Volume 15 , Issue 8

History of Rockbridge County, Virginia - Town of Lexington

As we continue our history of Rockbridge county, Virginia, we continue with chapter 17, page 147, concerning the town of Lexington, Virginia.

We are reminded that the county of Rockbridge was authorized in 1778, with a population not less than 4,000. The Rockbridge people of that day were altogether rural. The nearest approach to a village was the school hamlet at Timber Ridge. The selection of the plateau at the mouth of Woods Creek was governed partly by the general attractiveness of the spot, but still more because of its central position and its being on the main line of travel between Staunton and the settlements on and beyond the Roanoke. It was also on a direct line of travel tot he Kanawha and the West.

The same Act of Assembly which created Rockbridge provided for laying off into streets and lots a tract of about 27 acres. The net return from the sale of lots was to be applied to lessening the county levy, In the Act the stature-made town is called Lexington. The Lexington of Virginia, like the lexington of Kentucky, appeared to be a namesake of the village in Massachusetts, where the first battle of the Revolution was begun.

The first private owner of the tract was Gilbert Campbell. The property then passed to his son, Isaac, the possessor at the time of the War for Independence. The rectangle of 900 feet by 1,300 feet, provided by the stature, was divided into thirty-six lots, two of these being reserved for the county buildings. The original lots were 128-½ feet broad and 195 feet deep. The three streets running in the longer direction were named Randolph, Main, and Jefferson. The cross streets were called Henry, WAshington,a nd Nelson. With one exception these streets bear the names of Virginia statesmen of the revolutionary period. The boundaries of Lexington were extended in 1847, 1850, 1874 and 1916. The title of the Act of 1850 conveyed no hint that the statute concerned any other town than Clarksburg, the birthplace of Stonewall Jackson. The first care of the county court was to provide for the public buildings. The building was to have been completed by 1 November 1778. Nothing appeared to have been done, for the next year we find the court ordering a courthouse 25 by 30 feet, flanked by two jury rooms, each twelve feet square. A stone foundation was to support a brick wall nine feet high.

The roof was to be in the form of a T and covered with joint shingles. The courthouse now ordered appeared to have been burned in 1787. In that year we find the justices contracting with William Brice to build a courthouse 24 by 30 feet on the ground, and with a wall eighteen feet high. Again the foundation was to be of stone and the wall of brick. Again the courtroom was to be flanked by a jury-room twelve feet square and provided with a chimney. In front there was to be a lobby twelve feet by 24. The courtroom was to contain a gallery, and was to be lighted by two windows taking glass eight inches by ten, but with 24 panes instead of eighteen. Pine flooring and chestnut shingles were to be used.

This second courthouse perished in the great fire of 1796. The justices to draw the plans for still another courthouse and jail were John Bowyer and John and James Caruthers. In 1798 a pillory and stocks were ordered. We are not informed as to the size of the original county boarding house, but in Rockbridge, as elsewhere, an insufficiency of the jail was for years a complaint entered by every incoming sheriff. In 1815 a stove was ordered for the dungeon of jail. A new office for the clerk of the court was ordered in 1845. The present commodious and quite modern courthouse was opened in 1897.

April 11, 1796, the young village was scourged by the fire-fiend. According to one version of the occurrence, some resident had burned the trash in his garden, and the coals were given new life by a rising wind. By another statement the fire began on the lot above the one occupied by the Methodist Church in 1889. The hay in a stable took fire, either from the pipe of a negro hatter or from the embers under a wash-kettle. Both accounts agree that there was a westerly wind. Little could be done to check the conflagration, and it extended as far eastward as the intersection of Main and Henry streets. The courthouse burned down, and for a while the residence of Andrew Reid was used as a substitute.

The disaster of 1796 stimulated the people to devise a means for being less helpless in the event of another fire. So fifty citizens signed in the same year the following petition: "We, the inhabitants of the town of Lexington and its vicinity, under the impression of our late misfortune by fire, and sensible of the great danger to which we are daily exposed form many unavoidable circumstances; do hereby mutually associate ourselves for the purpose of forming a fire company, to be known by the name of the Lexington Fire Company." About thirty years later, another petition said there was an engine and hose, but no fire company. It remakes that the town levy on all real property was three per cent.

A petition on 1801 mentioned an Act of Assembly whereby certain persons named therein were authorized to raise by a lottery $25,000 for the relief of the sufferers by the fire. It goes on to suggest, that as the Act was not carried into effect and the townsmen had in some measure recovered from their loss, the sum named be reduced to $5,000, and be used in building a schoolhouse in the town and in opening roads over South and North mountains.

A much better class of houses appeared to have succeeded those destroyed in the great fire. One Isaac Burr, of New YOrk, who kept a diary on his trip up the Valley of Virginia in September, 1804, said "Lexington is a handsome little village with good buildings." Burr must have been very fond of pie. He complains that the could get none except those made of apple or peach, and even these were exceedingly scarce.

A petition of 1805 finds a grievance int he playing of long bullet, the nature of which seemed now forgotten. It was played so much on the highways and near the town as to endanger the safety of people traveling about. Gambling was a feature of the game. Convictions were hard to secure, and that the practice might be stamped out, the aid of the Assembly was invoked.

For a quarter of a century there was no church building in the town, and religious services, as well as literary societies and singing schools, were held in the courthouse. On Washington's birthday, 1796, the sum f $2,500 was subscribed by forty-five men to erect a Presbyterian Church. The fire which quickly folioed was probably responsible for some delay.

At all events the church was not completed until he fall of 1802. It had an outside gallery and could seat 800 people. It stood near the main entrance tot he present cemetery, and in 1844 was succeeded by the one now in existence. This had been remodeled since the war of 1861. The Presbyterian house of worship had been followed, in the order of their mention, by the Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal and Roman Catholic churches.

Unless the Campbell schoolhouse of 1753 stood near or on the site of Lexington, the one built by William Alexander near where the union station was would appear to have served the needs of the village in its earlier years. Apart front he Ann Smith Academy, the first pretentious effort int he educational line seems to have been in 1819, when the Central School of Lexington was built by an association at a cost of $1,100. IN 1834 it was still in use and incorporation was asked. In 1811 there were eleven mechanics asking leave to incorporate as an association.

There were many merchants for a town of not over 600 people, but the trading was on a small scale. The store of William Caruthers was the largest. Goods were purchased in Philadelphia. Prices were higher than in 1873, and money was scarcer. The town physician was Samuel L. Campbell, an eccentric gentleman of fine sense, kind heart, good culture, and liberal views. His field was a large one, yet there was less sickness than in later years. The able and very genial bar, of which riotous stories were told, consisted of Chapman Johnson, Daniel Sheffey, Briscoe Baldwin, and Howe Peyton. Martin's Virginia Gazetteer of 1835 tells us that Lexington had Presbyterian and Methodist churches, a printing office, five shoemakers, five saddlers, four taverns, four carpenters, three hatters, two tanneries, two tinplate works, two cabinet makers, two wheelwrights, two jewelers, two blacksmiths, and one bricklayer. Three libraries were open to the public. There were about 150 dwellings and nearly 900 inhabitants.

Howe, in his Sketches of Virginia, dated 1845, reported that the town had four churches, two printing offices, and 1200 people. He quotes an English traveler as saying that the town had many attractions. It was surrounded by beauty, and stands at the head of a valley flowing with milk and honey. House rent was low and provisions were cheap, abundant, and of the best quality. Flowers and gardens were more highly prized than in most places.

Before there were banks in the Valley of Virginia it was a custom to conceal money. It was said that when Major William Dunlap died in 1834, there was the sum of $12,000 in spice lying buried on his farm near Goshen. In later years much time was spent by residents of the neighborhood in searching for it. The first bank in Rockbridge was the Lexington Savings Institution, incorporated in 1843, but chartered under a longer name in 1834.

Lexington was incorporated 18 December 1841. On the first Saturday in January, 1842, and every second year thereafter, the free white male housekeepers and freeholders, twenty-one years of age or upward, were to elect seven trustees, these serving two years and our constituting a quorum. They were empowered to appoint a board of three assessors. They could also adopt rules and regulations for the maintenance of order, grade and pave streets, put in waterworks, and proceed against delinquents. Their jurisdiction extended one mile beyond the town limits. They appointed a town sergeant, who acted as constable within the corporate limits.

Lexington had never been an industrial center. It was supported by a considerable country trade and by the two great educational institutions within its confines. The streets are generally paved, and the residence sections include many modern cottages setting back from the sidewalk in very attractive grounds.

We close this chapter on Lexington with a letter written from Lexington while it was yet an infant village: Lexington 1st Feb. 1781

"May it please your Excellency: Accounts from all quarters lead us to expect vigorous measures from our enemies the next campaign, I have just received duplicates of letters sent from our officers of Illinois to others at Louisville which inform that the Spanish & American Illinois Settlements are preparing defensively for heavy attacks. The original letters I hear are sent forward to your excellency. On conferring with Col.s Bowmans & Trigg we concluded it expedient to send 150 men to Garrison the mouth of Licking until Crockett shall arrive which we shall expect weekly. We apprehended the expense would be less to government than to wait until the enemy arrived at our settlements and better conduce to the security of the people. Enclosed are recommendations for certain officers in this county. Would there be any impropriety in sending out some blank commissions as formerly? I would engage that no abuses be committed. There are many vacancies for other officers than those recommended whose ranks are as yet unfilled. I have the honor to be wight he greatest respect. Your excellency's most obedient and humble servant, John Toddys. To Gov. Jefferson."   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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