In the Quarter century, between 1730 and the French and Indian War of 1755, the lands of the future Loudoun became progressively more populous. Although Truro Parish had been created as recently as 1732, this pressure of incoming settlers seemed to call for the division, in its turn, of Truro and in 1748 the government of the Colony set off the upper part of Truro, beyond Difficult Run, as a new parish which was named Cameron in delicate compliment to the Lord Proprietor's Scotch Barony. Most unfortunately, the first vestry book of the new parish, which would be invaluable source material for the Loudoun student seeking information for the period from 1748 until the Revolution, has vanished or been destroyed. The first parson of Cameron was the Rev. John Andrews, probably the hero of a convivial incident soon to be related.[47]
Increasing population meant rapidly rising land values, exercising an irresistible lure to many of the more active speculators of the Northern Neck. Such men of substance as Aubrey and Noland were developing the lands they purchased; but in another class were Benjamin Grayson, Catesby Cocke, George Eskridge, the wealthy Potomac trader John Colvil of Cleesh, that turbulent though gifted son of Dublin John Mercer and even William Fairfax himself, all of whom, so far as Loudoun was concerned, were active in land ventures rather than development. The Germans we have met coming over the Blue Ridge were more intent upon subduing the wilderness than skilled in the niceties of land titles; hence they, in common with many of the other pioneers, appear to have frequently omitted to secure grants from the proprietor for their holdings, giving Cocke, Grayson, Mercer and even Aubrey the opportunity, knowingly or otherwise, to secure the legal title to the lands of which they had taken possession.
In 1740 John Colvil bought out Cocke and his colleagues and, writes Fairfax Harrison "many lesser men and by pre-arrangement divided the territory with William Fairfax. Keeping for himself the lands lying between Catoctin Creek and the Catoctin Ridge and stretching from the Potomac to Waterford, he conveyed to William Fairfax 46,466 acres, constituting all the territory on the Potomac lying between Catoctin Creek and the Shenandoah River, including the Blue Ridge from Gregory's Gap to Harper's Ferry. The purchaser divided the property at the Short Hills into two estates, naming the northern one 'Shannondale' and the southern one 'Piedmont' and administered them as manors, on leases for three lives. By his will he left these lands, with his mansion house, Belvoir, to his eldest son, and the latter in turn, by his will of 1780, entailed them, with the intention that they should constitute the 'plantation' of Belvoir House, always to be held with it. But soon after this last will was written, the success of the American Revolution made it necessary for George William Fairfax, by codicil, to change his testamentary dispositions and his proposed entail was never made effective."[48]
After Colvil had settled with William Fairfax, he still held 16,290 acres along Catoctin Creek, to say nothing of 1,500 acres on Difficult Run, his plantation on Great Hunting Creek known as Cleesh and other lands in the Northern Neck. Born at Newcastle-on-Tyne, he was closely related to the Earl of Tankerville, through the latter's mother being his first cousin—a matter in which he took some pride and which was to be of even more moment to the Earl; for when Colvil came to make his will in 1755, he left his plantation Cleesh, then containing about 1,000 acres, to his own brother, Thomas Colvil, for life with remainder over "to the Right Honourable the present Earl of Tankerville and his heirs forever" and also "in consideration of my relation and alliance to the said Earl of Tankerville son of my father's brother's daughter," he left to him outright his 16,000 acres of land on the Catoctin, his 1,500 acres on Difficult and his interest in a certain nearby copper mine.[49] Thenceforth these lands remained in the Earl's family until after the Revolution. Thus originated the Earl of Tankerville's title to certain Loudoun lands, reference to which occasionally yet is heard.
About 1739 Josias Clapham, of an ancient family of Yorkshire (which long has been associated with the Fairfaxes there) bought land near the Point of Rocks and before his death owned much land in the Northern Neck. He died sometime prior to the 27th December, 1749, when his will, dated the 29th October, 1744, was proven in Fairfax County. In that will he left
"to my brother's son Josias Clapham two hundred fourty three Achres of four hundred joyning to Madm. Mason commonly called the Flat Spring to him and his heirs forever."
A codicil added to the will reads
"I leave my hole real Estate and Parsonable Estate to my brothers son Josias Clapham and if he dont come in, it is my desire that his brother Joseph should have it."[50]
Nicholas Cresswell, the journalist, as we shall see in Chapter XI, states that the younger Josias lived in Wakefield in Yorkshire and was much in debt. He decided to "come in" by emigrating to Virginia and soon appeared on his lands in the upper country. He became a great leader in Loudoun affairs. Toward the end of his long life he, in 1796, deeded to his son Samuel the estate later known as Chestnut Hill and the latter, soon thereafter, built the beautiful mansion which became another of Loudoun's outstanding and stately family seats and which still stands, in all its old-time charm, not far from the Point of Rocks, in one of the most fertile and captivating regions of Loudoun. Through the marriage of Betsy Price, a granddaughter of Josias Clapham, to Thomas F. Mason of the Gunston Hall branch of that family (and therefore cousin to that Thomson Mason of Raspberry Plain who we are about to meet) the house and estate, until very recent years, continuously was occupied by these Mason descendants of Clapham.[51]
A few years after the death, in 1741, of Francis Aubrey, much of his great estate lying between the old Ridge Road (where it now passes through Leesburg under the name of Loudoun Street) north to the Limestone Branch and from the Potomac westerly to the Catoctin Hills, came into the possession of Mrs. Ann Thomson Mason, widow of the third George of that ilk; thus introducing to our frontier of that day another of the most prominent of the Tidewater families and one which also was to play a very notable rôle in Loudoun for at least a century. This George Mason, at the age of forty-five, had been drowned while attempting to cross the Potomac in a sailboat in the year 1735. In 1721 he had married, as his second wife, Ann Thomson, daughter of Stevens Thomson of Hollins Hall, Staffordshire, England, who had served as Attorney-General of Virginia for some years during Queen Anne's reign. He, in turn, was the son of Sir William Thomson of the Middle Temple, a Sergeant at Law who, to his credit, in 1680 had had the courage to act as counsel for the defendants Tasborough and Price in the malodorous Popish Plot trials of disgraceful memory. By this second wife, Mason had six or seven children, of whom only three were to survive him: George his eldest son (for his first wife had been childless) who later was to build Gunston Hall and become the author of the famous Bill of Rights; Thomson, later to become at least a part-time resident of Loudoun and a famous lawyer in his day; and Mary, who, on the 11th April, 1751, was to marry Samuel Selden of Salvington in Stafford County, near Fredericksburg. She died at her mother's plantation Chipawamsic, on the 5th day of January, 1758, leaving two children, Samuel and Mary Mason Selden, the latter inheriting her Loudoun lands.