The first specific grant of land in the later Loudoun appears long before the treaty of 1722. Under date of the 2nd February, 1709, Captain Daniel McCarty "of the Parish of Cople in the County of Westmoreland, Esq." obtained title to 2,993 acres "above the falls of the Potowmack River, beginning on said River side at the lower end of the Sugar Land Island opposite to the upper part of the rocks in said River,"[16] apparently for speculation or investment rather than for immediate occupation; the number and character of the Indians still to be encountered thereabout made settlement on isolated plantations or farms far too risky to be inviting to rich or poor. This Daniel McCarty was the founder of another eminent family of the Northern Neck which intermarried in early days with many of the best known of the early Potomac gentry. He subsequently married, as her second husband, Ann, sister to Thomas Lee already mentioned, and widow of Colonel William Fitzhugh of Eagle's Nest in King George County. The joining together of the prominent families of the lower peninsula began very early and by the closing years of the eighteenth century had gone so far that almost all were in very truth "Virginia cousins" of various degrees and through numerous alliances. Indeed this became so general that the social status of any family, tracing back to that period and locality, can generally be determined merely by the test of its affinities.
It is remarkable that the literature of romance has concerned itself so little with Daniel McCarty. His ancestry, his own life and that of his descendants unite in offering the richest material but, save in the traditions of Virginia, he is today all but unknown. He was the son of Donal, the son of Donough, Earl of Clancarty. Donal was an officer in the Irish Army that fought against King William and was ruined with its defeat. The Earl and his descendants were exiled and Daniel came to Virginia as a youth and settled in Westmoreland County. The Earls of Clancarty were the heads of a family descended from Cormac who was King of Munster in 483; and Burke, the great authority on the British peerage, declares that "few pedigrees in the British Empire, if any, can be traced to a more remote or more exalted source" than theirs; while another authority asseverates that "long before the founders of the oldest royal families of Europe, before Rudolph acquired the empire of Germany, or a Bourbon ascended the throne of France, Cormac McCarty ruled over Munster and the title of King was at least continued in name in his posterity down to the reign of Elizabeth."[17] Daniel's eldest son and heir, Colonel Dennis, married Sarah Ball, first cousin to Mary Ball, mother of General Washington; and Augustine Washington, the general's father, named him as one of the executors of his will. It was another descendant of Captain Daniel who was surviving principal in the famous McCarty-Mason duel over a century later—an event that so profoundly stirred the country and cost the life of one of the most prominent and beloved citizens of the Loudoun of that day.[18]
Francis Aubrey became a large purchaser of Loudoun land soon after the Iroquois evacuation, first obtaining a grant at the mouth of Broad Run about 1725. Among the tracts he later acquired was a grant of about 962 acres purchased on the 19th December, 1728 from Lord Fairfax on or near which later he built a home and lived. Nothing of this early house has survived; but we know that it was near the "Big Spring" then as now a conspicuous landmark on the old Carolina Road and about two miles north of the present Leesburg. Probably "the Chappel above Goose Creek" of the Truro Vestry books, the Chapel of Ease or convenient neighbourhood church, the building of which was supervised by him for the Parish, was immediately adjacent to his home and the location of that structure, the first church edifice of any kind to be erected within the bounds of present Loudoun, is known within a fair degree of accuracy and in 1926 with appropriate ceremonies, was marked with a stone monument.[19]
Hamilton Parish was coextensive with Prince William County when the latter was created in 1731. By a legislative act of May, 1732, that part of Prince William lying above "the river Ockoquan, and the Bull Run (a branch thereof) and a course thence to the Indian thoroughfare of the Blue Ridge of Mountains" (Ashby's Gap) was set off as Truro Parish and a Parish organization promptly followed. The new Parish was named for Truro in Cornwall, a great mining district, for mining was expected to be an important industry there. The first Vestry meeting was held on the 7th November, 1732; at a meeting held on the 16th April, 1733, an agreement was made with the Rev. Lawrence De Butts to preach at the Parish Church and "at the Chappell above Goose Creek" for 8,000 pounds of tobacco, clear of the warehouse charges and abatements. The chapel was then either contemplated or preliminary work on its construction may have been begun; it was not finished until 1736. But during that interval it is obvious, from the Vestry records, that occasional services were held there—perhaps at first in the open air or at the nearby house of Aubrey and thereafter in the unfinished chapel. At a Vestry meeting held on the 12th October, 1733, Joseph Johnson was chosen "Reader to the new Church and the Chappell above Goose Creek.... In the Parish Levy for this year provision is made for 2,500 pounds of tobacco to Captain Francis Aubrey toward building the Chapel above Goose Creek, and the next year the same amount and in 1735, 4,000 pounds for finishing said chapel."[20] Thus the construction of the chapel cost the Parish 9,000 pounds of tobacco which about this time seems to have been valued at eleven shillings per 100 pounds,[21] making the money cost of the chapel about £49″ 10s in Virginia currency or much less in the more stable money of England. Undoubtedly it was built of logs from the trees in its immediate vicinity and we may assume that it was very small.
At a Vestry meeting held on the 18th November, 1735, a payment of 1,000 pounds of tobacco was ordered made to Samuel Hull, Clerk of the Chapel above Goose Creek. In a meeting nearly a year later, on the 11th October, 1736, the Vestry ordered "that the Reverend Mr. John Holmes Minister of this Parish preach six times in each year at the Chappell above Goose Creek; and it is also ordered, that the Sundays he preached at the said Chappell the sermon shall be taken from the new Church;" but Mr. Holmes' ministry seems to have been somewhat irregular for at the bottom of the page is found this note signed by the Rev. Charles Green "the first regular Rector of Truro Parish":
"The Levity of the members of the Vestry is worth notice. They applyed to Collo. Colvill & entered an order, 23d Sept. 1734 for him to procure them a Clergyman from England. By the order on the other page they gave Cha. Green a title to the Psh. when ordained, and he had scarcely left the country when they received Mr. John Holmes into the parish as appears by the above order. N.B. Mr. Holmes was an Itinerant Preacher without any orders, & recd. Contrary to Law."
This Dr. Green, for he was a physician before becoming a clergyman, was "received into, and entertained as Minister" of Truro Parish at a Vestry meeting held on the 13th day of August, 1737. At the same meeting it was "ordered that the Churchwardens place the people that are not already placed, in Pohick and the new Churches in pews, according to their several ranks and degrees." Also "Ordered that the Reverend Mr. Charles Green preach four times in a year only, at the Chappell above Goose Creek. And that the Sundays he preaches at the Chappell, the sermon shall be taken from the new Church."
At a meeting on the 3rd October, 1737, the Vestry appropriated "To Francis Aubrey gent. for finding books for the Chappell 200 pounds tobacco." Also
"Whereas the Rev. Charles Green hath this day agreed with the Vestry to take the tobacco levied to purchase books for the Chappell above Goose Creek and ornaments for the Churches, at the rate of eleven shillings current money per hundred. He by the said agreement obliging himself to find and provide the said books and ornaments, being allowed fifty per cent. upon the first cost in accounting with the Church-Wardens. It is ordered that the collector pay to the said Green the sum of 8000 pounds of tobacco, it being the quantity this day levied for the purpose aforesaid."
At a Vestry meeting held on the 15th April, 1745, it was ordered that Messrs. John West, Ellsey and French view what necessary repairs were wanting at Goose Creek Chapel and agree with workmen therefor.