EXPEDITION BEYOND THE BLUE RIDGE--THE VALLEY OF THE SHENANDOAH--LORD
HALIFAX--LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS--SURVEYING--LIFE IN THE BACKWOODS--
INDIANS--WAR DANCE--GERMAN SETTLERS--RETURN HOME--WASHINGTON AS PUBLIC
SURVEYOR--SOJOURN AT GREENWAY COURT--HORSES, HOUNDS, AND BOOKS--RUGGED
EXPERIENCE AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.
It was in the month of March (1748), and just after he had completed his
sixteenth year, that Washington set out on horseback on this surveying
expedition, in company with George William Fairfax. Their route lay by
Ashley's Gap, a pass through the Blue Ridge, that beautiful line of
mountains which, as yet, almost formed the western frontier of inhabited
Virginia. Winter still lingered on the tops of the mountains, whence
melting snows sent down torrents, which swelled the rivers and occasionally
rendered them almost impassable. Spring, however, was softening the lower
parts of the landscape and smiling in the valleys.
They entered the great valley of Virginia, where it is about twenty-five
miles wide; a lovely and temperate region, diversified by gentle swells and
slopes, admirably adapted to cultivation. The Blue Ridge bounds it on one
side, the North Mountain, a ridge of the Alleganies, on the other; while
through it flows that bright and abounding river, which, on account of its
surpassing beauty, was named by the Indians the Shenandoah--that is to say,
"the daughter of the stars."
The first station of the travellers was at a kind of lodge in the
wilderness, where the steward or land-bailiff of Lord Halifax resided, with
such negroes as were required for farming purposes, and which Washington
terms "his lordship's quarter." It was situated not far from the
Shenandoah, and about twelve miles from the site of the present town of
Winchester.
In a diary kept with his usual minuteness, Washington speaks with delight
of the beauty of the trees and the richness of the land in the
neighborhood, and of his riding through a noble grove of sugar maples on
the banks of the Shenandoah; and at the present day, the magnificence of
the forests which still exist in this favored region justifies his
eulogium.
He looked around, however, with an eye to the profitable rather than the
poetical. The gleam of poetry and romance, inspired by his "lowland
beauty," occurs no more. The real business of life has commenced with him.
His diary affords no food for fancy. Every thing is practical. The
qualities of the soil, the relative value of sites and localities, are
faithfully recorded. In these his early habits of observation and his
exercises in surveying had already made him a proficient.
His surveys commenced in the lower part of the valley, some distance above
the junction of the Shenandoah with the Potomac, and extended for many
miles along the former river. Here and there partial "clearings" had been
made by squatters and hardy pioneers, and their rude husbandry had produced
abundant crops of grain, hemp, and tobacco; civilization, however, had
hardly yet entered the valley, if we may judge from the note of a night's
lodging at the house of one of the settlers--Captain Hite, near the site of
the present town of Winchester. Here, after supper, most of the company
stretched themselves in backwood style, before the fire; but Washington was
shown into a bed-room. Fatigued with a hard day's work at surveying, he
soon undressed; but instead of being nestled between sheets in a
comfortable bed, as at the maternal home, or at Mount Vernon, he found
himself on a couch of matted straw, under a threadbare blanket, swarming
with unwelcome bedfellows. After tossing about for a few moments, he was
glad to put on his clothes again, and rejoin his companions before the
fire.
Such was his first experience of life in the wilderness; he soon, however,
accustomed himself to "rough it," and adapt himself to fare of all kinds,
though he generally preferred a bivouac before a fire, in the open air, to
the accommodations of a woodman's cabin. Proceeding down the valley to the
banks of the Potomac, they found that river so much swollen by the rain
which had fallen among the Alleganies, as to be unfordable. To while away
the time until it should subside, they made an excursion to examine certain
warm springs in a valley among the mountains, since called the Berkeley
Springs. There they camped out at night, under the stars; the diary makes
no complaint of their accommodations; and their camping-ground is now known
as Bath, one of the favorite watering-places of Virginia. One of the warm
springs was subsequently appropriated by Lord Fairfax to his own use, and
still bears his name.
After watching in vain for the river to subside, they procured a canoe, on
which they crossed to the Maryland side; swimming their horses. A weary
day's ride of forty miles up the left side of the river, in a continual
rain, and over what Washington pronounces the worst road ever trod by man
or beast, brought them to the house of a Colonel Cresap, opposite the south
branch of the Potomac, where they put up for the night.
Here they were detained three or four days by inclement weather. On the
second day they were surprised by the appearance of a war party of thirty
Indians, bearing a scalp as a trophy. A little liquor procured the
spectacle of a war-dance. A large space was cleared, and a fire made in the
centre, round which the warriors took their seats. The principal orator
made a speech, reciting their recent exploits, and rousing them to triumph.
One of the warriors started up as if from sleep, and began a series of
movements, half-grotesque, half-tragical; the rest followed. For music, one
savage drummed on a deerskin, stretched over a pot half filled with water;
another rattled a gourd, containing a few shot, and decorated with a
horse's tail. Their strange outcries, and uncouth forms and garbs, seen by
the glare of the fire, and their whoops and yells, made them appear more
like demons than human beings. All this savage gambol was no novelty to
Washington's companions, experienced in frontier life; but to the youth,
fresh from school, it was a strange spectacle, which he sat contemplating
with deep interest, and carefully noted down in his journal. It will be
found that he soon made himself acquainted with the savage character, and
became expert at dealing with these inhabitants of the wilderness.
From this encampment the party proceeded to the mouth of Patterson's Creek,
where they recrossed the river in a canoe, swimming their horses as before.
More than two weeks were now passed by them in the wild mountainous regions
of Frederick County, and about the south branch of the Potomac, surveying
lands and laying out lots, camped out the greater part of the time, and
subsisting on wild turkeys and other game. Each one was his own cook;
forked sticks served for spits, and chips of wood for dishes. The weather
was unsettled. At one time their tent was blown down; at another they were
driven out of it by smoke; now they were drenched with rain, and now the
straw on which Washington was sleeping caught fire, and he was awakened by
a companion just in time to escape a scorching.
The only variety to this camp life was a supper at the house of one Solomon
Hedge, Esquire, his majesty's justice of the peace, where there were no
forks at table, nor any knives, but such as the guests brought in their
pockets. During their surveys they were followed by numbers of people, some
of them squatters, anxious, doubtless, to procure a cheap title to the land
they had appropriated; others, German emigrants, with their wives and
children, seeking a new home in the wilderness. Most of the latter could
not speak English; but when spoken to, answered in their native tongue.
They appeared to Washington ignorant as Indians, and uncouth, but "merry,
and full of antic tricks." Such were the progenitors of the sturdy yeomanry
now inhabiting those parts, many of whom still preserve their strong German
characteristics.
"I have not slept above three or four nights in a bed," writes Washington
to one of his young friends at home, "but after walking a good deal all the
day I have lain down before the fire upon a little straw or fodder, or a
bear skin, whichever was to be had, with man, wife, and children, like dogs
and cats; and happy is he who gets the berth nearest the fire."
Having completed his surveys, he set forth from the south branch of the
Potomac on his return homeward; crossed the mountains to the great
Cacapehon; traversed the Shenandoah valley; passed through the Blue Ridge,
and on the 12th of April found himself once more at Mount Vernon. For his
services he received, according to his note-book, a doubloon per day when
actively employed, and sometimes six pistoles. [Footnote: A pistole is
$3.60.]
The manner in which he had acquitted himself in this arduous expedition,
and his accounts of the country surveyed, gave great satisfaction to Lord
Fairfax, who shortly afterwards moved across the Blue Ridge, and took up
his residence at the place heretofore noted as his "quarters." Here he laid
out a manor, containing ten thousand acres of arable grazing lands, vast
meadows, and noble forests, and projected a spacious manor house, giving to
the place the name of Greenway Court.
It was probably through the influence of Lord Fairfax that Washington
received the appointment of public surveyor. This conferred authority on
his surveys, and entitled them to be recorded in the county offices, and so
invariably correct have these surveys been found that, to this day,
wherever any of them stand on record, they receive implicit credit.
For three years he continued in this occupation, which proved extremely
profitable, from the vast extent of country to be surveyed and the very
limited number of public surveyors. It made him acquainted, also, with the
country, the nature of the soil in various parts, and the value of
localities; all which proved advantageous to him in his purchases in after
years. Many of the finest parts of the Shenandoah valley are yet owned by
members of the Washington family.
While thus employed for months at a time surveying the lands beyond the
Blue Ridge, he was often an inmate of Greenway Court. The projected manor
house was never even commenced. On a green knoll overshadowed by trees was
a long stone building one story in height, with dormer windows, two wooden
belfries, chimneys studded with swallow and martin coops, and a roof
sloping down in the old Virginia fashion, into low projecting eaves that
formed a verandah the whole length of the house. It was probably the house
originally occupied by his steward or land agent, but was now devoted to
hospitable purposes, and the reception of guests. As to his lordship, it
was one of his many eccentricities, that he never slept in the main
edifice, but lodged apart in a wooden house not much above twelve feet
square. In a small building was his office, where quitrents were given,
deeds drawn, and business transacted with his tenants.
About the knoll were out-houses for his numerous servants, black and white,
with stables for saddle-horses and hunters, and kennels for his hounds, for
his lordship retained his keen hunting propensities, and the neighborhood
abounded in game. Indians, half-breeds, and leathern-clad woodsmen loitered
about the place, and partook of the abundance of the kitchen. His
lordship's table was plentiful but plain, and served in the English
fashion.
Here Washington had full opportunity, in the proper seasons, of indulging
his fondness for field sports, and once more accompanying his lordship in
the chase. The conversation of Lord Fairfax, too, was full of interest and
instruction to an inexperienced youth, from his cultivated talents, his
literary taste, and his past intercourse with the best society of Europe,
and its most distinguished authors. He had brought books, too, with him
into the wilderness, and from Washington's diary we find that during his
sojourn here he was diligently reading the history of England, and the
essays of the Spectator.
Such was Greenway Court in these its palmy days. We visited it recently and
found it tottering to its fall, mouldering in the midst of a magnificent
country, where nature still flourishes in full luxuriance and beauty.
Three or four years were thus passed by Washington, the greater part of the
time beyond the Blue Ridge, but occasionally with his brother Lawrence at
Mount Vernon. His rugged and toilsome expeditions in the mountains, among
rude scenes and rough people, inured him to hardships, and made him apt at
expedients; while his intercourse with his cultivated brother, and with the
various members of the Fairfax family, had a happy effect in toning up his
mind and manners, and counteracting the careless and self-indulgent
habitudes of the wilderness.