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.