Volume 14 , Issue 53

History of Rockbridge County, Virginia - Calfpasture

This week our journey through the History of Rockbridge County, Virginia, by Oren F. Morton,written, published back in the early 1900's, brings us to Chapter X, "The Calfpasture" with the early settlement around the pastures, pioneer history, emigration and the Patton and Lewis Survey.

Geographically distinct from the rest of Rockbridge,and not properly a part of the Valley of Virginia, is the section of the county west o of North Mountain and above the lower Goshen Pass. In the very dawn of settlement it became known as the Calfpasture, or simply as "the Pastures," because it already comprised a large area of open ground. Its leading watercourses were first known as "the Great River of the Calfpasture" and "the LIttle River of the Calfpasture." It will thus be seen that the valley named the streams and not the steams the valley. In what manner the names Calfpasture, Cowpasture and Bullpasture came into existence is not clearly known. The cow pasture was first known as Clover Creek and the Bullpasture as Newfoundland Creek.

Great and Little rivers head in Augusta and Mill Creek in Bath. But the larger and more important share of the Calfpasture basin lies in Rockbridge county. In the timbered and sparsely peopled valley of Bratton's Run was the resort of Rockbridge Alum Springs. At the mouth of Mill Creek was the town of Goshen. A little above was Panther Gap, utilized but he first railroad to cross the Alleghanies in this latitude. On Great and Little rivers was a considerable area of low-lying land, somewhat thin, but otherwise well suited to agriculture.

Why this section of the Pastures was included in Rockbridge was not very obvious. It was doubtless the work of influential men. We know that some of the inhabitants did not like being placed in this county. We also know that when he people of the Bath area began moving for a new county in 1777, they wished the Calfpasture to be a part of it. The people of the Pastures seem to have been about evenly divided on the question of becoming a part of Rockbridge.

The records of the paent county, especially the muster rolls of 1742, do not indicate such early settlement. From another source we learn that the first settler was Alexander Dunlap, who came in 1743. He was accompanied by his wife, four children, and an indentured servant, Abraham Mushaw. At this date there was no settler any farther west. Dunlap's cabin stood near the spot occupied by the Alleghany Inn in the early 20th century. Next year, James Patton and John Lewis, acting under an order of council, surveyed a tract nearly fifteen miles long, but nowhere more than about one and one-eighth miles broad. Their map showed it cross-sectioned into twenty-three lots. The lower end of the grant included the site of the town of Goshen. The upper end extended rather to the north of Deerfield. With a single exception every lot had been entered by some settler. From this circumstance we may infer that these other people came almost as soon as Dunlap.

Other settlers were the Armstrongs, Blacks, blairs, Clarks, Craigs, Elliotts, Fultons, Hamiltons, Hendersons, Johnstons, McConnells, McCutchens, McKnights, Meeks, Mateers, Moores, Risks, Smiths, Stevensons, Walkups, and Youells.

Alexander Dunlap, a man of some means, was appointed a captain of horse in 1743, but died the following year. He was succeeded in this position by William Jameson. Thomas Gilham qualified as captain of foot in 1752, and James Lockridge and Robert Bratton in 1755. James Lockridge and William Jameson were named as members of the first county court of Augusta in 1745. The latter acted as a justice in 1747, but it was not known whether Lockridge qualified.

According to a statement by a daughter of James Gay, the pioneer, there was a stockade not he Calfpasture during the French and Indian war.

The first mill seemed to have been that of James Carter. It was probably built about 1745. Some ten years later, Andrew Lockridge had a gristmill.

Charles Knight was mentioned as a schoolmaster in 1755. He was to have $6 a year, every half Saturday or every other Saturday rob e free time. In case of an Indian alarm he was to enjoy the privilege of being lodged in the settlement. But it was not probable that he was the first teacher.

Rocky Spring Church was built on an acre deeded by Andrew Kincaid, 1773, to the trustees of a congregation of dissenters. These trustees were James Bratton, Lancelot Graham, Andrew Hamilton, Thomas Hughart, William Kincaid, and Andrew Lockridge. Lebanon Church was organized in 1784 at the home of William Hodge. The first elders were William you'll, Alexander Craig, John Montgomery, John McCutchen, Joseph McCutchen and Samuel McCuthen. The first meeting house stood close to the Augusta line, the second a half-mile to the south and in Rockbridge. As a consequence there were two cemeteries. The will of John Dunlap, written in 1804, provided a sum to build a gallery for the negro worshippers. John Montgomery, for a while a teacher in Liberty Hall Academy, was the first minister. John S. McCutchen was a successor. But the first congregation on the Calfpasture was that of Litte River. The meeting house land was mentioned in deeds about 1754. John Hindman preached in the vicinity as early as 1745.

Partly as a result of its only moderate fertility, the Calfpasture had been a great fountainhead of emigration to newer localities, especially Kentucky and Tennessee. Major Samuel Stevenson, who had moved to the Greenbrier, headed in 1776 an expedition to the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. He was accompanied by James Gay, WilliamElliott, and Benjamin Blackburn. William Campbell, a wheelwright, was picked up as the party went throughout he wilderness. One of the members said "Blackbrun was so stiff with fear we could hardly get him along."

In the spring of 1784, Stevenson settled in Woodford county, the "Asparagus Bed" of the Bluegrass State. He was preceded a few weeks by Alexander Dunlap, Jr., and James Gay, Jr. The wives of Stevenson and Dunlap were sisters to Gay, who was axon of James Gay and his wife, Jean Warwick.

Pisgah Church, said to be the first Presbyterian organization in Kentucky, was founded the same year. Its first minister was Adam Rankin, who came from Rockbridge. Pisgah academy, founded by Gay, Dunlap, and Stevenson, developed into Transylvania University, as Liberty Hall Academy developed into Washington and Lee University. The region around was settled almost wholly from Rockbridge and its neighboring counties. The following names, from the membership of Pisgah Church in 1808-1826, would be recognized as occurring in the pioneer annuals of Rockbridge: Aiken, Alexander, Allen, Brown, Campbell, Carr, Dunlap, Elliott, Gay, Hamilton, Holman, Kinkead, Kirkham, Logan, Long, Matin, McClung, McClure, McCullough, McPheeters, Renick, Ritchie, Smith, Steele, and Taylor.

The bears sprang form Blastus Baer, a Mennonite who came from Germany in 1740 and settled in Page county in 1763. Jacob, a son, married a daughter of a Mennonite minister and came tot he Calfpasture in 1788. Their sect was but slightly represented here, and the Bears attached themselves to other churches.

Robert Bratton, who married the widow of Alexander Dunlap, Sr., was one of four brothers. Samuel remained in Mifflin county, pennsylvania; James, who married Dorothy Fleming, settled near Christiansburg. Three sons of another brother, went to South Carolina. Captain Robert brat ton was a man of wealth and distinction.

Archibald Clendennin lived in this valley before moving to the lower Cowpasture, where he died in 1749. Archibald, Jr., was the most conspicuous victim in the Greenbrier massacre of 1763. Charles, another son, gave his name to the capital of West Virginia.

Captain James Coursey came from Orange and married as his second wife the widow of Robert Dunlap. A great grandson was Major O. W. Coursey, of South dakota, a soldier, educator and historian.

Samuel Ebberd came form Maryland.

Captain Thomas Gilham had seven sons and two sons-in-law in the armies of the Revolution. The family moved first to South Carolina, but afterwards to the north of Illinois. John Graham and his family experience a great storm during their voyage from Ulster. John appears to have been a brother-in-law to William Elliott and John Armstrong of the Calfpasture. Elliott was born in 1699. William and Graham were brothers to John. Christopher Graham, who died in 1748, was probably the father of Robert Graham of the Bullpasture, and the wife of Joseph Walkup.

John Hepler came from Pennsylvania.

Daniel Hite, otherwise Hight, was a son of Daniel Heydt, a German who settled in the Luray valley.

William Jameson was commissioned coroner in 1753, and seemed to have died the same year. A grandson of the same name owned valuable property on the border of the city of St. Louis. Timothy Flint, the historian, called one of his daughters a "rose of the prairie," and said of the Jameson family, "a group of more beautiful children I have never known." The pioneer Lockridges were the brothers, James, Robert and William. William lived first in the Borden grant. The descendants were most numerous in the West. Colonel John Lockridge was a pioneer of Sangamon county, Illinois. Another Colonel Lockridge figures in early Texas history. Andrew Y. Lockridge, a grandson of Major Andrew Lockridge, son of James, was a noted missionary to the Cherokee Indians.

Five brothers of the name of McCutchen came to this part of Virginia. Robert settled on Little River, Samuel in the Borden grant, and William, James, and John in Beverly Manor. James died in 1759, and his sons, James, John and Patrick went to Washington county. The descendants of the five pioneers were numerous, widely scattered and include persons of mark. One of these was Robert Barr McCutchen, a distinguished writer.

The McConnells, who founded McConnell's Station, now Lexington, Kentucky, previously lived on Kerr's Creek, as well as the Calfpasture.

Moses McIlvain located in this valley in 1763. While prospecting in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky, in 1779, he was captured by Indians, but was released at the inters cession of a trader by the name of McCormick, who had known McIlvain in Ireland. McIlvain married Margaret, a daughter of Samuel Hodge, of the Calfpasture, and settled anew in Woodford county, Kentucky.

Timothy McKnight came from Ulster. His son John merchant of St.. Louis and trader to Santa Fe, was a heavy owner of realty in and near the Missouri metropolis. Robert, another son, settled in Chihuahua, Mexico, as a merchant and mine owner, and married a Spanish lady. Thomas settled in Iowa and was the first candidate for governor of that state on the Whig ticket. James remained on the Calfpasture, but his son John joined his uncle at Chihuahua and became a wealthy merchant. Rebecca, a daughter, married William McCutchen, and the wife of William W. Rucker, Congressman from Missouri, was a great-granddaughter.

Five Walkups, James, Joseph, John, Margaret, and the wife of John Graham, Jr., were brothers and sisters and came to Little River about 1748. Captain James moved to the Waxhaw settlement, North Carolina, 1755, where he was a large planter and slaveholder. Samuel M., a grandson, was an antiquarian of that state. Joseph, son of John, was a lieutenant-governor of California, and was said to have refused an election to the senate of the United States. For several decades there was much confusion in the spelling of the family surname. Professor Wauchope, a distinguished literary critic of the South, had returned to the orthodox Scotch orthography. The appropriateness of doing so was very much open to question. The form Walkup was free from strangeness, and to the American ear is the closest possible approximation to the Scottish pronunciation. The phonographic value of the word Wauchope is unmistakable in Scotland, but not in America. In this connection it may be remarked that those German families who in years past modified the spelling of their surnames pursued a wise course. It was a practical step in Americanization.

William Warwick had four children. Jean and Martha were killed by the Indians about 1759. John settled in Kentucky in 1784. Jacob was an extensive owner of realty and livestock in Pocahontas. The widow of William Warwick married Andrew Sitlington of Bath.

J. Fulton Whitlock, otherwise Tarleton Whitlock, came front he east of Virginia. William Youell settled on the Calfpasture about 1771.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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