Another account discloses that the other side of the "avenue," facing the evergreen-crowned girls, was formed by a line of boys from the Leesburg Institute, whose costumes were embellished with red sashes and white and black cockades. As Lafayette, smiling and bowing, mounted the portico steps, he was greeted by Ludwell Lee on behalf of the people of Loudoun with a patriotic speech and once again the cheerful Marquis managed to make yet another appropriate response. After a full year of the young Republic's exuberant enthusiasm, the delivery of a mere half-dozen or so of speeches of grateful acknowledgment in a single day has lost its earlier terrors. At 4:00 o'clock a great banquet was spread on the tables set up in the courthouse square, the guests' table being protected by an awning. Toasts were enthusiastically given and drunk to Adams, Lafayette and Monroe, each in turn replying. With that auspicious start and the stimulus of the potent beverages, it is recorded that as the time passed, the "volunteer toasts" waxed in number and ecstacy. Afterward, the distinguished guests visited the home of Mr. W. T. T. Mason for the baptism of his two infant daughters, Lafayette acting as godfather for one and Adams and Monroe in similar capacity for the other. More gayety in Leesburg, then a drive through the summer night to Belmont and participation in the merry-making there, before the illustrious visitors sought their rooms for the night in that gracious mansion.[146] As they returned to Washington the next day, it must have been with a profound, if weary, appreciation of the county's enthusiasm, affection and hospitality.
In this second quarter of the nineteenth century, to which we have now come, the name of Charles Fenton Mercer, soldier, statesman and philanthropist, is writ large in Loudoun's records. Already we have read of him in his country home and of his founding the town of Aldie in 1810;[147] but the brief reference there made is wholly inadequate to the man and his accomplishments. Born in Fredericksburg on the 6th June, 1778, he was the son of James Mercer and grandson of that John Mercer of Marlboro whom we have already met.[148] His father, after a distinguished career, left at his death an estate so much involved that the son had some difficulty in securing his education. He, however, was able to graduate at Princeton in 1797 and the next year, at the time of friction with France, was given a commission by Washington as a captain of cavalry. When the danger of war passed, he studied law and, admitted to the Bar, practiced his profession with great success. He served as brigadier general in command of the defense of Norfolk in the War of 1812, removed to Loudoun, was a member of the Virginia Legislature from 1810 to 1817 and, as a Federalist, was elected a member of Congress, in 1816, over General A. T. Mason, the election being so close, however, that it had to be decided by the House of Representatives. In Congress he served until 1840, a longer continuous service "than that of any of his contemporaries." Always deeply interested in the project of the Chesapeake and Potomac Canal, he introduced the first successful bill for its construction and it was in tribute to him that those interested in the plan met in Leesburg on the 25th August, 1823. When the canal company was organized taking over, in effect, much of the plant of General Washington's cherished project the Potomac Company, Mercer became its first president and continued in that position during the period of Federal encouragement. Then came the Jackson administration and its opposition and, as a final blow, the organization of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. The day of the canals gave place to that of the railroads; but that section of the canal in Maryland, across the river from Loudoun, was completed and placed in successful operation, affording to her people better and cheaper transportation to Washington and Alexandria for their products than they before had known.
Mercer was an ardent protectionist, intensely opposed to slavery and an advocate of the settlement of freed slaves in Liberia. He died near Alexandria on the 4th May, 1858, and was buried in the Leesburg Cemetery. On his headstone it is justly reaffirmed that he was "A Patriot, Statesman, Philanthropist and Christian."[149]
Mercer's day well may be cited as the most active and, perhaps, the most ambitiously progressive in business affairs in the county's history. Space precludes enumeration and extensive description of all the enterprises then undertaken but passing mention may be made of a few. The improvement of transportation was a dominant motive. Canals, railroads, turnpikes all were instruments to that end. An early railroad was projected by the men of Waterford and incorporated in 1831 as the Loudoun Railroad Company to run from the mouth of Ketoctin Creek on the Potomac "passing Ketoctin mountain to the waters of Goose creek so as to intercept the Ashby's Gap turnpike road"; a curious and impractical route it may seem to us in the light of present conditions and that it was just as well that the project died in birth. In 1832 another railroad but sponsored in Leesburg, to be known as the Leesburg Railroad and to run from that town to the Potomac, also came to naught. At length in 1849 the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad was incorporated and built, and under various names has been since continuously operated, thus giving the county its only railroad communication within its boundaries.
In 1832 there was incorporated the Goose Creek and Little River Navigation Company to make those streams available as highways of traffic. Locks, dams, ponds, feeders, and other appurtenant works were ambitiously undertaken. With assistance from the State and the proceeds of the company's sales of stock much construction was accomplished; but during the Civil War the works were destroyed by the Federal armies and they never have been restored.
The Catoctin Furnace Company was another ambitious project. Iron ore was mined in Furnace Mountain, opposite the Point of Rocks, and for a time shipped away for smelting. In 1838 a furnace for treatment of the ore was completed on the property and the ore smelted at first with charcoal made at the plant and later, as operations increased, with coke brought from a distance. The business was highly successful and profitable until ruined by the Civil War. It was this activity that caused the construction, in 1850, of the original Point of Rocks bridge across the Potomac.[150]
Reference to some of the many turnpike companies of the period already has been made. Undertaken for the profit of the shareholders as well as the convenience of the people they, for the first time in her history, gave the county roads fit to bear heavy traffic and were another exemplification of the energy of the time.
When the church was disestablished after the Revolution it was agreed that it would be left in possession of her property. As time went on there arose a clamour among those of other beliefs that her property and particularly her glebe lands should be sold by the Overseers of the Poor, to whom the proceeds should go, their argument being that having been acquired by taxes laid on the whole community, the taxpayers as a body should benefit therefrom. Bishop Mead describes what took place in Loudoun concerning Shelburne's glebe:
"About the year 1772, a tract of land containing 465 acres, on the North Fork of Goose Creek was purchased and soon after, a house put upon it. When Mr. Dunn became minister in 1801 an effort was made by the overseers of the poor to sell it, but it was effectually resisted at law. At the death of Mr. Dunn, in 1827, the overseers of the poor again proceeded to sell it. The vestry was divided in opinion as to the course to be pursued. Four of them—Dr. W. C. Selden, Dr. Henry Claggett, Mr. Fayette Ball and George M. Chichester—were in favour of resisting it; the other eight thought it best to let it share the fate of all the others. It was accordingly sold. The purchaser lived in Maryland; and, of course the matter might be brought before the Supreme Court as a last resort, should the courts of Virginia decide against the church's claim. The minority of four, encouraged by the decision in the case of the Fairfax Glebe, determined to engage in a lawsuit for it. It was first brought in Winchester and decided against the Church. It was then carried to the Court of Appeals in Richmond, and during its lingering progress there, three of four of the vestrymen who engaged in it died, and the fourth was persuaded to withdraw it."[151]