The Stronghold: A Story of Historic Northern Neck of Virginia and Its People

TO MY HUSBAND William Harold Haynie AND TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER AND FATHER: Olivia Frances Jett Williams, and Thomas Jackson Williams, of PLEASANT GROVE NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY, VIRGINIA

References have been given for each chapter so that in this way the persons who so kindly gave personal interviews could be recognized specifically.
I wish to express my appreciation to the personnel of the Reference and Circulation Section, General Library Division, of the Virginia State Library, for their splendid service. Without the books from the Library it would have been impossible for me to have accumulated the material for this book.
I wish to thank the Richmond Times-Dispatch , the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star and Virginia and The Virginia County Magazine , for their kind permission to use any material which might be needed from articles written by myself and previously published in those publications.
M. H.
Reedville, Virginia, June, 1959.


I have read with a great deal of pleasure the book called The Stronghold , which relates the history of the Northern Neck of Virginia in story form and was written by my good friend, Miriam Haynie of Reedville, Virginia. Mrs. Haynie is a native of the Northern Neck of Virginia, her family on both sides having settled there in the seventeenth century, and her direct ancestors having remained there until this day. She is the author of a number of articles dealing with the history and traditions and customs of the peninsula between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers that have appeared in the Richmond Times-Dispatch , the Washington papers and national publications. She is devoted to this section of Virginia and has spent a large part of her life in accumulating an enormous fund of historical data of the region.
The Stronghold is a most interesting book, especially to Virginians and to natives and descendants of natives of the Northern Neck of Virginia. It is divided into three sections, the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century. It tells a great deal about the early history of the Colony and more especially of that portion of the Colony of Virginia, of which she is a native, from the days when the white man first came to the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers down to the beginning of the twentieth century. She relates in a most pleasing language the first visits of Captain John Smith to the waters surrounding the Northern Neck, also the capture of Princess Pocahontas by the colonists, which occurred on the Potomac River or on one of its tributaries, and many other events connected with our early history that we are prone to overlook in the rush and whirl of these modern days. Her book will be particularly interesting to children as it is written in simple language and in story form so that a child in the fifth grade may read and understand it. It is a most entertaining and interesting work and will impress upon children the early history of our part of the Colony of Virginia and the hardships endured by our ancestors who came here to settle in the wilderness. In saying that it will be particularly interesting to children I do not mean to restrict interest in the book entirely to children for it will be both interesting and educational to all lovers of history regardless of age.