University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXXVIII

WESTWARD MOVEMENT OF POPULATION

But the most famous episode in the crowded history of
Spotswood's administration was his romantic passage of the
Blue Ridge Mountains. Before describing this adventurous
excursion to the banks of the Shenandoah, let us see how far
he had been antedated in his journey.

The first white persons to gaze upon the paradise of the
Great Valley were quite probably the indomitable Jesuit missionaries,
for its outlines are to be found traced on their
famous map drafted in 1632. In 1643, Walter Aston and his
companions were commissioned by the General Assembly to
search for a large stream flowing far to the west; and ten
years afterwards, William Claiborne and his associates, all
with experience of the wild forests and intrepid in spirit, set
out to explore the same savage region. Edward Bland and his
escort had already, in 1650, stumbled upon the modern New
River. In 1668, Berkeley, who was aiming to find the South
Sea, was halted in the woods to the westward by a continuous
downpour of rain. Loederer was more fortunate in 1669-70,
during which years, he boldly pushed his way far beyond the
line of frontier. Two expeditions under the leadership of
Abraham Wood were made in 1671 and 1673, but apparently
without remarkable results.

At this time, the Great Valley was the teeming hunting
ground of the Indians, and with the exception of two villages
of the Shawnees and Tuscaroras, was unmarred in its wild
natural condition by the presence of even the aboriginal
wigwam. The Iroquois from the north, stealing down the
Cumberland Valley and crossing the Potomac at the site of

the modern Williamsport, were, after the treaty of Albany, in
the habit of passing both to the right and the left of the Massanutton
Range in their campaigns against the Catawbas
roaming south of James River. If there had been Indian
settlements in this region previous to that treaty, which at
first blocked the road for the Iroquois on the west side of the
Blue Ridge, they melted away before the raised tomahawks of
these fierce warriors as the banks of a river in flood vanish
in its current. It was not the burly wall of the Blue Ridge
that so long restricted the spread of English population from
the head of tidewater. Rather it was the perils created by
these periodic expeditions that were the real obstruction at
first.

The earliest official consciousness of the Valley came to
light in 1705 in an Act of Assembly for the regulation of the
trade with the few Indians to be met with in that quarter.
This law reveals the fact that the topography of the country
situated beyond the crest of the Blue Ridge was now known
through the cumulative reports of former explorers. Louis
Michell, who built his cabin in the Monocacy Valley on the
north side of the Potomac in 1706, had, before doing so,
undoubtedly spied out the land along the banks of the lower
Shenandoah. It was through his influence that a Swiss colony
had been established at New Bern in North Carolina, under
the supervision of De Graffenreid; and when this settlement
was broken up, that company was only prevented from making
their next home in the Valley of Virginia by the rival claims
of the proprietaries of Maryland and the Northern Neck to
that part of this region which lay nearest to the Potomac
River. By 1709, tracts along the Shenandoah had been
granted to Michell and De Graffenreid for the benefit of this
colony, but their ownership never seems to have progressed
beyond a bare title.

De Graffenreid stimulated Spotswood's interest in that
region by describing to him in person at Williamsburg its
beauty and fertility in its then unblemished primæval condition.

The Swiss nobleman had visited the capital at some time
previous to May, 1712; but it was not until 1716 that the
governor decided to lead a band of explorers to that earthly
paradise. Accompanied at first by Robert Beverley and John
Fontaine, he left the former's home in Middlesex, and made
his way to Germanna, where he was joined by an escort of
gentlemen, two companies of rangers, and several Indian
scouts. About fifty persons in all made up the party, which
was liberally supplied with pack-horses, provisions, and
liquors. They marched leisurely from this frontier settlement
towards the chain of mountains, which, for most of the way,
was hidden from view by the canopy of the forest. Every
night, they bivouaced in tents or in the open under the wide
spreading branches of the trees, and before lying down, drank
a toast to the King. No serious misadventure disturbed the
good humor of the members of the party. The sting of a
hornet, a fall from a horse, the coil of a rattlesnake ready to
strike, were the only perils endured or threatened. Deer and
bear were daily killed to furnish a fresh meal beside the
crackling fires.

On September 5th, the members of the expedition began
to climb to the crest of the Ridge, and on the same day, arrived
at the top at a point since known as Swift Run Gap, which
was the divide for the waters flowing, on one side, to the
Potomac, and on the other, to the Rappahannock. Here the
King's name was engraved on a rock that rose on the edge
of the newly made trail. As the explorers looked westward,
they saw the beautiful valley veiled in the September mist, and
beyond, the outer ramparts of the Appalachians against the
horizon. They soon descended to the Shenandoah, and in the
meadows bordering its waters, they found herds of buffalo
and elk feeding like cattle in a pasture. The stream was
discovered to be full of perch and chub, and the thickets were
overrun with wild grapes. The company fired a volley and
drank a long series of healths in every kind of spirits consumed

in those days, from rum to usquabagh and from punch to
champagne.

When the explorers set out on their return, the rangers
did not accompany them, but stayed behind to examine the
various features of the country. The expedition was absent
during an interval of six weeks. Spotswood arrived at Jamestown
on September 17th, after traversing four hundred and
thirty-eight miles in all. The number of horsemen taking
part in the journey suggested to him to present to each of the
gentlemen, as a souvenir, a golden horse-shoe set with diamonds,
and bearing the engraved legend, sic juvat transcendère
montes.

A much more important measure adopted to encourage
the spread of population westward was the erection of the
counties of Spottsylvania and Brunswick.

In 1710, the settlements did not reach beyond the great
falls in the rivers; but at the end of twelve years more, they
had got to a point whence the Blue Ridge could be seen on the
horizon. These extended frontiers were exposed all along
the wall of the Blue Ridge to the stealthy assaults of the
united Indians and French—the latter of whom made their
way across the Alleghanies from their forts at Kaskaskia,
Detroit, and Vincennes, far to the northwest.

The new county of Spottsylvania—which was expected in
time to stem the rush of these relentless enemies in that
direction—not only ran up to the crest of the Blue Ridge from
the modern Orange County on the south, and the modern
Rappahannock on the north, but also crossed that chain of
mountains so as to embrace the modern counties of Rockingham,
Page, and Warren. The first colonists to occupy this
area were three bands of Germans—already incidentally
referred to in connection with the iron mines—who entered
separately in succession between the years 1714 and 1720.
They were all Lutherans and came in families. The second
and third sets of these people sat down finally in the present
county of Madison on the banks of Robinson and Conway

Rivers. The majority were from Wurtenberg, and they soon
erected a school, a church, and a parsonage. The first colony
drifted ultimately from Germanna into the modern county of
Fauquier.

Brunswick County was erected at the same time as Spottsylvania.
It lay along the border of Carolina, but it did not
stretch as far westward as the Blue Ridge.

There was to be, in both counties, an exemption from the
payment of quitrents during a period of seven years; but no
patent was to exceed one thousand acres in extent. The
tributary Indians who roamed the woods in the occupied parts
of the two new counties—more especially Brunswick—were
the Nottoways, Nansemonds, Meherrins, Saponies, and Occaneechees.
It was to protect these tribes from the intrusion
of the Iroquois that led Spotswood to go to the great conference
held in Albany in 1722; and the treaty there adopted
confirmed the provisions of an agreement which he had
entered into at Williamsburg with the representatives of the
Five Nations.

In spite of the greater security which these arrangements
afforded for the exploration of the country west of the Blue
Ridge, it was not until 1727 that Spotswood's report upon
the region lying beyond the chain influenced other Virginians
to sue out patents to lands situated in that quarter. In that
year, Robert Brooke, Jr., Beverley, Robinson, and others, filed
their petition for a grant of fifty thousand acres in the modern
Bath County. The earliest settlers in actuality were Germans
from the Palatinate, who had first removed to New
York and Pennsylvania, after their own country had been
cruelly devastated by a succession of wars. In 1730-32, some
of these people migrated to Virginia. Prior to their settlement
in the lower valley of the Shenandoah, there had been
grants of land there to several persons. A patent of ten
thousand acres to Chew and others situated just below the
modern Front Royal had been quickly disputed by Robert
Carter, who, as the agent of Lord Fairfax, claimed that the

Colonel John Page

boundaries defined in that deed lay within the area of the
Northern Neck domain of this nobleman, and that such a
patent could only be validly issued by him. This was the
beginning of a long and angry controversy, which naturally
slowed down the occupation of the country until it was
finally quieted.

The first legal survey in this quarter was for fifty thousand
acres for the benefit of Carter himself; and the ground
embraced extended as far westward as the west bank of the
Shenandoah. The second was to Colonel Page, and ran up the
Potomac to a point situated beyond the modern Harper's
Ferry, which was established as early as 1734. The land
belonging to these two grants still remains in part in the
possession of the descendants of the original patentees. It
will be thus perceived that the first persons to acquire a permanent
title to soil in that beautiful valley were of the oldest
English stock in Virginia;[1] and it was due to their initiative
that the social life in the modern Frederick, Jefferson, and
Clarke counties, unlike that of the counties to the south,
resembled, during so long a period, the social life in Eastern
Virginia.

When the first Germans patented lands, they had to leap
over this interval before they could find an unoccupied seat.
The earliest were the members of the Van Meter family. One
of them had accompanied an Indian war party through this
country and a recollection of its fertility had been the influence
which led to the petition for a patent. The Van Meters
obtained a grant to land lying in the vicinity of the modern
Winchester, but disposed of it to Hite and his associates.

In the course of 1730, Robert Beverley, William Beverley,
and John Corrie sued out a patent to fifty thousand acres situated
in the valley of the Shenandoah. So far, while a vast
area of soil had been acquired by deed from the Colony, there
had been no actual settlement. The first pioneer to come in

person to take up land by patent and make his home on it, was
Jacob Stover or Stauffer in 1732. His holdings consisted of
two tracts, each of which embraced five thousand acres; and
he obtained his title, not by offering the human headrights
which the law required, but by submitting a fraudulent list of
the names of his horses, cows, bulls, and dogs. This property
lay at the northern end of the Massanutton range. It was
from Stover that Adam Mueller and other Germans purchased
land on a date that preceded the year 1733. The claim of
William Beverley that the Stover patent overlapped his own
previous grant by order of council was dismissed in that year.

In 1736, Beverley and others associated with him acquired
a grant to about one hundred and ten thousand acres situated
in the modern county of Augusta, which came to be known
from its principal owner as the Beverley Manor; and this
was afterwards occupied by families brought over from north
Ireland and belonging to the sturdy and religious Scotch-Irish
stock.

John Lewis was a scion of this robust strain of people; and,
accompanied by his family, he went out to Virginia. At Williamsburg,
he was thrown into friendly intercourse with
Salling, who had explored the Upper Valley as far as the
headwaters of the Roanoke, and had brought back a lively
impression of the natural fecundity of the country. Under
the guidance of this brave adventurer, Lewis and John Mackey
crossed the Blue Ridge to the Central Valley; and Lewis was
so delighted with its natural advantages that he decided to
establish himself there in a permanent home. This led him
to acquire patents to large tracts in that region; and near
the site of the modern City of Staunton, he erected a small
fort to serve as a refuge in dangerous times. Returning to
Williamsburg, he met Benjamin Borden (Burden), the agent
of Lord Fairfax; and when he retraced his steps to his fort,
Borden went back with him, in order to inspect the country
and to hunt wild game with his host and his sons.

Borden in his turn was so much impressed by all that he

observed in this jaunt that he secured the right from Governor
Gooch to sue out a patent to five hundred thousand acres,
principally in the modern county of Rockbridge; but the title
was only to become valid when he had brought in one hundred
families to inhabit the land. He was allowed an interval of
ten years in which to fulfill this condition. By 1737, however,
he had seated within the boundaries of his grant the required
number of people, all of whom had been disciplined in the
religious school of Knox and Calvin. They were abstemious,
high-principled, pious, and indomitable in spirit. Thenceforward,
during a long course of poignant years, they were forced
to repel the invasions of the stealthy Indians; many men,
women, and children among them were destroyed by the
tomahawk and scalping knife; but their sturdiness never
weakened before danger, their vigilance never slackened, and
their religious temper never grew cold.

They presented a remarkable contrast to the German
population of Lutherans, Mennonites, and Dunkards, who
occupied so large an area of the Lower Valley. There was,
however, a sprinkling of this German element in all the country
lying between Augusta County and the modern county of
Wythe. A colony of Swiss in the southwest was visited by
Dr. Thomas Walker in his western explorations in the
year 1748.

William Byrd, who owned a vast domain of land along the
modern Dan River, formed the plan in 1735 of planting a
Helvetian settlement at the junction of that river with the
Statunton.[2] He distributed in Switzerland a pamphlet descriptive
of this region; and he was so far successful as to induce
some of its people to emigrate to the primæval woods in
Virginia. But the ship transporting them was wrecked after
passing within the Capes, and all perished except ninety, who
expressed their willingness to go on to the forest home which
had been provided for them. Ultimately, however, most of

the region south of the James was populated by the overflow
from lower tidewater, and by the influx of numerous Scotch-Irish
migrating from other settlements, under the general
leadership of John Caldwell, the ancestor of the famous
statesman, John C. Calhoun.

It was not until 1728 that the line between this section of
the Colony and Carolina was finally laid off by Colonel Byrd;
and it was the personal knowledge of these parts thus obtained
that led him to patent large tracts along the tributaries of
the Roanoke.