It was in 1803 that Thomas Jefferson writing to a friend said, “The county of Loudoun had been so exhausted and wasted by bad husbandry, that it began to depopulate, the inhabitants going southwardly in search of better lands—it is now become one of the most productive counties of the State of Virginia and the price given for the lands is multiplied manifold.” This was the result of the LOUDOUN SYSTEM of agriculture we have heard so much about. When Alexander Binns (no Quaker) published his little “A Treatise on Practical Farming” in 1803, the County found out what the Friends knew all along: that ground should lie in grass and clover in rotation with the corn and wheat then grown, and what’s more, that lime was a must to get the most out of the grass and clover. Israel Janney on a trip to Chester County, Pennsylvania, had brought down some crushed limestone in his saddlebags and tried it out on some oats. The oats flourished and so did the clover which Israel grew and sold to his neighbors a quart at a time to try to get them started on this grand forage plant. Binns tried all kinds of lime and plaster, he even bought a ton of Israel Janey’s lime and some of his clover seed, but the real service he did was to experiment and publish his results.
The peace testimony of Friends was constantly appearing in the minutes. Members were “spoken to” for attendance at muster; were “delt with” for purchasing substitutes and paying the muster tax. At first the Revolutionary War affected the Fairfax Meeting but little, however, before it was over some fifteen members had been disowned for joining the army. George Washington summed up the general attitude towards the Quakers then in his famous, “Leave the Friends alone for you cannot induce them to swear or fight for or against us. They are harmless, peaceful and industrious people who will produce bread and meat, and if they will not sell it to us, we will take it, if we need it; we need bread and meat as much as we need soldiers.”
During the Civil War soldiers of both sides were quartered in the Waterford Meeting House. When meeting was going on they stepped outside and some even came to meeting and as one writer said, “When they (the Southern soldiers) first came to Waterford they seemed to entertain a strong animosity against Friends—but becoming better acquainted, some of the soldiers acknowledged (that) Friends delt with them more fairly than any they had met on their march from the South, and their prejudices were removed.” It did seem strange to Friends to hold meetings with swords hanging along the walls. A very original account of captivity during The War is given by William Williams. He and Robert J. Hollingsworth were imprisoned in Richmond for two Southerners likewise treated by the Federals. After much travel and hard work on the part of wife Mary and Friends the two were released, though not before suffering many real hardships.
Young Quaker men, being sympathetic with the Union, went North in great numbers during The War, many to Ohio; they obtained jobs and found a living away from Loudoun County and never came back to stay. It was this exodus which began the decline of the meeting at Waterford. Many Friends during the hostilities wished to travel to Baltimore in order to go to Yearly Meeting. To do so they had to run the blockade along the Potomac. Many ignored the guards at the river crossings, but many a one was turned back. Samuel M. Janney was questioned by General (Shanks) Evans after he was arrested for crossing the river during the early part of the war.
General Evans—“Don’t you know that your first duty is to your country.”
S.M.J.—“No, my first duty is to my God.”
General Evans—(After a pause) “Yes, but your second duty is to your country.”
It was just poor business arguing with Sam Janney. In fact he got so tired of arguments every time he wished to cross the Potomac he obtained a pass from the Federal President, which I have seen,—an ordinary page from a school boy’s lined tablet on which was written, “Allow the bearer, Samuel M. Janney, to cross the Potomac at any time.”—A. Lincoln. That pass was just about as all inclusive as one can be made.
Samuel Janney claims that Loudoun County did not have near the troubles of neighbor against neighbor as did East Tennessee, and it can, he says, be credited largely to the influence of Friends. In fact, it was not uncommon when the Confederates occupied the section for the Secessionist neighbors to help out their Union friends and vice versa when the Union occupied the county.
The War cost the Friends of Waterford at least $23,000.00, while those at Goose Creek lost over $80,000.00, including both property damage and livestock loss. In 1872 all loyal Loudoun citizens received $61,821.13 for livestock losses, nothing for property lost by burning. Friends from Philadelphia largely built back the mill of Asa M. Janney where Coit McLean now lives, known as Forest Mills. If it had not been for the generosity of Friends in the North there would have been real suffering among Friends in Loudoun after the end of hostilities.
As early as 1792 a committee on “Spiritous Liquors” was appointed at Fairfax and it must have done a good job, for by 1809 no member was reported to deal in them. In the year 1819 Goose Creek had a committee report that several members had even stopped the giving of liquor to harvest hands and found it to be such a good idea that a minute was written admonishing against its use thereafter at harvest. It was not by accident that Loudoun County was for years the center of the Womans Christian Temperance Union in the state of Virginia. When the Lincoln Lyceum Association Hall was built in 1874 a Men’s Temperance Society, the Good Templars, flourished there for some time. The first performance in the new hall was “Ten Nights in a Barroom.”
Nearly every deed to a meeting house calls for a school house, for the instruction of the young. At Fairfax a school fund was raised in 1779, but it was not until 1802 that a plan for “pious and guarded education for children of Members of the Society” was instituted. The school, built for $400.00, remained open until 1871, when the public school system took over.