GLEN BURNIE The residence until his death in 1759 of Colonel James Wood, founder of Winchester, Virginia, and the birthplace of his son, Governor and General James Wood. On the lawn stood the first Clerk's Office. WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA AND ITS BEGINNINGS 1743-1814 FROM ITS FOUNDING BY COLONEL JAMES WOOD TO THE CLOSE OF THE LIFE OF HIS SON, BRIGADIER-GENERAL AND GOVERNOR JAMES WOOD, WITH THE PUBLI­ CATION FOR THE FIRST TIME OF VALUABLE MANUSCRIPTS, RELICS OF THEIR LONG TENURE OF PUBLIC OFFICES By KATHERINE GLASS GREENE Printed By SHENANDOAH PUBLISHING HOUSE ' STRASBURG, VA. 1926 COPYRIGHT, 1926 Sesqui-Centennial Edition By KATHERINE GLASS GREENE TO HIS EXCELLENCY HARRY FLOOD BYRD 55TH GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA UNDER THE CONSTITUTION REPRESENTING THE HIGHEST TYPE OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, AS JAMES WOOD, THE TENTH GOVERNOR, REPRESENTED THE HIGHEST TYPE OF THE EIGHTEENTH ILLUSTRATIONS Page Glen Burnie Frontispiece Autograph Signatures 15 Glimpses of the Lawn and Avenue at Glen Burnie, 20 The Braddock Memorial at Washington's Headquarters 52 The Braddock Sash 72 Fort Loudoun As It Is Today 90 Chairing Colonel Wood as Proxy for Washington 96 Seal of Frederick County 115 Map of Winchester 117 Autograph Letter 120 Autograph Letter 122 Admiral Edward Boscawen 122 Ruins of Old Lutheran Church 126 The Burn at Glen Burnie 132 Autograph Signatures 168 Autograph Letter 194 Autograph Letter 206 The Westgate 286 The Trusty Servant 422 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I 11 Colonel James Wood's Commissions of 1742 and 1743—Tradition Con­ cerning His Early Life CHAPTER II 16 Commissions Before 1742—Founding of William and Mary College CHAPTER III 20 Winchester Founded March 9, 1744 New Styles—Controversy of the Early Settlers with the Lord Proprietor CHAPTER IV 26 Glimpses of Early Life in Towns and Homesteads CHAPTER V 30 First Visit of Lord Fairfax to America—Legal Battles—Charter for Win­ chester in 1752 CHAPTER VI 35 A Deed from Lord Fairfax—The Suit in Chancery of Jost Hite, Robert McKay and Others CHAPTER VII 47 The Braddock Expedition CHAPTER VIII 52 Dedication of the Braddock Memorial, May 27, 1915 CHAPTER IX 60 Address of the Late Captain Robert Y. Conrad at the Dedication of the Braddock Memorial in 1915 CHAPTER X 73 The Story of General Braddock's Sash—Tributes to the Memory of Miss Mary Spottiswoode Buchanan and Mrs. William Ruffin Cox CHAPTER XI 78 Fort Loudoun—Governor Dinwiddie—Lord Loudoun—Personal Items Con­ cerning Washington—Events in Winchester CHAPTER XII 89 Fort Loudoun (continued)—General Andrew Lewis—Fort Loudoun As It Is Today—The Formation of the Fort Loudoun Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution—Tribute to the Late Dr. Kate Waller Barrett CHAPTER XIII 97 The Election of George Washington to the House of Burgesses—Colonel James Wood as Proxy—Grabiel Jones, Blue Coat Boy, "The Valley Lawyer" CHAPTER XIV 105 Wood's Addition—Personal Notes of Ye Olden Tyme—"A Pot of Sugar and a Teacup Full of Tea"—Death of Colonel James Wood 6 WINCHESTER^ VIRGINIA, AND ITS BEGINNINGS CHAPTER XV 133 Sketch of the Life of Hon. James Wood, Jr., Compiled from Various Sources CHAPTER XVI 143 The Wonderful Month of May, 1926—Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd and the North Pole—The Sesqui-Centennial at Williamsburg—The Shenandoah National Park CHAPTER XVII 155 Overwharton Parish—"Gaudia Nuncio Magna," Motto of Rev. Alexander Scott—Letters from Jean Moneure CHAPTER XVIII 160 The Elusive Charms of Florida -' CHAPTER XIX 165 First Reproduction of Military Correspondence—James Wood's Note Book, 1780 CHAPTER XX 187 Letters with Famous Autographs CHAPTER XXI 195 Garrison Orders, Court Martials, Letters, Etc., 1775-1789, Chronologically Arranged CHAPTER XXII 249 Personal Letters—Records of the Deaths of Ex-Governor James Wood and His Wife, Jean Moneure CHAPTER XXIII 287 Romance of Laurence Augustine Washington—His Family—Various Per­ sonal Letters—Founding of the Laurence Augustine Washington Society, Children of the American Revolution CHAPTER XXIV 325 The Founders of the Washington Family in America—Item from General Washington's Will—The Washington and Fontaine Families in Texas CHAPTER XXV 334 Miscellaneous Letters—Wills—Indentures—Commissions CHAPTER XXVI 362 Genealogical Notes—Sketches of the Welch and Rutherford Families CHAPTER XXVII 383 List of Frederick County Clerk's Fees for the Years 1744, 1757, 1761 and 1762—Lists of Officers of the Virginia Line at Winchester and Fort Pitt in 1783—List of Men Draughted from Hampshire County—Catalogue of the Wood Papers CHAPTER XXVIII — 410 Winchester, England—The Cathedral City and Ancient Capital of England— Situated Amidst the Beautiful Scenery of the Itchen Valley in the Heart of the Sporting County of Hampshire INDEX 431 PREFACE TO THE PAST Whatever of true life there was in thee Leaps in our age's veins; ***** To thee thy dross in clinging, For us thy martyrs die, thy prophets see, Thy poets still are singing. Here, mid the bleak waves of our strife and care, Float the green Fortunate Isles Where all thy hero-spirits dwell, and share Our martyrdoms and toils; The present moves attended With all of brave and excellent and fair That made the old time splendid. —James Russell Loivell And upon "the old time," indissolubly connected with the new, "let there be light." It is the object of this book to present in tangible form letters and other manuscripts pertaining to the lives and times of Colonel James Wood, and of his son, General and Governor James Wood. The papers are published for the first time, and furnish with Win­ chester as a focus an original and incontestable source of informa­ tion upon the Colonial and Revolutionary Periods of our country. It will be noticed that records of the present are for the purpose of bringing subjects to a logical conclusion only or are commemorative of the past; e. g., the addresses of the late Captain Robert Y. Conrad, Miss Kate I. Harris, President Coolidge, and Governor Harry Flood Byrd. The Sesqui-Centennial year, 1926, is distinguished by the flight of Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd and his intrepid pilot, Floyd Bennett, navy machinist, over the North Pole, an event without parallel of its kind in the history of the world. Patriotic societies are the granaries of history in detail; therefore the founding of the Fort Loudoun Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, and of the Laurence Augustine Washington Society, Children of the American Revolution, are given as being commemorative in a marked degree. It was a joy to visit Winchester, England, and to find her glory deeply intrenched in her Cathedral, her College, her Hospital of St. Cross, her Great Hall of Justice, monuments to noble influences 8 WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA, AND ITS BEGINNINGS during a period—reckoning from A. D. 169, when there existed a British church—of one thousand seven hundred fifty and eight years. Her Virginia daughter in the Indian Valley of the Shenandoah, throughout her comparatively brief space of barely one hundred and eighty-four years, has had a goodly share of saintly pastors and layman, noble patriots, gentlewomen, distinguished jurists and strong men of affairs. In these times of shifting standards in religion and morals, may we in Winchester, Va., ask for the "old paths," whose ways are ways of pleasantness and all whose paths are peace. But for the persevering research of Eleanor Offutt Barton (Mrs. I. D.), Flushing, New York, and of Harriot Wood Glass (Mrs. William Blackstone Davis), Washington, D. C, the latter of whom may be said to have "discovered" the papers in an old iron-bound chest in the garret at "Glen Burnie," the book could not have been written. Grateful acknowledgment of assistance is made to Miss Mary I. Bell, Miss Kinnie E. Smith, Miss Camilla C. Rutherford, Dr. Luther W. Welsh, Miss Christine M. Washington, Miss Virginia Lucas, Miss Serena K. (Violet) Dandridge, Mrs. Andrew J. Willis, Miss Lallie Craighill, Mrs. Annie Plummer Johnston, Capt. James S. Phillips, Mr. Harry L. Snyder, Miss Lucy F. Kurtz, Mrs. Julia Washington Fontaine, Miss Maude Patrick, Mrs. Frank B. Crawford, Mr. C. Vernon Eddy, Librarian of the Handley Library, and any others who aided in establishing facts or who lent encouragement to the work. Several Chapters of Part I were printed in The Winchester Evening Star in 1920. The rest of the book appears in print for the first time. THE AUTHOR. Winchester, Virginia, November 6, 1926. PART I CHAPTER I Colonel James Wood's Commissions of 1742 and 1743 — Tradition Concerning His Early Life Now that Winchester sits in state enthroned amid her hundred jeweled hills, let us turn aside from her famous Apple Blossom Festival; from the prospective Shenandoah National Park; from radio, wireless, flying machines and the glare of electricity, and returning to the dawn of her history, study the background of it all. Let us read by tallowdip, torch and lantern, and travel by stage coach and "waggon" through those early scenes as we find them portrayed in the yellowed manuscripts of such patriots as Colonel James Wood and his son, Brigadier-General and Governor James Wood. "Who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?" Manuscripts in museums are difficult to read and are accessible to few. While it is day, let us put into tangible, portable form these relics of a bygone age. We cannot imagine in this day of "special delivery," "night letters," and mail by airplane, the weary waiting for news from the frontier, from the battlefield, from the mother country when letters were sent by "post" or "favored" or "honored" by any officer or other traveler who might be going in the desired direction.