History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia Part 1

History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia.

by James W. Head.

Introduction.

I know not when I first planned this work, so inextricably is the idea interwoven with a fading recollection of my earliest aims and ambitions. However, had I not been resolutely determined to conclude it at any cost--mental, physical, or pecuniary--the difficulties that I have experienced at every stage might have led to its early abandonment.

The greatest difficulty lay in procuring material which could not be supplied by individual research and investigation. For this and other valid reasons that will follow it may safely be said that more than one-half the contents of this volume are in the strictest sense original, the remarks and detail, for the most part, being the products of my own personal observation and reflection. Correspondence with individuals and the State and National authorities, though varied and extensive, elicited not a half dozen important facts. I would charge no one with discourtesy in this particular, and mention the circ.u.mstance only because it will serve to emphasize what I shall presently say _anent_ the scarcity of available material.

Likewise, a painstaking perusal of more than two hundred volumes yielded only meagre results, and in most of these illusory references I found not a single fact worth recording. This comparatively prodigious number included gazeteers, encyclopedias, geographies, military histories, general histories, State and National reports, journals of legislative proceedings, biographies, genealogies, reminiscences, travels, romances--in short, any and all books that I had thought calculated to shed even the faintest glimmer of light on the County's history, topographical features, etc.

But, contrary to my expectations, in many there appeared no manner of allusion to Loudoun County. By this it will be seen that much time that might have been more advantageously employed was necessarily given to this form of fruitless research.

That works of history and geography can be prepared in no other way, no person at all acquainted with the nature of such writings need be told. "As well might a traveler presume to claim the fee-simple of all the country which he has surveyed, as a historian and geographer expect to preclude those who come after him from making a proper use of his labors. If the former writers have seen accurately and related faithfully, the latter ought to have the resemblance of declaring the same facts, with that variety only which nature has enstamped upon the distinct elaborations of every individual mind.... As works of this sort become multiplied, voluminous, and detailed, it becomes a duty to literature to abstract, abridge, and give, in synoptical views, the information that is spread through numerous volumes."

Touching the matter gleaned from other books, I claim the sole merit of being a laborious and faithful compiler. In some instances, where the thoughts could not be better or more briefly expressed, the words of the original authors may have been used.

Where this has been done I have, whenever possible, made, in my footnotes or text, frank and ample avowal of the sources from which I have obtained the particular information presented. This has not always been possible for the reason that I could not name, if disposed, all the sources from which I have sought and obtained information. Many of the references thus secured have undergone a process of sifting and, if I may coin the couplet, confirmatory handling which, at the last, rendered some unrecognizable and their origin untraceable.

The only publication of a strictly local color unearthed during my research was Taylor's _Memoir of Loudoun_, a small book, or more properly a pamphlet, of only 29 pages, dealing princ.i.p.ally with the County's geology, geography, and climate. It was written to accompany the map of Loudoun County, drawn by Yardley Taylor, surveyor; and was published by Thomas Reynolds, of Leesburg, in 1853.

I wish to refer specially to the grateful acknowledgment that is due Arthur Keith's _Geology of the Catoctin Belt_ and Carter's and Lyman's _Soil Survey of the Leesburg Area_, two Government publications, published respectively by the United States Geological Survey and Department of Agriculture, and containing a fund of useful information relating to the geology, soils, and geography of about two-thirds of the area of Loudoun. Of course these works have been the sources to which I have chiefly repaired for information relating to the two first-named subjects. Without them the cost of this publication would have been considerably augmented. As it is I have been spared the expense and labor that would have attended an enforced personal investigation of the County's soils and geology.

And now a tardy and, perhaps, needless word or two in revealment of the purpose of this volume.

To rescue a valuable miscellany of facts and occurrences from an impending oblivion; to gather and fix certain ephemeral incidents before they had pa.s.sed out of remembrance; to render some account of the County's vast resources and capabilities; to trace its geography and a.n.a.lyze its soils and geology; to follow the tortuous windings of its numerous streams; to chronicle the mult.i.tudinous deeds of sacrifice and daring performed by her citizens and soldiery--such has been the purpose of this work, such its object and design.

But the idea as originally evolved contemplated only a chronology of events from the establishment of the County to the present day. Not until the work was well under way was the matter appearing under the several descriptive heads supplemented.

From start to finish this self-appointed task has been prosecuted with conscientious zeal and persistency of purpose, although with frequent interruptions, and more often than not amid circ.u.mstances least favorable to literary composition. At the same time my hands have been filled with laborious avocations of another kind.

What the philosopher Johnson said of his great _Dictionary_ and himself could as well be said of this humble volume and its author:

"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the _English Dictionary_ was written with little a.s.sistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow."

If further digression be allowable I might say that in the preparation of this work I have observed few of the restrictive rules of literary sequence and have not infrequently gone beyond the prescribed limits of conventional diction. To these transgressions I make willing confession. I have striven to present these sketches in the most lucid and concise form compatible with readableness; to compress the greatest possible amount of useful information into the smallest compa.s.s. Indeed, had I been competent, I doubt that I would have attempted a more elaborate rendition, or drawn more freely upon the language and the coloring of poetry and the imagination. I have therefore to apprehend that the average reader will find them too statistical and laconic, too much abbreviated and void of detail.

However, a disinterested historian I have not been, and should such a charge be preferred I shall look for speedy exculpation from the discerning ma.s.s of my readers.

In this connection and before proceeding further I desire to say that my right to prosecute this work can not fairly be questioned; that a familiar treatment of the subject I have regarded as my inalienable prerogative. I was born in Loudoun County, of parents who in turn could boast the same distinction, and, if not all, certainly the happiest days of my life were pa.s.sed within those sacred precincts. I have viewed her housetops from every crowning eminence, her acres of unmatched grain, her Arcadian pastures and browsing herds, her sun-kissed hills and silvery, serpentine streams. I have known the broad, ample playgrounds of her stately old Academy, and shared in the wholesome, health-giving sports their breadth permitted. I have known certain of her astute schoolmasters and felt the full rigor of their discipline. Stern tutors they were, at times seemingly cruel, but what retrospective mind will not now accord them unstinted praise and grat.i.tude? Something more than the mere awakening and development of slumbering intellects was their province: raw, untamed spirits were given into their hands for a brief spell--brief when measured in after years--and were then sent forth to combat Life's problems with clean hearts, healthy minds, robust bodies, and characters that might remain unsullied though beset with every h.e.l.lish device known to a sordid world. G.o.d bless the dominies of our boyhood--the veteran schoolmasters of old Loudoun!

But to return to my theme. I have a distinct foresight of the views which some will entertain and express in reference to this work, though my least fears of criticism are from those whose experience and ability best qualify them to judge.

However, to the end that criticism may be disarmed even before p.r.o.nouncement, the reader, before condemning any statements made in these sketches that do not agree with his preconceived opinions, is requested to examine all the facts in connection therewith. In so doing it is thought he will find these statements correct in the main.

In such a variety of subjects there must of course be many omissions, but I shall be greatly disappointed if actual errors are discovered.

In substantiation of its accuracy and thoroughness I need only say that the compilation of this work cost me three years of nocturnal application--the three most ambitious and disquieting years of the average life. During this period the entire book has been at least three times rewritten.

In the best form of which I am capable the fruits of these protracted labors are now committed to the candid and, it is hoped, kindly judgment of the people of Loudoun County.

JAMES W. HEAD.

"ARCADIA,"

BARCROFT, VA., _Feb. 1, 1909_.

Descriptive.

SITUATION.

Loudoun County lies at the northern extremity of "Piedmont Virginia,"[1] forming the apex of one of the most picturesquely diversified regions on the American continent. Broad plains, numerous groups and ranges of hills and forest-clad mountains, deep river gorges, and valleys of practically every conceivable form are strewn to the point of prodigality over this vast undulatory area.

[Footnote 1: "Piedmont" means "foot of the mountain." "Piedmont Virginia," with a length of 250 miles and an average width of about 25 miles, and varying in alt.i.tude from 300 to 1,200 feet, lies just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and comprises the counties of _Loudoun_, Fauquier, Culpeper, Rappahannock, Madison, Greene, Orange, Albemarle, Nelson, Amherst, Bedford, Franklin, Henry, and Patrick. It is a portion of the belt that begins in New England and stretches thence southward to Georgia and Alabama.]

The particular geographic location of Loudoun has been most accurately reckoned by Yardley Taylor, who in 1853 made a governmental survey of the county. He placed it "between the lat.i.tudes of 38 52-1/2" and 39 21" north lat.i.tude, making 28-1/2" of lat.i.tude, or 33 statute miles, and between 20" and 53-1/2" of longitude west from Washington, being 33-1/2" of longitude, or very near 35 statute miles."

Loudoun was originally a part of the six million acres which, in 1661, were granted by Charles II, King of England, to Lord Hopton, Earl of St. Albans, Lord Culpeper, Lord Berkeley, Sir William Morton, Sir Dudley Wyatt, and Thomas Culpeper. All the territory lying between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers to their sources was included in this grant, afterwards known as the "Fairfax Patent," and still later as the "Northern Neck of Virginia."

"The only conditions attached to the conveyance of this domain, the equivalent of a princ.i.p.ality, were that one-fifth of all the gold and one-tenth of all the silver discovered within its limits should be reserved for the royal use, and that a nominal rent of a few pounds sterling should be paid into the treasury at Jamestown each year. In 1669 the letters patent were surrendered by the existing holders and in their stead new ones were issued.... The terms of these letters required that the whole area included in this magnificent gift should be planted and inhabited by the end of twenty-one years, but in 1688 this provision was revoked by the King as imposing an impracticable condition."[2]

[Footnote 2: Bruce's _Economic History of Virginia_.]

The patentees, some years afterward, sold the grant to the second Lord Culpeper, to whom it was confirmed by letters patent of King James II, in 1688. From Culpeper the rights and privileges conferred by the original grant descended through his daughter, Catherine, to her son, Lord Thomas Fairfax, Baron of Cameron--a princely heritage for a young man of 20 years.

BOUNDARIES.

The original boundaries of Loudoun County were changed by the following act of the General a.s.sembly, pa.s.sed January 3, 1798, and ent.i.tled "An Act for adding part of the county of Loudoun to the county of Fairfax, and altering the place of holding courts in Fairfax County."

1. _Be it enacted by the General a.s.sembly_, That all that part of the county of Loudoun lying between the lower boundary thereof, and a line to be drawn from the mouth of Sugar Land run, to Carter's mill, on Bull run, shall be, and is hereby added to and made part of the county of Fairfax: Provided always, That it shall be lawful for the sheriff of the said county of Loudoun to collect and make distress for any public dues or officers fees, which shall remain unpaid by the inhabitants of that part of the said county hereby added to the county of Fairfax, and shall be accountable for the same in like manner as if this act had not been made.

2. _And be it further enacted_, That it shall be lawful for a majority of the acting justices of the peace for the said county of Fairfax, together with the justices of the county of Loudoun included within the part thus added to the said county of Fairfax, and they are hereby required at a court to be held in the month of April or May next, to fix on a place for holding courts therein at or as near the center thereof (having regard to that part of the county of Loudoun hereby added to the said county of Fairfax) as the situation and convenience will admit of; and thenceforth proceed to erect the necessary public buildings at such place, and until such buildings be completed, to appoint any place for holding courts as they shall think proper.

3. This act shall commence and be in force from and after the pa.s.sing thereof.

As at present bounded, the old channel at the mouth of Sugar Land run, at Lowe's Island,[3] is "the commencement of the line that separates Loudoun from Fairfax County and runs directly across the country to a point on the Bull Run branch of Occoquan River, about three eighths of a mile above Sudley Springs, in Prince William County." The Bull Run then forms the boundary between Loudoun and Prince William to its highest spring head in the Bull Run mountain, just below the Cool Spring Gap. The line then extends to the summit of the mountain, where the counties of Fauquier and Prince William corner. From the summit of this mountain, a direct line to a point[4] on the Blue Ridge, at Ashby's Gap, marks the boundary between Loudoun and Fauquier counties.

A devious line, which follows in part the crests of the Blue Ridge until reaching the Potomac below Harpers Ferry, separates Loudoun from Clarke County, Virginia, and Jefferson County, West Virginia, on her western border. The Potomac then becomes the dividing line between Loudoun County, and Frederick and Montgomery counties, Maryland; "and that State, claiming the whole of the river, exercises jurisdiction over the islands as well as the river."

[Footnote 3: "What is called Lowe's Island, at the mouth of Sugarland Run, was formerly an island, and made so by that run separating and part of it pa.s.sing into the river by the present channel, while a part of it entered the river by what is now called the old channel. This old channel is now partially filled up, and only receives the waters of Sugarland Run in times of freshets. Occasionally when there is high water in the river the waters pa.s.s up the present channel of the run to the old channel, and then follow that to the river again. This old channel enters the river immediately west of the primordial range of rocks, that impinge so closely upon the river from here to Georgetown, forming as they do that series of falls known as Seneca Falls, the Great, and the Little Falls, making altogether a fall of 188 feet in less than 20 miles."--_Memoir of Loudoun_.]

[Footnote 4: Designated in an old record as a "double-bodied poplar tree standing in or near the middle of the thoroughfare of Ashby's Gap on the top of the Blue Ridge." It succ.u.mbed to the ravages of time and fire while this work was in course of preparation.]

This completes an outline of 109 miles, viz: 19 miles in company with Fairfax, 10 with Prince William, 17 with Fauquier, 26 with Clarke and Jefferson, and 37 miles along the Potomac.