When supposed sweethearts were not available as captains, the master would select the laziest boy and girl. Then the school and sometimes the whole community, exhibiting an interest, would get behind the captains and by threat and persuasion urge each to earnest effort.
Jeremiah Tyler had emigrated to Virginia from Ulster and was one of the first to come to the settlement. He had assisted in building the church and upon its completion had made the journey to Williamsburg to bring Rev. Samuel Davies of Princeton for the dedicatory service.
While at Williamsburg, being a thrifty Scotchman, he had patented one thousand acres of fertile land adjoining the community boundary of seven thousand acres. His patent included a broad and fertile mountain cove of several hundred acres, overlooking the settlement.
He married Judith Preston in 1762; and they had built their home in the outer edge of the cove. From the house you looked down upon the houses of the settlement; and the white church and school house on the hill stood out against the grove and the green valley beyond, as two full-rigged ships, with expanded sails on a calm sea.
There they had lived for four happy years, until the winter of 1776; when in the night, bears came out of the mountains and breaking into their sheep shed, killed half the flock.
Then he built a bear pen of great logs and caught a large black bear. The bear in his struggles for freedom [pg 93] displaced a log, which as Tyler was passing, fell upon his foot and crushed it. His wife unable to lift it, leaving their daughter of three months in her cradle, ran to the nearest neighbor’s, more than a mile distance, for help and not waiting until a horse could be caught and saddled, hastened home. Then unmindful of her own condition, helped with her husband.
The next day a doctor from Blue Ridge removed her husband’s foot and gave her some medicine for “a misery in her side.” Within the week she died of pneumonia; then Tyler and his little daughter went to live with Grandma Preston. Since that time, no longer able to farm, he had taught the school, hobbling back and forth from the Preston farm.
Archibald Campbell, seeking a location, visited the Tyler clearing and, enchanted by the view, brought his wife to the place. It was a fine October day; the earth was still and warm; the valley green; the mountain side clothed in vivid autumnal shades made the view perfect in its loveliness. She insisted that providence had led them to this paradise.
When school was out he sought the master and together they rode over the boundary. Tyler told of the four happy years when Judith and he had toiled in this, their Eden, counting it play, to make it a place of beauty and peace and altogether a home. He pointed to a cedar grove upon the mountain side where she was buried; and reserving a hundred acres around this spot, sold the place to Mr. Campbell for four hundred pounds. Thus it was the Campbells found their home on the edge of civilization.
Through October and until the first snow in late November, they toiled, fitting and provisioning the place for winter; the family living with Mr. McDonald, while [pg 94] their servants remained at the farm. The house was repaired and enlarged, the barn loft filled with forage and the shed with firewood.