Albemarle County in Virginia

^^m ITD ^ ^/-^7^ Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.arGhive.org/details/albemarlecountyiOOwood ALBEMARLE COUNTY IN VIIIGIMIA Giving some account of wHat it -was by nature, of \srHat it was made by man, and of some of tbe men wHo made it. By Rev. Edgar Woods " It is a solemn and to\acKing reflection, perpetually recurring. oy tHe -weaKness and insignificance of man, tHat -wKile His generations pass a-way into oblivion, -with all tKeir toils and ambitions, nature Holds on Her unvarying course, and pours out Her streams and rene-ws Her forests -witH undecaying activity, regardless of tHe fate of Her proud and perisHable Sovereign.**—^e/frey. E.NEW YORK .Lie LIBRARY rs526390 Copyright 1901 by Edgar Woods. • -• THE MicHiE Company, Printers, Charlottesville, Va. 1901. PREFACE. An examination of the records of the county for some in- formation, awakened curiosity in regard to its early settlement, and gradually led to a more extensive search. The fruits of this labor, it was thought, might be worthy of notice, and productive of pleasure, on a wider scale. There is a strong desire in most men to know who were their forefathers, whence they came, where they lived, and how they were occupied during their earthly sojourn. This desire is natural, apart from the requirements of business, or the promptings of vanity. The same inquisitiveness is felt in regard to places. Who first entered the farms that checker the surrounding landscape, cut down the forests that once covered it, and built the habitations scattered over its bosom? With the young, who are absorbed in the engagements of the present and the hopes of the future, this feeling may not act with much energy ; but as they advance in life, their thoughts turn back with growing persistency to the past, and they begin to start questions which perhaps there is no means of answering. How many there are who long to ascertain the name of some ancestor, or some family connection, but the only person in whose breast the coveted knowledge was lodged, has gone beyond the reach of all inquiry. How many interesting facts of personal or domestic concern could have been communicated by a parent or grandparent, but their story not being told at the opportune season, they have gone down irrecoverably in the gulf of oblivion. Public affairs are abundant y recorded. Not only are they set forth in the countless journals of the day, but scores of ready pens are waiting to embody them in more permanent form in histories of our own times. Private events— those connected with individuals and families—are less frequently tradition committed to writing. They may descend by through one or two generations, and then perish forever IV PREFACE from the memory of mankind. Some general facts may be found in local records ; but memorials of this kind are dry and monotonous in their nature, and never resorted to by ordinary readers. Their contents are soon lost sight of except by the antiquarian, or by those who are compelled by professional duty to unearth them from the forgotten past. Such considerations induced the collection of the facts compiled in this volume. They were taken mainly from the county archives ; in cases where they were derived from tradition, or where suggestions were made from conjecture, it is generally so stated. Except in a few particulars, the narra- tive was not designed to extend to the present generation. Some matters that may be of interest to many, may be found in the appendix. To some now living in the county, and to others descended from those who once lived in it, the long list of names therein inscribed may show in some meas- ure how their ancestors were employed, whither their wander- ings led, or at what time they passed away from the present scene of action. July 1st, 1900. CHAPTKR I. The settlement of Virginia was a slow and gradual pro- cess. Plantations were for the most part opened on the water courses, extending along the banks of the James, and on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. It was more than a century after the landing at Jamestown before white men made the passage of the Blue Ridge. As soon as that event was noised abroad, it was speedily fol- lowed up, and in the space of the next twenty years the tide of population had touched the interior portions of the colony, one stream pushing westward from the sea coast, and another rolling up the Shenandoah Valley from the wilds of Pennsylvania. Besides the restless spirit animating the first settlers, the occupation of the country was hastened by the rage for spec- ulation. The laws of the colony allotted fifty acres for every person transported into its territory ; and men of wealth, in addition to availing themselves of this provision, largely invested their means in the purchase of land. While the wilderness was thus peopled, the institutions of civil government did not linger far behind. As growing numbers reached the frontiers, and were removed a great distance from the seats of justice and trade, these necessities of civilized life were soon established. One by one, the older counties were cut in two, the limits of the new ones stretch- ing westward as far as the limits of the colony itself. Those recently formed were at first represented by public buildings made of logs, and by the scattered clearings and cabins of the pioneers ; but men of knowledge and experience were always at hand to hold the reins of government and admin- ister the laws. At once the courthouse was erected, and the power of the magistrate exerted to preserve peace and order in the community. The county of Goochland was formed in 1727, a little more than ten years after Gov. Spotswood's expedition to the Blue Ridge. The first settlements within the present 2 HISTORY OF ALBEMARLE bounds of Albemarle were made v^^hile they were still parts of that county and Hanover. They ascended the courses of the South Anna, the James, the Rivanna and the Hard- ware, and were met by others proceeding from the foot of the Blue Ridge, and planted by immigrants who had come up the Valley, and crossed that mountain at Woods' Gap. The first patents were taken out on June 16, 1727. On that day George Hoomes obtained a grant of thirty-one hundred acres "on the far side of the mountains called Ches- cut, and said to be on the line between Hanover and Spot- sylvania," and Nicholas Meriwether a grant of thirteen thousand seven hundred and sixty-two acres "at the first ledge of mountains called Chesnut," and said to be on the same line. That was the first appropriation of the virgin soil of Albemarle, as it is at present. These locations occurred in the line of the South Anna River, up which the increasing population had been slowly creeping for a number of years. The patent to Nicholas Meriwether included the present seat of Castle Hill, and the boundaries of the Grant, as it was termed by way of eminence, were marks of great notoriety to surveyors, and others interested in the descrip- tion of adjacent lands, for a long period afterwards. The next patent for twenty-six hundred acres was obtained nearly two years later by Dr. George Nicholas. This land was situated on James River, and included the present village of Warren. In the year following, 1730, five additional patents were issued : one to Allen Howard for four hundred acres on James River, on both sides of the Rockfish at its mouth ; one to Thomas Carr for twenty-eight hundred acres on the Rivanna at the junction of its forks, and up along the north fork ; one to Charles Hudson for two thousand acres on both sides of the Hardware, the beginning evidently of the Hudson plantations below Carter's Bridge; one to Secretary John Carter for nine thousand three hundred and fifty acres "on the Great Mountain on Hardware in the fork of the James," and to this day called Carter's Mountain; and one to Francis Eppes, the grandfather of Mr. Jefferson's son-in-law of the same name, for six thousand four hundred HISTORY OF ALBEMARLE 3 acres "on the branches of the Hardware, Rockfish, and other branches of the James" —one of the branches of Hard- ware being still known as Kppes Creek. The same year Nicholas Meriwether located four thousand one hundred and ninety acres more, adjoining his former tract, and running over the South West Mountain on Turkey Run, taking out an inclusive patent for seventeen thousand nine hundred and fifty-two acres in one body. From the recital of this patent, it appears that Christopher Clark was associated in the first grant, although it was made out to Nicholas Meriwether alone. In 1731 only three patents were obtained within the present county : one by Charles L,ewis for twelve hundred acres on both sides of the Rivanna, at the mouth of Buck Island Creek ; one by Charles Hudson for five hundred and forty acres on the west side of Carter's Mountain; and one by Major Thomas Carr for two thousand acres "on the back side of the Chesnut Mountains." Several other patents were taken out the same year along the Rivanna within the present limits of Fluvanna County, one of which was by Martin King, whose name is still kept in remembrance in connection with the road which runs from Woodridge to the Union Mills, where was a ford also called by his name.

Load more