Part 26

The Church, with her faiths, her sacraments, and a part of her ministry, was an integral part of the colonization of the County from the beginning and continuously. Everywhere, with the spreading population, substantial edifices for public worship were erected and competent provision made for the maintenance of all the decencies and proprieties of Christian religion. The influence of these institutions, and of the faith which they embodied, was most benign and salutary. They gave to the age of the Revolution its noble character and its deep-seated principles, the force and momentum of which have come down, with gradually decreasing power, to our own day. But with these institutions and with their proper effect and influence was mingled the fatal leaven of secularity.

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All the leading denominations are represented in Loudoun by churches and congregations to the extent shown by the following table of statistics, representing conditions as they existed at the close of the calendar year 1906, and based upon the returns of individual church organizations so far as received by the Census Office, through which Bureau they were obtained for initial publication in this work.

=========================================+==============+============ | Total |Communicants | number of | or members. Denomination. |organizations.|------------ | |Total number | |reported. -----------------------------------------+--------------+------------ All denominations | 97 | 7,606 Baptist bodies: | | Baptists-- | | Southern Baptist Convention | 11 | 1,199 National Baptist Convention | | (colored) | 15 | 1,235 Free Baptists | 2 | 55 Primitive Baptists | 6 | 171 Friends: | | Society of Friends (Orthodox) | 2 | 122 Religious Society of Friends | | (Hicksite) | 3 | 278 Lutheran bodies: | | General Synod of the Evangelical | | Lutheran Church in the United | | States of America | 4 | 645 Methodist bodies: | | Methodist Episcopal Church | 19 | 1,179 Methodist Episcopal Church (South) | 21 | 1,716 Colored Methodist Episcopal Church | 1 | 45 Presbyterian bodies: | | Presbyterian Church in the United | | States (South) | 4 | 345 Protestant Episcopal Church | 7 | 416 Reformed bodies: | | Reformed Church in the United States | 1 | 140 Roman Catholic Church | 1 | 60 -----------------------------------------+--------------+-------------

Leesburg is the oldest Methodist territory in the bounds of the Baltimore Conference in Virginia, and it was here that the first Methodist Conference held in the State convened May 19, 1778.]

Historical.

FORMATION.

In 1742, Prince William County, a part of the stupendous Culpeper grant, was divided and the county of Fairfax created and named in honor of its titled proprietor. Commencing at the confluence of the Potomac and Occoquan rivers, the line of demarcation followed the latter stream and its tributary, Bull Run, to its ultimate source in the mountain of that name, from which point it was continued to the summit of said mountain, pursuing thereafter a direct course to the thoroughfare in the Blue Ridge, known as "Ashby's Gap."

In 1757, Fairfax was divided and the territory west of its altered boundary christened "Loudoun County." The new line followed the stream called Difficult Run, from its junction with the Potomac to its highest spring-head, and from that point was continued in a direct line to the northeast border of Prince William County. This boundary was afterwards changed and the present line between Loudoun and Fairfax substituted (see "Boundaries," page 17).

The following are excerpts from the proceedings of the Virginia House of Burgesses that led to the creation of Loudoun County in May, 1757. The act authorizing the division of Fairfax and establishment of Loudoun is given intact:

On April 20, 1757, a "petition of sundry Inhabitants of Fairfax County, praying a Division of the said County, was presented to the House and read, and referred to the Consideration of the next Session of Assembly."

On Friday, April 22, 1757, "Mr. Charles Carter, from the Committee on Propositions and Grievances, reported, that the Committee had had under their Consideration divers Propositions, from several Counties, to them referred, and had come to several Resolutions thereupon, which he read in in Place, and then delivered in at the Table, where the same were again twice read, and agreed to by the House, as follow:"

"Resolved, That the Petition of sundry Back-Inhabitants of the said County of Fairfax, praying the same may be divided into two distinct Counties, by a Line from the Mouth up the main Branch of Difficult-Run to the Head thereof, and thence by a streight Line to the Mouth of Rocky-Run, is reasonable."

The following Monday the bill was again presented to the House by Charles Carter, of the Committee of Propositions and Grievances, and Friday, April 29, 1757, was ordered engrossed and read a third time.

Monday, May 2, 1757, the engrossed Bill, entitled, "An Act for dividing the county of Fairfax," was read a third time, passed by the House, and sent to the Council for their "concurrence." It received the assent of the governor Wednesday, June 8, 1757.

An Act for Dividing the County of Fairfax. (Passed May 2, 1757.)

I. WHEREAS, Many inconveniences attend the upper inhabitants of the county of Fairfax, by reason of the large extent of the said county, and their remote situation from the court-house, and the said inhabitants have petitioned this present general assembly that the said county may be divided: Be it, therefore, enacted, by the Lieutenant-Governor, Council, and Burgesses of this present General Assembly, 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 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 thereof below the said run and course, shall be one other 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 the 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 proportionably for a greater or lesser quantity, 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 assembly, intituled, 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.

DERIVATION OF NAME.

Loudoun County was named in honor of Lord Loudoun, a representative peer of Scotland, who, the year before its establishment, and during the French and Indian war, had been appointed captain-general and governor-in-chief of the province of Virginia, and commander-in-chief of the British military forces in the Colonies.

His military avocations, however, prevented him from entering upon the duties of the gubernatorial office, and it is believed that he never visited the colony of Virginia. Dinwiddie continued in the control of its affairs, while Loudoun turned his attention to military matters, in which his indolence, indecision, and general inefficiency were most conspicuous and disastrous. Franklin said of him: "He is like little St. George on the sign-boards; always on horseback, but never goes forward."

Until his early recall to England, contemporaneous writers and brother officers mercilessly criticised Loudoun "whom a child might outwit, or terrify with a pop-gun."

Hardesty's Historical and Geographical Encyclopedia contains the following succinct account of the public services rendered by this noted Scotchman:

"John Campbell, son of Hugh, Earl of Loudoun, was born in 1705, and succeeded his father in the title in November, 1731. In July, 1756, he arrived in New York with the appointment of governor-in-chief of Virginia, and also with the commission of commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, but, proving inefficient, returned to England in 1757. He was made Lieutenant-General in 1758, and General in 1770. He died April 27, 1782, and was succeeded by Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, as governor of Virginia, in 1768."

SETTLEMENT AND PERSONNEL.