Introduction.
IN RESPONSE to the invitation of the authorities of the
Virginia Agricultural, Mechanical and Tobacco Exposition,
the Board of Supervisors of this County appropriated
a sum of money for the purpose of making a creditable
display of the county's resources at the Exposition, and appointed
W. H. Seamon, of the Miller Manual Labor School,
commissioner, with full power to collect and arrange the exhibit,
and to publish a pamphlet descriptive of the resources
of the county.
Acting under this authority, we respectfully offer this book
to the intelligent public as an accurate, though incomplete,
account of the many advantages and inducements, both natural
and social, offered by the county to the man of moderate
means, as well as to the wealthy, for securing a comfortable
home in a prosperous and enterprising community. The materials
for this have been collected and prepared under many
difficulties, of which the chief, perhaps, has been a lack of
time, in consequence whereof several articles have necessarily
been omitted.
We take this opportunity of expressing our obligations to
the following, who have with many others aided and encouraged
our labors in various ways—Hon. John M. White, H. M.
Magruder, Esq., Mrs. E. C. Harrison, L. T. Hanckel, Esq.,
Prof. Wm. M. Thornton, Capt. C. E. Vawter, J. W. Porter, Esq.,
Hon. John E. Massey, Prof. F. W. Massey, Rev. Wm. Dinwiddie,
George W. Clarke, Esq., John S. Patton, Esq., D. H.
Harmon, Jr., Esq., and D. P. Powers, Esq.
To Mr. Wm. H. Prout, the community owes much. For
without his enterprise and liberal public spirit it is doubtful if
this pamphlet would ever have been published.
