University of Virginia Library

I. History of Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786,
Washington County, 1777-1870.

CHAPTER I.

1001-1716. The history of Virginia, from the earliest times
until the date of the formation of Washington county by the
General Assembly of Virginia, is interesting and instructive, and
is necessary to a thorough comprehension of that part of our history
subsequent thereto.

In the year 1001, the American Continent was discovered by Leif
Erickson, a Northman, who sailed west from Greenland, and landed
on the coast of America in 41¼ north latitude. He named the
land of his discovery Vineland. This discovery was made in the
spring of the year, and the luxuriant growth of vegetation that
adorned the land suggested the name—Vineland.

This continent was visited by the Northmen at intervals from
the time of the discovery of Erickson until as late as 1347. The
visits of the Northmen to America have often been questioned, and
were generally doubted, until discoveries made in recent times.

An examination of the records and documents to be found in the
archives of the Antiquarian Society of Copenhagen put to rest
this question.

So eminent an authority as Humboldt, after an examination of
the record, says: "The discovery of the northern part of America
by the Northmen cannot be disputed."

No practical benefit resulted from the adventures of the Northmen,
and in view of the fact that those people ceased to visit the
newly discovered country after 1347, and actually forgot the explorations
of their people, they are to be given but little credit for
their early discoveries.

From the time of the last visit of the Northmen, in 1347, until
the year 1492, the continent of America was unknown to the inhabitants

of the rest of the world; they had never before heard of such
a land; the curtain of oblivion shut out from the vision of mankind
the garden spot of God's creation.

1492. In the year 1492, Christopher Columbus, a native of
Genoa, Italy, bearing the flag of Spain, after surmounting innumerable
difficulties, sailed west in search of a new land and discovered
what afterwards proved to be San Salvador, one of the Bahama
Islands. He took possession of the newly discovered land in the
name of the King and Queen of Spain.

Columbus did not visit the mainland of the American Continent
until many years thereafter. Nothing could be more pleasant than
to study the life and daring adventures of Columbus and other
Spanish, Portuguese, and French explorers, but their efforts are in
no way associated with the history of the country that we purpose
to deal with in this book; this pleasure, therefore, must be deferred
to another time.

Columbus! His name should be ever revered, and his fame is
as imperishable as the continent that he gave by discovery to the
world.

1497. John Cabot, in the year 1497, sailing the flag of England,
commissioned so to do by Henry VII, discovered Newfoundland
and Labrador, and declared that he had found a new world.

1498. The following year John and Sebastian Cabot, under a
new commission from the King of England, fitted out an expedition
under the charge of Sebastian Cabot, and, sailing in a northwardly
course, sought a route to the East India Islands, but the
inclemency of the weather and the insurpassable barrier of ice
forced the abandonment of the original purpose of the expedition.
The course of the voyage was consequently changed, and, as a result,
Virginia was discovered in the year 1498.

John and Sebastian Cabot were the first to discover the Eastern
coast of America, and England laid claim to all the vast territory
between the 34th and 68th parallels of north latitude from the
Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, basing her claim on this discovery.

1539. De Soto, by a commission from the King of Spain, in
the years 1539 and 1540, extended his discoveries from the north
of Florida inland to the head waters of the present Holston and
Clinch rivers and thence to the Mississippi river.

1584. Eighty-five years intervened between the time of the

discoveries of John and Sebastian Cabot and the first permanent settlement
made in all the vast territory claimed by England by reason
of their discoveries, and the honor attending this event justly belongs
to Sir Walter Raleigh, a young nobleman, a participant in
the French Protestant wars, who in 1493 applied to Queen Elizabeth
for assistance in fitting out an expedition for the purpose of
planting a Colony in America. In answer to his application the
Queen gave him a commission creating him Lord of all that portion
of the American continent claimed by England.

The first expedition sent out by Raleigh was composed of two
ships, and their object was to make discoveries. This expedition
sailed in April, 1584, and, on the 13th day of July of the same
year, entered Ocracoke inlet within the present limits of North
Carolina. Here they remained until September, 1584, at which
time they sailed for England, and upon their arrival Elizabeth gave
the country the name of Virginia. Immediately upon their return
seven ships carrying one hundred and eighty men set sail for the
New World and landed at Roanoke Island in the year 1585.

This company, charmed with the prospects, decided to settle on
the island. Many of the company, not being accustomed to labor
and not being inclined to work, were greatly disappointed in their
hopes, became disheartened and, at the first opportunity, returned
to England.

Sir Richard Grenville left fifteen men on the island to guard the
rights of England.

Sir Ralph Lane, one of the returning colonists, introduced the
use of tobacco into England, he and the other colonists having
learned from the Indians to smoke it.

1587. In 1587 Raleigh sent out another expedition to settle
Roanoke Island. This expedition was composed of women and
children as well as men.

Upon reaching their destination in safety they found the tenements
and fort in ruins and the beasts of the forest feeding on
the vegetation where the former settlements had been located.
They found, also, scattered about the former settlement, the bones
of the fifteen men left by Sir Richard Grenville.

This Colony was in charge of John White. Soon after the landing,
on August 18th, 1587, a child was born to Annias and Virginia
Dare, to whom was given the name of "Virginia Dare." This

was the first white child born of English parents in America. Soon
after the birth of Virginia Dare, John White returned to England
for supplies for the Colony, leaving behind him eighty-nine men,
seventeen women and eleven children. He was delayed on his
return voyage and when he arrived at Roanoke Island after an
absence of three years no trace of the Colony could be found except
the word Croatan carved on a tree.

It is said, but not verified, that some of this Colony found shelter
among the Indians on the coast of North Carolina.

This story of the first settlement in this part of America remains
one of the saddest tragedies in our history.

1606. One hundred and fourteen years had passed since the
discovery of America by Columbus, when King James the First
of England granted to a company[1] of wealthy merchants a patent
of that part of America lying between the 34th and 45th degrees
north latitude and all islands within one hundred miles of the
coast. This grant was divided between the London and Plymouth
companies.

The London Company sent out an expedition composed of one
hundred and five colonists under the command of Captain Christopher
Newport, an experienced seaman. Although this expedition
sailed in 1606, it did not reach the mouth of Chesapeake bay until
May 15, 1607.

[2] James river and Capes Henry and Charles were discovered
and named for the king of England and his sons. The colonists
continued the voyage up the James river about fifty miles, when
they landed and began the erection of houses and the making of
all necessary arrangements for a permanent settlement. Thus was
founded Jamestown, and thus occurred, according to a noted historian,
"The most important event in profane history," and thus
the foundation stones of the greatest commonwealth and republic
the world has ever known were laid by men whose posterity were
destined to kindle a spirit of political and religious liberty such as
can be extinguished only with the Anglo-Saxon race.

This settlement at Jamestown may be regarded as the starting
point of all Virginia histories.

The first Colony in Virginia began under circumstances having

a tendency to discourage the thoughtful, and reasonably so, because
of the fact that of the one hundred and five colonists only twelve
were laborers, the remaining ninety-seven being thriftless and dissolute.

All power was vested in a body of councillors composed of
Bartholomew Gosnold, John Smith, Edward Winfield, Christopher
Newport, John Ratcliffe, John Martin and George Kendall.
Edward Winfield was chosen the first Governor of the Colony of
Virginia, and thus began civil government in America.

Shortly after the settlement Captains Newport and Smith decided
to explore the country, traveled up the James river as far as
the falls and visited Powhatan, the king of the Indians, whose
capital was near the present site of the city of Richmond.

After a short stay at the Indian village, Newport and Smith
returned to Jamestown. Newport soon left for England, and
immediately thereafter trouble arose among the colonists. Winfield
was succeeded by Ratcliffe, and Ratcliffe by Captain Smith,
who, by his excellent management of the Colony, won the title of the
"Father of Virginia."

Late in the autumn Captain Newport returned from England,
bringing about seventy new colonists, two of the number being
women (Mrs. Forrest and Annie Bergess), and a considerable
quantity of supplies.

Among the new colonists were several gold refiners, who, discovering
earth near Jamestown having a resemblance to gold, pronounced
the same gold of the best quality, and, thereupon, the
entire Colony forsook all commendable enterprises and wasted their
time and energies in loading one of Newport's vessels with this
earth, which proved, upon its arrival in England, to be worthless.

Another ship returning to England would have been loaded with
a similar cargo, but Captain Smith objected, and it was loaded
with cedar wood. This was the first valuable cargo exported from
this part of America to England.

The Colony, having thus wasted their energies and consumed
their supplies, would, no doubt, have perished during the winter
that followed, had not Captain John Smith exercised the energies
of his resourceful mind in feeding and protecting them. The
best friend Captain Smith found in this New World was Pocahontas,
the daughter of Powhatan, the chief of the Indians. The

colonists charged that Smith intended to marry Pocahontas and
make himself king of Virginia.

1608. In the year 1608 Captain Smith, in a small open barge,
explored the Chesapeake bay and its tributaries.

1609. In the month of May, 1609, a new and very beneficial
charter was granted the London Company, and the Colony began
to prosper.

The new charter conferred on the company the powers of the
king, the local authority of the Governor was greatly increased and
Lord Delaware was made Governor for life.

Captain Smith, in this year, divided the Colony and sent a part
thereof to make a settlement at the falls of the James river, near
Richmond, and another part thereof to Nansemond. In this year
Captain Smith was forced to return to England in consequence of
serious injuries received from the explosion of his powder flask. At
the time of his departure the Colony numbered four hundred and
fifty persons, all abundantly supplied.

Thus terminated the career in America of the man who faithfully
earned the title of the "Father of Virginia."

The Colony thereafter, for a time, was without a competent ruler,
and such was the profligacy and viciousness of the ruler they had,
and the people, that in a short time the condition of the Colony was
changed from prosperity to abject want, and by the spring of 1610
there remained but sixty persons in the Colony, and these were on
the verge of starvation.

At this time Gates and Somers arrived from the West Indies, and
all the Colony, crowding aboard their ships, had actually sailed for
Newfoundland, but they were not out of the James river when
they were met by Lord Delaware, with three ships, many new settlers
and a large quantity of provisions, in fact everything requisite
to relieve the situation. Lord Delaware prevailed upon the colonists
to return to Jamestown, where under his splendid management
the Colony prospered again.

Unfortunately, in the year 1611 Lord Delaware was forced by bad
health to return to England, and the government was placed in the
hands of Sir George Percy, a man wanting in authority. In a
short time the Colony was again reduced to abject want. Percy
was succeeded by Sir Thomas Dale, a man of practical ideas, and
again the Colony prospered. He was a soldier by profession, and

his authority, exercised rightly, met the demands of the hour.
During his administration the Colony was augmented by the arrival
of three hundred emigrants from England.

From the founding of the Colony at Jamestown in 1607 until the
latter part of the administration of Sir Thomas Dale all property
had been held in common, but he directed a division of property
among the colonists, and from this time we may certainly trace
an improvement in the conditions of the people.

Every man thereafter was dependent upon his individual exertions
for his livelihood. Laziness was punished by flogging and
irons. Mutineers and deserters were punished with death. The
lands of the colonists were divided and allotted to the members
of the Colony, and then, for the first time, the right of property in
lands was recognized in America. Several new settlements were
made during this time on both sides of the James river.

The administration of the affairs of the Colony was entrusted successively
to Sir Thomas Gates, George Yeardly and Captain
Argall, and to George Yeardly again in 1619.

The administration of George Yeardly marks an epoch in the
history of mankind.

Beyond question his inspiration was human liberty and representative
govenment. He believed the colonists should have a
hand in the government of themselves. He called a legislative
assembly to meet at Jamestown on July 30th, 1619, to be composed
of two representatives from each of the eleven boroughs into
which the Colony was divided, and this assembly was called the
House of Burgesses.

Thus was planted the germ from which sprang representative
government in America, and thus to Virginia may be credited the
honor of being the first State in the world[3] "composed of separate
boroughs diffused over an extensive surface in which the government
was organized on the principle of universal suffrage."

All freemen, without exception, were entitled to vote.

In the following year, 1620, a Dutch ship landed at Jamestown
and sold to the planters about twenty Africans to be held as slaves,
and thus began slavery in America.

On the 24th day of July, 1621, the London Company gave to
the Virginia colonists a written Constitution, granting all the rights

and liberties theretofore granted by George Yeardly, and, about the
same time, a shipload of English maidens, about one hundred in
all, arrived at Jamestown. There was great rejoicing, and general
prosperity prevailed; the colonists were no longer numbered by
hundreds, but by thousands.

1622. Sir Francis Wyatt became Governor in the year 1622,
and this year witnessed, on March 22d, the massacre of three hundred
and forty-seven men, women and children by the Indians, but
the Colony continued to grow and prosper.

The London Company was dissolved by the King in the year 1625,
and from this time the crown of England dictated the policy of the
Colony.

Events passed rapidly in Virginia for the next twenty years. One
governor after another came and went, but none of them was of
sufficient importance to be mentioned.

1634. In the year 1634 the territory of Virginia was divided
into eight shires or counties similar to those in England. For each
shire lieutenants were appointed to look after the military affairs,
and sheriffs and justices of the peace were commissioned to hold
courts in each of the counties, or shires. Thus was constituted and
thus began the county court system that continued with but little
change until 1870.

1646. The Virginia Colony in the struggle between Charles I
of England and his Parliament sympathized with the King and
did not hesitate, upon the death of Charles I, to recognize his son,
Charles II, as king.

Cromwell sent a force to subdue the Colony in 1650, but the
attempt was futile and the Virginians submitted only upon condition
that they be permitted to retain their government and the
rights and privileges previously bestowed by the kings of England;
which was readily agreed to. Richard Bennett was elected Governor,
but was shortly thereafter succeeded by Edward Diggs. The
next Governor of Virginia was Samuel Mathews, a Virginia planter
of forty years' standing.

1660. Upon the restoration of Charles II in 1660, Sir William
Berkley again became the Governor of Virginia.

1666. The next event of importance in the history of Virginia
arose in the Colony from the dissatisfaction aroused by the acts of
the British Parliament and the conduct of Sir William Berkley. A

large portion of the people of Virginia, under the leadership of
Nathaniel Bacon, rebelled, and drove Sir William Berkley from
Jamestown and forced the commissioning of Bacon as a general.
These troubles ceased with the death of Bacon. This is known as
Bacon's rebellion, and it partook of the spirit that prompted Patrick
Henry and the people of Virginia, a hundred years later, to aspire
to liberty and independence.

For a period of nearly fifty years but little of interest occurred in
the history of Virginia save the succession of governors.

1698. The seat of government was removed from Jamestown to
Williamsburg in 1698. The reason assigned for the removal was
that Williamsburg was healthier, and the situation more convenient.

1710. Alexander Spotswood became the Governor of Virginia
in 1710, and with prudence governed the Colony for twelve years.
He faithfully guarded the interests of the people of Virginia and,
during his administration, inaugurated many new enterprises for
their good.

He was the first Postmaster-General for the Colonies and established
many postoffices. Under his administration the mails were
regularly carried from Williamsburg to Philadelphia. The one
undertaking of this accomplished gentleman and officer that is especially
interesting to the people of Western Virginia is the expedition
undertaken by him, when, on the 1st day of August, 1716, he set out
from Chelsea upon the famous expedition to the Blue Ridge
mountains.

The Virginia Colony of one hundred and five souls in 1607 had
grown to nearly one hundred thousand. Twenty-four counties are
to be found in the Colony, and the hardy pioneer was fast pushing
his way to the base of the Blue Ridge mountains, but of the country
beyond the Blue Ridge mountains nothing was known except the
indefinite accounts of Indian traders.

Governor Spotswood determined to explore this unknown region
and, leaving the home of his son-in-law at Chelsea, in August, 1716,
accompanied by a gay and gallant band, he began his journey
through a dense wilderness inhabited by beasts of prey and the cruel
savage, and after thirty-six days of incessant toil and fatigue, the
Governor and his party, on September 5, 1716, reached the summit
of one of the highest peaks of the Blue Ridge mountains, at
Swift Run Gap, Augusta county, Virginia.

What a spot! What an occasion! What [OMITTED] have been the feelings
experienced by these gallant knight when for the first time
the beautiful Shenandoah was presented to their vision! The
[OMITTED] of the occasion must have been full compensation for all
the toil and perseverance expended in the effort. Governor Spotswood,
in commemoration of this expedition into the heart of the
savage wilderness, presented each of the company with a small
golden horse-shoe set with jewels, and this was the origin of the
order, "Knights of the Golden Horse-Shoe."

The inscription upon the golden horse-shoe was "Sic jurat transcendere
montes." (Thus he swears to cross the mountains), and it
is stated that these mementoes were given to all who would accept
them, promising to comply with the terms of the inscription.

Spotswood Crossing the Blue Ridge.

Governor Spotswood and his company descended the western side
of the mountain into the valley, and, finding a ford, they crossed
the Shenandoah river and "took possession of the country for King
George the First of England." They crossed the Shenandoah river
on September 6th and called it the Euphrates.

Thus the first passage of the Blue Ridge into the Valley of
Virginia was made by Governor Spotswood at this time, but, as
early as 1710, a company of adventurers found and went to the
top of the highest mountain with their horses, but did not pass over
it into the valley, by reason of the lateness of the season. Abraham
Wood had visited the New River section in the year 1654.

1738. In the year 1738 the House of Burgesses of Virginia
passed a bill for the formation of two countries west of the Blue

Ridge mountains, and accordingly Orange county was divided and
that part of Orange county west of the Blue Ridge mountains was
formed into two counties, called Frederick and Augusta counties.
Thus was opened to settlement a magnificent country of which
Washington county is a part, and as the history of Washington
county is inseparably connected with the early history of Augusta
county, I will here take leave of the general history of Virginia.