Legends of Loudoun / An account of the history and homes of a border county of Virginia's Northern Neck

by Harrison Williams

EARLY FEDERAL PERIOD

From the close of the Revolution to the War of 1812, there were at least four outstanding movements in Loudoun: the restoration of the fertility of her soil, the disestablishment of the church, the loss of a substantial part of her area which returned to Fairfax and the erection of large country mansions. The great project of Washington's Potomac Company, involving the extensive improvement of that river for navigation, was not, of course a Loudoun enterprise, although the welfare of her people was greatly affected and such Loudoun men as Joseph Janney, Benjamin Shreve, John Hough, Benjamin Dulaney, William Brown, John Harper, William Ellzey, and Leven Powell were at one time or another, as directors or stockholders, interested in the undertaking.

In the settlement of county, the Virginians from Tidewater had brought with them their improvident methods of farming. From the earliest days, when land was more available than labor, scant attention had been given by the Virginia planter or farmer to the conservation or restoration of the fertility of his soil. A field was planted and replanted to heavy-feeding crops, with perhaps an occasional fallow year intervening; and when the inevitable result registered itself in the falling off of production to a point where the planting of that field became unprofitable, it was abandoned and new ground broken up to be put through the same disastrous course. Rotation of crops and the manuring of the land were seldom, if ever, practiced outside perhaps the Quaker and German Settlements. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, so far had this reckless agriculture gone, that even the fertile lands of the Piedmont were recording the result in no uncertain manner. The yield of corn and wheat to the acre had been steadily declining, followed by an emigration of many of the Loudoun people to Kentucky and elsewhere. It was then that there arose in the county a farmer and leader who, measured by the results of his work, may be considered as the most valuable man to her own interests that Loudoun has thus far produced. John Alexander Binns was the son of Charles Binns, the first clerk of Loudoun and of his wife, Ann Alexander, a daughter of "John Alexander the Eldest of Stafford County. Gent." as he is described in a deed to his daughter in 1760. The son was born probably about 1761, although the exact date seems uncertain. In March, 1781, he was, as we have seen, recommended by the County Court of Loudoun to the governor for appointment as a first lieutenant in the Virginia forces and at the same time his brother, Charles Binns, Jr., later to succeed his father as county clerk, was recommended for a commission as second lieutenant. After the war, John Binns turned his attention to farming and grappled with the problem of restoring the fertility of the soil. He had learned of the use of land plaster (gypsum) and clover for that purpose in the Philadelphia neighborhood, whence it is said the system had been brought from Leipsic in Saxony. As early as 1780 he began his experiments, using not only the land plaster and clover but practicing deeper ploughing and rotating crops. At first he was, of course, ridiculed by his farmer neighbors, for the reluctance of the husbandman to change his methods is an old, old story. But Binns persisted. As he improved one farm and his profits rose, he purchased other worn-out lands from their discouraged owners and in time was profiting handsomely from his intelligence and industry. At length, in 1803, his labors crowned with success and the agricultural wealth of his home county rapidly rising as a result of his long and patient work, he sat himself down to write the story of what he had accomplished. His little book was printed in a very small edition, due probably to the high price and scarcity of paper, and was offered for sale at fifty cents, under the comprehensive title "A Treatise on Practical Farming, embracing particularly the following subjects, viz. The Use of Plaster of Paris, with Directions for Using it; and General Observations on the Use of Other Manures. On Deep Ploughing; thick Sowing of Grain; Method of Preventing Fruit Trees from Decaying and Farming in General. By John A. Binns Of Loudoun County, Virginia, Farmer." It was published at "Frederick-Town, Maryland," and "Printed by John B. Colvin, Editor of the Republican Advocate, 1803." "The little book" writes Rodney H. True "is now hard to find and the first edition, but for the copy preserved by Jefferson and now treasured among the great man's books in the Library of Congress, would well-nigh be lost."

Thomas Jefferson, with his restless intelligence, was one of the first to acquire the book. Having studied it and being impressed with Binns' success, he wrote to Sir John Sinclair, the head of the English Board of Agriculture, a letter dated the 30th June, 1803, sending with it

"the enclosed pamphlet on the use of gypsum by a Mr. Binns, a plain farmer, who understands handling his plough better than his pen. he is certainly something of an enthusiast in the use of this manure; but he has a right to be so. the result of his husbandry prooves his confidence in it well found for from being poor, it has made him rich. the county of Loudoun in which he live(s) exhausted & wasted by bad husbandry, has, from his example, become the most productive one in Virginia: and its lands, from being the lowest, sell at the highest prices. these facts speak more strongly for his pamphlet than a better arrangement & more polished phrases would have done. were I now a farmer I should surely adopt the gypsum...."

On the same day, in a letter to Mr. William Strictland, another member of the English Board of Agriculture, Jefferson wrote

"You will discover that Mr. Binns is an enthusiast for the use of gypsum, but there are two facts which prove that he has a right to be so 1. he began poor and has made himself tollerably rich by his farming alone. 2. the county of Loudoun, in which he lives, had been so exhausted & wasted by bad husbandry, that it began to depopulate, the inhabitants going Southwardly in quest of better lands. Binns' success has stopped that immigration. it is now becoming on(e) of the most productive counties of the state of Virginia, and the price given for the lands is multiplied manifold."

Sir John Sinclair in his reply to Mr. Jefferson, whom he addresses as "His Highness, Thomas Jefferson" wrote from Edinburgh under date of the 1st January 1804:

"On various accounts I received with much pleasure, your obliging letter of the 30th June last, which only reached me, at the place, on the 19th November. I certainly feel highly indebted to Mr. Binns, both for the information contained in the pamphlet he has drawn up; and also, for his having been the means of inducing you to recommence our correspondence together, for the purpose of transmitting a paper which does credit to the practical farmers of America.

"As to the Plaster of Paris, which Mr. Binns so strongly recommends, it is singularly, that whilst it proves such a source of fertility to you, it is of little avail in any part of the British Islands, Kent alone excepted. I am thence inclined to conjecture, that its great advantage must arise from its attracting moisture from the atmosphere, of which we have in great abundance in these Kingdoms...."

But it is time to turn to Binns' own record of his work. How desperately poor the yield of grain had become in Loudoun is shown by his statement that some of his unplastered land yielded but five bushels of wheat to the acre and not more than three bushels of corn on a place so worn out, when he took it over in 1793, that his friends thought he "must starve on it." By 1798 he was getting from that farm 15¹/₂ bushels of corn to the acre and the next year, on that corn land, had 27 bushels of heavy wheat per acre. In another place he notes: "I put a parcel of it" (plaster) "on some corn in the hill which produced about 22 bushels, the other part of the field yielding about 12 bushels to the acre."

As an interesting sidelight he indicates that tobacco was being grown around Leesburg at that time. In 1803, as he wrote his book, he expected a crop of 40 bushels of wheat per acre on his farms. And by way of summarizing his work

"There are several places on the Catocton Mountain, that some few years past the corn stalks, when the tops were taken off, were not above three feet high, and which would not produce more than two or three barrels of corn to the acre, and from 5 to 6 bushels of wheat; and perhaps not yield grass enough to the acre to feed a horse for two weeks after the harvest was taken off; but from the use of plaster will now produce from six to eight barrels of corn, and from twenty to twenty-five bushels of wheat per acre; the luxuriant growth of the white and red clover after harvest gives the fields which once looked like a barren waste of country, the appearance of a beautiful meadow."

And upon sanitation he has this to say:

"... These circumstances made me anxious to cleanse my stables, stockyards, cow-pens, hog-pens, wood-yards and ash-heaps by the first June. This rule I have always followed ever since I began to farm for myself, and can say that my family have never experienced an intermittent or remittent" (fever) "unless attacked with them from home first, and upon their return they have immediately left them. In my travels where ever I have discovered those kind of fevers, I have always observed either dirty, filthy stables, hog-pens or water standing in their cellars or ponds of water not far off; I have also observed those places most liable to dysentaries...."

In contrast to present-day views, he was wholly opposed to growing rye on Loudoun lands, believing that it impoverished the soil and that wheat yielded more in bushels; that rye destroyed grass and clover and injured orchards. He approved the growing of wheat and oats in orchards to maturity and strongly recommended the use of plaster in them.

The result of Binns' work was acclaimed throughout Virginia. His methods became known as the "Loudoun system" and the term became as significant and popularly familiar as the "Norfolk system" of farming in England. Of his work and his book True says:

"In spite of the fact that 'it is not written in a scholastic style,' few books have been written in which more sound practical agriculture is crowded into so small a space. Binns' chapter on the life history of the Hessian fly stands as a piece of careful observation that might have done credit to Dr. Thomas Say himself. The three fundamental supports on which agriculture prosperity in Loudoun County rests were never more clearly or soundly appreciated: gypsum, clover and deep plowing. This was the background of the famous 'Loudoun System' which came to be recognized as the progressive practice for that part of the country a hundred years ago."[122]

Binns died in 1813. His will, dated the 11th January in that year, was offered for probate on the 1st November following. In it he makes provision for freeing his slaves after a certain period. As he left his estate to his wife and nieces, it is surmised that no children survived him. The family, however, is still represented in Loudoun. Captain John A. Tebbs, U.S.M.C., is a descendant of Charles Binns, Jr., the younger brother of our agronomist.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that religious thought and observance were at a low ebb in Virginia in the latter part of the eighteenth century. It was an age of transition, in some respects not unlike that of today. Old ties were being broken, tradition and old-time loyalties no longer received their former adherence. No small responsibility attaches to that negligent and selfish minority of the clergy of the colonial church and to an equally reprehensible element in the early Federal days for remissness in their duties; and their culpable behavior tends to attract more attention than the loyal devotion of the majority of their brethren. It was inevitable that the established church should be regarded as a part of the repudiated British government and when its civil powers and ecclesiastical predominance were taken from it and much of its property ruthlessly confiscated, there ensued a period of confusion in religious matters, with an unfortunate colouring of vindictive animosity on the part of other communions. Concurrently the spread of Methodism took from the older church many of its erstwhile adherents. Indeed, for a disconcertingly long period after its "erection" in 1758, Leesburg appears to have had no building devoted to religious purposes, services, when held, having been at the courthouse. Cresswell, in his journal, confirms this as does the first Shelburne Vestry book and also an advertisement in Leesburg's 'True American' of the 30th December, 1800: "The Reverend Mr. Allen" it reads "intends to perform divine service in the Court House, on the 4th January, at half past eleven o'clock; he also proposes preaching every fortnight from that date." This situation was repaired between 1780 and 1785, when the Methodists, organized as a separate denomination in 1784, erected their stone church on Cornwall Street with galleries around three of its sides and with its interesting old-fashioned sounding board, which church came to be endowed with many associations until its needless destruction about 1901. Then, in 1804, the "Presbyterian Society of Leesburg," which had probably existed since 1782, was more formally organized as a church by the Rev. James Hall, D.D., of Concord, North Carolina, at that time the Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly. The erection of the present quaint old brick church on Market Street, the oldest church building now standing in Leesburg, had already been begun in 1802 and was completed in 1804. It was dedicated in May, 1804, by Dr. Hall. Its first pastor was the Rev. John Mines, who served until 1822 and the first Elders were Peter Carr, Obadiah Clifford, and John MacCormack. Through the courtesy of the Presbyterians, their neighbors of the Episcopal faith held their services from time to time in this old church until the erection of the first Saint James Church on Church Street in 1812, long delayed because of conflicting views as to whether the new building should be in town or country.

This first Saint James Church "was built of brick and quite small, the windows not arched and there was a yard in front. This church was torn down in 1836 and a new one, much wider and larger built, the foundation brought more to the front. It was enlarged in 1848, the vestibule built over the remainder of the yard, bringing the front of the church even with the street."[123] This building continued to be used until the present Saint James Church of gray stone on the corner of Cornwall and Wirt Streets was completed in 1897.

To the diversity in origin of the county's population frequent reference has been made. The inhabitants of the southern part were far more in sympathy in political philosophy, in manner of living, in agricultural practices and in traditional background with the people of Fairfax than were they with, perhaps, the majority of the heterogeneous population of upper Loudoun. Also their leaders belonged to the class which has ruled in Tidewater Virginia since its English beginnings and they none too willingly faced the prospect, after the Revolution, of dividing their authority with and perhaps losing their dominance to the upper-country people. In 1782 they sought to create a new county coextensive with Cameron Parish; failing in that, a compromise was reached in 1798 by which the erstwhile area of Loudoun, south of Sugar Land Run, was returned to Fairfax—"All that part of the County of Loudoun" reads the act of division "lying between the lower boundary thereof and a line to be drawn from the mouth of Sugar Land Run, to Carter's Mill on Bull Run, shall be and is hereby added to and made a part of the County of Fairfax."[124] This action had the immediate result of greatly strengthening the political power of the Quakers, Germans and Scotch-Irish in the remaining part of the county and correspondingly diminishing the influence of the descendants of the old Tidewater aristocracy there.

In the year 1787 Colonel Leven Powell laid out the town of Middleburg on the road running to Ashley's Gap, for his purpose devoting fifty acres on the southerly edge of the 500 acre tract of land he had purchased from Joseph Chinn in 1763;[125] the town, of course, obtaining its name from the position it occupied approximately halfway between the major towns of Alexandria and Winchester as well as halfway between the courthouses of Loudoun and Fauquier. The first trustees were Francis Peyton, William Bronaugh, William Heale, John Peyton Harrison, Burr Powell, Josias Clapham, and Richard Bland Lee.[126]

The much older town of Waterford did not receive formal legislative sanction until 1801. Then by the fifth section of an act of the Legislature, the place is recognized as already in existence: "the lots and streets as the same are already laid off at the place known by the name of Waterford." The first trustees were James Moore, James Griffith, John Williams, and Abner Williams. Section 7 of the act further provided "that as soon as Mahlon Janey and William Hough, shall lay off into lots with convenient streets, so much of their lands not exceeding ten acres adjoining the said town of Waterford, the same shall thence-forth constitute and be deemed and taken as a part of the said town."[127]

The next year another old settlement was, in its turn, given legislative acknowledgment. Hillsborough, somewhat belatedly, was "established" on twenty-five acres already divided between a score or more of owners: Mahlon Hough, Thomas Purcell, the representatives of John Jenny (sic), deceased, Thomas Leslie, Thomas Hepburn, Joseph Tribby, Josiah White, John Foundling, Edward Conrod, Mahlon Roach, Thomas Stevens, Thomas Hough, Samuel Purcell, John Wolfcaile, Richard Matthews, James Prior, John Stevens, Richard Copeland, and Mahlon Morris. The first trustees were Mahlon Hough, Thomas Purcell, Thomas Leslie, Josiah White, Edward Conrod, Mahlon Roach, and Thomas Stevens.[128]

In 1810 Aldie makes its appearance. It was laid out by Charles Fenton Mercer, a great Loudoun figure in his day,[129] on a part of his plantation to which he had given the name of Aldie in tribute to Aldie Castle in Scotland, the seat of that Mercer family from which he believed himself descended. The act of establishment describes the town's location as "thirty acres of land lying on the westerly extremity of the Little River Turnpike road, in the county of Loudoun, the property of Charles F. Mercer, as soon as the same shall be laid off into lots with convenient streets." The Little River Turnpike road had been extended to that point but a few years before. The town's first trustees were named as Israel Lacey, William Cook, Matthew Adams, John Sinclair, James Hexon, David Gibson, Charles F. Mercer, and William Noland.[130]

Bluemont, under its earlier name of Snickersville which it bore until the year 1900, was established in 1824. As early as 1769 Edward Snickers had obtained a grant from John Augustine Washington of 624 acres at this point and before and after that time had acquired other lands in the neighbourhood. He it was who, according to our local tradition, conveyed the first bushel of wheat easterly across the Blue Ridge and gave his name not only to the village but to the gap through the Blue Ridge and, on the other side, to the historic ferry across the Shenandoah which he owned for many years. He was born about 1735, married Elizabeth Toliaferro about 1755 and died in 1790. In 1806 a postoffice had been established at the little village with Lewis Stevens acting as postmaster. When the town came to be formally "established" in 1824, its location was described as being upon "ten acres at the entrance of Snickers Gap, of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the county of Loudoun, property of Amos Clayton, Martha Clayton, William Woodford and others, as soon as the same shall be laid off into lots with convenient streets and alleys." The first trustees were James Cochran senior, Craven Osburn, Mordecai Throckmorton, Stephen Janney, Doctor E. B. Brady, Amos Clayton, and Timothy Carrington.[131]

The above list, with Leesburg, is the roll of earlier incorporated towns of the county. Hamilton (1875), Lovettsville (1876), Purcellville (1908), and Round Hill (1900), as the dates indicate, were not formally organized until much later. The pleasant little village of Lincoln remains unincorporated.

As the eighteenth century neared its end, an increasing number of representatives of the Tidewater gentry came to Loudoun and with their neighbours already living there, built far more pretentious homes than the county had theretofore known. As has been stated in the preface, to tell something of the stories of these old estates was the original incentive to the writing of this book; but those stories, involving as they do their share of romance, tragedy and drama, must in their more extensive narration, be left for a later volume. It is appropriate however, in this place, to very briefly comment on a few of these old plantations.

Springwood

Among the newcomers, in this post-revolution period, was Colonel Burgess Ball, a great-grandson of that dignified old aristocrat Colonel William Ball of Millenbeck on the Rappahannock, in Lancaster County, who had come to Virginia in 1657. During the Revolution Burgess Ball had served on the staff of General Washington, his first cousin, then as a captain in the Continental Line and later had raised and equipped a Virginia regiment at his own expense and served with it as lieutenant colonel. After the war, his health broken and his generous fortune seriously impaired by his expenditures for military purposes and by his extravagant hospitality at his home, Travellers Rest in Spotsylvania County, he in 1795, was obliged to seek refuge in what was still known in Tidewater as the Loudoun wilderness. On the 4th November, 1795, he purchased for £1741 (the proceeds of his back pay for military services it is said) from Abraham Barnes Thomson Mason, only acting executor and trustee under the will of Thomson Mason, a tract of 247 acres including the Great Spring and running to the Potomac. Here Colonel Ball either built a rustic lodge for his home or, as has been surmised, occupied and improved the old home of Francis Aubrey, calling his estate Springwood. On that same 4th November, 1795, there was purchased in trust for Colonel Ball from Stevens Thomson Mason by William Fitzhugh, Mann Page, and Alexander Spotswood "three of the trustees appointed by an Act of General Assembly to sell certain lands devised by James Ball deceased to his grandson Burgess Ball for his life," another tract of 147 acres about two miles north of the Great Spring for £441, current money of Virginia. Other adjacent tracts were purchased by Colonel Ball or by his trustees until he controlled a very large estate from the Great Spring to the Limestone Run of the most fertile land in the county.[132] Far from his old military companions, he kept up a correspondence with them in his distant abode and many of them visited him there from time to time; for whether surrounded by the refinements of Travellers Rest or the wilderness of Springwood, Colonel Ball's lavish hospitality was a part of the very man himself. He died on the 7th March, 1800, and was buried just outside the graveyard surrounding the old chapel above Goose Creek on the hill above the Great Spring. This first Springwood dwelling was not on the site of the present mansion but is believed to have been on the south side of the present road on what is now a part of the Big Spring estate, in recent years known as Mayfield. The existing Springwood residence was built by George Washington Ball, later Captain C.S.A., grandson of Colonel Burgess Ball, between 1840 and 1850. Louis Philippe is said to have been an overnight guest there and, during the Civil War, General Lee, a cousin of Captain Ball who had served on his staff, held a military conference in the present dining room. The estate was acquired in 1869 by the late Francis Asbury Lutz of Washington who substantially remodelled the mansion very soon thereafter. Since then it has been in the possession of the Lutz family, its present occupants being Mrs. Samuel S. Lutz, her son-in-law and daughter, Judge and Mrs. J. R. H. Alexander and the latter's two sons.

Raspberry Plain

The genesis of Raspberry Plain, just north of Springwood, has already been given. As shewn in Chapter VII, the property had been originally acquired from Lord Fairfax by Joseph Dixon in 1731 and he had sold the farm which he had improved with a dwelling, orchard, etc., to Aeneas Campbell in 1754. Campbell, as we have seen, was Loudoun's first sheriff. He maintained the county jail and the ducking-stool at his home while he held that office. He sold the place in 1760 to Thomson Mason. So far the residence, long since vanished, was near the large spring, now a part of Selma. Mason is said by T. A. Lancaster, Jr., to have built a new house about 1771 (on the site of the present beautiful home). He then conveyed it to his son Stevens Thomson Mason, subsequently confirming his action in his will. Later, according to local tradition, another Mason descendant, Colonel John Mason McCarty was living there when he killed his cousin, General A. T. Mason in the famous duel in 1819, perhaps as a tenant, for the county records show that in 1830 the estate, then of about 250 acres, was conveyed by the executors of General Mason's will to George, John, Peter and Samuel Hoffman of Baltimore for $8,500. It remained in the Hoffman family for over eighty-five years and until sold by the Hoffman heirs on the 29th April, 1916, to Mr. John G. Hopkins who built the present imposing brick edifice of colonial architecture. The estate was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. William H. Lipscomb of Washington in 1931 and, until Mrs. Lipscomb's death, was the scene of many a gay and picturesque hunt breakfast given in honour of the Loudoun Hunt of which Mr. Lipscomb was Master.

Oatlands. Built by George Carter from 1800 to 1802. Now the home of Mrs. W. C. Eustis.

Belmont

Ludwell Lee, a son of Richard Henry Lee, built Belmont in 1800 and lived there until his death in 1836. He rests in its garden. Soon after he died the estate was acquired by Miss Margaret Mercer who, born in 1791, was the daughter of Governor John Francis Mercer of Cedar Park, Maryland. Miss Mercer conducted a school for young ladies at Belmont until her death in 1846. She was a woman of broad education with pronounced views on the abolition of negro slavery and she it was who built the nearby Belmont Chapel on a part of her estate. After passing through the hands of many owners the property was purchased in 1931 by Colonel Patrick J. Hurley, Secretary of War under President Hoover, and since then he and Mrs. Hurley have made it their country home. For several years he has invited the Loudoun Hunt to hold its annual horse show there.

Coton

Across the highway Thomas Ludwell Lee, cousin to Ludwell Lee, about the same time built his home Coton, naming it after an English home of the earlier Lees. On Lafayette's visit to America in 1825, he was a guest of Ludwell Lee and a great festival, in honor of his visit, was staged at both Belmont and Coton. It is said that after nightfall a double line of slaves, each holding aloft a flaming torch, was stationed between the two mansions to light the way of the celebrants as they passed from one house to the other. The original mansion has long since disappeared save for parts of its foundations. A second mansion was later erected on another part of the estate and in turn was destroyed by fire. The present stone dwelling, the third to bear the name, was erected by Mr. and Mrs. Warner Snider, the present owners of the estate, in 1931.

Oatlands

George Carter, great-grandson of Robert Carter, the "King Carter" of early Colonial days, received in 1800 from his father, Councillor Robert Carter of Naomi Hall, a tract of 6,000 acres south of Leesburg, a small part of the vast Carter holdings. Upon this land during the ensuing two years he built Oatlands, the most pretentious and elaborate of the Loudoun homes of that day. George Carter did not marry until attaining the discreet age of sixty years when he took as his bride Mrs. Betty Lewis, a widow, who had been a Miss Grayson. Both George Carter and his wife are buried in the gardens of Oatlands. The estate was acquired in 1903 by the late William Corcoran Eustis of Washington and is now the country home of his widow under whose care both residence and extensive gardens retain their justly celebrated charm and beauty. Mrs. Eustis, a daughter of the late Levi P. Morton, at one time Governor of New York and later Vice-President of the United States, has long been the Lady Bountiful of Loudoun. None of the county's residents has ever equalled her benefactions to its poor and to its public institutions of every kind.

Rokeby

Rokeby, on the old Carolina Road south of Leesburg, so long the home of the Bentley family, also belongs to this period. It acquired its claim to fame during the War of 1812 when, in 1814, President Madison, in expectation of the capture of Washington, sent many of the more valuable Federal archives, including the Declaration of Independence and, it is said, the Constitution of the United States, to Leesburg for safekeeping whence they were removed to Rokeby and stored for two weeks in its vaults. It is now the home of Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Nalle who, upon its purchase by them many years ago, made great changes in the old building.

Foxcroft

When, in the year 1914, Miss Charlotte Noland purchased the lovely old estate of Foxcroft, four miles north of Middleburg, there began a new era both in its interesting story and in the educational standards of Loudoun. No modern institution of the county has spread more generally knowledge of its charms than the famous school which Miss Noland then founded; and it is particularly appropriate that the institution should owe its inception and development to one who in singular degree is a representative of Loudoun's founders. Those Loudoun citizens of today who trace their descent to one of the earlier Nabobs of the county feel a complacent satisfaction therein; but Miss Noland unites lineal descent not only from Francis Aubrey and Philip Noland but from Colonel Leven Powell and Burr Harrison, the earliest explorer, as well, thus inheriting an early Loudoun background believed to be unique.

Photograph by Miss Frances B. Johnston
Foxcroft, Garden Front.

As is the case with so many of the older houses of the county, the age of Foxcroft and the identity of its builder are uncertain; but the local tradition is that it is one of the earliest of the many old brick houses to be found in that part of the county and that its builder was one Kyle who had married a daughter of the Balls. The story goes on that Mrs. Kyle lost her mind after the birth of one of her children and that for a long time thereafter she was enchained in the garret of the old house until, during the absence of her husband on a journey, she freed herself and fell to her death down the stairs. Another local story is that the building of the house was under the supervision of William Benton, the land-steward and friend of President Monroe who, it is said learned brick-making in his native England, discovered good brick-clay in the Middleburg neighborhood and made the brick for most of the early brick houses in that part of the County.

With these local stories as a guide, an examination of the county records show a John Kile to have been a purchaser of land as early as 1797 and also a deed to John Kile from William Shrieves, then of Kentucky, on the 8th February, 1814, of 189 acres "on the waters of Goose Creek" for £320. The description, running as it does from one marked tree in the forest to another, requires a long search and careful plotting to definitely place the property, but it suggests the Foxcroft estate. That these Kiles or Kyles were quite certainly people of standing is indicated by their marriages. John Kile, Jr., presumably the son of the first John Kile, married Winney Powell, a daughter of Elisha Powell and her sister Mary became the wife of Pierce Noland.[133] It all goes to suggest that the old Foxcroft mansion was built by John Kile from brick made under the supervision of William Benton sometime during the 1820's.

Foxcroft School has become so much a part of Loudoun that it is as difficult to picture the Middleburg neighbourhood without it as it would be to think of Middleburg without its famous fox-hunting. The school has eighty-five students, representative of the most prominent families in the United States from coast to coast, with students from abroad as well and there is always a long waiting list of applicants for admission. A healthy outdoor life is combined with carefully planned study. The young ladies are all expert riders, follow the Middleburg Hunt at its numerous meets and every year, since 1915, have their own horse show in May at Foxcroft which is always a brilliant affair.

Llangollan

Llangollan was built about 1810 by Cuthbert Powell, (1775-1849) a son of Colonel Leven Powell from whom he had inherited the land upon the latter's death at Fort Bedford, Pennsylvania, on the 6th August, 1810. Few families in Virginia are more deeply rooted in her history than the Powells. Captain William Powell, who, as a gentleman adventurer, accompanied Captain John Smith to Virginia in 1607 is claimed in the family chronicles to be one of the clan. Whether he was kinsman to that Nathaniel Powell who was with Smith in his brush with the Manahoacs on the Rappahannock in the summer of 1608 does not appear. After spending some years in business pursuits in Alexandria, Cuthbert Powell returned to Loudoun where he served as a justice, represented the county in the Virginia Legislature as a Whig and was a member of Congress from 1841 to 1843. Chief Justice Marshall once described him as "the most talented man of that talented family." In 1930 Llangollan was acquired by Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney of New York who have greatly enlarged the old stone mansion and made the estate the home of one of the most famous racing establishments in America. They organized in 1932 and hold there each year the Llangollan Gold Cup races.

The Front Porch at Rockland, Home of the Rusts. Built in 1822 by General George Rust and still owned by his family.

Morrisworth

The 750 acres which originally composed Morrisworth were given by William Ellzey to his daughter Catherine who married Mathew Harrison of Dumfries. After his death his widow, with her children, took possession of her patrimony and in 1811 built thereon the main part of the stone mansion. There she resided for the remainder of her life and reared her large family. Her children continued to own the estate until they sold it about 1870 to their kinsman Dr. Thomas Miller of Washington who, dying about two years later, never resided there. He left the property to his daughters, the mansion and about 550 acres going to Miss Virginia Miller and Mrs. Arthur Fendall. In turn these ladies deeded the estate in 1900 to Mrs. Fendall's son Thomas M. Fendall, the present owner, who, in 1915, added the south wing to the house. Mr. and Mrs. Fendall have greatly enlarged and developed the gardens, specializing in iris to such an extent that Morrisworth has become widely known not only for the beautiful scene when the five thousand plants are in bloom but for the many new varieties of iris originated there.

Chestnut Hill

Chestnut Hill near the Point of Rocks, so long identified with the Mason Family, is another of the mansions built about 1800. Samuel Clapham, the son of the second Josias Clapham, was the builder on land he had acquired in 1796 from his father. It came to Thomas F. Mason through his marriage to Betsey Price, a granddaughter of the second Josias as related in Chapter VII. It is now owned and occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Coleman Gore.

Rockland

Rockland, four miles north of Leesburg, was built by General George Rust in 1822 on land acquired by him in 1817 from the heirs of Colonel Burgess Ball and is unique among the county's old estates in that today it still is owned by a descendant of its builder, Mrs. Stanley M. Brown, who before her marriage was Miss Elizabeth Fitzhugh Rust, the only child of the late owner, Mr. Henry B. Rust. Mr. and Mrs. Brown, with their children, spend each summer at Rockland. The 419 acres of the present estate border for a long distance on the Potomac and are regarded as equalling in fertility any land in the county. During the War Between the States the old house witnessed the alternate passing and repassing of the armies of the North and South in front of it along the old Carolina Road. Hospitality and gracious living have long been synonymous in Loudoun with the very name of Rockland.

General George Rust (1788-1857). The builder of Rockland.

Exeter

The plantation that became Exeter was inherited by Mary Mason Seldon; a sister of Thomson Mason, from their mother Ann Thompson Mason. This Mary Mason Seldon married, first, Mann Page and upon his death took as her second husband her first cousin Dr. Wilson Cary Seldon who, born in 1761, had served as surgeon in a Virginia artillery regiment during the Revolution. Though she had children by Page and none by Seldon, the latter secured this land and between 1796 and 1800 built the main frame dwelling with its pleasing design and interesting detail. The large brick extension in the rear was added by General George Rust about 1854 during his ownership of the estate. By his second wife, Dr. Seldon had a daughter, Eleanor, and it was at Exeter on the 16th February 1843, that she married John Augustine Washington, the last of his family to own and occupy Mount Vernon. When the War Between the States broke out, he at once volunteered for service, became an aide on the staff of General Lee with the rank of lieutenant colonel and was killed in a small engagement, which otherwise would have been unimportant, at Cheat Mountain, now West Virginia, on the 13th September, 1861. In 1857 Exeter was purchased by the late Horatio Trundle. It was inherited by his son Mr. Hartley H. Trundle who with his family resides there.

Selma

Selma, another part of Mrs. Ann Thomson Mason's great purchase of "wild lands," saw its first mansion built between 1800 and 1810 by General Armistead Thomson Mason, United States Senator from Virginia (affectionately known as "the Chief of Selma") when he was killed by his cousin, John Mason McCarty, in the famous duel at Bladensburg on the 6th February, 1819. He had inherited the land from his father Stevens Thomson Mason of Raspberry Plain. The property was purchased in 1896 by the late Colonel Elijah B. White, who afterward represented the Loudoun district in the Virginia Senate and was for many years a prominent Leesburg banker. He was a son of the much-loved leader of White's Battalion in the War of 1861. Upon his purchase of the estate, Colonel White built the present stately mansion, so famed for its hospitality, in which he incorporated parts of the older house, burned some years before. Selma is now owned by Colonel White's widow (who before her marriage was Miss Lalla Harrison) and his daughter, Miss Elizabeth White. It long has had the reputation of being one of the most fertile and successfully managed farming estates in the East.

Aldie Manor

Aldie Manor, in the present town of Aldie, was built by Charles Fenton Mercer and named for Aldie Castle in Scotland, the home of the Mercer family. The town in turn was named for the estate and the Magisterial District in which both lie is named for Mercer. The mansion has long been owned and occupied by the diZerega family.

Morven Park

Morven Park was acquired by Governor Thomas Swann of Maryland who, about 1825, built the imposing mansion there. It was inherited by his daughter who became the wife of Dr. Shirley Carter and for many years much of the neighbourhood's social life centered about it. In 1903 this estate of over 1,000 acres was purchased by Mr. Westmoreland Davis, later Governor of Virginia, who now resides there and carefully supervises the many and varied agricultural activities of his domain.

Oak Hill, North Front. Built by President James Monroe in 1820. Now the home of Messrs. Littleton.

Oak Hill

But to the nation the best known of all the old homes of Loudoun has always been Oak Hill. When James Monroe, after long years of service to his country, came to look forward to his retirement, he owned a large tract of land on the Carolina Road nine miles south of Leesburg, long in the possession of his family, which had occupied a dormer-windowed cottage there. On a gentle elevation on the plantation, President Monroe, in the year 1820, erected the great brick house, three stories in height with its porticos and Doric columns which he named Oak Hill. It was designed by Monroe's friend Thomas Jefferson and the plans were completed by James Hoban the designer and builder of the White House and the supervising architect of the Capitol. President Monroe employed William Benton, an Englishman (who is said to have "served him in the triple capacity of steward, counsellor and friend") to superintend the construction of the mansion under Hoban's supervision and to manage the extensive farming operations of the estate which he did most successfully. It was here that President Monroe wrote his famous message to Congress, delivered in December 1823, embodying what since has been known throughout the world as the "Monroe Doctrine" and it was here also that he entertained Lafayette in 1825. Mrs. Monroe died at Oak Hill in 1830. On Mr. Monroe's death in 1831, the property went to his daughter Mrs. Gouveneur of New York by whom it was sold in 1852 to Colonel John M. Fairfax, who set out the large orchard of Albemarle Pippins some of the fruit from which, sent to Queen Victoria gave her such pleasure that thereafter it enjoyed her preference over all other apples. Later when his son, the much-loved State Senator Henry Fairfax, owned the estate he became known throughout the nation for the Hackney horses he raised there. In 1920 the property was acquired by Mr. and Mrs. Frank C. Littleton who greatly enlarged the old building by the extension of both wings. When Mr. Littleton was quarrying sandstone on the place in 1923 there were found numerous imprints of prehistoric dinosaurs—the first known evidence that these monsters had inhabited this portion of the eastern part of the present United States.

The estate took its name from a group of oaks planted on the lawn by President Monroe, one from each of the then existing States, each tree presented to him for that purpose by a congressman from the State represented.

Mrs. Littleton died in 1924. Mr. Littleton and his son Frank C. Littleton, Jr., continue to make the historic old place their home, carrying on extensive farming operations on its broad acres.

On the 20th March, 1793, the first postoffice was established in Leesburg. The first postmaster was Thomas Lewis, who was succeeded on the 1st April, 1794, by John Schooley, who in turn gave way to John Shaw on the 1st April, 1801. Then came Thomas Wilkinson on the 1st April, 1803; William Woody on the 1st January, 1804, and Presley Saunders on the 12th February, 1823.

At the end of the eighteenth century Loudoun was, in politics, a Federal stronghold. Colonel Leven Powell has long been credited with being the founder of that party in the county. The momentous election for members of the Convention of 1788 was bitterly fought. Stevens Thomson Mason and William Ellzey, both lawyers, were opposed to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. For its adoption stood Colonel Powell and Colonel Josias Clapham. Both of the latter, as we have seen, were old soldiers but no match as orators to their opponents and thus were at a great disadvantage in the contest. Powell's great personal popularity alone is said to have secured his election. Mason also won but the county remained so strongly Federal that its vote dominated its Congressional District.

When war with Great Britain was forced upon us in 1812, a cavalry regiment was raised in Loudoun of which Armistead Thomson Mason of Selma became colonel. But the incident in that war which most prominently stands out in Loudoun's memory came in 1814.

Oak Hill. East Drawing Room, showing mantel presented to Monroe by Lafayette, and other historical furniture.

After the American forces under General William H. Winder had been defeated by the British at Bladensburg in August of that year, it was apparent that the capture of Washington was highly probable. Madison's Secretary of State, James Monroe, had been in the camp of General Winder, closely studying with him the enemy's movements and seeking to appraise the ability of the Americans to successfully defend the Capital. That he was not reassured by what he thus learned is shewn by the letter he sent to President Madison wherein he advised him to remove from Washington the government's more important records. The President recognized, none too soon, the imminence of the danger. The more valuable of the government archives were ordered to be taken from Washington and Stephen Pleasanton, then a clerk in the State Department, was placed in charge of their removal. He caused to be made a large number of linen bags in which were placed the government's books and documents, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. It is said that the painting of Mrs. Dolly Madison, hanging in the White House, was cut from its frame and accompanied the government's records. Some accounts aver that, so numerous were the archives, twenty-two two-horse wagons were used in their transportation from Washington; others who have written of the incident say that four four-horse wagons only were used, while still others claim the method of transportation to have been by ox-teams. However they were carried, they left Washington across the old Chain Bridge and sought their first safety in the grist mill of Edward Patterson on the Virginia side of the Potomac two miles above Georgetown. So threatening was the British advance, however, that it was deemed prudent to carry the precious cargo further up-country; the wagons were duly reloaded and the caravan continued to Leesburg, where the sacks were placed for one night in the courthouse according to some writers or, on the authority of others, in a vacant building in the town, the key of which was given to a certain Rev. Mr. Littlejohn, a young clergyman then recently ordained. The next day the sacks were again placed in the wagons and driven to the nearby plantation of Rokeby where in its vaults they were stored for two weeks until it was safe to return them to Washington.

During those two weeks President Madison was a guest of Ludwell Lee at Belmont, whence he directed National affairs; and ever since that time it has been a primary and essential asseveration in the credo of every true Leesburger that the town was, during that stirring fortnight, the de facto Capital of the United States.

Proud as that memory may be today, the event itself is said to have caused great anxiety to the more substantial citizens of the town and nearby country for fear lest their sudden prominence in the affairs of the nation would invite a swift and disastrous foray upon them by the temporarily triumphant Britons; a denouement which, happily, did not ensue.

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