1733-1749.
Scotch-Irish Settlers--Death of Sir John Randolph--Settlement
of the Valley of Shenandoah--Physical Geography of Virginia--
John Lewis, a Pioneer in Augusta--Burden's Grant--First
Settlers of Rockbridge--Character of the Scotch-Irish--German
Settlers of Valley of Shenandoah.
DURING the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the disaffected and turbulent
Province of Ulster, in Ireland, suffered pre-eminently the ravages of
civil war. Quieted for a time by the sword, insurrection again burst
forth in the second year of James the First, and repeated rebellions
crushed in 1605, left a large tract of country desolate, and fast
declining into barbarism. Almost the whole of six counties of Ulster
thus, by forfeiture, fell into the hands of the king. A London company,
under his auspices, colonized this unhappy district with settlers,
partly English, principally Scotch--one of the few wise and salutary
measures of his feeble reign. The descendants of these colonists of the
plantation of Ulster, as it was now called, came to be distinguished by
the name of Scotch-Irish. Archbishop Usher, who was disposed to
reconcile the differences between the Presbyterians and Episcopalians,
consented to a compromise of them, in consequence of which there was no
formal separation from the established church. But it was not long
before the persecutions of the house of Stuart, inflicted by the hands
of Strafford and Laud, augmented the numbers of the non-conformists,
riveted them more closely to their own political and religious
principles, and compelled them to turn their eyes to America as a place
of refuge for the oppressed. The civil war of England ensuing, they were
for a time relieved from this necessity. Their unbending opposition to
the proceedings of Cromwell drew down upon them (1649) the sarcastic
denunciation of Milton.[423:A]
The persecutions that followed the restoration (1679) and afterwards,
at length compelled the Scotch-Irish to seek refuge in the New World,
and many of them came over from the north of Ireland, and settled in
several of the colonies, especially in Pennsylvania. From thence a
portion of them gradually migrated to the western parts of Virginia and
North Carolina, inhabiting the frontier of civilization, and forming a
barrier between the red men and the whites of the older settlements. The
Scotch-Irish enjoyed entire freedom of religion, for which they were
indebted to their remote situation.[424:A] The people of eastern, or old
Virginia, were distinguished by the name of Tuckahoes, said to be
derived from the name of a small stream; while the hardy mountaineers,
west of the Blue Ridge, were styled Cohees, according to tradition, from
their frequent use of the term "Quoth he," or "Quo-he."
In the month of March, 1737, died the Honorable Sir John Randolph,
Knight, speaker of the house of burgesses, treasurer of the colony, and
representative for William and Mary College. He was interred in the
chapel of the college, his body being borne there at his own request, by
six honest, industrious, poor housekeepers, of Bruton Parish, who had
twenty pounds divided among them. His funeral oration in Latin was
pronounced by the Rev. Mr. Dawson, a professor in the college. Sir John
was, at the time of his death, in his forty-fourth year. His father,
William Randolph, a native of Warwickshire, England, came over to seek
his fortunes in Virginia some time subsequent to the year 1670. He was
poor, and it is said, for a time "made his living by building barns." By
industry, integrity, and good fortune, he acquired a large landed
estate, and became a burgess for the County of Henrico.[424:B] On the
maternal side, Sir John Randolph was descended from the Ishams, an
ancient family of Northamptonshire, in England, which had emigrated to
the colony. A love of learning which he early evinced was improved by
the tuition of a Protestant clergyman, a French refugee. His education
was completed at William and Mary College, for which he retained a
grateful attachment. He studied the law at Gray's Inn and the Temple;
and, after assuming the barrister's gown, returned to Virginia, where he
soon became distinguished at the bar. He was gifted with a handsome
person, and a senatorial dignity. With extraordinary talents he united
extensive learning; in his writings he indulged rather too much the
native luxuriance of his genius. In his domestic relations he is
described as exemplary; his income was ample, and his hospitality
proportionate. Blessed with an excellent judgment, he filled his public
stations with signal ability. He was buried in the chapel of William and
Mary; and his elegant marble tablet, graced with a Latin inscription,
after having endured one hundred and twenty-three years, was recently
destroyed by the fire which consumed the college. Sir John Randolph was
succeeded in the office of treasurer by John Robinson, Jr.
From the preamble to the act for the better preservation of deer, it
appears that in the upper country they were so numerous that they were
killed (as buffalo often are in the far West) for their skins. They were
shot while feeding on the moss growing on the rocks in the rivers; and
their carcases attracted wolves and other wild beasts to the destruction
of cattle, hogs, and sheep. Many deer were also killed by hounds running
at large, and by fire-hunting, that is, by setting on fire, in large
circles, the coverts where the deer lodged, which likewise destroyed the
young timber, and the food for cattle.
From the settlement of Jamestown a century elapsed before Virginia began
to extend her settlements to the foot of the Blue Ridge. Governor
Spotswood (1716) explored those mountains beyond the head-springs of the
confluents of the Rappahannock. After a good many years, Joist Hite, of
Pennsylvania, obtained from the original patentees a warrant for forty
thousand acres of land lying among the beautiful prairies at the
northern or lower end of the valley of the Shenandoah. Hite, with his
own and a number of other families, removed (1632) from Pennsylvania,
and seated themselves on the banks of the Opeckon, a few miles south of
the site of Winchester. This handful of settlers could venture more
securely into this remote country, as coming from Pennsylvania, a
province endeared to the Indians by the gentle and humane policy of
its first founder, William Penn. Toward the Virginians--the "Long
Knives"--the Indians bore an implacable hostility, and warmly opposed
their settling in the valley.[426:A]
In her physical geography Virginia is divided into four sections:
the first, the alluvial section, from the sea-coast to the head of
tide-water; the second, the hilly, or undulating section, from the head
of tide-water to the Blue Ridge; the third, the valley section, lying
between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghanies; and the fourth, the
Trans-Alleghany or western section, the waters of which empty into the
Ohio. The mountains of Virginia are arranged in ridges, one behind
another, nearly parallel to the sea-coast, rather bending toward it to
the northeast. The name Apalachian, borrowed from the country bordering
on the Gulf of Mexico to the southwest, was applied to the mountains of
Virginia in different ways, by the European maps; but none of these
ridges was in fact ever known to the inhabitants of Virginia by that
name. These mountains extend from northeast to southwest, as also do the
limestone, coal, and other geological strata. So also range the falls of
the principal rivers, the courses of which are at right angles with the
line of the mountains, the James and the Potomac making their way
through all the ridges of mountains eastward of the Alleghany range.
The Alleghanies are broken by no water-course, being the spine of
the country between the Atlantic and the Mississippi River. The
spectacle presented at Harper's Ferry--so called after the first
settler--impresses the beholder with the opinion that the mountains were
first upraised, the very signification of the word in the Greek, and the
rivers began to flow afterwards; that here they were dammed up by the
Blue Ridge, and thus formed a sea, or lake, filling the whole valley
lying between that ridge and the Alleghanies. The waters continuing to
rise, they at length burst their way through the mountain, the shattered
fragments of this disruption still remaining to attest the fact. As the
observer lifts his eye from this scene of grandeur, he catches through
the fissure of the mountain a glimpse of the placid blue horizon in the
distant perspective, inviting him, as it were, from the riot and tumult
roaring around to pass through the breach and participate in the calm
below.[427:A]
A settlement was effected (1734) on the north branch of the Shenandoah,
about twelve miles south of the present town of Woodstock. Other
adventurers gradually extended the settlements, until they reached the
tributaries of the Monongahela. Two cabins erected (1738) near the
Shawnee Springs, formed the embryo of the town of Winchester, long the
frontier out-post of the colony in that quarter. The glowing reports of
the charms of the tramontane country induced other pioneers to plant
themselves in that wild, picturesque region. For the want of towns and
roads the first settlers were supplied by pedlars who went from house to
house. Shortly after the first settlement of Winchester, John Marlin, a
pedlar, who traded from Williamsburg to this new country, and John
Salling, a weaver, two adventurous spirits, set out from that place to
explore the "upper country," then almost unknown. Proceeding up the
valley of the Shenandoah they crossed the James River, and had reached
the Roanoke River, when a party of Cherokees surprised them, and took
Salling prisoner, while Marlin escaped. Carried captive into Tennessee,
Salling remained with those Indians for several years, and became
domesticated among them. While on a buffalo-hunting excursion to the
Salt Licks of Kentucky, a middle or debateable ground of hunting and
war, the Flanders of the Northern and Southern Indians, with a party of
them, he was at length captured by a band of Illinois Indians. They
carried him to Kaskaskia, where an old squaw adopted him for a son.
Hence he accompanied the tribe on many distant expeditions, once as far
as the Gulf of Mexico. But after two years the squaw sold him to some
Spaniards from the Lower Mississippi, who wanted him as an interpreter.
He was taken by them northward, and finally, after six years of
captivity and wanderings through strange tribes and distant countries,
he was ransomed by the Governor of Canada, and transferred to New York.
Thence he made his way to Williamsburg, in Virginia. About the same time
a considerable number of immigrants had arrived there--among them John
Lewis and John Mackey. Lewis was a native of Ireland. In an affray that
occurred in the County of Dublin, with an oppressive landlord and his
retainers, seeing a brother, an officer in the king's army, who lay sick
at his house, slain before his eyes, he slew one or two of the
assailants. Escaping, he found refuge in Portugal, and after some years
came over to Virginia with his family, consisting of Margaret Lynn,
daughter of the Laird of Loch Lynn, in Scotland, his wife, four sons,
Thomas, William, Andrew, and Charles, and one daughter. Pleased with
Salling's glowing picture of the country beyond the mountains, Lewis and
Mackey visited it under his guidance. Crossing the Blue Ridge and
descending into the lovely valley beyond, where virgin nature reposes in
all her native charms, the three determined to fix their abode in that
delightful region. Lewis selected a residence near the Middle River, on
the border of a creek which yet bears his name, in what was denominated
Beverley Manor; Mackey chose a spot farther up that river, near the
Buffalo Gap; and Salling built his log cabin fifty miles beyond, on a
beautiful tract overshadowed by mountains in the forks of the James
River.[428:A] John Lewis erected on the spot selected for his home a
stone-house, still standing, and it came to be known as Lewis's Fort. It
is a few miles from Staunton, of which town he was the founder. It is
the oldest town in the valley. He obtained patents for a hundred
thousand acres of land in different parts of the circumjacent country,
and left an ample inheritance to his children.
In the spring of 1736 John Lewis, the pioneer of Augusta, visiting
Williamsburg, met there with Burden, who had recently come to Virginia
as agent for Lord Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern Neck. Burden, in
compliance with Lewis's invitation, visited him at his sequestered home
in the backwoods; and the visit of several months was occupied in
exploring the teeming beauties of the Eden-like valley, and in hunting,
in company with Lewis and his sons, Samuel and Andrew. A captured
buffalo calf was given to Burden, and he, on returning to Lower
Virginia, where that animal was not found, presented it to Governor
Gooch, who, thus propitiated, authorized him to locate five hundred
thousand acres of land in the vast Counties of Frederick and Augusta,
(formed two years thereafter,) on condition that within ten years he
should settle one hundred families there, in which case he should be
entitled to one thousand acres adjacent to every house, with the
privilege of entering as much more at one shilling per acre. This grant
covered one-half of what is now Rockbridge County, from the North
Mountain to the Blue Ridge. The grantee was required to import and place
on the land one settler for every thousand acres. For this purpose he
brought over from England (1737) upwards of one hundred families from
the north of Ireland, Scotland, and the border counties of England, and
it is said that he resorted to stratagem to comply apparently with the
conditions.[429:A] The first settlers of this Rockbridge tract were
Ephraim McDowell (ancestor of Governor James McDowell) and James
Greenlee, in 1737. Mary Greenlee, his sister, attained the age of one
hundred years and upwards, and was known to two or three generations.
The Scotch-Irish retained much of the superstitious nature of the
Highlanders of Scotland, and Mary Greenlee was by many believed to be a
witch. At a very advanced age she rode erect on horseback. Robert and
Archibald Alexander also settled in the Rockbridge region. Robert, a
graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, taught the first classical school
west of the Blue Ridge. Archibald, who was agent of Burden and drew up
all his complex conveyances, was grandfather of the Rev. Dr. Archibald
Alexander. Besides these, among the early settlers of this part of
Virginia, were the families of Moore, Paxton, Telford, Lyle, Stuart,
Crawford, Matthews, Brown, Wilson, Cummins, Caruthers, Campbell,
McCampbell, McClung, McKee, McCue, Grigsby, and others.[429:B]
An austere, thoughtful race, they constituted a manly, virtuous
population. Their remote situation secured to them religious freedom,
but little interrupted by the ruling powers. Of the stern school of
Calvin and Knox, so much derided for their Puritanical tenets, they were
more distinguished for their simplicity and integrity, their religious
education, and their uniform attendance on the exercises and ordinances
of religion, than for the graceful and courteous manners which lend a
charm to the intercourse of a more aristocratic society. Trained in a
severe discipline, they expressed less than they felt; and keeping their
feelings under habitual restraint, they could call forth exertions equal
to whatever exigencies might arise. In the wilderness they devoted
themselves to agriculture, domestic pursuits, and the arts of peace;
they were content to live at home. Pascal says that the cause of most of
the trouble in the world is that people are not content to live at home.
As soon as practicable they erected churches; and all within ten or
twelve miles, young and old, repaired on horseback to the place of
worship. Their social intercourse was chiefly at religious meetings. The
gay and fashionable amusements of Eastern Virginia were unknown among
them.[430:A] Other colonies, emanating from the same quarters, followed
the first, and settled that portion of the valley intervening between
the German settlements and the borders of the James River. The first
Presbyterian minister settled west of the Blue Ridge was the Rev. John
Craig, a native of the north of Ireland. His congregation was that of
the church then known as the Stone Meeting House, since Augusta Church,
near Staunton, in the County of Augusta. He became pastor there in the
year 1740. Augusta was then a wilderness with a handful of Christian
settlers in it; the Indians travelling through the country among them in
small parties, unless supplied with whatever victuals they called for,
became their own purveyors and cooks, and spared nothing that they chose
to eat or drink. In general they were harmless; sometimes they committed
murders. Such was the school in which the tramontane population were to
be moulded and trained, civilizing the wilderness, and defending
themselves against the savages. In the month of December, 1743, Captain
John McDowell, surveyor of the lands in Burden's grant, falling into an
ambush, was slain, together with eight comrades, in a skirmish with a
party of Shawnee Indians. This occurred at the junction of the North
River with the James. The alarmed inhabitants of Timber-ridge[431:A]
hastened to the spot, and, removing the dead bodies, sorrowfully
performed the rites of burial, while the savages, frightened at their
own success, escaped beyond the mountains.
So rapid was the settlement of the valley about this time, that in this
year it was found necessary to lay off the whole country west of the
Blue Ridge into the two new counties, Frederick and Augusta. The
picturesque and verdant valleys embosomed among the mountains were
gradually dotted with farms. The fertile County of Frederick was first
settled by Germans, Quakers, and Irish Presbyterians, from the adjoining
province of Pennsylvania. A great part of the country lying between the
North Mountain and the Shenandoah River, for one hundred and fifty
miles, and embracing ten counties, now adorned with fine forest trees,
was then an extensive open prairie--a sea of herbage--the pasture ground
of buffalo, elk, and deer. It was a favorite hunting-ground, or middle
ground of the Indians.[431:B] The rich lands bordering the Shenandoah,
and its north and south branches, were settled by a German population
which long retained its language, its simplicity of manners and dress.
Augusta County was settled by Scotch-Irish from Pennsylvania,
(descendants of the Covenanters,) a race respectable for intelligence,
energy, morality, and piety.
In compliance with the petition of John Caldwell and others, the synod
of Philadelphia (1738) addressed a letter to Governor Gooch, soliciting
his favor in behalf of such persons as should remove to Western
Virginia, in allowing them "the free enjoyment of their civil and
religious liberties;" and the governor gave a favorable answer. This
John Caldwell, who was grandfather of John Caldwell Calhoun, of South
Carolina, led the way in colonizing Prince Edward, Charlotte, and
Campbell Counties.
Colonel James Patton, of Donegal, a man of property, commander and owner
of a ship, emigrating to Virginia about this time, obtained from the
governor, for himself and his associates, a grant of one hundred and
twenty thousand acres of land in the valley. He settled on the south
fork of the Shenandoah. John Preston, a shipmaster in Dublin, a
brother-in-law of Patton, came over with him, and subsequently
established himself near Staunton--the progenitor of a distinguished
race of his own name, and of the Browns and Breckenridges.[432:A] While
the first settlement of the valley took place in Hite's patent, nearer
to Pennsylvania, the filling up of that region was somewhat retarded by
a claim which Lord Fairfax set up for a region westward of the Blue
Ridge, comprehending ten counties. This claim was grounded upon the
terms of the conveyance which included all the country between the head
of the Rappahannock and the head of the Potomac; and this river was
found to have its source in the Alleghanies. Although the claim was not
admitted by the Governor of Virginia, yet, as it involved settlers in
the danger of a lawsuit, they preferred moving farther on to the tract
of country in Augusta County, included in the grants to Beverley and to
Burden.
FOOTNOTES:
[423:A] Milton's Prose Works, i. 422, 430, 437.
[424:A] Foote's Sketches of North Carolina; Grahame, ii. 57; Davidson's
Hist. of Presbyterian Church in Kentucky, 16.
[424:B] Va. Convention of '76, by Hugh Blair Grigsby, 77, citing
Carrington Memoranda. Mr. Grigsby has given an interesting account of
several of the distinguished Randolphs in a newspaper article, entitled
"The Dead of the Chapel of William and Mary."
[426:A] De Hass's Hist. of Western Va., 37; Kercheval, 70.
[427:A] Jefferson's Notes, 16.
[428:A] Ruffner, in Howe's Hist. Coll. of Va., 451.
[429:A] Ruffner, ubi supra.
[429:B] The Grigsbys, from whom is descended Hugh Blair Grigsby, removed
into the valley from Eastern Virginia, having originally come into the
colony at the time of the restoration.
[430:A] Ruffner.
[431:A] So called, being a high strip of timber in an open prairie, at
the first settlement.
[431:B] Kercheval's Hist. of the Valley of Virginia, 69; Foote's
Sketches, second series, 14.
[432:A] Foote's Sketches, ii. 36.