Legends of Loudoun Part 7

[72] Fairfax Harrison suggests error; that Rev. John Andrews, then Parson of Cameron Parish, was the man. No Parson named Adams then in Virginia.

"June the 4. At break of Day my Coachman came and tap'd my Chamber Door and said Madam all is ready and it is right early. I went to my Waggon and we moved on. Left Mr. Falkner behind in Pursuit of his Horse.

March'd 14 Miles and halted at an old sage Quaker's with silver Locks.

His Wife on my coming in accosted me in the following manner: 'Welcome Friend set down, thou seem's full Bulky to travel, but thou art young and that will enable thee. We were once so ourselves but we have been married 44 Years & may say we have lived to see the Days that we have no Pleasure therein.' We had recourse to our old Dish Gammon, nothing else to be had; but they said they had some Liquor they called Whiskey which was made of Peaches. My Friend Thompson being a Preacher, when the soldiers came in as the Spirit mov'd him, held forth to them and told them the great Virtue of Temperance. They all stared at him like Pigs, but had not a word to say in their justification.

"June the 5. My Lodgings not being very clean, I had so many close Companions call'd Ticks that deprived me of my Night's Rest, but I indulg'd till 7. We halted this Day all the Nurses Baking Bread and Boiling Beef for the March to Morrow. A fine Regale 2 Chickens with Milk and water to Drink, which my friend Thompson said was fine temperate Liquor. Several things lost out of my Waggon, amongst the rest they took 2 of my Hams, which my Coachman said was an abomination to him, and if he could find out who took them he would make them remember taking the next.

"June the 6. Took my leave of my Friend Thompson, who bid me farewell. A great Gust of Thunder and Lightning and Rain, so that we were almost drown'd. Extreem bad Roads. We pa.s.s'd over the Blue Ridge which was one continual mountain for 3 miles. Forg'd through 2 Rivers. At 7 we halted at Mr. Key's, a fine Plantation. Had for Dinner 2 Chickens. The Soldiers desired my Brother to advance them some Whisky for they told him he had better kill them at once than to let them dye by Inches, for without they could not live. He complied with their Request and it soon began to operate; they all went to dancing and bid defiance to the French. My Friend Gore" (the coachman) "began to shake a Leg. I ask'd him if it was consistent as a member of his Society to dance; he told me that he was not at all united with them, and that there were some of his People who call'd themselves Quakers and stood up for their Church but had no more religion in them than his Mare. I told him I should set him down as a Ranter."

But to return to Halkett and the troops under his immediate command.

From Winchester they proceeded to the new fort at Will's Creek which Braddock, upon his arrival, named Fort c.u.mberland in honour of his captain general. Here the main detachments of the expedition came together again in accordance with the plans made in Alexandria. The troops were given a short rest after their long march, the final plans were developed and on the 7th, 8th and 9th of June the army resumed its march to the west, widening the path through the woods made by Was.h.i.+ngton and his men the year before and hauling its artillery over the mountains with the utmost difficulty. So slow was their progress that Braddock decided to send on a large advance party, more lightly equipped, leaving the others to bring on the greater part of the supplies and baggage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FALL OF BRADDOCK. (From a painting by C. Schuessele, published in 1859.)]

In contrast to Braddock's unbounded a.s.surance, Halkett seems to have had a strong premonition of the impending disaster and his own tragic fate.

Lowdermilk, in his excellent _History of c.u.mberland_, describes his dejection the night before the battle:

"Sir Peter Halkett was low spirited and depressed; he comprehended the importance of meeting the wily red skins with their own tactics, and while he urged the General to beat the bushes over every foot of ground from the camp to the Fort, he had little hope of seeing his advice put into effect; when he wrapped his mantle about him that night as he lay upon his soldier's bed his soul was filled with the darkest forebodings for the morrow, which he felt would close his own career as well as that of many another gallant soldier, a presentiment which was sadly realized."

Upon the following day, the 9th of July, the advance party of British, now making better progress, pressed on to a point five or six miles from Fort DuQuesne where they encountered the awaiting French and Indians.

Against such British strength of numbers and equipment the French had one chance and well they knew it lay in meeting the attacking force in the forest before it could bring its artillery to play on their fortification. The ma.s.s of the scarlet-coated British troops were in close formation in the open; the French and Indians hid themselves behind the surrounding trees. As the first bullets poured into their ranks the British could see no foe and Braddock, deaf to the entreaties of the Virginians, insisted that his troops hold their ranks in the unprotected and open clearing. The provincials scattered and fought the foe in its own manner from behind every tree and mound they could find to shelter them; but Braddock, wholly immune to fear or reason himself, continued to hold his regulars together, in his anger beating back with his sword into the ranks those seeking cover. Even so the situation, impossible though it were rapidly becoming, might have been saved by the desperate and determined efforts of the provincials who had found a small ravine or ditch from which they were able to deliver an effective flanking fire against the French; but as the latter began to waver and the Americans left their protection to charge, the panic-stricken regulars fired upon them, killing and wounding a great number. It was the end. Braddock, who throughout the fighting had shewn the most reckless and obstinate courage and had had his horses killed from under him again and again, now received a mortal wound and the surviving English broke into a wild and disorderly retreat. Had the French and their allies pressed their advantage, hardly one of their foe would have escaped death or capture; but the Indian allies of the French, when the British fled, addressed themselves to killing the wounded and robbing and scalping the dead, thus giving the English their chance of flight, disorderly and panic-stricken, back over the road they had come.

Braddock, crushed with the completeness of his defeat, died on the fourth day of the retreat and was buried in the roadway to protect his body from the Indian savages. How overwhelming was the French victory is shewn by the English record that of the 1,386 men who were under Braddock in the fight, only 459 escaped. That the British regulars stood their ground bravely in the face of most difficult conditions and stupid leaders.h.i.+p there seems no question. But the greater praise went to the Americans who inflicted far more damage on the foe; and particularly to their leader Was.h.i.+ngton who with cool courage was everywhere encouraging his men in the fight and though his clothing was pierced repeatedly with rifle b.a.l.l.s, he escaped wholly unwounded.

During the battle Halkett was shot and killed and his son James, seeing him fall and rus.h.i.+ng to his aid, at once met the same fate. Both bodies were scalped and robbed and then left where they fell. Three years later Halkett's eldest son, the then Sir Peter Halkett, a major in the 42nd Regiment, joined General Forbes' new and successful expedition against Fort DuQuesne, especially to seek some trace of the fate of his father and brother. With friendly Indian help the bodies were found and identified and given a military burial nearby.

As the defeated English retreated to the east, the story of the calamity spread terror and dismay among the more westerly settlers. In Virginia the people in the valley were panic-stricken and in great numbers fled over the Blue Ridge to the Piedmont counties, spreading their terror among the people there. Was.h.i.+ngton wrote that he learned from Captain Waggoner who, as we have seen, had had command of the Virginia troops and had been wounded in the battle "that it was with difficulty he pa.s.sed the Ridge for crowds of people, who were flying as if every moment was death." The fear and restlessness continued among the colonists on both sides of the Blue Ridge until General Forbes, as noted, in 1758 led his force to Fort DuQuesne and took possession of what was left by the French who burned and abandoned it at his approach.

From then until after the Revolution this former outpost of France, under its new name of Fort Pitt, remained in the hands of the English government.

On the 1st day of September, 1758,[73] an act was pa.s.sed in Virginia to pay arrears to "forces in the pay of this colony" and to raise money therefor. Section 5 recites:

"And whereas several companies of the militia were lately drawn out into actual service, for the defense and protection of the frontiers of this colony, whose names, and the time they respectively continued in the said service, together with the charge of provisions found for the use of the said militia are contained in the schedule to this act annexed....

"Loudoun County l s d To captain Nicholas Minor 1 00 00 Aeneas Campbell, lieutenant, 7 6 Francis Wilks, 1 17 James Willock, 1 15 To John Owsley, and William Stephens, 15 s. each 1 10 Robert Thomas 10 John Moss, Jun. 4 John Thomas for provisions 5 John Moss, do 2 8 William Ross, do 2 "

[73] 7 Hening, 171 and 222.

On page 217 of the same act under the head of "Fairfax County" appear the following items, the names suggesting that the list was prepared prior to the time of the setting off of Loudoun from Fairfax and for services prior to those above listed:

l s d "To Nicholas Minor, Captain 15 12 0 Josias Clapham, lieutenant, 7 16 William Trammell, ensign 5 4 To Captain James Hamilton his pay and guards subsistence carrying soldiers to Winchester 10 4 1"

The names of many other soldiers are given with the compensation awarded each. It is quite possible that among them were men who resided in that part of Fairfax which, at the time of the pa.s.sage of the act, had been set off as Loudoun.

CHAPTER IX

ORGANIZATION OF LOUDOUN AND THE FOUNDING OF LEESBURG

In the Virginia of England's rule, the vestry of a Parish "divided with the County Court the responsibility of local government, having as their especial charge the maintenance of religion and the oversight of all things pertaining thereto in the domain of charity and morals."[74] The parish was a territorial subdivision with large civil as well as ecclesiastical powers and duties and when, through increasing population, a parish came to be divided, in those days of expanding settlement, it usually was followed by the creation of a new county. As has been noted in a prior chapter, Truro Parish, then coextensive with Fairfax County, was divided in 1748 by the a.s.sembly setting off the upper part thereof, above Difficult Run, as Cameron Parish, thus indicating the early organization of a new county. But the politicians of Tidewater were beginning to look askance at the rapid increase of new counties in the upper country, fearing a diminution of their influence and control and perhaps there was some opposition in Fairfax itself. A pet.i.tion presented to the a.s.sembly in 1754 by the people of Cameron that they be formed into a new county resulted in a bill being pa.s.sed to that end which, however, was disapproved by the Council. Again a pet.i.tion was presented to the next a.s.sembly with no better success; but on the 8th day of June, 1757 a bill was pa.s.sed creating the new county. It reads as follows:

"An Act for Dividing the County of Fairfax

"I. Whereas many inconveniences attend the upper inhabitants of the County of Fairfax by reason of the large extent of said county, and their remote situation from the court house, and the said inhabitants have pet.i.tioned this present general a.s.sembly that the said county be divided: Be it, therefore enacted, by the Lieutenant-Governor, Council and Burgesses of this present General a.s.sembly, and it is hereby enacted, by the authority of the same, that from and after the 1st day of July next ensuing the said county of Fairfax be divided into two counties, that is to say: All that part thereof, lying above Difficult run, which falls into the Patowmack river, and by a line to be run from the head of the same run, a straight course, to the mouth of Rocky run, shall be one distinct county, and called and known by the name of Loudoun: And all that part below the said run and course, shall be another distinct county, and retain the name of Fairfax.

"II. And for the due administration of justice in the said county of Loudoun, after the same shall take place: Be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that after the first day of July a court for the said county of Loudoun be constantly held by the justices thereof, upon the second Tuesday in every month in such manner as by the laws of this colony is provided, and shall be by their commission directed.

"III. Provided always, that nothing herein contained shall be constructed to hinder the sheriff or collector of the said county of Fairfax, as the same now stands entire and undivided, from collecting and making distress for any public dues, or officers fees, which shall remain unpaid by the inhabitants of said county of Loudoun at the time of its taking place; but such sheriff or collector shall have the same power to collect or distrain for such dues and fees, and shall be answerable for them in the same manner as if this act had never been made, any law, usage or custom to the contrary thereof in any wise notwithstanding.

"IV. And be it further enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that the court of the said county of Fairfax shall have jurisdiction of all actions and suits, both in law and equity, which shall be depending before them at the time the said division shall take place; and shall and may try and determine all such actions and suits, and issue process and award execution in any such action or suit in the same manner as if this act had never been made, any law, usage, or custom to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding.

"V. And be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that out of every hundred pounds of tobacco, paid in discharge of quit rents, secretary's, clerk's, sheriff's, surveyor's, or other officers fees, and so proportionately for a greater or lesser quant.i.ty, there shall be made the following abatements or allowances to the payer, that is to say: For tobacco due in the county of Fairfax ten pounds of tobacco, and for tobacco due in the county of Loudoun twenty pounds of tobacco; and that so much of the act of the a.s.sembly, int.i.tled, An Act for amending the staple of tobacco, and preventing frauds in his Majesty's customs, as relates to anything within the purview of this act, shall be and is hereby repealed and made void."[75]

[74] _History of Truro Parish_, i.

[75] Known as Chapter XXII. See 7 Hening, 148.

The boundaries of the new county thus fixed have since that time been changed but once, when in 1798, a part of the originally const.i.tuted Loudoun was, by act of the Legislature, returned to Fairfax as later will be noted.[76]

[76] See Chapter XIII post.

Thus, from the formation of Northumberland County in 1647, it had taken 110 years for a sufficient population to penetrate, settle and develop in the backwoods to justify the organization of Loudoun. At first the creation of new counties out of the early Northumberland had been rapid.

Lancaster along the Rappahannock was formed in 1651 and Westmoreland along the Potomac in 1653. Out of Westmoreland came Stafford in 1664.

Then, so far as the line of descent of Loudoun is concerned, there is a long wait. Indian warfare and Indian domination of the upper country effectually held back settlement until Spotswood's epochal treaty of 1722. With the withdrawal of the Indians the pressure from Tidewater rapidly had its effect. Out of the Stafford "backwoods" and those of King George to the south was organized in 1731 Prince William with a disputed western boundary, the Proprietor claiming much of the Shenandoah Valley and the Virginia government holding to the Blue Ridge but the act discretely leaving that question untouched. In 1742 the territory above "Occoquan and Bull Run and from the head of the main branch of Bull Run by a straight course" to Ashley's Gap became the County of Fairfax of which, as shown, Loudoun in 1757 was born. Her contiguous county Fauquier was, by contrast, taken directly from Prince William in 1759.

It would have been wholly appropriate to have named the new county Lee or Carter, honoring families and individuals which had been so active in its development but the Lees then loved the Carters not at all nor the Carters the Lees and doubtlessly each would, and perhaps did, prevent the honor going to the other. So it came about that the l.u.s.ty infant became the namesake of a man whose fame, so far as Virginia and the other American Colonies were concerned, was highly ephemeral. On the 17th February, 1756, in the winter following Braddock's defeat, John Campbell, fourth Earl of Loudoun, had been appointed Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief of Virginia and, on the 20th of the month following, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in America. He seems to have owed his selection to his own and his family's influence with Court and ministry; certainly nothing in his earlier career had logically earned the bestowal of a paramount command in such a critical period for Britain. Loudoun, the only son of the third Earl of that ilk and his wife the Lady Margaret Dalrymple (only daughter of John 1st Earl of Stair) had been born in 1705 and succeeded his father in the t.i.tle and estates in 1731. From 1734, until his death in 1782, he was one of the representative peers of Scotland. At the age of twenty-two he entered the army and had been appointed Governor of Sterling Castle in 1741, becoming aide-de-camp to the king in 1743. When the Jacobite rebellion broke out in 1745 he had been a staunch supporter of the House of Hanover, raising a regiment of Highlanders of which he became colonel and which later was cut to pieces at the Battle of Preston. Loudoun was one of the few who came out of the fight unscathed and, shewing that upon occasion he was capable of energy as well as loyalty, promptly he raised a force of more than two thousand new soldiers.

When he arrived in New York on the 23rd July, 1756, he found affairs in great confusion. After the care with which Braddock's campaign had been planned for him and the disastrous outcome, the home authorities were now slow to adopt measures to cope with the crisis. Not only Fort DuQuesne but Forts Oswego and Ontario were held by the French, aggressive and confident from their repeated successes. After spending a year in surveying the situation, Loudoun headed an expedition against Louisburg, going as far as Halifax and then, though a caution made to appear the more excessive by inevitable comparison with the dash and reckless courage of Pepperell's earlier and sensationally successful expedition, returned to New York without striking a blow. He had incurred great unpopularity earlier in New York and now in Halifax although in the former, at least, his measures of quartering troops and interference with commerce fairly could be defended on the ground of military necessity. Of more unfortunate importance, the inept.i.tude and dilatory inefficiency of his Louisburg campaign had drained its defenders from the Hudson Valley, thus permitting a successful and disastrous invasion of the Province of New York by the French and their Indians and Loudoun was peremptorily recalled to England (1757), General Jeffrey Amherst being sent over to take his place. Loudoun's indecision inspired Benjamin Franklin's famous epigram which all down the years, to the few who remember Loudoun, remains inseparably a.s.sociated with his name: that, "he was like King George upon the signposts, always on horseback but never advancing." There was, however, at least one voice publicly raised on his behalf; an effort was made in England to defend his conduct in America through an anonymous pamphlet published in London the following year ent.i.tled "The Conduct of a n.o.ble Commander in America Impartially Reviewed with the genuine Causes of the Discontents at New York and Hallifax," one of the few surviving copies of which is now lodged in the Library of Congress. And it was for this British general with but a year of American experience (and that far from glorious) who never, so far as it is known, set foot on Virginia's soil that the fairest of Piedmont's counties was named during those brief months when his ascendant star glowed with an all too temporary brilliance and hope and expectation ran high. Had the county been organized when first proposed or had its formation been further postponed, it is a fair presumption that another name would have been chosen.

Lord Loudoun's American record seemingly did not end his influence in London. In 1762, when war broke out between England and Spain, he was appointed second in command, under Lord Tyrawley, of the British troops sent to Portugal. As he never married, his t.i.tle upon his death at Loudoun Castle on the 27th April, 1782, pa.s.sed to his cousin, James Mure Campbell, a grandson of the second Earl.

Of the first officials of Loudoun County, the following men by commission of the Virginia Council, dated the 24th May, 1757, became its first court or governing body: Anthony Russell, Fielding Turner, James Hamilton, Aeneas Campbell, Nicholas Minor, William West, of the Quorum, Richard Coleman, Josias Clapham, George West, Charles Tyler, John Moss, Francis Peyton and John Mucklehany. These men may be taken as outstanding residents.

We can learn from the early records something concerning the actual procedure followed in organizing the new county. The first entry in the volume of Court Orders is a record on the 12th day of July, 1757, that a Commission of the Peace and Dedimus of the county directed to the last mentioned "Gentlemen, justices of the said County was produced and openly Read, and pursuant to the Dedimus" that they took the oaths prescribed by law.

The first county clerk was Charles Binns who served thirty-nine years in that capacity, from 1757 to 1796; to be succeeded by his son Charles Binns, Jr., who, in his turn, served forty-one years or from 1796 to 1837, a record indicating that Loudoun had been fortunate in the selection for this office. It is traditional in the county that the first clerk's office was at Rokeby, the present country seat of Mr. and Mrs. B. Franklin Nalle.

The first sheriff was Aeneas Campbell who came to the then Fairfax County from Saint Mary's County, Maryland, just in time to become a lieutenant in that Fairfax company in the French War captained by Nicholas Minor and whose home was at Raspberry Plain as already has been shown.[77] It is also locally related that the first jail was a small brick building about twelve feet square, in his yard there. A ducking-spring was also a part of the new sheriff's equipment at his home and was used to temper the enthusiasm of females too greatly addicted to mischievous talking. A woman duly convicted of idle gossip and slandering her neighbours, was generally fined in tobacco; if the fine were not paid by her husband or the dame herself, she was taken to the ducking-spring, where a long pole had a chair with arms attached to its end. The talkative lady was then tied in the chair, the pole lowered and she was immersed in the pond a sufficient number of times to cause her ruefully to remember her experience and, let us hope, amend her conduct. Alas! Alas! _Tempora mutantur_.

[77] See chapter VII ante.

Campbell's bond as sheriff occupies the place of honor in the first Deed Book of the county on page one. He and his two sureties, Anthony Russell and James Hamilton, bind themselves "unto our Sovereign Lord King George the second in the sum of one thousand pounds Current Money to be paid to our said Lord the King his Heirs and Successors." Tobacco as money was all well enough in Virginia but apparently was not appreciated by Royalty across the sea.

Both county clerk and sheriff qualified at this first session of the Court.

Aeneas Campbell was one of the leading spirits in the new county. Not only was he its first sheriff but he built its first courthouse, as later noted, and was an original trustee of Leesburg when that town was "erected." In those days the outstanding men in a community were chosen for public office and the frequency of his name on the records unquestionably confirms his influential prominence. His later career was interesting. After he sold Raspberry Plain to Thomson Mason in 1760, we find him, in 1776, back in Maryland and busily engaged in the work of the Revolution. He became captain of the First Maryland Battalion of the Flying Camp in July of that year and on the 18th of the month in Frederick County, is credited with presenting to that command thirty-two men, including his son Aeneas Campbell, Jr., (who held the rank of cadet) all of whom were then reviewed and pa.s.sed (accepted?) by Major John Fulford.[78] His descendants, including the Giddings family of Leesburg, proudly retain the tradition that Campbell raised and accoutred this force entirely at his own expense, setting an example of patriotism which Loudoun should remember.

[78] Archives of Maryland, Published by Maryland Historical Society 1900.