RECOVERY
From east to west, from north to south, her farm lands ravaged, plundered and made desolate, many of her sons dead or incapacitated by wounds or sickness, her barns, outbuildings and fences burned, her horses, cattle and other livestock stolen, confiscated or wantonly driven away, Loudoun presented, in that summer of 1865, a sad and dispiriting contrast to the fruitful abundance of five years before. By the terms of the surrender at Appomattox the Southern cavalryman had been allowed to retain the horse or horses owned by him; but as the infantry started on their long trudge homeward, they carried with them little beyond the ragged clothes they wore and their determination to begin life anew. How slowly and with what unremitting toil and self-denial the ruined farms were restored, the fields again made to yield their corn and wheat and clover, rails split to rebuild the vanished fences, makeshifts at first and then better structures erected to replace those burned, only the people who lived through those years of poverty could tell; and on that slow path upward from ruin and desolation the part borne by the women equalled, perhaps surpassed, that enacted by the men. The County still reverently relates the uncomplaining toil and sacrifices of mothers, wives and daughters during that grievous time.
Bad as conditions were for the majority, they were even worse for the large landowners, the former wealthier class. Gentlefolk, wholly unused to manual labor, perforce turned to tasks theretofore the work of their slaves. The men ploughed and hoed, their women cooked, performed every household task and somehow kept up their homes. One of the few bright spots in the drab picture was that dwelling-houses seldom had been destroyed; thus at least there was human shelter. Also the small towns and hamlets, having escaped the devastation of the farm lands, were to a certain extent nuclei from which the new life could be built.
County government had well-nigh ceased to function during the war. All those who had borne arms against the United States or otherwise aided and abetted the Confederacy—that is, a very definite majority of the men of the county—now found themselves disfranchised; the minority of Union men, Quakers, Germans or others who had discreetly avoided acting with one side or the other, controlled the first local election after the peace. It was held on the 1st day of June, 1865. The court record, after a long silence and copied into its books later, begins again on the 10th of the following month:
"At a County Court held for Loudoun County on Monday the 10th day of July, 1865, present: George Abel, R. M. Bentley, Francis M. Carter, John Compher, Thomas J. Cost, John P. Derry, Enoch Fenton, Herod Frasier, Fenton Furr, Henry Gaver, John Grubb, William H. Gray, Eli J. Hoge, Joseph Janney, Alexander L. Lee, Charles L. Mankin, Asbury M. Nixon, Rufus Smith, Basil W. Shoemaker, Jno. L. Stout, Mahlon Thomas, Lott Tavenner, Henry S. Taylor, Michael Wiard, Jno. Wolford, Thomas Burr Williams and James M. Wallace. Gentlemen Justices elected who were on the 1st day of June 1865 duly elected Justices of the peace for the County of Loudoun, and who have been commissioned by the Governor, were duly qualified as such Justices by William F. Mercer, one of the Commissioners of Election for said County, appointed by the Governor by taking the several oaths prescribed by law."[180]
The new county officers were William H. Gray, presiding justice of the court; Charles P. Janney, clerk of the county; Samuel C. Luckett, sheriff; William B. Downey, commonwealth's attorney; Samuel Ball, commissioner of revenue.
On the 11th July, 1865, there appears the following:
"George K. Fox Jr., as Clerk of this Court having removed from the County the records of this Court, under an order of Court heretofore made, he is now ordered to return the said records to the Clerks office as soon as possible."[181]
These instructions were carried out by Mr. Fox. For over three years he had guarded his trust, without opportunity to return to Leesburg or see a member of his family during that time. He now found himself disfranchised; but between him and Charles P. Janney the new county clerk, who before the war had worked in his office, there was a strong friendship so that Mr. Janney appointed Mr. Fox his assistant, in which position he served until his reëlection as county clerk, which occurred as soon as the civil disabilities of the former Confederates were removed. He continued as county clerk until his death on the 14th of December, 1872, at the early age of forty years. How truly valued was he in Loudoun was shown at his funeral which is said to have been the largest the county had known to that time.
On the 2nd March, 1867, the Congress passed that indefensible Reconstruction Act which was to leave more bitterness in the South than the war itself, but, in all that followed, Virginia suffered less than other States of the old Confederacy. Under that act Virginia became Military District Number One and General John M. Schofield, formerly the head of the Potomac Division of the Federal Army, was given command. His choice was a most fortunate one for Virginia. Of him Richard L. Morton writes:
"He was conservative, just and wise; and it was due to his moral courage that Virginia was spared the reign of terror that existed in most of the Southern States during the Reconstruction period. His policy was to gain the confidence and support of the people of the State and to interfere as little as possible with civil authorities."[182]
General Eppa Hunton came to know him well and between the two men there developed mutual respect and friendship. Hunton, in his biography, has this to say of conditions under Schofield's rule:
"Fortunately for us the commanders in this district were good men—not disposed to oppress us—and we had for several years a fairly good military government in Virginia—our judges were military appointees; our Sheriff and all the officers in this State owed their appointment to the military Governor of Virginia. Our military judge was Lysander Hill. We had great apprehensions of him as our circuit judge when he took the place of Judge Henry W. Thomas, of Fairfax, but Hill turned out to be a first rate man and a fine judge. He was the best listener I ever addressed on the bench. His decisions were able and generally satisfactory. He certainly was not influenced in the slightest degree by politics on the bench—(Schofield) tried in every way to mitigate the hardships of our situation and gave us the best government that was possible under the circumstances."[183]
But even Schofield could not protect Virginia from the more vicious legislation of the unscrupulous radicals then in control in Washington. At the close of the war the necessities of the situation were working out, in Virginia at least, a reasonable and moderate readjustment of relations between the white people and the former slaves. The negroes looked to their old masters for employment and the whites, in their own great poverty, gave to them what they could; and while wages were very low, the negro was assured of shelter and food. The enfranchisement of the negroes in March, 1865, the establishment of the Freedman's Bureau in the following June but more particularly the organization of the Union League late in 1866 broke down the friendly relations between the races. The representatives of those politically begotten organizations taught the ignorant and always credulous negroes that the whites were their enemies and oppressors, discouraged them from working and persuaded them to ally themselves with the disreputable "carpetbaggers" and "scalawags" who were perniciously active in their efforts to foment trouble, for their own profit, between white and black. The worst results were registered in the eastern and southern parts of the State where the more extensive of the old plantations and consequently the densest negro population existed; in Loudoun, most fortunately, there was little or no racial animosity and the negroes appear to have been more content and appreciative, as well as dependable in their work, than in many of the other counties.
To meet the confusion and turmoil in the State and the threatened complete overthrow of white supremacy, the best and most representative men in Virginia formed, in December, 1867, the Conservative Party, drawing its membership from former Whigs and Democrats alike. In the election of 1869, to accept or reject a new Constitution, the Conservatives were successful, the proposed Constitution adopted and the State rescued from fast developing chaos. It is remembered that in this election John Janney made what was practically his last public appearance. He had been an outstanding leader of the Whigs in Virginia, had opposed secession but, at the end, stood with Lee and many other Virginians in the belief that coercion of the States by the Federal Government was the worse evil of the two. Before this decisive election of 1869, he had suffered a stroke of paralysis; but to set an example to his former Whig associates, he had himself driven in his carriage to the polls to vote the Conservative ticket. It was a last and effective act of patriotism. He died in January, 1872.[184]
By the Act of Congress of the 26th January, 1870, the civil disabilities of the former Confederates were removed, Virginia was enabled to take her rightful place again as a sovereign State in the Union and a cleaning up of the carpetbaggers and scalawags was begun; but it is said to have taken nearly another ten years to rid the people of the last of them in those counties with the greater negro population.[185]
The Old John Janney House, East Cornwall Street, Leesburg.
In this period of confusion there came to Shelburne parish in 1869, as its Rector, the Rev. Richard Terrell Davis of Albemarle who had served as a Chaplain in the Confederate Army and whose sympathetic ministrations to his new neighbours were of county-wide solace. About that time the late Charles Paxton of Pennsylvania came to Loudoun, purchased that part of Exeter which lies near the northerly boundary of Leesburg and began the building of the great house which he named Carlheim and which many years later was to become the Paxton Memorial Home for ailing children, established and endowed by his widow in her will in memory of their daughter. Dr. Davis and Mr. Paxton became firm friends and through that friendship and Dr. Davis' knowledge of those most needing help, many a poor man in Loudoun was able to earn a sadly needed living wage during the long construction of Carlheim. It is remembered that on Dr. Davis' greatly lamented death in 1892, so deeply had he engaged the affections of his adopted county, the negroes, upon learning of a project of his white friends to erect in his memory a suitable tombstone, begged that they too might contribute to its cost. It was during the rectorship of Dr. Davis, and largely through his influence, that the building of the present large gray stone church edifice of Saint James in Leesburg was undertaken.
Slowly, very slowly, the people doggedly fought their way up the long and often discouraging hill of recovery. The Spanish-American War, petty in itself, was in its foreign and, particularly, in its domestic implications, of major importance; for it showed that, with a new generation of Americans taking its place, the old sectional tears and rents were growing together and that the national fabric once again was becoming truly restored. In the last decade of the nineteenth century there was a notable inflow of new residents, new money, new determination, which continued with the succeeding years and of which the most significant result was the vigorous growth of the horse and sport-loving community in and around Middleburg, resulting in the development of one of the great, perhaps the greatest, centers of fox-hunting and horse-showing in America. It should be here recorded that to the purchase by Mr. Daniel C. Sands of an estate near Middleburg in 1907 and to his love of horses and country life, as well as his tireless energy in spreading among his many Northern friends knowledge of the charm of his new neighbourhood and building on the Loudoun horse-loving traditions, existing since early settlement, may be ascribed the great prosperity and international repute of the Middleburg environment of today. But the county at large, as well as Middleburg, has reason to be grateful to Mr. Sands. During his more than thirty years of residence here he, consistently and continuously, has been not only one of the county's most constructive citizens but one of the most generous and public-spirited as well.
Again we are reminded of the extraordinary part horses and the various sports connected with them play in Loudoun's life. And all that is no matter of present day chance but the legitimate flowering of very old and greatly cherished traditions. Archdeacon Burnaby, in writing of his travels in Virginia in 1759-1760, was moved to remark that Lord Fairfax's "chief if not sole amusement was hunting; and in pursuit of this exercise he frequently carried his hounds to distant parts of the country; and entertained any gentleman of good character and decent appearance, who attended him in the field, at the inn or ordinary, where he took up his residence for the hunting season."[186] One of the ordinaries thus frequented by Lord Fairfax was West's on the old Carolina Road, just south of the present Lee-Jackson Highway, and in the territory now hunted by the Middleburg pack.
The county supports two hunts—the great Middleburg Hunt, turning out upon occasion a field of over three hundred riders, under the joint mastership of Miss Charlotte Noland and Mr. Sands and hunting the territory around that town; and the smaller but hard-riding Loudoun Hunt, covering the Leesburg neighborhood and of which Judge J. R. H. Alexander is Master. In legitimate succession to those of long ago, annual horse shows are held at Middleburg, Foxcroft, Leesburg, and Unison-Bloomfield, the great Llangollan races are run annually on that beautiful and historic estate, while just over the Fauquier boundary is Upperville with its annual horse show, the oldest in America. In short Loudoun is and always has been a horse-loving county and thus very naturally it is widely known as the Leicestershire of America. Today the raising and training of fine horses, together with the maintenance of numerous herds of dairy cattle (especially of the Guernsey breed) the fattening of great numbers of beef cattle, the raising of hogs, sheep and poultry, the growth and development on her many hillsides of extensive and well cared-for apple orchards, all augment the agricultural revenue Loudoun derives from her ever smiling fields of corn and wheat, grass and clover.
In the year 1900 the Southern Railway Company, then in control of the old Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad, extended it to Snickersville, encouraged by many people from Washington and elsewhere who had built summer homes at and around Snickers' Gap. The railroad company named its new station near the village Bluemont and the postoffice authorities were persuaded also to adopt the new name. Thereafter the old but not very euphonic appellation disappears, save in history and memory of the inhabitants, and the village became known by its new and present designation.
In the World War the county played its part in a manner worthy of its heritage. Her sons to the number of nearly six hundred joined the military and naval forces and during that period the local Red Cross Chapters and other civilian organizations were active and efficient. The list of those Loudoun patriots who responded to their country's call at that time is too long and their services too varied to be fully recounted here; but no narrative, however greatly curtailed, should fail to name those who then laid down their lives for their country. A dignified monument, now standing in the grounds surrounding Loudoun's courthouse in Leesburg, bears these words in letters of bronze:
"Our Glorious Dead
'Their Bodies are buried in peace
but their names liveth for evermore.'
1917-1918.
Erected By
The people of Loudoun County
in memory of
Her Sons who made the Supreme Sacrifice
In the Great War."[187]
Memory also should be kept afresh of the names of eleven Loudoun men who between them, for their services in the war, received no less than nineteen American and foreign decorations: Colonel Arthur H. Carter, Captain Edward C. Fuller, Major William Hanson Gill, William R. Grimes, Samuel C. Hirst, First Lieutenant William P. Hulbert, First Lieutenant James F. Manning, Jr., Colonel Thomas Bentley Mott, Bryant Rust, Captain Edward H. Tebbs, Jr., and Lieutenant Colonel Harry Aubrey Toulmin. This list is incomplete; as given it is copied from the publications of the Virginia War History Commission, Source Volume I, 1923.
During the war, as Federal Food Administrator of Virginia, there also served Colonel Elijah B. White of Selma so effectively that among the recognitions of his work that he received was the Agricultural Order of Merit bestowed by the Republic of France.
In 1918, in the midst of the war, a new State Administration assumed the reins of government under the leadership of Westmoreland Davis of Loudoun who became Governor of Virginia in that year and whose administration was accepted by the people as efficient, sound and well balanced.
In culture the county is recovering the position it proudly held one hundred years ago before ground down by war and poverty. Its public schools, then nonexistent, now under the supervision of Superintendent O. L. Emerick, grow and improve and are supplemented by several excellent private institutions of which Foxcroft, near Middleburg, has been described and the very successful Llangollan School for younger children, opened in 1937 near Leesburg by Mrs. Frances L. Patton (Miss Louise D. Harrison) also may be mentioned. Loudoun has produced a naval architect of international reputation in Lewis Nixon (1861- ), two well known artists in Hugh A. Breckenridge (1870-1937) and the late Lucian Powell and a number of writers upon her history whose works have been referred to frequently in the foregoing pages. Supplementing her schools and extending their educational work the county has two large libraries, the older founded in Leesburg in 1907 as the Leesburg Library largely through the efforts of the late Mrs. Levi P. Morton and her daughter, Loudoun's benefactress, Mrs. William C. Eustis of Oatlands. In the year 1918 the Thomas Balch Library was incorporated and at once, on land bought for that purpose through public subscription, the late Edwin Swift Balch and Thomas Willing Balch of Philadelphia, sons of Thomas Balch of international arbitration fame (who was born in Leesburg in 1821) began the construction for it of the beautiful library building on West Market Street, Leesburg, which so enhances the charm of the town. Mr. Waddy B. Wood, a Washington architect of recognized authority on the early Federal period of American architecture, drew the plans and in 1922 the building was completed and dedicated and the collection of books of the old Leesburg Library was presented and moved to the new institution. That collection, since then much enlarged, now numbers well over 10,000 volumes and is of a very definite value to town and county.[188]
There had been a small library at Purcellville for a number of years when in 1919 it was reorganized as the Blue Ridge Library and continued its activities until about 1926. There followed a period in which the library was closed. Then in 1934, largely through the leadership of Mrs. Clarence Robey, a Federal grant was obtained which, with about twice its amount in many smaller private subscriptions, made possible the completion in 1937 of the present imposing Purcellville Library building at a cost of nearly $30,000. It is rapidly augmenting its collection of books and to its primary function of library is adding that of civic centre, where lectures, concerts and other entertainments are frequently given and enthusiastically attended by the people of the neighbourhood. The new building is expected to be dedicated during the summer of 1938.
St. John's Roman Catholic Church, the first of its faith in Loudoun, was erected in Leesburg in 1878 and was dedicated on the 13th October of that year by the Right Rev. John J. Keane who was an orator of wide reputation and who later became the Archbishop of Dubuque. Among those most active in raising the necessary funds for its construction was Miss Lizzie C. Lee of Leesburg. Until 1894 mass was said but once a month by priests who came from Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. In the latter year it became a mission of St. James' Catholic Church at West Falls. Later, through the untiring efforts of Father A. J. Van Ingelgem, masses were said each Sunday. Father Van Ingelgem continued to guide the congregation and church until Father Govaert was appointed the first regular pastor in July, 1926. Soon thereafter the frame church was greatly enlarged and beautified, largely through the generosity of the late Mrs. Henry Harrison (Miss Anne Lee) of Leesburg, and was opened with services conducted by the Right Rev. Andrew J. Brennan of Richmond. At that same time the attractive rectory, adjoining the church, was also opened. The Leesburg parish of this church covers a territory of 2,000 square miles, extends from the West Virginia line to that of Maryland and operates two missions, one of which is at Herndon and the other at Purcellville. The Rev. Father John S. Igoe, a native Virginian who enjoys the affectionate esteem of the whole community, is the present pastor.[189]
As throughout Virginia, hospitality is inherent in the people of Loudoun. Especially is this so at Christmas time when, from early days, the old English custom of stopping all farm work (save only necessitous care of the live stock) from Christmas Eve to the second day of January still obtains. Then scattered Loudoun folk seek to return, if but for a day, to their native soil bringing back with them friends and acquaintances that they may show their birthright; then open house prevails, time-honoured eggnogg and appletoddy greet all guests and the Leesburg Assembly, following its custom handed down through the generations, holds its eagerly awaited Christmas Ball.
With an unusually healthy climate the county is fortunate in the rarely efficient and devoted corps of physicians, both general practitioners and specialists, who faithfully guard the physical condition of its people. Of their number the Virginia State Medical Society has honored itself and Loudoun by electing as its President Dr. G. F. Simpson of Purcellville. And to the marked ability of her physicians is added the Loudoun Hospital, founded in 1912, first occupying a building on Market Street, Leesburg, and later erecting and in 1917 moving into the fine modern hospital building it now occupies. "To Mr. P. Howard Lightfoot's interest and untiring efforts" wrote the hospital's historian "is due the actual bringing together of those factors and conditions which developed into the Leesburg Hospital." Now called the Loudoun County Hospital, it has a large nurses' home, beautiful grounds, fruitful gardens and withal has so splendidly grasped its opportunities for service that it has become essential to the county's welfare. To the physicians of the county, many very generous contributors and to the selfless and untiring work of Loudoun's women may all this great success be ascribed. To add to this full measure, Mrs. Eustis supports in memory of her mother Mrs. Morton, a visiting nursing service in and around Leesburg through which the kindly professional care of a registered nurse (now Mrs. Louise King) is at all times at the disposal of the people for cases of an emergency nature or those not needing continuous attention, entirely without cost to the patient, irrespective of the desire and ability of its beneficiaries to pay therefor.[190]
In this all too brief summary of her present day institutions at least a word should be said of the county's banks. The Peoples National Bank, the Loudoun National Bank, both in Leesburg; the Middleburg National Bank, the Purcellville National Bank, the Hamilton National Bank and the Round Hill National Bank, each in its community, serves the local interest and all unite in this enviable record: that not one bank in the County failed during the great financial depression of recent and unhappy memory.
The exceptionally healthy climate, the rich and well watered lands of Loudoun, together with the fine sport for horse lovers carried on through its long hunting season, have proved a potent magnet to draw new residents to the county. Country homes are constantly being created or restored and surrounding farms are, for the most part, self-sustaining and well handled. With Virginia's assumption of the rôle of a leader in good roads, the old reproach of impassable highways has vanished.
And Loudoun is proud of her people. It is an American community, its roots very deep in soil and tradition. It believes that it occupies that part of the Commonwealth and Nation most conducive to a sane and healthy life. Its sons and daughters sometimes, in following the beckoning finger of fortune, wander far afield; but are prone to return equally convinced with those who seldom leave the county that all in all no better homeland anywhere can be found—devoutly believing that though God might have made a fairer land, yet remaining strong in their reasonable conviction that God never did.