Part 27

The permanent settlement of Loudoun began between the years 1725 and 1730 while the County was yet a part of Prince William and the property of Lord Fairfax, the immigrants securing ninety-nine-year leases on the land at the rate of two shillings sterling per 100 acres. The above-noted interim saw a steady influx of the fine old English Cavalier stock, the settlers occupying large tracts of land in the eastern and southern portions of the County or most of the territory extending from the Potomac River southward to Middleburg and from the Catoctin and Bull Run mountains eastward to the eastern border of the County. It is more to this noble and chivalric strain than to any other that Loudoun owes her present unrivalled social eminence.

John Esten Cooke's faithful and eloquent delineation of Virginia character is peculiarly applicable to this Cavalier element of Loudoun society. Some conception of that author's grandiose style and intimate knowledge of his subject may be gained from the following passage:

"The Virginian of the present time has ingrained in his character the cordial instincts and spirit of courtesy and hospitality which marked his ancestors. He has the English preference for the life of the country to the life of the city; is more at home among green fields and rural scenes than in streets; loves horses and dogs, breeds of cattle, the sport of fox-hunting, wood-fires, Christmas festivities, the society of old neighbors, political discussions, traditions of this or that local celebrity, and to entertain everybody to the extent of, and even beyond, his limited means. Many of these proclivities have been laughed at, and the people have been criticised as provincial and narrow-minded; but after all it is good to love one's native soil, and to cherish the home traditions which give character to a race. Of the Virginians it may be said that they have objected in all times to being rubbed down to a uniformity with all the rest of the world, and that they have generally retained the traits which characterized their ancestors."

The northwestern part of the County, known as the "German Settlement," a section of about 125 square miles, extending from Catoctin Mountain westward to the Short Hill Mountains and from the Potomac River southward to near Wheatland, was originally settled by a sturdy and vigorous race of Germans, principally from Pennsylvania, but a few from New York, in which two colonies they had settled on their arrival, only a few years before, from the Palatine states of Germany. They came to Loudoun between the years 1730 and 1735, about the time of the Cavalier settlements.

These German settlers were a patient, God-fearing people, naturally rugged, and very tenacious in the preservation of their language, religion, customs and habits. Every stage in their development has been marked by a peaceable and orderly deportment--a perfect submission to the restraints of civil authority.

The earliest of these German arrivals, with native foresight and a proper appreciation of the dangers incident to border settlement in that day of bloody Indian atrocities, came to Loudoun in an organized body, embracing sixty or more families.

Many of the males were artisans of no mean ability, and plied their respective trades as conscientiously and assiduously as others, in the rude manner of the times, tilled their newly-acquired acres.

In this way, a congenial, stable, and self-sustaining colony, founded on considerations of common safety and economic expediency, was established amongst these storied hills of frontier Virginia.

Almost simultaneously with these settlements came other emigrants from Pennsylvania and the then neighboring colonies, among them many members of the Society of Friends or Quakers. Not a few of this faith came direct from England and Ireland, attracted by the genial climate, fertile soils and bountiful harvests, accounts of which had early gained wide-spread circulation. They chose homes in the central portion of the County, southwest of Waterford and west of Lessburg, that section being generally known as the "Quaker Settlement."

Each summer brought them new accessions of prosperity and devout brethren to swell their numbers; and soon they had caused the wilderness to blossom as the rose. Here they found freedom of religious and moral thought, a temperate climate, and the wholesome society of earnest compatriots.

Then, as now, a plain, serious people, they have left the impress of their character--thrifty, industrious, and conspicuously honest--upon the whole of the surrounding district.

No concerted violence, it is believed, was offered these settlers by the Indians who seem to have accredited them with the same qualities of honesty, virtue, and benevolence, by the exercise of which William Penn, the founder of the faith in Pennsylvania, had won their lasting confidence and esteem.

The Quaker is a type with which all the world is familiar and needs no particular portrayal in this work. The Quakers of Loudoun have at all times remained faithful adherents of the creed, their peculiar character, manners, and tenets differing to no considerable extent from those of other like colonies, wherever implanted.

It is doubtful if any race has done more to stimulate and direct real progress, and to develop the vast resources of Loudoun, than that portion of our earlier population known as the Scotch-Irish. Their remarkable energy, thrift, staidness, and fixed religious views made their settlements the centers of civilization and improvement in Colonial times; that their descendants proved sturdy props of the great cause that culminated in the independence of the United States is a matter of history.

EARLY HABITS, CUSTOMS, AND DRESS.

HABITS.

The earliest permanent settlements of Loudoun having been separately noted in the foregoing paragraphs a generalized description of the habits, customs, and dress of these settlers, as well as their unorganized pioneer predecessors and the steady promiscuous stream of home-seekers that poured into the County until long after the Revolution, will now be attempted.

The early settlers, with but one class exception, had no costly tastes to gratify, no expensive habits to indulge, and neither possessed nor cared for luxuries. Their subsistence, such as they required, cost but little of either time or labor. The corn from which they made their bread came forth from the prolific soil almost at the touch of their rude plows. Their cattle and hogs found abundant sustenance in the broad pastures which, in the summer, yielded the richest grass, and in the woods where, in the fall, the ground was strewn with acorns and other like provender.

The pioneer lived roughly; the German from the Palatinate kept house like the true peasant that he was; the planter lived somewhat more sumptuously and luxuriously; but, in nearly every case, the table was liberally supplied. Hominy, milk, corn-bread, and smoked or jerked meats seem to have been most popular with the humbler classes.

Ice was not stored for summer use, fruits were few and not choice, and the vegetables limited; our ancestors, at that time, having no acquaintance with the tomato, cauliflower, egg-plant, red-pepper, okra, and certain other staple vegetables of today. The Indians had schooled them in the preparation of succotash with the beans grown among the corn, and they raised melons, squashes, and pumpkins in abundance.

Corn for bread was broken in a mortar and ground in a grater or hand-mill. Mills, in the early days, were few and far apart, some of the back-settlers being compelled to travel many miles for their grist. This condition gave origin to the adage "first come first served," and frequently carried the late arrivals over night and, at times, prolonged the trip to procure a few bushels of meal three or four days. "Band-mills," run by horses, and small water mills, where the situation permitted, came into use to supply the demand of larger ones. The building of a good mill, it must be confessed, was hailed with greater satisfaction than the erection of a church.

The more primitive of these peoples ate from wooden trenchers and platters; sat upon three-legged stools or wooden blocks; used bear's grease in lieu of lard and butter, and cut their foods with the same sheath-knives used in disembowelling and skinning the deer killed by their rifles. They had no money and their scant furniture was essentially crude, sometimes including a few pewter dishes and plates and spoons, but usually nothing beyond wooden bowls, trenchers, and noggins, with gourds and squashes daintily cut. The horse trough served as a wash-basin, and water buckets were seldom seen. The family owning an iron pot and a kitchen table were esteemed rich and extravagant, and china and crockery ware were at once practically unknown and uncraved. Feather-beds and bedsteads were equally eschewed, these hardy men who had conquered the wilderness not disdaining, when night came, to sleep upon a dirt floor with a bear-skin for covering.

With muscles of iron and hearts of oak, they united a tenderness for the weak and a capability for self-sacrifice worthy of an ideal knight of chivalry; and their indomitable will, which recognized no obstacle as insuperable, was equalled only by their rugged integrity which regarded dishonesty as an offense as contemptible as cowardice. For many years they dwelt beyond the pale of governmental restraint, nor did they need the presence of either courts or constables. Crimes against person, property, or public order were of so infrequent occurrence as to be practically unheard of. In moral endowments--even if not in mental attainments--these sturdy pioneers of Loudoun were, it must be admitted, vastly superior to many of those who followed them when better facilities for transportation rendered the County more accessible.

Society before and for many years after the Revolution was easy, agreeable, and somewhat refined. Traveling was slow, difficult, and expensive. For society, the inhabitants were mainly dependent upon themselves; the ties of social life were closely drawn. Books, newspapers, and magazines were rare; men and women read less, but talked more, and wrote longer and more elaborate letters than now. "Cheap postage has spoiled letter writing." Much time was spent in social visits; tea parties, and supper parties were common. The gentlemen had their clubs and exclusive social gatherings, sometimes too convivial in their character, and occasionally a youth of promise fell a victim to the temptations of a mistaken hospitality. "Gaming was more common among respectable people than at the present day."

CUSTOMS.

Of leisure, all classes at all times had a superabundance, and it was cheerfully devoted to mutual assistance without thought of recompense, except in kind. If anyone fell behind through sickness or other misfortune, his neighbors would cheerfully proffer their services, often making of the occasion a frolic and mingling labor with amusement.

On days set apart for the pulling of flax and wheat-cutting, the neighbors and their children assembled in happy mood and as cheerfully applied themselves to their gratuitous tasks. While the men were pulling the flax or reaping and shocking the wheat, the women at the house were preparing the harvest-noon feast. The rough table, for which the side and bottom boards of a wagon were frequently used, was placed when practicable under the shade of a spreading tree in the yard. The visitors contributed from their meagre store such additional dishes, knives, forks, and spoons as were needed. Around the table, seated on benches, stools, or splint-bottom chairs, with such appetites as could only be gained from honest toil in the open field, the company partook of the bounties set before them. These consisted, in addition to the never-failing corn-bread and bacon, of bear and deer meat, turkey, or other game in season, and an abundance of vegetables which they called "roughness." The bread, styled "jonny-cake," was baked on journey or "jonny" boards, about two feet long and eight inches wide. The dough was spread over the boards which were then placed before the fire; after one side was browned, the cake was reversed and the unbaked side turned toward the flames.

However strictly it might be abstained from at other times, a harvest without whisky was like a dance without a fiddle. It was partaken of by all--each one, male and female, drinking from the bottle and passing it to his or her nearest neighbor. Drinking vessels were dispensed with as mere idle superfluities.