiful scene when the five thousand plants are in bloom but for the
many new varieties of iris originated there.
CHESTNUT HILL
Chestnut Hill near the Point of Rocks, so long identified with the Mason
Family, is another of the mansions built about 1800. Samuel Clapham, the
son of the second Josias Clapham, was the builder on land he had
acquired in 1796 from his father. It came to Thomas F. Mason through his
marriage to Betsey Price, a granddaughter of the second Josias as
related in Chapter VII. It is now owned and occupied by Mr. and Mrs.
Coleman Gore.
ROCKLAND
Rockland, four miles north of Leesburg, was built by General George Rust
in 1822 on land acquired by him in 1817 from the heirs of Colonel
Burgess Ball and is unique among the county's old estates in that today
it still is owned by a descendant of its builder, Mrs. Stanley M. Brown,
who before her marriage was Miss Elizabeth Fitzhugh Rust, the only child
of the late owner, Mr. Henry B. Rust. Mr. and Mrs. Brown, with their
children, spend each summer at Rockland. The 419 acres of the present
estate border for a long distance on the Potomac and are regarded as
equalling in fertility any land in the county. During the War Between
the States the old house witnessed the alternate passing and repassing
of the armies of the North and South in front of it along the old
Carolina Road. Hospitality and gracious living have long been synonymous
in Loudoun with the very name of Rockland.
[Illustration: GENERAL GEORGE RUST (1788-1857). The builder of
Rockland.]
EXETER
The plantation that became Exeter was inherited by Mary Mason Seldon; a
sister of Thomson Mason, from their mother Ann Thompson Mason. This Mary
Mason Seldon married, first, Mann Page and upon his death took as her
second husband her first cousin Dr. Wilson Cary Seldon who, born in
1761, had served as surgeon in a Virginia artillery regiment during the
Revolution. Though she had children by Page and none by Seldon, the
latter secured this land and between 1796 and 1800 built the main frame
dwelling with its pleasing design and interesting detail. The large
brick extension in the rear was added by General George Rust about 1854
during his ownership of the estate. By his second wife, Dr. Seldon had a
daughter, Eleanor, and it was at Exeter on the 16th February 1843, that
she married John Augustine Washington, the last of his family to own and
occupy Mount Vernon. When the War Between the States broke out, he at
once volunteered for service, became an aide on the staff of General Lee
with the rank of lieutenant colonel and was killed in a small
engagement, which otherwise would have been unimportant, at Cheat
Mountain, now West Virginia, on the 13th September, 1861. In 1857 Exeter
was purchased by the late Horatio Trundle. It was inherited by his son
Mr. Hartley H. Trundle who with his family resides there.
SELMA
Selma, another part of Mrs. Ann Thomson Mason's great purchase of "wild
lands," saw its first mansion built between 1800 and 1810 by General
Armistead Thomson Mason, United States Senator from Virginia
(affectionately known as "the Chief of Selma") when he was killed by his
cousin, John Mason McCarty, in the famous duel at Bladensburg on the 6th
February, 1819. He had inherited the land from his father Stevens
Thomson Mason of Raspberry Plain. The property was purchased in 1896 by
the late Colonel Elijah B. White, who afterward represented the Loudoun
district in the Virginia Senate and was for many years a prominent
Leesburg banker. He was a son of the much-loved leader of White's
Battalion in the War of 1861. Upon his purchase of the estate, Colonel
White built the present stately mansion, so famed for its hospitality,
in which he incorporated parts of the older house, burned some years
before. Selma is now owned by Colonel White's widow (who before her
marriage was Miss Lalla Harrison) and his daughter, Miss Elizabeth
White. It long has had the reputation of being one of the most fertile
and successfully managed farming estates in the East.
ALDIE MANOR
Aldie Manor, in the present town of Aldie, was built by Charles Fenton
Mercer and named for Aldie Castle in Scotland, the home of the Mercer
family. The town in turn was named for the estate and the Magisterial
District in which both lie is named for Mercer. The mansion has long
been owned and occupied by the diZerega family.
MORVEN PARK
Morven Park was acquired by Governor Thomas Swann of Maryland who, about
1825, built the imposing mansion there. It was inherited by his daughter
who became the wife of Dr. Shirley Carter and for many years much of the
neighbourhood's social life centered about it. In 1903 this estate of
over 1,000 acres was purchased by Mr. Westmoreland Davis, later Governor
of Virginia, who now resides there and carefully supervises the many and
varied agricultural activities of his domain.
[Illustration: OAK HILL, NORTH FRONT. Built by President James Monroe in
1820. Now the home of Messrs. Littleton.]
OAK HILL
But to the nation the best known of all the old homes of Loudoun has
always been Oak Hill. When James Monroe, after long years of service to
his country, came to look forward to his retirement, he owned a large
tract of land on the Carolina Road nine miles south of Leesburg, long in
the possession of his family, which had occupied a dormer-windowed
cottage there. On a gentle elevation on the plantation, President
Monroe, in the year 1820, erected the great brick house, three stories
in height with its porticos and Doric columns which he named Oak Hill.
It was designed by Monroe's friend Thomas Jefferson and the plans were
completed by James Hoban the designer and builder of the White House and
the supervising architect of the Capitol. President Monroe employed
William Benton, an Englishman (who is said to have "served him in the
triple capacity of steward, counsellor and friend") to superintend the
construction of the mansion under Hoban's supervision and to manage the
extensive farming operations of the estate which he did most
successfully. It was here that President Monroe wrote his famous message
to Congress, delivered in December 1823, embodying what since has been
known throughout the world as the "Monroe Doctrine" and it was here also
that he entertained Lafayette in 1825. Mrs. Monroe died at Oak Hill in
1830. On Mr. Monroe's death in 1831, the property went to his daughter
Mrs. Gouveneur of New York by whom it was sold in 1852 to Colonel John
M. Fairfax, who set out the large orchard of Albemarle Pippins some of
the fruit from which, sent to Queen Victoria gave her such pleasure that
thereafter it enjoyed her preference over all other apples. Later when
his son, the much-loved State Senator Henry Fairfax, owned the estate he
became known throughout the nation for the Hackney horses he raised
there. In 1920 the property was acquired by Mr. and Mrs. Frank C.
Littleton who greatly enlarged the old building by the extension of both
wings. When Mr. Littleton was quarrying sandstone on the place in 1923
there were found numerous imprints of prehistoric dinosaurs--the first
known evidence that these monsters had inhabited this portion of the
eastern part of the present United States.
The estate took its name from a group of oaks planted on the lawn by
President Monroe, one from each of the then existing States, each tree
presented to him for that purpose by a congressman from the State
represented.
Mrs. Littleton died in 1924. Mr. Littleton and his son Frank C.
Littleton, Jr., continue to make the historic old place their home,
carrying on extensive farming operations on its broad acres.
On the 20th March, 1793, the first postoffice was established in
Leesburg. The first postmaster was Thomas Lewis, who was succeeded on
the 1st April, 1794, by John Schooley, who in turn gave way to John Shaw
on the 1st April, 1801. Then came Thomas Wilkinson on the 1st April,
1803; William Woody on the 1st January, 1804, and Presley Saunders on
the 12th February, 1823.
At the end of the eighteenth century Loudoun was, in politics, a Federal
stronghold. Colonel Leven Powell has long been credited with being the
founder of that party in the county. The momentous election for members
of the Convention of 1788 was bitterly fought. Stevens Thomson Mason and
William Ellzey, both lawyers, were opposed to the adoption of the
Federal Constitution. For its adoption stood Colonel Powell and Colonel
Josias Clapham. Both of the latter, as we have seen, were old soldiers
but no match as orators to their opponents and thus were at a great
disadvantage in the contest. Powell's great personal popularity alone is
said to have secured his election. Mason also won but the county
remained so strongly Federal that its vote dominated its Congressional
District.
When war with Great Britain was forced upon us in 1812, a cavalry
regiment was raised in Loudoun of which Armistead Thomson Mason of Selma
became colonel. But the incident in that war which most prominently
stands out in Loudoun's memory came in 1814.
[Illustration: OAK HILL. EAST DRAWING ROOM, showing mantel presented to
Monroe by Lafayette, and other historical furniture.]
After the American forces under General William H. Winder had been
defeated by the British at Bladensburg in August of that year, it was
apparent that the capture of Washington was highly probable. Madison's
Secretary of State, James Monroe, had been in the camp of General
Winder, closely studying with him the enemy's movements and seeking to
appraise the ability of the Americans to successfully defend the
Capital. That he was not reassured by what he thus learned is shewn by
the letter he sent to President Madison wherein he advised him to remove
from Washington the government's more important records. The President
recognized, none too soon, the imminence of the danger. The more
valuable of the government archives were ordered to be taken from
Washington and Stephen Pleasanton, then a clerk in the State Department,
was placed in charge of their removal. He caused to be made a large
number of linen bags in which were placed the government's books and
documents, including the _Declaration of Independence_ and the
Constitution. It is said that the painting of Mrs. Dolly Madison,
hanging in the White House, was cut from its frame and accompanied the
government's records. Some accounts aver that, so numerous were the
archives, twenty-two two-horse wagons were used in their transportation
from Washington; others who have written of the incident say that four
four-horse wagons only were used, while still others claim the method of
transportation to have been by ox-teams. However they were carried, they
left Washington across the old Chain Bridge and sought their first
safety in the grist mill of Edward Patterson on the Virginia side of the
Potomac two miles above Georgetown. So threatening was the British
advance, however, that it was deemed prudent to carry the precious cargo
further up-country; the wagons were duly reloaded and the caravan
continued to Leesburg, where the sacks were placed for one night in the
courthouse according to some writers or, on the authority of others, in
a vacant building in the town, the key of which was given to a certain
Rev. Mr. Littlejohn, a young clergyman then recently ordained. The next
day the sacks were again placed in the wagons and driven to the nearby
plantation of Rokeby where in its vaults they were stored for two weeks
until it was safe to return them to Washington.
During those two weeks President Madison was a guest of Ludwell Lee at
Belmont, whence he directed National affairs; and ever since that time
it has been a primary and essential asseveration in the credo of
every true Leesburger that the town was, during that stirring fortnight,
the de facto Capital of the United States.
Proud as that memory may be today, the event itself is said to have
caused great anxiety to the more substantial citizens of the town and
nearby country for fear lest their sudden prominence in the affairs of
the nation would invite a swift and disastrous foray upon them by the
temporarily triumphant Britons; a denouement which, happily, did not
ensue.