Volume 18 , Issue 30

1873 - The Great Valley of Virginia

While we were during research into our ancestry pioneers of Virginia, we found this news article in the Staunton Spectator, Staunton, Virginia, dated 4 March 1873, Tuesday, page 1: "The Great Valley of Virginia." It concerned the Shenandoah Valley, its history, agricultural and mineral resources, population, climate, water power, manufacturing capacity and inducements to immigrants, etc...

Found on Newspapers.com

The article described this great valley of the Shenandoah as truly "The Laughing Daughter of the Stars," as the Indians gave poetic meaning to the name - was first penetrated, at lighter Rockfish or Swift Run Gap, in the Blue Ridge range, by Gov. Spottswood - who had been justly called the Tubal Cain of America, for having started the first iron furnace on this continent, in 1714.

In honor of being upon this, then perilous expedition, he was knighted by the King, and dubbed his comrades "Knights of the Horse Shoe," and decorated each with a small golden horse shoe, inscribed "Sic juvat transcended Montes" - some of which were still treasured, as heirlooms in the Berkeley and Brooks' families - his descendants. History tells us that their unshod Tuckahoe horses soon became lame crossing the rocky mountain paths, and that the Governor set the example of hammering shoes for his horse out of the crude ore and fitting them himself, and hence the title given them. This expedition returned with wonderful accounts of the beautiful Valley - its waving, rolling prairies - sparkling streams - herds of buffalo, deer, wild game, and its genial climate. It was some years before any regular settlement was made, and Morgan Morgan, a native of Wales, emigrated from Pennsylvania, in 1726, and built the first house on the South side of Potomac, between Blue Ridge and North Mountains, in Berkeley county, and in 1740, associated with Dr. John Bercox and Mr. Hite, he built the first Episcopal church in the Valley of Virginia.

From 1606, when Jamestown was first permanently settled, it took about 100 years to extend the colony to the Blue Ridge. The settlements on upper Rappahannock branches and in Northern Neck, between this river and the Potomac, were the first to approach this mountain barrier, the ridge being less rugged there, than further to the Southwest. It was first called Sherando Valley, and is so known in original land grants, now in Augusta clerk's office. The adventurous and hardy settlers risked everything to possess themselves of this fair vale and first planted themselves on the rich low grounds of the Sherando, and founded the town of Winchester. This was the oldest town in the Valley, and was a frontier fort till the French were driven out of Canada. Emigrants from Pennsylvania and Europe, was well as lower Virginia came in and the population became a mixture of English Virginians, Germans and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The Germans of Pennsylvania, lvoers of flatlands, poured themselves over and up the rich lands of the North and South branches, on both sides of Massacnutton Mountain, and filled up the Valley for 60 miles, completely occupying the country and swallowing up the few stray English and Irish settlers. They long retained, and some still retain, the German language and simplicity of manners, though both were dying out with railroads and the new life coming in. Ere they reached the head branches of the Shenandoah, however, they were met by a new class of settlers - from Ireland, Scotland and England - who filled up a tract equally as large above them. One John Martin, a trader from Williamsburg to Winchester, was struck with the stories he heard of the uninhabited parts of the Valley, and got John Salling, a bold weaver, to accompany him on an expedition to the waters of the Roanoke. They were captured by the Cherokees, but Martin escaped, while Salling was kept prisoner for three years, going with the Indians to the Salt Licks of Kentucky, to hunt buffalo. He was there captured by a party from Illinois, and adopted among them, and even went as far as the Gulf of Mexico with them. He was bought there by Spaniards for an interpreter, and after two years reached Canada and was sent home to Virginia. In Williamsburg he met two strangers, just from England - John Lewis and John MacKey - and the trio made an expedition across Rockfish Gap. Having the whole Valley before them, Lewis selected his residence on the Belle Fonte Place, two miles from Staunton, on the creek which bears his name, and where the remains of a fort can still be seen, and his grave. MacKey settled near Buffalo Gap, and Salling went fifty miles further up the Valley, to the forks of the North and James Rivers, taking up all the land there, and where his descendants lived until the death of Peter A. Salling, in 1858.

A beautiful mountain peak still bears his name, and the Forks' Farm, 1400 acres, now occupied by the wide of Peter A. Salling - wife of Col. J. Mobler - goes to the defendants of the original Salling, Dr. Peter A. Salling, of Missouri, at her death. In 1736, Lewis met with Ben. Borden, Lord Fairfax's agent in Williamsburg, and bright him to his new home, where he had already taken up 100,000 acres of land, in separate parcels. Borden took Gov. Gooch a Buffalo Calf, which so delighted him that he gave Borden leave to locate 500,000 acres on the Sherando and James, provided he would not interfere with other grants, and would settle 100 families on the lands, for which he was to have 1000 acres adjacent to each home, and the privilege of occupying as much more, at one shilling an acre. This was the price paid for the great "Borden Grant," which would now bring millions. Borden brought out 100 families from Scotland and Ireland, in 1737, and the descendants of these emigrants - the McDowells, Alexanders, Paxtons, Pattons, Moores, Telfords, Mathews, and others, are now scattered from the Blue Ridge to the Pacific. A portion of Augusta was settled with Germans, but for 60 miles the mass was Presbyterian. The descendants of MacKey were still numerous in Rockbridge and well to do, but he, like most of the pioneer tribe of hunters, died poor. About the time Lewis came to Augusta, came in the Stuarts, Smiths, McCallahans, Bells, Brawfords, Cunninghams, Reads, Garbers, and many whose descendants sill lived there or are scattered over the West.

The Lower Valley, settled up with the mixed population already mentioned, and their descendants were still noted for having all the polish of the East Virginians, as well as the sturdy qualities of the Germans. Shenandoah, Page and Rockingham were still in the main German. Before the Revolution the Valley suffered much from Indian wars, and her people furnished the daring fighters who protected the border, and many fell at Point Pleasant and elsewhere. During the Revolution, Major Stuart, grandfather of Hon. A. H. H. Stuart, Capt. Thomas Smith, and the father of Stuart were in the service and at the battle of Guilford C. H. When Tarleton attempted to capture the Legislature of Virginia, which had fled from Charlottesville to Staunton, in 1781, the Valley men rallied to meet him, at the Blue Ridge, and followed his forces far into East Virginia, and it was of this famed "West Augusta" and her men that Washington made his celebrated speech on his retreat from Long Island - "Give me bt a flag," - and to which Governor McDowell alluded in his great speech in Trenton, N.J., after the war. It was not said later, as has been stated by the admiring historian, who was induced to give all the glory of the first settlements, war, of this region to the Lewis family, which, though honorable, did not comprise all the good and great we can boast of in the past.
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