HALLOWED HERITAGE

Hallowed
Heritage:

T H E L IFE O F V I R G I N I A

by

DOROTHY M. TORPEY

Head of Social Studies Department
FRANCIS C. HAMMOND HIGH SCHOOL
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

1961
WHITTET & SHEPPERSON, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

Copyright 1961 by Dorothy M. Torpey
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 60-53266
Printed by Whittet & Shepperson, Richmond, Virginia

TO
MY MOTHER AND BILL
whose encouragement and understanding
were inspirational

INTRODUCTION

From the founding of the first permanent English settlement in America at Jamestown to the present-day launching of the country's largest ships at Hampton Roads, the name "Virginia" suggests a geographical area which has formed the background for innumerable local, state, national and international events. An understanding of "The Life of Virginia"—geographical, historical, economic, cultural and political phases of living—should result in a better appreciation of the unique role played by Virginia in the development and progress of the United States of America.

—D. M. T.

CONTENTS

HALLOWED HERITAGE

1
Geographical Life

Location and Topographical Regions

The Commonwealth of Virginia is located in the eastern part of the United States, approximately midway between the North and the South, and it is classified geographically as a South Atlantic State. The shape of the state suggests an irregular triangle: the base of the triangle, the southern boundary of the state which divides it from North Carolina and Tennessee; the left side or western side, dominated by the Blue Ridge, the Appalachian and the Allegheny Mountains; and the right side or eastern side, the Coastal Plain.

Virginia is bounded on the north by West Virginia, Maryland and the Potomac River which forms the boundary between Virginia and Maryland and Virginia and the District of Columbia; on the east by the Potomac River, Maryland, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean; on the south by North Carolina and Tennessee; and on the west by Kentucky and West Virginia.

The area of the state is approximately 40,815 square miles. This area places Virginia thirty-sixth in rank in area among the States of the Union. Approximately 2,000 square miles of this area consist of water. The southern boundary extends approximately 450 miles from east to west and the distance from north to south is approximately 200 miles at its widest point. The geographical center of Virginia is at a point eleven miles south of east of the town of Amherst in Appomattox County. The highest point is Mount Rogers located in Smyth and Grayson Counties with an elevation of 5,719 feet. The lowest altitude is sea level along the Atlantic Coast. The average elevation of the state is 950 feet.

Topographically, Virginia may be conveniently divided into five major regions:

(1) the South Atlantic Coastal Plain—As the name suggests, this region extends along the coast from the Atlantic Ocean to the Fall Line Zone. The Fall Line Zone refers to a section where the streams pass from the rocky areas of the mountain region or high land to the level area or low land; at such points, falls or rapids develop. The Great Falls of the Potomac in Maryland and in Virginia, the Falls of the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg, the rapids of the James River at Richmond and the Falls of the Appomattox at Petersburg illustrate the concept of the Fall Line. Consequently, the so-called Fall Line extends from Washington, D. C., through Alexandria, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Petersburg and Emporia in Virginia. Thus, the South Atlantic Coastal Plain region of Virginia is located along the Atlantic seacoast from the Potomac River at Alexandria to the North Carolina boundary line and as far west as the Fall Line Zone. The width of this area varies from 35 miles to 120 miles. This region is also called "Tidewater" Virginia because the level land here is so low that the ocean tides may often be seen in the inland streams. "Tidewater" Virginia includes five peninsulas formed by the Chesapeake Bay, the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the York and the James Rivers. These five peninsulas are:

a. the Eastern Shore—Although most of Tidewater Virginia is located on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay, a unique peninsula called the Eastern Shore extends southward from Maryland and is separated from the rest of Virginia by the Chesapeake Bay. Thus, in order to travel by land from the mainland of eastern Virginia to the Eastern Shore, it is necessary to travel via Maryland.

b. the Northern Neck—This peninsula lies between the Potomac and the Rappahannock Rivers and is only 22 miles at its widest point.

c. the Middle Peninsula—This peninsula lies between the Rappahannock and the York Rivers.

d. the Peninsula of the Lower York-James Peninsula or the Williamsburg Peninsula—This peninsula is located between the York and James Rivers.

e. the Norfolk Peninsula—This peninsula is located between the James River and the Virginia-North Carolina boundary line. In general, the land in this region is a flat plain. The tidal rivers mentioned previously are actually estuaries of Chesapeake Bay and they flow periodically inland. Therefore, they are an unusual combination of waters from the Bay itself and from the Atlantic Ocean whose pressure pushes the tides inland. The strong influence of geography upon occupations in this region is exemplified by the importance of commercial fishing (especially oysters, scallops, clams and crabs), ocean transportation (the large area of deep water in the Chesapeake Bay encourages ocean-going commercial ships to seek inland ports in this region—especially around Hampton Roads), truck farming (the clay loam soil and the sandy loam soil here provide excellent productivity of potatoes, early vegetables, corn and hay), and the manufacturing of fertilizer (particularly from fish and fish scraps), bricks (an abundance of sand and gravel encourages the making of bricks), pulpwood, railroad ties, barrel staves and other lumber products (60% of the Tidewater area is covered with forests).

(2) the Piedmont Plateau—This region extends from the Coastal Plain westward to the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The word "Piedmont" literally means "at the foot of the mountain." A plateau is defined as a high lowland; therefore, this section is higher in elevation than the Coastal Plain region. This area is characterized by rolling hills and many swift streams. The width of the plateau varies from forty miles in Northern Virginia to one hundred ninety miles in the southern part, gradually broadening as one travels southward. The plateau rises gradually from an elevation of 200-700 feet at the eastern end of the plateau until, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains, it reaches approximately 1500 feet near the Virginia-North Carolina border. The Piedmont area located south of the James River is known as the Southside. Agriculture is the chief occupation because, in general, this land is fertile due to the presence of limestone soils and clay deposits. Large amounts of tobacco are grown here. The Piedmont also has a great variety of rocks, including granite and soapstone which are currently commercially important.

(3) the Blue Ridge and Valleys—Although the Blue Ridge Mountains are a part of the Appalachian Range, they are, geographically, sufficiently significant to afford them a separate listing in a topographical description of Virginia. The Blue Ridge Mountains, located between the Potomac and the Roanoke Rivers, cross Virginia in a northeast-southwest direction and are from three to twenty miles wide. The Blue Ridge of Virginia originates at the junction of the Potomac and the Shenandoah Rivers and continues southwestward to the North Carolina line. From a distance the mountain ridges usually appear to be covered with a blue haze; therefore, the term "Blue Ridge" is believed to have originated from such an observation in early colonial Virginia days. This region constitutes a distinct contrast to the Piedmont area since the ridges appear abrupt yet lofty in height: in the northern half of Virginia, Stony Man Ridge (4,010 feet) and Hawksbill (4,049 feet); in the central part, Peaks of Otter (Flat Top—4,001 feet and Sharp Top—3,875 feet) and in the southwestern part, White Top Mountain (5,520 feet) and Mount Rogers (5,719 feet), the highest point in Virginia. In the southern part, the Blue Ridge becomes a rugged plateau with stony land and jagged ravines unsuited for commercial agricultural pursuits. This entire area is heavily forested with white pine, white oak, poplar, hemlock, black oak, yellow pine, chestnut, locust and chestnut oak trees. The famous Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park extends one hundred miles along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains in this area from Front Royal to Waynesboro.

(4) the Appalachian Ridge and Valleys—This region is located west of the Blue Ridge and Valleys. The Appalachian Ridge consists primarily of a narrow strip of land thirty-five to one hundred miles wide. The Allegheny Mountains border Virginia along the west and numerous high, narrow ridges are found here. The Appalachian Valley in Virginia, like the Blue Ridge, originates at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. This valley extends for approximately three hundred and fifty miles to the borderline of Tennessee. The eastern part of this valley is often referred to as the Great Valley or the Valley of Virginia. This valley is actually a series of valleys separated by crosswise ridges and drained by five rivers: the upper James, Roanoke, New, Holston and Powell. An abundance of limestone makes the soil exceptionally fertile and productive. In the northern part of the Valley of Virginia is the famous Shenandoah Valley, about 150 miles long and ten to twenty miles wide, divided in the north by the Massanutten Mountain, a high ridge approximately forty-five miles long. There is a great variety of soils found here, and most of them have a fair degree of plant fertility. Corn and winter wheat are the agricultural specialties of the Shenandoah Valley. Other valleys included in the Valley of Virginia are the Abingdon Valley, Dublin Valley, Fincastle Valley, Powell Valley, Roanoke Valley, New River Valley, Holston Valley and Clinch Valley.

(5) the Appalachian Plateau—This region is located in southwestern Virginia and is often referred to as the Southwestern Plateau or Allegheny Plateau. It extends only a short distance into Virginia and consists mainly of rough, rugged terrain. Water gaps, gorges, sandstone walls, rock formations and dense forested areas make southwestern Virginia's scenery distinctly different and picturesque. The Cumberland Mountains form its western boundary. Coal-mining is the chief occupation in this region, and this is the area where the largest and most productive coal-fields of Virginia are located. Lumbering is also carried on extensively. In addition, some cattle, hogs, corn and vegetables are raised here.

The combination of these five regions suggests a one-word description of Virginia's topography, namely, diversified.

Topographical Regions of Virginia

VIRGINIA STATE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Natural Tunnel

Unique Features

Each state of the United States generally has at least a few geographical oddities or unusual geographical formations. Virginia has been richly endowed with caverns, springs, unusual rock formations and a dense, swampy wilderness.

The chief caverns are called Endless (near New Market), Grand (at Grottoes), Luray (near Luray)—the largest in Virginia, Massanutten (near Harrisonburg), Melrose (near Harrisonburg), Shenandoah (near New Market) and Skyline (near Front Royal). These caverns are of limestone formation and contain stalagmites (upward-projecting forms on a cavern floor) and stalactites (downward-projecting forms from a cavern ceiling) in diverse shapes and colors. The Blowing Cave in Bath County received its name from the inhalation of cold air during the winter and the expulsion of cold air during the summer.

Burning Spring is located in Wise County and is so named because of the liquid flames which seethe through the surface of the earth in this area from unknown sources. Crystal Spring in Roanoke received its name from the approximately five million gallons of crystal water per day which likewise appear from some unknown source.

The famous Natural Bridge of Virginia is considered one of the seven natural wonders of the new world. It is located near Lexington in Rockbridge County (the county so-named because of the existence of the bridge of rock) and is a bridge of stone ninety feet long and two hundred and fifteen feet high spanning a gorge cut by Cedar Creek. So unique is this formation that Indian lore relates that it was referred to as "the Bridge of God." In this same region, in Patrick County, may be seen crystals in the shape of crosses in certain rock strata. So rare is their structure and clarity that they are often called "Fairy Stones" or "Cross Stones."

The Natural Tunnel located in Purchase Ridge near Big Stone Gap and Bristol is a tunnel approximately nine hundred feet long, one hundred and fifty feet wide and one hundred feet high, carved by flowing water through solid mountain terrain. The tunnel itself includes a reverse curve, and, at the present time, railroad tracks and Stock Creek waters run through it.

Crabtree Falls in Nelson County, Central Virginia, is believed to be one of the highest waterfalls east of the Mississippi River. These falls are formed by a branch of the Tye River, the South Fork, descending two thousand feet below in cascade formation.

The Great Falls of the Potomac, located on the boundary between Virginia and Maryland, is one of the highest waterfalls east of the Rockies with an elevation of ninety feet.

The Natural Chimneys located at Mt. Solon are seven large towers of stone carved by erosion out of a mountain. These rock strata are so straight and so symmetrical that they resemble a series of chimneys suggesting their name. Two of the chimneys have tunnels carved through the bases, and cedar trees appear to grow out of the rock.

The Great Dismal Swamp, approximately fifteen hundred square miles in area, is shared by Virginia and by North Carolina. It is noted for its dense tropical growth, its fur-bearing game (particularly, black bear), its massive timber varieties and its disorderly plant vegetation. Juniper trees, sometimes called red cedar, and cypress trees are abundant around Lake Drummond in the Great Dismal Swamp. The swamp is more easily accessible from Virginia than from North Carolina.

In addition to the above natural wonders, there are numerous mineral springs, canyons, mountain peaks and deep gorges. Virginia has nine State Parks including Douthat State Park (near Clifton Forge), Fairystone State Park (near Bassett and Martinsville), Hungry Mother State Park (near Marion), Seashore State Park (near Cape Henry), Staunton River State Park (near South Boston and Halifax), Westmoreland State Park (near Montross and Fredericksburg), Claytor Lake State Park (near Dublin and Radford), Prince Edward Lake State Park (near Burkeville) and Pocahontas Memorial State Park (near Richmond and Petersburg). The Breaks Interstate Park controlled by Virginia and Kentucky has scenery so similar to the Grand Canyon that it is often refered to as "The Grand Canyon of the South." The Virginia area of the Breaks is located in the northern part of Dickenson County. Virginia also has a prominent National Park, Shenandoah National Park, established in 1935, which consists of approximately 193,000 acres. This park includes the beautiful Skyline Drive. Cumberland Gap National Historical Park is located in parts of Kentucky and Tennessee as well as in Virginia.

Rivers and Lakes

Because of the varied topography, there are many swift streams which are available (although not yet completely utilized) for water power. Virginia has parts of eight different river systems within its boundaries. They are the Potomac River (including its chief tributary, the Shenandoah), the Rappahannock River (including its chief tributary, the Rapidan), the York River, the James River (including its tributaries, the Chickahominy and the Appomattox), the Meherrin, Nottoway and Blackwater Rivers (the chief tributaries of the Chowan River in North Carolina), the Roanoke River (including its chief tributary, the Dan), the New River and the Holston, Clinch and Powell Rivers (the chief tributaries of the Tennessee River System). These rivers furnish excellent waterpower and drainage.

In addition to these important rivers, Virginia has several valuable lakes. Included among these are: Crystal Lake near Cape Henry, Lake Drummond (the largest body of fresh water in the state, approximately five square miles in area and twenty-two feet in altitude) in the heart of the Dismal Swamp and in the highest part of the Dismal Swamp, Lake Jackson near Centerville, Mountain Lake near Blacksburg (thirty-five hundred feet above sea level and noted for the clarity of its water), Pedlar Lake in Long Mountain Wayside Park, Claytor Lake near Pulaski, Bear Creek Lake near Richmond, Bedford Lake at Bedford and Prince Edward Lake in Prince Edward State Park. Some of these lakes are noted for their fish, especially bass and trout, while others contribute primarily to the scenic grandeur of Virginia.

Climate

The climate of Virginia is classified as continental—characterized by frequent moderate extremes in temperature and a medium length summer growing season. Since elevation generally affects climatic conditions, the temperature in the Piedmont Plateau and Appalachian Ridge sections varies according to the altitude. In the Piedmont and Appalachian areas, during the winter months the temperatures are lower than on the plains; likewise, in the former areas, greater seasonal contrasts occur. In general, the climate of the entire state is mild with few extremes in temperature. The average temperature is approximately 40 degrees Fahrenheit, winter; 60 degrees Fahrenheit, spring and fall; and 80 degrees Fahrenheit, summer. The greatest ranges of temperature occur in the Piedmont and in the Great Valley. Snow falls very infrequently except in the mountain areas and usually is of short duration whenever it appears.

With respect to annual precipitation, the average rainfall for Virginia is approximately forty-five inches, with variations in different regions. In some regions it is as high as forty-nine or fifty inches and, in others, as low as thirty-six or thirty-seven inches. Rainfall typically is abundant and well-distributed throughout the year. The heaviest rainfall usually occurs, however, during the summer. As a result of the climatic conditions of temperature and precipitation, the growing season varies from approximately one hundred and fifty to two hundred and ten days. Consequently, agricultural products are well diversified.

Natural Resources

The economic destiny of a region is greatly influenced by its natural resources as well as by its location. It has already been pointed out that Virginia has a most desirable location. Virginia also has numerous natural resources.

One resource so influential that it often shapes the economic pattern of a state is soil. Virginia is fortunate in having numerous types of soil: rich, black loam; light, sandy loam; clay and sand loam; limestone and clay soils. Most of these soils are easily adaptable to cultivation, and the use of crop rotation and of marl (a soil neutralizer) has fostered extensive production.

Forests constitute approximately three-fifths or 60% of Virginia's total land area. There are many hardwood and softwood varieties in Virginia. The term, "hardwood," is sometimes a misleading one because a few of the so-called "softwood" trees are actually hard in substance. Hardwood trees shed their leaves annually, and they are called deciduous trees. Since softwood trees bear cones, they are called coniferous trees. The southern or yellow pine is the leading softwood or coniferous tree which thrives in Virginia because of the sandy soil of the coastal plain. Other softwoods are red spruce, hemlock, red cedar and cypress. Hardwoods include oak, chestnut, locust, hickory, walnut, gum, white ash, magnolia and dogwood. Although the forests are scattered throughout the state, the Tidewater, Piedmont and western portions of the state have the largest forested area.

Fish are plentiful in Virginia because of the Atlantic Ocean, the Chesapeake Bay and the numerous rivers and mountain streams. Virginia usually ranks annually among the first ten states in the value of its fisheries. The principal fish are oysters and clams in Chesapeake Bay, blue crabs and shrimp in the Tidewater area, scallops in seacoast inlets, bads, bream, perch, pike, carp, catfish in inland waters and speckled and rainbow trout in mountain streams. Menhaden fish, found near the surface of the water, are inedible but are now being used for making fertilizer and oil in Virginia.

The amount of waterpower is above average in Virginia due to many swift streams and rivers and the high elevation. This resource combined with an ample supply of steam coal has resulted in the production of electric power in Virginia at a much cheaper rate than in many other states. Furthermore, it is estimated that Virginia industry at the present time is using only approximately 10 per cent of its available waterpower supply.

With respect to minerals, approximately one hundred and fifty kinds have been found in Virginia, and approximately forty have been mined and quarried recently. However, Virginia ranks nineteenth in United States mineral production and provides approximately 1.25% of the total United States mineral value.

The most valuable and most abundant mineral resource found in Virginia is coal. There are four types: bituminous (soft), anthracite (hard), semi-bituminous and semi-anthracite. The bituminous coal far surpasses the other types in quantity. The coal supply is found primarily in three areas: (1) the Piedmont region—the Richmond Basin and the Farmville area—bituminous; (2) the west side of the Great Valley of Virginia—anthracite and semi-anthracite and (3) the Southwestern Plateau—bituminous and semi-bituminous. The first coal to be mined in the United States was located near Richmond in 1745. At the present time, Virginia ranks sixth in the United States coal production and is believed to have more coal seams now available than any other mining district in the United States. Coal is mined most frequently in Buchanan, Wise and Dickenson Counties.

Various types of stone resources rank second in financial value of minerals. These include:

Calcareous marl (an earthy deposit containing usually lime, clay and sand)—in the Tidewater section—used as a soil neutralizer

Cement rock—limestone, marl, shale and clay—in the Coastal Plain and in Augusta, Botetourt, Norfolk and Warren Counties—used in forming portland cement and masonry cement

Dolomite (a brittle calcium magnesium carbonate)—in the Valley west of the Blue Ridge Mountains—used as a source of magnesium, for the manufacture of refractories, for building and crushed stone

Granite—in the Piedmont and Blue Ridge provinces—used for building monumental stone, crushed stone and paving blocks

Greenstone (a dark-green crystalline rock)—in Lynchburg and in the Piedmont area—used for crushed stone and one particular type is used for ornamental stone

Limestone—west of the Blue Ridge, in the Appalachian Valley and in the far west of the state—used in the production of lime and for manufacturing chemicals, for cement, as a soil conditioner, for crushed stone and rock wool insulation

Marble—in Rockingham, Rockbridge, Scott and Giles Counties—used extensively for monumental stone: jet black, green, white, red, reddish-brown, blue, gray, blue-gray, pink and variegated (different colors within one type); the pink marble is similar to the Tennessee marble and is found primarily in Smyth County

Shale (a fragile rock resembling slate)—in the Valley—used in the manufacture of bricks, portland cement and rock wool

Sandstone—Oriskany sandstone in Frederick and in Rockingham Counties—chief source for the manufacture of all glass

Slate—in Piedmont or eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Albemarle and Buckingham Counties—used chiefly for roofs, baseboards, blackboards, switchboards, sidewalks, flagstones and asphalt shingles

There are several miscellaneous minerals which, when combined, rank third in financial value of minerals in the state. These miscellaneous minerals include:

Aplite—among Piedmont crystalline rocks along the Piney River in Amherst County—used in the ceramic and glass industry—Virginia ranks first in quantity and in value

Bauxite—in Augusta County—used for manufacturing aluminum, chemicals and abrasives

Gypsum—in Smyth and Washington Counties—used primarily for the manufacture of cement, plaster of paris, wallboards, fillers and chalk

Iron ore—in central and southwestern parts of the state—used in furnaces for the extraction of the metal itself

Kyanite—in Buckingham, Charlotte and Prince Edward Counties—used in the manufacture of high-temperature refractories, used by metallurgical and glass industries, for insulators, for spark plugs, porcelains, boiler furnaces and in the ceramics industry—Virginia ranks first in quantity and in value

Manganese—in central and southwestern parts of the state—in Augusta, Bland, Smyth, Giles and Wythe Counties—used in the manufacture of steel, dry batteries, chemicals, ceramics, fertilizer, drier in varnish and printer's ink

Petroleum—in Lee and Scott Counties—used primarily for fuel

Salt—in southwest—in Smyth and Washington Counties—used in the manufacture of various industrial chemicals and for specialized used in food, clay, dye, glass and paper industries; the brine used in manufacturing chlorine and soda ash

Soapstone—in Albemarle, Franklin and Nelson Counties—used for the manufacture of switchboards, electric insulators, insecticides (ground soapstone) and for industrial and research laboratories

Talc—in Fairfax and in Franklin Counties—used as paint extender and as pigment, paper and rubber filler, ceramic products, lubricant, dusting material and abrasives

Titanium concentrates—in Nelson, Hanover and Amherst Counties—these minerals consist of ilmenite (used chiefly in the manufacture of pigments and to a slight extent in making steel) and rutile (used mainly for coating on electrical welding rods); titanium is used for increasing the hardness, strength and durability of steel and is sometimes used in making pottery, china and stainless steel—Virginia ranks third in titanium concentrates

Sand and gravel, used primarily for roadbuilding and general construction projects, rank fourth in value. Most of the sand and gravel is located along the Coastal Plain, especially in Henrico, Chesterfield, Prince George and Princess Anne Counties. Sand and gravel are also used for "fill," for engine sands, railroad ballast and glass. Clay (excluding that type used in the manufacture of pottery) ranks fifth in financial value. Clay deposits are widespread throughout Virginia—especially in Botetourt, Buckingham, Chesterfield, Henrico and Prince William Counties—and vary from red to light-colored to white. They are used chiefly for brick and tile construction.

With respect to metals, Virginia mines the following:

Barite—widespread deposits—used in the preparation of oil well drilling, muds, chemicals

Diatomite—Tidewater section—an earthy material used as an insulator, as a filter medium for oils, in sugar refining

Feldspar—widespread deposits—chiefly in Amelia, Bedford and Prince Edward Counties—used chiefly in the ceramics industry for making pottery and in the manufacture of glass, enamelware, enamel brick, and as an abrasive in soaps and cleansers

Gold—northeast Piedmont and Blue Ridge Plateau—little gold at present but the best developed gold deposits are located in Fauquier, Buckingham, Culpeper, Goochland, Louisa, Orange, Spotsylvania and Stafford Counties—chief uses of gold include as a bullion for backing of United States currency, in the manufacture of jewelry, in the process of gilding, lettering, plating, and in the chemical industry

Lead and Zinc—lead: in Albemarle, Spotsylvania, Louise and Wythe Counties—used in the manufacture of paint, in storage batteries, cable covering and as an alloy; zinc: in Scott, Wythe, Rockingham and Spotsylvania Counties—used for producing metallic zinc, for galvanizing and (when alloyed with copper) for making brass

Mica—among the crystalline rocks of the Piedmont Provinces—white mica called muscovite is used chiefly for electric insulation, for coating wallpaper, for roofing paper, in lubricants and in heat-resistant windows; sheet mica is used in electronic equipment—in Amelia, Bedford, and Henrico Counties

Natural gas—in Buchanan and Dickenson Counties—used for fuel and power

Pyrite—widespread deposits, particularly in Carroll County—used for its sulphur content in the manufacture of sulfuric acid—Virginia ranks second in quantity

Tungsten—in Mecklenburg County—used for making high-speed tool steel and munitions

Wool-rock—in the Valley of Virginia and the Ridge provinces—used for the manufacture of rock wool for heat and sound insulation

As civilization progresses and new inventions are created, the demand for natural resources will increase. As new processing methods are devised, Virginia will undoubtedly increase the development of such resources.

Human Resources

The natural resources of a state assume a comparatively minor role unless there are human resources to develop and to utilize them. The present population of Virginia is approximately 3,900,000 people. This figure represents a gain of approximately 17% in the last decade. Virginia now ranks sixteenth in population among the fifty states of the United States. Of this total population, approximately 40% in 1960 lived in incorporated localities having a population of 25,000 or more, an increase of approximately 4% over 1950; approximately 78% are white and 22% are non-white. Of the non-white population, approximately 21% are Negroes and the remainder consists primarily of Indians, Chinese and Japanese. Most of the survivors of the Mattaponi and Pamunkey Indians now live on reservations in King William County and the Chickahominy Indians in New Kent and Charles City Counties. Of the white population in Virginia, only 1.03% is foreign-born.

Density of population refers to the average number of people per square mile in a state. Density is found by dividing the total population of a state by the total land area of the state. The density of population in 1960 was 96. The counties of Fairfax (southwest of, and adjacent to, Arlington County) and of Henrico (adjacent to Richmond) more than doubled their population from 1950 to 1960.

From 1880 to 1930, while the population was increasing rapidly in most states of the United States, it was increasing very slowly in Virginia—only a 5% increase. During this period, there was a large migration from Virginia to other regions of the United States, primarily to seek better employment opportunities. Of this emigration, 65% consisted of non-whites. This emigration practically ceased during the 1930's. During the Great Depression, agricultural workers who had made up the large proportion of the previous emigration realized the futility of migrating to urban areas beyond the state, already overcrowded with unemployed people. Although manufacturing activities in the nation declined during this period, in Virginia such activities increased, causing the number of employees in manufacturing to increase in Virginia. At the same time, governmental activities within Virginia and in areas adjacent to Virginia greatly expanded, thus affording more opportunities for additional employment in Virginia than in many other states of the Union during this time.

In the 1940's Virginia had a percentage rate of population growth of 23.9%, the highest percentage rate since the first census of 1790. This growth was partly a result of a high birth rate, a low death rate and the greatest net immigration of people in Virginia's history since the colonial period. Approximately 216,900 persons became residents of Virginia during this decade. At the same time, there was a high rate of development of employment opportunities in Virginia as manufacturing, mining, tourist trade, wholesale and retail trades and service industries expanded rapidly. The chief factor, however, in the immigration increase was the widespread increase of federal government employment, civilian and military.

The total population of the state increased by 18% during the decade 1950-1960. However, during the same decade, Virginia changed in population rank from the fifteenth place among the forty-eight states to the sixteenth place among the fifty states. The ten most populated cities in Virginia are Norfolk, Richmond, Newport News, Portsmouth, Roanoke, Alexandria, Hampton, Lynchburg, Danville and Petersburg. During the past decade, the population of three cities has been materially increased through annexation. In 1952, Hampton, Phoebus and Elizabeth City County consolidated into the first class city of Hampton. In the same year, Warwick County became a city also. In 1955, Norfolk became the largest city in population in the state when it annexed the Tanners Creek Magisterial District of Norfolk County. In 1958, the cities of Warwick and Newport News were officially consolidated into the one large city of Newport News which now ranks third in population.

SUMMARY

Since Virginia borders the Atlantic Ocean and is located almost halfway between the northern and southern boundaries of the United States, it has a very favorable geographical location. An abundance of mountain and plain areas, rivers and lakes, a moderate climate and the presence of varying altitudes from sea level to 5,719 feet furnishes Virginia with five distinct topographical regions and much scenic beauty. Several unique geographical features found in Virginia such as Burning Spring, Natural Bridge, Natural Tunnel, Crabtree Falls, Natural Chimneys, several caverns and the nine state parks, in addition to the well-known Shenandoah National Park, help to make Virginia a most desirable tourist area. A variety of natural resources such as soil, forests, fish, waterpower, coal, miscellaneous minerals and metals promote numerous occupations within the boundaries of Virginia. Ranking thirty-sixth in area and sixteenth in population among the states of the United States, Virginia has an attractive environmental location with a large diversity of skills among its inhabitants. Thus, Virginia is well-endowed geographically and has many potential resources for future progress.

2
Historical Life: 1584-1775

Exploration and Colonization

Through the efforts of John Cabot who explored the coast of North America in 1497, according to a patent granted to him by King Henry VII, England had a substantial claim to New World territory. Attempts at founding an English colony in America, however, were not made until 1583 when Sir Humphrey Gilbert received permission from Queen Elizabeth to settle a colony in the area now known as Newfoundland. This attempt was unsuccessful and Sir Humphrey Gilbert and his colleagues drowned during a storm at sea on their return voyage. Nevertheless, Gilbert had selected a site for a colony and had claimed the island for England. The proprietary patent which Gilbert had received from Queen Elizabeth was renewed and passed to his half-brother, Sir Walter Raleigh.

In 1584, the name "Virginia" was given to the area of land claimed by John Cabot, an area extending from Roanoke Island 600 miles in an arc formation. Some historians state that Raleigh himself named the area "Virginia" in honor of Queen Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, while others indicate that Queen Elizabeth herself named it in her own honor. From 1584 to 1591, Raleigh made numerous attempts with the use of his personal fortune to establish an English colony on Roanoke Island—located off what is now known as the North Carolina coast—but his efforts were futile and the so-called "Lost Colony" resulted. In 1587, after Raleigh's second group of colonists had arrived at Roanoke Island (the first group having returned to England after unsurmountable difficulties had beset them), they established a settlement there. This was the settlement where the first child of English parents was born in America. Her name was Virginia Dare (named in honor of her birthplace) and she was the granddaughter of John White, Governor of the settlement. When the colonists' provisions became low, Governor White returned to England for additional ones. Four years passed before he returned to the settlement because of the War between England and Spain, and upon his return, he found no settlers on the island. Various areas and locations were searched in vain and only one possible clue was ever found: the letters, "CROATAN," carved on a tree. These letters spelled the name of an island which had been inhabited by friendly Indians of the same name. Thus, the "Lost Colony" remains an historical mystery which has never been solved.

The many sincere efforts on the part of Sir Walter Raleigh plus the vast sums of money which he spent for these colonization attempts convinced the English people that colonization was too complicated an activity for individuals to pursue alone. Since the English government did not desire to undertake these settlement projects, charters were issued by King James I to stock and joint-stock companies. Under this system, each stockholder bought a certain number of shares. If the company succeeded, each stockholder earned a profit based upon the number of shares he owned. On April 10, 1606, the Virginia Charter was granted under which two companies were incorporated: the London Company consisting mainly of men from London and the Plymouth Company consisting mainly of men from Plymouth and neighboring towns. The charter granted them the right to settle in the area in that part of the American coast known as "Virginia" between 30 and 45 degrees north latitude and as far inland as 100 miles. The London Company was granted for settlement the coast between 34 and 41 degrees north latitude and fifty miles north and south of the point of settlement; the Plymouth Company was granted the coast between 38 and 45 degrees north. The overlapping area between 38 and 41 degrees could be settled by either company as long as the company did not colonize within 100 miles of a settlement established by the other. The charter also guaranteed the colonists and their descendants all rights, privileges and franchises enjoyed by Englishmen living in England at this time.

The government of the colony established by the Virginia Charter was to consist of a Superior Council of thirteen members in England and a Resident or Inferior Council in the colony itself, with complete administrative powers and political control reserved for the King. Each landholder was required to pay an annual quitrent to the Crown and was forbidden to carry on trade with any foreign country without a license. Before the charter was signed, in order to encourage a large number of stockholders, the London Company agreed to make each subscriber to its stock who paid twelve pounds and ten shillings the "lord of 200 acres of land" which would be owned by "him and his heirs forever." Consequently, the company raised sufficient money to finance a colonizing expedition, and, shortly after the charter had been signed officially by the King, the company sent its first emigrants on the way.

The settlements of the Plymouth Company were unsuccessful. The London Company had six hundred fifty-nine members, many of whom were knights, aristocrats and gentlemen of learning as well as the usual merchant and middle class citizens. In general, there were two groups of stockholders: the adventurers who purchased the stock but remained in England, and the planters who personally established the colony and then lived in it. Although the company was primarily organized for profit making, it was also expected to help the mother country, England, by supplying her with products which she herself could not produce. Some of the colonists sincerely desired to acquaint and convert the Indians to Christianity. The leader of the London Company organization was Bartholomew Gosnold and his chief associates were Edward Maria Wingfield, a rich merchant, Robert Hunt, a clergyman, George Percy, a poet and scholar, and John Smith, a versatile individual.

On December 6, 1606, the London Company dispatched three ships from Blackwell, London, England: the Sarah Constant (or Susan Constant), captained by Sir Christopher Newport, the Admiral of the fleet; the Goodspeed (or Godspeed), captained by Bartholomew Gosnold; and the Discovery (or Discoverer), captained by John Ratcliffe. These ships carried one hundred twenty passengers, men and boys, only sixteen of whom died on the long journey to Virginia. This is a very small number lost when one considers the size and type of ships used, the extremely long voyage which lasted approximately four months, over the Atlantic Ocean at its greatest width, the lack of proper food and drinking water and the severe storm which the fleet encountered off the Florida coast. This storm blew them off their intended course to two capes which appeared guarding a huge bay. The settlers sighted these capes on Sunday, May 6, 1607 and named them Cape Henry for Henry, Prince of Wales, eldest son of James I, and Cape Charles for Charles, the Duke of York, another son of James I. The bay was Chesapeake Bay, so-named by the Indians. They sailed up a river tributary, called Powhatan by the Indians, to the bay and then to a peninsula located about fifty miles above its mouth. This site is believed to have been chosen because the water was deep enough to allow the ships to dock close to the shore and because a peninsula could be comparatively easily defended against Indian attacks. Here the settlers landed on May 24, 1607 and established the first permanent English settlement in America. They called the settlement Jamestown in honor of their King, James I, and called the river on which they had traveled the James River. There, the minister, Parson Robert Hunt, standing under a ship's canvas sail stretched between four trees, led a thanksgiving service to God on behalf of all the passengers for their safe arrival in America. He also had the privilege of celebrating the first Holy Communion in America. Thus, the settlement of Jamestown became the "Cradle of the Republic" because it was the birthplace of the area now known as the United States as well as of the State of Virginia.

The colonists had been given sealed written instructions concerning their local governmental leaders, and these instructions were not to be opened until the ships reached Virginia. The council members had no power to make laws but were appointed to see that the laws approved by the King were enforced. Since John Smith had shown strong leadership qualities, had frequently criticized the management of the ships, and had exerted much influence on the voyage to America, he had aroused jealousy on the part of some of the other voyagers. As a result, the accusation was made that he was desirous of becoming the King of Virginia. Fearing that he might assume too much political power, his cohorts arrested him upon the pretense of treason and mutiny and imprisoned him on shipboard until the end of the journey. When the unsealed instructions were read, the first Resident Council consisted of Bartholomew Gosnold, George Kendall, John Martin, Christopher Newport, John Ratcliffe, John Smith and Edward Maria Wingfield, president of the first council. John Smith was later charged with sedition, acquitted, and finally restored to his rightful council position.

In addition to naming the members of the Resident Council, the written instructions for the colonists provided that all the colonists should work for a "common store." This rule resulted in a great hardship because some of the physically able and capable colonists left the tasks of planting, building, and performing of additional necessary duties to others. Some of the colonists were gentlemen by profession, unaccustomed to hard physical labor, and interested mostly in finding gold or attaining a quick fortune and then returning to England. A majority of the colonists, however, worked hard and, after building a fort for protection, continued to construct a storehouse, a church and log huts for residences. The morale of the colonists became very low when the food supplies became scanty; diseases of fever and dysentery appeared due to the humid, marshy, mosquito-laden land area; and Indian attacks became common. With arrows tipped with deer's horn and with sharp stones, the Indians had shot at the colonists, severely injuring Captain Gabriel Archer and one of the sailors. However, the first large organized Indian attack occurred in the latter part of May when two hundred Indians attacked the settlers. They were finally driven back through the efforts of the colonists under the leadership of Captain Edward Maria Wingfield.

Captain John Smith, Captain Christopher Newport and twenty other settlers decided to explore the general area of the Jamestown region. From June to September, they journeyed the entire length of the Chesapeake Bay and they witnessed the eastern shore of the bay, the Potomac River, the Great Falls, the Susquehanna River, the Rappahannock River, the York River and the Chesapeake River. Smith carefully drew a map of the entire area and called it a "Map of the Chesapeake." He sent it to England via Captain Newport, and it was later published in London.

The courage and persistent hard work of the settlers and the leadership of Captain John Smith were invaluable. Captain John Smith maintained harmony in the Council, encouraged friendly relations with the Indians (eventually to the extent of getting corn, an absolute necessity, from them) and changed the "common store" policy to a "no work-no eat" policy which had most effective results on the indolent settlers. In 1608, he wrote a fascinating narration about the founding of the Virginia Colony which he entitled "A True Relation." He is sometimes referred to as the "Father of Virginia" because of his participation in so many activities: a governmental official (president of the Council from September 1608 to September 1609), a diplomat in his relations with the Indians, a leader in attempting to maintain peaceful, cooperative relations among the settlers themselves, an observing prisoner of the Indians (during which time he learned much of their culture and experienced the miraculous saving of his life by the Indian girl, Pocahontas) and a writer who tried to picture the happenings of the settlers in an enjoyable fashion.

In addition to saving Smith's life, Pocahontas helped the Virginia settlers by having corn and venison brought to them and, later, by warning John Smith of a proposed Indian attack. After John Smith returned to England, Pocahontas stopped visiting the colony, and the Indians soon refused to bring any more corn to the colonists. Pocahontas was eventually captured by a Jamestown settler, Captain Samuel Argall, through the trickery of an Indian who betrayed her in return for a "copper Kettle and some trinkets." She was held as a hostage in Jamestown in an effort to restore peace between the Indians and the English. This strategy was so successful that friendly relations were re-established. Two years later, in April, 1614, Pocahontas married John Rolfe, an English gentleman, at the Jamestown Church. Pocahontas had met and had become well acquainted with John Rolfe during her captivity at Jamestown. She had been baptized at the Jamestown Church and had been given the name of Rebecca. They lived for a while at Jamestown and then at Varina, Rolfe's plantation. Three years after their marriage, Rebecca and John and their baby, Thomas, age one, traveled to England, accompanied by approximately a dozen Indians who desired to be educated in England. Rebecca was received royally at the court, and she was so well-mannered and charming that this lady who had grown up in the wilderness of Virginia was readily accepted by London Society. When Captain John Smith heard of her arrival in England, he informed Queen Anne of the great help furnished to the Virginia Colony by this Indian maiden during her youth. Pocahontas then became Lady Rebecca and remained in England for over a year. As they were getting ready to return to Virginia, Lady Rebecca died suddenly and was buried in St. George's Church at Gravesend, England. Today, two beautiful stained-glass windows may be seen in this church, a gift of the Colonial Dames of Virginia, as a token of gratitude for services rendered to the Colony of Virginia by Princess Pocahontas.

John Ratcliffe and Captain John Smith succeeded to the presidency of the council after Captain Wingfield. While Smith was president of the council, King James I granted another charter for Virginia in 1609 upon the reorganization of the London Company. This charter provided that: (1) the area of Virginia was henceforth to include all the land on its eastern coast 200 miles north and 200 miles south of Old Point Comfort and extending from the Atlantic Ocean west and northwest to the Pacific Ocean; therefore, Virginia included at this time land now found in Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Wisconsin and part of Minnesota; (2) a Resident Council was to be established which would have the power to distribute land, make all laws and appoint all officers for Virginia's government; membership in the council was to result from election by the members of the company in England, a majority vote being required for the election; and (3) the colonists were to take the Oath of Supremacy making the Church of England the only recognized church of the colony.

In the same year, Captain John Smith bought a tract of land located near Richmond from the Indian Chief, Powhatan, and there he founded a settlement which he called "None Such." He named it thus because he believed there was "none such" site as scenically beautiful anywhere. This site was formerly Emperor Powhatan's summer court location.

In the same year also Thomas West, Lord de la Warr (Delaware), became the "Lord Governor and Captaine Generall" of the Virginia colony. Although he held this office until June 1618, he remained in England during this time because of ill health with the exception of the period June 1610-March 1611. In May 1610, Sir Thomas Gates, the first Governor of the colony of Virginia, arrived at Jamestown. Captain George Percy had succeeded Captain Smith as president of the Council. Starvation from a lack of food supplies followed, and the population of the colony was reduced from 500 to 60 people. These sixty were approximately fourteen miles away from Jamestown on their way back to England when some of Lord de la Warr's ships arrived bringing food and fifty additional settlers. Lord de la Warr was responsible also for having a trading post established at Hampton. Today, Hampton is the oldest continuous Anglo-Saxon settlement still in existence in the United States.

A short time later, Sir Thomas Dale (better known as "Marshall") arrived from England as Governor of the colony. He was considered a harsh Governor because his martial law administration was characterized by severe punishment for wrongdoing. However, he was responsible for having common property divided among the colonists and for allowing them to own their shares privately. He ordered that three acres of land be given to every man. In return for this land, the owner was required to give six bushels of corn each year to the colony. The owner then was allowed to keep the rest of his crops, two acres of which had to be planted in corn before any tobacco could be raised. This action was the first official recognition of the right of owning property in America and such action resulted in much more industrious efforts put forth on the part of the new owners.

In 1611, Sir Thomas Dale founded the third settlement in Virginia: Henricopolis or the City of Henricus (named for the eldest son of King James I, Prince Henry). Approximately 350 settlers, mostly German laborers, soon colonized there. Two years later, Governor Dale was also responsible for a settlement being established at the site of the junction of the Appomattox and James Rivers. It was called New Bermuda or Bermuda Hundred because of its similarity to the British Island of Bermuda. For many years this settlement served as a convenient shipping point and the present city of Hopewell is an outgrowth of this early site.

In 1612, a third charter was granted by King James I for the Virginia Colony. This was a most liberal charter as it abolished the Superior Council and gave full governing powers of the colony directly to the London Company members, thus making the company a self-governing corporation. The name was changed from the London Company to the Virginia Company. The company was to hold four meetings each year in London, and these meetings were called meetings of the General Court or "Quarter Courts." At such meetings, the officers were to be elected by the stockholders and the laws of the colony were to be passed. The General Court also had the power to manage the business of the company and to appoint the Governor and councillors for the Virginia colony. The charter extended the eastern seaboard boundary to include the Bermudas and, in addition, gave the company the authority to hold lotteries for its own benefit.

VA. DEPT. OF CONSERVATION AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Reproductions of Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery

In the same year, John Rolfe began experimenting at Varina, his plantation, with some tobacco seeds brought from the West Indies or from South America. Pocahontas helped Rolfe in this task by teaching him the necessity of keeping the young, tender leaves protected from the cold and by showing him how gently the young tobacco plants must be transplanted. Rolfe became the first white man to raise tobacco successfully in Virginia. Then the problem of curing tobacco in such a manner that it could reach England without spoilage faced him. After some experimentation, his shipment was the first one to reach England in good condition. As a result, tobacco became the first important money crop and export of Virginia. In addition to the price the planters received for this product, the production of tobacco created employment for merchants and shippers. After Rolfe's success in growing and curing tobacco, it was grown by practically everyone in a variety of places: fields, gardens, between graves and, in some instances, in the streets of Jamestown. Prosperous times had finally arrived at Jamestown. When the Englishmen at home realized the profit and excellent opportunities available in tobacco growing, many journeyed to Virginia and began tobacco raising. Previously, the settlers' occupations had consisted primarily of farming (especially the cultivation of grapes) and of the manufacture of potash, soap, glass and tar. The successful growing of tobacco caused a tremendous increase in the population of the colony and in the amount of tobacco shipped from Virginia. This infant tobacco production was the background for the present day high rank of Virginia in tobacco production.

In 1616, the company allowed each settler to have 100 acres of land for his personal use. A few years later, a 50-acre tract of land was awarded to each settler who paid his own fare to America and an additional 50 acres for every pioneer he brought with him. This land arrangement, called the "Head-Right" system, formed the basis of the Virginia land system. This system resulted in the creation of large estates, and in the 1650's the average size land grant in Virginia was approximately 500 acres. Such areas were commonly called plantations, and the owners of such plantations, known as Virginia planters, ultimately became the dominant influence in the Virginia government. Some of these early plantation owners were William Byrd, Thomas Warren, William Fitzhugh and Abraham Wood.

After the Virginia Company had been given full governmental control of its colony, there were some members in the General Court who believed that Virginia settlers themselves should be given more freedom. When these liberal-minded individuals gained control of the company, their leader, Sir Edwin Sandys, was responsible for obtaining ratification of "The Great Charter of Privileges, Orders and Laws" by the General Court on November 28, 1618. In 1619, Sir Edwin Sandys was elected head of the company and he immediately sent Sir George Yeardley as Governor to Virginia to put the charter into effect in order that the settlers would enjoy self-government. Because of the sincere efforts put forth by Sir Edwin Sandys on behalf of this self-government in Virginia, he is often referred to as the "Father of Representative Government in America."

According to the Great Charter, the Virginia Colony was to be governed by two councils: one to consist of the Governor and his advisers chosen in England by the Virginia Company itself and the other council to consist of representatives, called Burgesses, chosen by the Virginia settlers themselves. Governor Yeardley carried out his instructions to have the free inhabitants of the Virginia Colony choose representatives to help him and his advisers in matters concerning taxation and laws for the welfare of the settlers. The settlements were organized into four "incorporations" or "parishes" with Jamestown, the titular capital city of the colony: City of Henricus, Charles City, James City and Kiccowtan (later called Elizabeth City). These parishes were then further divided into eleven districts called boroughs, hundreds or plantations. Each of these districts was asked to elect two Burgesses as representatives in their local government.

Governor Yeardley, therefore, called the first representative legislature in America to meet in the little church at Jamestown, July 30, 1619. This first General Assembly of Virginia consisted of the Council, the upper house, and the House of Burgesses, the lower house. This group was the first popular assembly in the New World. There was a delay in the initial meeting because the local elections had to be postponed until after the plowing and sowing of seeds had been done. The session lasted six days and then adjourned because of the severe heat. The session began with a prayer by the minister and the Governor and Council members sat in the front pews of the church. John Pory was the presiding officer of this first General Assembly and he was called the Speaker. Each burgess was called by name and then given the oath of supremacy in recognition of the sovereignty of King James I. After the oath had been taken, he officially entered the Assembly. Two burgesses were refused membership in the Assembly due to an unusual land patent condition. One of these prospective burgesses had been legally excused from obeying colonial laws by his land grant terms. The action of refusal was significant because it created the precedent that the Virginia Assembly has the right to decide the qualifications of its own members and to expel members even if they have been sworn in and admitted to the Assembly if conditions so warrant.

Although the session was very brief, much was accomplished, including the acceptance of the charter by the General Assembly members. Since this charter was the foundation of the laws used by the General Assembly to rule the Virginia Colony, it was called a constitution and was the first written constitution promulgated in our country. Other petitions presented at this time are indications of the trend of thought of these political leaders: former grants of land should be confirmed and new grants made to the early settlers, shares of land should be given to all male children born in Virginia, rents of the ministers' lands should be made payable in commodities instead of money, a sub-treasurer should be appointed to live in the colony, and men should be sent to build a college in the colony. Other laws passed by the Assembly itself concerned the punishment of idlers, gamblers and drunkards, the payment of church dues, the religious duty of the colonists, the regulation of trade, the relations of whites to Indians, the regulation of the duties of ministers and the conduct of servants. The Assembly also levied a tax of one pound of tobacco on every male inhabitant over sixteen years of age, the tax to be used for the payment of services of its officers (speaker, clerk, sergeant and provost marshal of James City). The Governor then adjourned the Assembly until March 1, 1620.

In addition to the regular settlers at Jamestown, from time to time indentured servants came to America. They were individuals who signed contracts called "indentures" whereby they agreed to work as apprentices or tenant farmers for a stated time in return for their paid passage to America. On August 30, 1619, a ship that looked like a Dutch man-of-war but actually was believed to be a pirate craft came to Jamestown with a cargo of twenty Negroes which it sold to the Governor and the colonists. This was the first recorded selling of slaves in the area now called the United States. The Negroes seemed to be more easily adaptable to hard, manual labor than the Indians or indentured white servants had been. The need for labor which could endure the intense sun of the tobacco fields made the Negroes much more desirable than the whites since they seemed to endure these conditions more satisfactorily.

During the same year, another historical milestone occurred in Virginia when a ship arrived at Jamestown with sixty young women from England. Each bachelor who desired a bride had to pay 120 pounds of tobacco for his bride's passage. The young women stayed at the married planters' homes until their marriage. These brave women made happy homes and helped shoulder the responsibilities so that community life in Virginia became more settled. They wrote such cheerful, courageous accounts of their life in Virginia that a second shipload soon followed and more homes were rapidly established.

In July 1621, the London Company issued to Virginia a code of written laws and a frame of government patterned after the English type: the Governor of the colony was to be appointed by the company, a Council was to be appointed by the company, and a House of Burgesses was to be elected by the colonists themselves. Whenever making laws, the councilors and burgesses were to sit together. A law would be proposed, debated and, if passed, be submitted to the Governor for his approval. The company in England would have the final ratification or rejection. The right of petition and the right of trial by jury were guaranteed. A unique feature was the provision that the burgesses had the power of vetoing any objectionable acts of the company. Thus, additional political rights were furnished to the colonists by this so-called Virginia Constitution of 1621.

At noon on March 22, 1622, the "Great Massacre" occurred. Complete annihilation of all the Jamestown inhabitants by the Powhatan Indian Confederacy was prevented primarily by the warning of an Indian convert, a boy named Chanco. The settlement of Henricopolis (now called Dutch Gap) was completely destroyed: 347 men, women and children—approximately one-third of the total population of the colony—were slain at this time under the strategy of Opechancanough, the leader of the Indians. An ironic happening of the Great Massacre was that one of the victims was George Thorpe, superintendent of the planned college and university of colonial Virginia. He had been a member of Parliament who had sold his estate in England and had come to Virginia to spend his personal fortune and the rest of his life for the conversion and the education of the Indians. By 1619 the General Assembly had set apart 10,000 acres of land for the construction and support of a college for educating Indian youth in "true religion, moral virtue, and civility." The College of Henrico, the first formal educational institution of higher learning in the English colonies, was also destroyed during this Indian Massacre. So strong was the vengeance of the British upon the Indians that no more serious trouble with the Indians occurred until 1644.

Some influential people in England who did not approve of a British colony in America tried to encourage the King to abolish the Virginia Company's charter. The Great Massacre gave King James I the opportunity he sought, and, since the company had been unable to pay its dividends, he finally annulled the company's charter on May 24, 1624. Virginia thus became the first royal or crown colony in England's history. The greatest change under the new governmental setup was that now the King, rather than the Virginia Company, appointed the Governor and the councilors, thus making the Governor a royal Governor rather than a company official. King James I died the following year and his son, Charles I, succeeded to the throne. Two years later, the King authorized the General Assembly to meet, primarily in order that he could obtain the excellent monopoly of the Virginia tobacco trade. Much to his surprise, the colonists refused to grant him such monopoly, and, as a result, he did not authorize another meeting for twelve years.

From 1629 through 1632, two more provinces were carved from Virginia by royal grants: the Province of Carolina to Sir Robert Heath and the Province of Maryland to Lord Baltimore. The Virginians had not protested much against the grant to Sir Robert Heath, but they did protest strongly against the grant to Lord Baltimore. The leader of this protest was William Claiborne who had previously organized a colony and a trading post on part of the Maryland grant area.

In 1634, the Virginia Colony was politically reorganized from four parishes to eight shires or counties: Accawmack (an Indian name meaning "the-across-the-water-place"; the name was later changed to Northampton, an English county name and the two present counties of Accomack and Northampton occupy the same original site), Charles City (named for King Charles), Charles River (changed to York in 1642-43 in honor of the Duke of York), Elizabeth City (formerly Kiccotan—named for Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King James), James City (named for King James), Henrico (named for Prince Henry, son of King James), Warrosquyoake (changed to Isle of Wight in 1637—some of the early patentees had come from the Isle of Wight in the English Channel: the word, "wight," means a passage or channel; therefore, it means "island of the channel"), and Warwick River (changed to Warwick in 1642-1643, named after the Earl of Warwick who was a prominent Virginia Company member). These counties were the second oldest unit of local government in the United States, the New England town being the first. The long distances between plantations and the difficult transportation facilities on land and on the rivers discouraged the use of the New England Town Meeting type of local government in the Virginia Colony. The counties themselves were patterned after the English counties. At this same time, suffrage was extended to all free male citizens for electing members of the House of Burgesses and county officials.

On February 12, 1634, Benjamin Syms of Elizabeth City County gave 200 acres of land plus 8 cows for the establishment of a free school for white children. This was the first legacy for the promotion of public school education, and Elizabeth City County was the birthplace of the Virginia public school system.

In 1642 Sir William Berkeley arrived in Virginia as a royal Governor. Until this time, there had been much religious tolerance in the Virginia Colony although the Church of England was the Established Church of the Colony. The religious laws were liberal, and other religions had existed without interference. Sir Edwin Sandys had encouraged some Separatists (Puritans) to live in Virginia, and by the time of the dissolution of the Virginia Company charter, thirteen parishes had been created and many clergymen had been active in the colony. Governor Berkeley was an extremely strong defender of the King and of the Church of England and disliked the Quakers and the Puritans very much. He was directly responsible for driving most of them from the Virginia Colony by enforcing a statute of 1643 which provided that no individual who disbelieved the doctrines of the English Church could teach, publicly or privately, or preach the gospel within the limits of Virginia.

In 1644 another Indian massacre occurred resulting in the death of 300-500 Virginians. This massacre was led by the aged, famous Indian leader, Opechancanough. It took place on Holy Thursday and the Puritans believed that this was a direct act of God as punishment for their previous treatment in Virginia. The settlers finally dispersed the Indians, destroyed their villages and destroyed the Powhatan Confederacy which had consisted of approximately fifty tribes. Opechancanough was later shot and killed.

In the following year, the General Assembly allowed the election of vestries by the qualified voters of each parish regardless of their religious faith. As counties were organized in Virginia, parishes likewise were established and vestries continued to be elected by the qualified voters. The vestry was the governing body of the parish, and although its membership number varied between the parishes, the number was finally fixed at twelve. They were self-perpetuating, and could only be removed by the General Assembly. They had the power to select a rector as well as to carry on regular parish duties. Under this arrangement, the Established Church was part of the county government with the officers of a parish having civil as well as religious duties and authority. Some of the civil duties included levying tax rates on parish inhabitants to raise revenue for carrying out their objectives, maintaining roads to and from the church, keeping the vital statistics (records of births, marriages, deaths, et cetera) and aiding the poor.

During this period, the British Parliament began feuding with King Charles. The Virginians strongly favored the King, and after he was beheaded, the General Assembly passed a law recognizing Charles II, the former King's exiled son, as the lawful King of England. In return for their loyal support upon behalf of his father and himself, Charles II bestowed the title of "The Old Dominion" on the Virginia Colony, the only American colony ever to receive such an honor. Parliament tried to combat this loyalty to the King by appointing two Virginians, William Claiborne and Richard Bennett, as commissioners whose duty was to influence Virginia and gradually bring it under Parliamentary control. Parliament then provided them with an armed force. Governor Berkeley made military preparations also, but negotiations finally ended in a peaceful settlement without resorting to open hostilities in Virginia. Individuals who had favored the King during the Civil War in England between the Parliament and the King were called Cavaliers. Since Virginia had remained loyal to the King throughout this period, many Cavaliers had sought refuge in Virginia at this time. This action caused the Virginia Colony to receive the nickname of the "Cavalier State."

In 1650, Mary, Margaret and Giles Brent erected homes on Aquia Creek, Virginia. They were the first English Catholic inhabitants of Virginia. In this same area, twenty-six years later, the first English-speaking Catholic colony of Virginia was settled. In 1677, a Catholic Church was erected here. After their nephew, George Brent, and others had been successful in obtaining a Proclamation from James II guaranteeing religious freedom on the 30,000 acres of the Brenton Tract, many settlers came to this area. Today, a large bronze Crucifix can be seen near the highway in Stafford County as a reminder of the religious efforts of the Brent Family.

The Commonwealth and the "Golden Age"

The Virginia Colony finally received a charter of self-government during Oliver Cromwell's rule in England and became the Commonwealth of Virginia on March 12, 1651. The Treaty of Jamestown provided that Virginians would be guaranteed the freedoms and privileges of the English people in return for a recognition of the Puritan Commonwealth of Cromwell in England. The colony prospered under Governors Richard Bennett, Edward Digges and Samuel Matthews from 1652-1660. By 1660, the population of the Virginia Colony was approximately 33,000 or over four times as much as in 1640. Many of this number consisted of Cavaliers. The population which first had centered around Jamestown, along the James River to the junction of the James and Appomattox Rivers and along the navigable inlets, now had broadened into the Tidewater area. As tobacco production and the use of tobacco increased and as soil fertility became exhausted, more land was added to the individual farms until large plantations appeared almost common. Class society in Virginia changed, generally, from a middle-class one to two distinct classes: the wealthy plantation owner who could afford such personal workers as slaves and servants and the tenant farmer who worked for a plantation owner. In return for his services, he was usually allowed to have a small plot of ground for his own use and a small farm on which to live. When the Cavaliers, mostly wealthy gentlemen, migrated to Virginia, they brought added aristocracy to the Virginia Colony.

In the meantime, other counties had been formed in Virginia. An area which had been settled originally in Upper Norfolk was named Nansemond County in 1642. "Nansemond" is an Indian word meaning "fishing point or angle." In 1648, the county of Northumberland was formed from a large Indian district formerly known as Chickacoan and it was named for Northumberland County, England. From this large area, one hundred sixteen counties were later formed. Within a twenty-five year period, seven additional counties were created: Gloucester County (formed from York and named for the third son of Charles I, Henry-Duke of Gloucester), New Kent County (formed also from York and believed to have been named either for the English Kent or for Kent Island), Lancaster County (from York and Northumberland), Surry (from James City County), Westmoreland (from Northumberland and later an addition from James City County), Stafford (from Westmoreland) and Middlesex (from Lancaster)—the latter five named in honor of English counties. The formation of many new counties during this time illustrates the great increase in population which took place.

When Charles II became King of England in 1660, Britain's colonial policy changed. Previously, the colonies had been more or less neglected, and interest in England had been chiefly centered upon religion, intellectual achievement and local issues. After the Civil War in England, the importance of the colonies seemed more apparent, competition in setting up and controlling colonial empires was greater and mercantilism became the key theory accepted by the leading countries of Europe. Mercantilism was based upon the idea that the colonies existed for the benefit of the mother country and that they had specific obligations or responsibilities to fulfill, namely: (1) to produce the articles which the mother country needs and which are impossible for the mother country to produce; (2) to supply the mother country with foodstuffs which she needs, (3) to furnish a market for the mother country's manufactured goods, and (4) to export colonial goods in mother country ships only. Earlier in 1651, Parliament had passed a law prohibiting foreign vessels from trading with the American colonists. This law had been aimed primarily at the Dutch. It also stated that all products sent by the American colonies to England or sent from one colony to another had to be carried in either English or American ships. However, there had not been strict enforcement of this law in Virginia.

The Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1663 were passed providing that goods imported into the colonies had to be carried by English, Irish or American ships. The act further stated that certain "enumerated articles" or exports could be sent only to the British Isles or to the English possessions: for example, tobacco, sugar, apples, wool, indigo and dyewood. The list was increased as time passed, and the ill feeling of the Virginia Colony as well as the other English colonies in America toward the mother country can be fully understood, especially since higher prices for their articles could be obtained from foreign countries. The second Navigation Act required that all European goods destined for the American colonies be sent to England and then shipped to America in English ships. Thus, England tried to maintain a monopoly of her colonial trade. The prosperity of the Virginia Colony was affected greatly by these acts. Virginia's economy at this time was almost completely dependent upon its export tobacco trade which was far in excess of the amount of tobacco which England needed. The Navigation Acts virtually closed all the markets except England and its possessions to Virginia tobacco. As a result, the English market was suddenly flooded with Virginia tobacco. There was much excess tobacco in Virginia itself, some tobacco even rotting on the farms. The price of tobacco accordingly dropped from fourpence a pound to a halfpenny per pound by 1667. Virginia, as well as the other American colonies, at times violated the above regulations and sent some of its goods directly to other European countries in order to survive these economic blows. Thus, the Restoration Period which the Virginians had favored had some unexpected results for them. After the Virginians had urged Sir William Berkeley to resume the governorship prior to the Restoration, he had gone to England to intercede for the colonists concerning the tobacco trade and the other Navigation Acts, but his efforts had been futile.

Another surprise was received by the Virginians at this time. While Charles II was in exile in France in 1649, he granted more than five million acres of land lying between the Potomac and the Rappahannock Rivers to four Cavalier friends. This grant was called the "Northern Neck Proprietary" of Virginia. Twenty years later, he granted a new charter for the same territory to the surviving grantees. These actions were unknown to the colonists, and much of this same land had been settled under patents issued by the Colony itself. When the colonists learned of the new charter, there was much protest, and some of the colonists tried to buy out the grantees' interests. However, in most cases, their efforts were in vain. This grant was later referred to as the Fairfax Proprietary or Fairfax Grant. In 1673, the colonists found out that King Charles II had bestowed the rest of the Colony as a gift upon the Earl of Arlington and Lord Culpeper for thirty-one years. This eventually had no lasting ill effects upon the colonists because Lord Culpeper later purchased the Earl of Arlington's interest and King Charles himself bought back the entire area from him for a six hundred pounds per year pension. Lord Fairfax V became the owner in 1689 and the proprietary itself was abolished by the Virginia General Assembly in 1786.

In 1671, two explorers, Thomas Batts and Robert Fallon, traveled by horseback from Fort Henry (present Petersburg area) up the Roanoke Valley and across the Blue Ridge Mountains until they reached the top of the Allegheny Mountains. They proceeded to the New River and to an area in the present town of Narrows in Giles County. In order to claim this land for their King, Charles II of England, they had their Indian guides peel the bark off of four trees and then burn a symbol—the initials of King Charles, of Governor William Berkeley and of Colonel Abraham Wood (who was responsible for this expedition)—on each tree with a pair of marking irons. Thus, they took possession of this land and all the area west of it in the King's name and provided a basic claim of land in Southwest Virginia.

In this same year, a unique attitude concerning public education was expressed by royal Governor Berkeley when he stated: "I thank God, there are no free schools or printing presses and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years: for learning has brought disobedience and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both."

In 1672, Parliament passed an act compelling each ship which left the colonies for Europe to post bond that it would deliver its cargo in England or otherwise pay the required duty. Colonial customs collectors were to be appointed whose chief duty was to supervise this trade. An export duty was to be paid on certain "enumerated" articles—tobacco, indigo, sugar, apples, dyewood and later, naval stores, molasses, lumber and hides—if such articles were sent from one colony to another. Strict enforcement of this act would have dire results on the Virginia colonists because their ships had been carrying products from the West Indies and from Virginia to northern ports and then to Europe. The colonists began to be extremely dissatisfied with the mother country.

Governor Berkeley at this time was aggravating the home situation of the Virginia colonists. He had limited suffrage to freeholders and householders only, had strongly influenced the election of Assembly members to individuals who were personal friends and who favored the King's policies and had been keeping the Assembly technically in session for fourteen years without any elections taking place. The grievance about which the colonists felt the most bitter, however, was the inadequate protection of the frontier from the Susquehannock Indian attacks. After these Indians had attacked a plantation owned by Nathaniel Bacon and had killed his overseer and one of his servants, Bacon decided that the colonists themselves should take organized action against the Indians since the Governor had practically ignored the attacks. One possible reason for the Governor's hesitancy in interfering in these Indian affairs was the high profit which he was receiving from the Indian fur trading. Many of Bacon's neighbors agreed with him, and they prepared to be the aggressors against the Indians. Bacon asked the Governor for permission to do so and for a military commission for himself as the leader. Both requests were refused, and Bacon and his friends were declared rebels by the Governor. Consequently, Bacon and his followers decided to take matters into their own hands without the Governor's permission. They proceeded and successfully defeated the Indians. This action aroused Governor Berkeley who immediately considered Bacon a traitor, and a civil war or rebellion resulted.

Bacon, in the meantime, had been elected as a member of the House of Burgesses, and he went to Jamestown to participate in the Assembly. Upon his arrival, he was arrested, brought to the State House and charged with being a rebel. Governor Berkeley and the King's Council discussed Bacon's activities, and Bacon agreed to apologize for his actions if the Governor would grant him his commission. The Governor agreed, but Bacon felt that the Governor had no intention of carrying out his promise for a commission. Bacon discussed this meeting with his neighbor friends who decided to accompany him to Jamestown where he was to receive his commission. Bacon and approximately four hundred planters marched to the State House at Jamestown and demanded his commission. When none was forthcoming, he ordered his men to aim their guns at the windows of the State House where the House of Burgesses sat. At this drastic move, the Burgesses quickly prepared the commission paper and persuaded Governor Berkeley to sign it and then issued it to Bacon. Bacon and his followers then returned home. Governor Berkeley thereupon decided to fight Bacon and his associates. Berkeley then departed from Jamestown and crossed the York River to Gloucester where he called upon his friends to help him. Upon hearing that Bacon was approaching Gloucester, Berkeley fled across the Chesapeake Bay to Accomack. In August 1676, Bacon and his followers signed an agreement whereby they all pledged to fight any and all soldiers that Governor Berkeley might order from England to the colony. After some Indians living near Richmond made new attacks upon the settlers there, Bacon and his friends captured the Indian fort and killed or imprisoned the remaining Indians.

While Bacon was thus engaged, Governor Berkeley with eight hundred soldiers and eighteen ships in the James River had occupied Jamestown. Bacon proceeded next to Jamestown and defeated Governor Berkeley's forces there. Governor Berkeley and many of his soldiers fled to the ships and sailed away. Bacon realized that although he had won on land, he would have no chance of holding out an attack from the ships. Therefore, he and his friends burned the State House and the rest of the capital, Jamestown, to prevent Governor Berkeley from repossessing it. Bacon had become ill with a fever and died shortly afterwards in October at the home of a friend in Gloucester County. Governor Berkeley had twenty-three of Bacon's followers put to death, but the principle for which they fought remained alive: "the people must be heard." Bacon's Rebellion is remembered in history primarily as a revolt of the plain, common man against a privileged few. Governor Berkeley was later recalled to England, and, upon his return, instead of being treated as a hero by the King, he was regarded with contempt.

In 1682, tobacco had been grown so extensively in Virginia that the price of tobacco on the London market had declined rapidly. When the British government refused a request from the Virginia colonists to either restrict tobacco acreage or order a temporary cessation of its growth, tobacco riots occurred in Virginia. During many nights, thousands of young tobacco plants throughout the colony were destroyed. Finally, after the execution of six tobacco plant cutters, the riots ceased. Eventually, the customs duty on tobacco was increased tremendously, and taxes in Virginia were increased at the same time.

In 1682, John Buckner established the first printing press in Virginia at Jamestown. His printer was William Nuthead who published several papers and two sheets of the acts of the Assembly of November 1682, supposedly without a license. The Colonial Council issued an order prohibiting anything from being printed until the King had given his permission as there was strong opposition against "the liberty of a press." Consequently, in December 1683, when King Charles II prohibited all printing in Virginia, William Nuthead moved his printing press to St. Mary's City, Maryland.

From 1691 to 1703, seven additional counties were formed in the Virginia Colony: Norfolk County (created from Lower Norfolk which had become extinct and named for Norfolk County in England which is also located on the water), King and Queen County (created from New Kent County and named for the joint rulers of England: King William III, Prince of Orange, and Queen Mary), Princess Anne County (created also from Lower Norfolk and named for Princess—later Queen—Anne of England), Essex (created from the then extinct Rappahannock County and named either for Essex County, England or the Earl of Essex), Richmond (created also from the then extinct Rappahannock County and either named for territory resemblance to Richmond, Surry County, England or in honor of an English Earl or Duke of Richmond), King William County (created from King and Queen County and named for William of Orange, King of England), and Prince George County (created from one of the original eight shires—Charles City County—and was named for Prince George of Denmark, Queen Anne's husband).

As mentioned previously, education in the Virginia Colony was generally thought of as a family responsibility, not as a community one. Nevertheless, by 1690, some families decided that there should be an educational institution for higher learning in Virginia in order that their sons would not have to travel abroad to obtain such an education. A conference was held in Jamestown to consider the founding of a college in the Virginia Colony. Those present led by Colonel John Page drew up plans for such an institution and asked the Governor and the King's Council to explain to the rulers of England and to Parliament the purpose and the need of a college in Virginia and to make a request for financial contributions for such an enterprise. Reverend James Blair, a Scotch minister in Virginia, went to England to ask King William III and Queen Mary for their consent. He stayed in England for two years and, upon his return, had a royal charter and numerous contributions consisting of land, special tax funds and personal finances which had been encouraged and strongly supported by King William and Queen Mary. Donations from interested colonists themselves increased the building fund considerably. On February 8, 1693, the official charter for the college was granted. The college was named William and Mary College in honor of the King and Queen who had granted its charter. Out of respect for King William who belonged to the House of Orange, the official college colors were designated as orange and white. The General Assembly selected Middle Plantation as the most suitable location for the college and the plans for the original building were drawn up by the now-famous architect, Sir Christopher Wren. The Wren Building, named in his honor, was constructed by 1698 and it is the oldest academic structure still in existence. William and Mary College was the second oldest college established in America: Harvard College, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, having been established in 1636. The first regular faculty consisted of six professors and Reverend Blair, who had personally raised much of the fund for the college, became its first president.

After the burning of Jamestown during Bacon's Rebellion, the State House was rebuilt, but it burned again in October 1698. Since the Assembly then had no meeting place, it met in 1699 at the private residence of Mrs. Sarah Lee and in a building of William and Mary College. At one meeting, Governor Granci Nicholson suggested that the capital be moved to Middle Plantation. After a successful vote, the seat of the Virginia Colony government was officially moved from Jamestown, the first capital, to Middle Plantation, the name of which was changed to Williamsburg in honor of King William III. Plans for the State House were immediately made and the main street was named Duke of Gloucester Street, in honor of the Duke of Gloucester who was Queen Anne's oldest son. The first official Capitol building was constructed at one end of the main street and the College of William and Mary had been constructed at the other end.

In 1698, a Scotsman, Francis Makemie, a Presbyterian missionary, migrated from Pennsylvania to Accomack County, Virginia, where he held services in his home. He was soon arrested for not having a license to preach, but he was so sincere in his religious beliefs that he was later awarded a license. He is the founder of Presbyterianism in Virginia and, near Temperanceville, one may see a monument consisting of a stone figure of Francis Makemie attired in his usual clerical garb.

Shortly before the beginning of the eighteenth century, the General Assembly passed an act requiring an import tax of twenty shillings upon each Negro imported into the Virginia Colony. England, however, opposed such action and, as additional laws were passed by the Virginia General Assembly levying high import taxes on slaves, she consistently vetoed them. The number of Negroes in Virginia increased as the production and the value of tobacco increased until, by 1700, there were approximately 7,000 Negroes out of 72,000 inhabitants within the colony. The colonists expressed their desire to prohibit or at least restrict the importation of Negroes in 1713, but the mother country would not authorize the Virginia Colony to forbid slave importation.

Another law passed at this time provided that any settler could buy an unlimited area of land from the colony itself at the cost of five shillings per fifty acres. This action was referred to as a "Treasury Right." Therefore, the "Head-Right" system was no longer the most common method of acquiring land settlements in the Virginia Colony. The population of the Virginia Colony was predominantly English and all types of social classes were now represented here: from the aristocratic nobles to the uncouth convicts. With the influx of the Cavaliers and with the reputation of the prosperity of the Virginia Colony, the number of middle class and upper class residents increased considerably during the Eighteenth Century until such residents soon made up a majority of the inhabitants. By 1700, the population of Virginia was approximately 70,000 including about 5,500 Negroes.

By 1710, the practice had been established of allowing the Governor of a British Colony to remain in England and to appoint deputies to live in the colony and actually to rule the colony. At this time, Alexander Spotswood arrived in Virginia as a royal Governor, technically the Deputy to Lord George Hamilton, Earl of Orkney, the official Lieutenant and Governor-General of the Virginia Colony. He was the first royal Governor to live in the new Governor's Palace at Williamsburg. Governor Spotswood remained in this position for twelve years and was responsible for many improvements and much progress in the Virginia Colony. He encouraged and helped carry out the beautifying of Williamsburg, the new capital city. Ravines were filled, streets leveled, some college buildings, a public magazine (a storehouse for arms and ammunition) and a church were erected primarily due to his influence. Since he believed in developing the natural resources of Virginia, he had iron foundries established along the Rapidan River, near Fredericksburg. As a result, the first mining village in Virginia, Germanna, located near the Blue Ridge Mountains, came into existence. This village was named in honor of the German miners who came to Virginia to work the iron mines and in honor of the German ruler, Queen Anne.

In 1716, the Governor and some friends started out to explore the Northwest. They stopped at Germanna to shoe the horses as protection for them on the rocky, mountain roads. The Governor traveled by stagecoach from Williamsburg to Germanna. Here he changed to horseback and accompanied by two groups of rangers and four Indian guides, in addition to the original group, he traced the Rapidan River to its headwaters and then proceeded to climb the east side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They reached the top near Swift Run Gap and, from this summit, viewed the great Shenandoah Valley and the Allegheny Mountains about twenty miles away. They spent the night there on the summit and then descended the west slope of the mountain, finally arriving at a river which they called Euphrates. This same river is known today as the Shenandoah River, an Indian name meaning "Daughter of the Stars." As had happened earlier on the Batts-Fallon expedition, a volley of gunfire was shot, and Governor Spotswood claimed possession of the land in the name of George I, then King of England. The highest mountain peak which they had climbed they called Mount George in his honor, and the next highest one was called Mount Alexander in honor of the Governor himself. The expedition had been such a pleasant one for the Governor that legend states that he sent to England for small individual golden horseshoe pins with diamonds symbolizing the nailheads and presented one to each of his companions on this memorable trip, bestowing upon them the title of "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe." Governor Spotswood also was a most able diplomat with the Indians, and he tried conscientiously to help them get better educated. For example, he sent white teachers to help them to develop their handicraft and the arts of civilization, and later, he encouraged many of the Indian boys to attend William and Mary College where they could specialize in their particular abilities. Spotswood was later appointed Postmaster General for the Colonies and was responsible for initiating a postal system extending from Charleston to Boston. Colonel Hugh Drysdale succeeded him as Governor for the next four years.

In 1716, the first theater in America was built by William Levingston at Williamsburg. It was constructed for the acting of "Comedies, Drolls and other kind of stage plays ... thought fitt to be acted there." Mary Stagg, the wife of Charles Stagg, who was the manager of the theater, is considered the first theatrical leading lady in America. Although many British actors and musicians were participants in this theater, it often suffered from financial stress. Thus, twenty-nine years later, this theater was donated to Williamsburg to be used as a town hall.

In 1722, Williamsburg, the capital of Colonial Virginia (1699-1780), became the first incorporated municipality in Virginia. It became the leading political, economic, educational and social center of the colony, especially during legislative sessions. Eight years after Williamsburg had been incorporated, William Parks arrived there as a public printer. He set up the first permanent printing press in Virginia and approximately six years later, Virginia's first colonial newspaper, the "Virginia Gazette," was printed.

Colonel Robert Carter, President of the Council, succeeded Governor Drysdale in July 1726. Carter was a very wealthy man whose land holdings—300,000 acres total—were second in Virginia only to the Fairfaxes. Because of his enormous wealth and arrogant manner, he was nicknamed "King" Carter.

In 1728, William Byrd II was the leader of a survey group which followed the Virginia-North Carolina borderline from the Atlantic Ocean two hundred and forty miles westward. This action provided Virginians with knowledge of the type of terrain and its potentiality along this important borderline.

It was in the period 1730-1760 that a majority of the beautiful brick and stone plantation mansions were constructed. The wealthy families preferred the country-side. Some of the mansions built at this time included Westover (William Byrd family), Stratford Hall (Thomas Lee family), Ampthill (Archibald Cary family), Carter's Grove (Robert Carter Burwell family) and Mount Airy (John Tayloe family).

Sir William Gooch was acting chief executive of Virginia for twenty-two years, 1727-1749. His greatest project during this period was the development of settlements in the Shenandoah Valley. At the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, some Scotch-Irish, Germans and French Huguenots settled in Virginia. The Scotch-Irish had migrated first to Pennsylvania and to New Jersey. Upon hearing about the beautiful valley seen by Governor Spotswood, they decided to settle there. Their main settlement was located in the area now included in the Winchester and Staunton areas and in the counties of Augusta and Rockbridge. It became so densely populated with people originally from Northern Ireland that it was called the "Irish Tract." Later, additional Scots direct from Scotland migrated here in large numbers. Germans had already migrated in large numbers to Germanna, the mining town. The French Huguenot immigrants settled mainly along both sides of the James River at Manakintown. Thus, the Shenandoah Valley and the area beyond the Blue Ridge and the Allegheny Mountains were colonized primarily by the Scotch-Irish, German, and French Huguenots.

Two years later, the Quakers organized a church at Hopewell which is the oldest church in northern Virginia. Six years later, the oldest Lutheran church in the South was built in Madison County by some of the Germans from Germanna. Its financial support originally came from friends in Germany, and it was called Hebron Church.

In 1749, Augusta Academy was founded by the Presbyterians in Augusta County, and it was the first classical school located west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Its name was later changed in 1775 to the patriotic title of Liberty Hall. This academy was the forerunner of the Washington and Lee University.

Colonel Thomas Lee was acting Governor from 1749 to 1751. He encouraged westward expansion in the Virginia Colony and believed that the French should be expelled from America. He was the father of the most famous family in Virginia history: the Lee family. He built the now-famous family homestead, Stratford, in Westmoreland County in 1725-1730. During his governorship, some wealthy Virginians formed the Ohio Company whose purpose was to settle a colony west of the Allegheny Mountains on a tract of land 500,000 acres in size. Four years later, the company constructed a fort at the junction of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers where the present city of Pittsburgh is now located. One hundred and twenty miles north of this fort, the French proceeded to construct Fort LeBoeuf on the Allegheny River. Since many Virginians and other Englishmen from other colonies had been settling in the Ohio Valley, they became much alarmed at the construction and occupation of this French fort. Consequently, the British-Americans began to observe carefully the activities of the French in this region. Colonel Lee had the unusual distinction of being the only Virginian to have a Crown Commission of Governor awarded to him even though he died before the commission reached him.

From 1721 to 1750, nineteen new counties were created: Hanover (formed from New Kent and named for the Duke of Hanover who later became King George of England), Spotsylvania (formed from Essex, King William and King and Queen Counties and named for Lieutenant Governor Spotswood), King George (formed from Richmond and later a part of Westmoreland County and named for George I, King of England), Goochland (formed from Henrico County and named for William Gooch, the Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia at the time), Caroline (formed from Essex, King and Queen and King William Counties and named for Queen Caroline, George II's wife), Prince William (formed from Stafford and King George Counties and named for William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland), Brunswick (formed from Prince George and parts of Surry and Isle of Wight Counties and named for the Duchy of Brunswick in Germany), Orange (formed from Spotsylvania and named for William, Prince of Orange, an English king), Amelia (formed from Prince George and Brunswick Counties and named for Princess Amelia, King George II's youngest daughter), Fairfax (formed from Prince William County and named for Lord Fairfax), Frederick (formed from Orange County and named for Frederick, Prince of Wales, George II's son and George III's father), Louisa (formed from Hanover County and named for King George II's daughter, Princess Louisa, who was also the wife of King Frederick V of Denmark), Albemarle (formed from Goochland County and named for William Anne Keppel, the second Earl of Albemarle, Governor-General of the Colony who remained in England during the entire time), Augusta (formed from Orange and named for Princess Augusta, wife of Frederick, Prince of Wales, George III's father), Lunenburg (formed from Brunswick and named for one of George I's titles: Duke of Brunswick-Lunenburg), Chesterfield (formed from Henrico and named for the famous Lord Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope), Culpeper (formed from Orange County and named for Lord Thomas Culpeper, Governor of Virginia, 1680-1683), Southampton (formed from Isle of Wight County and named for Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton and a leading member of the Virginia Company) and Cumberland (formed from Goochland County and part of Buckingham County and named in honor of William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland).

By 1750, the Virginia colony was enjoying prosperity. Numerous large plantations had come into existence. As more and more soil became impoverished due to a lack of crop rotation, non-use of fertilizer and the intensive planting of the tobacco crop which requires a rich soil, additional land was purchased and added to the existing homestead. Consequently, plantations of 100,000 to 300,000 acres became common, especially around the Tidewater area. The larger the tobacco plantation, the greater the need for cheap labor became apparent. Consequently, the number of Negro slaves increased in Virginia until by 1750, there were approximately 115,000 Negroes and approximately 170,000 free whites. The increase in huge plantations caused the middle class tobacco farmer to migrate westward as he could not successfully compete with the larger tobacco planters. The Virginia plantation owners had become accustomed at this time to allowing the London tobacco merchants to act as their bankers: they would order their necessities, supplies and luxuries (glass, silver, china) via their tobacco credits. Such a system furnished an immediate advantage for the plantation owners but also created a situation whereby the Virginia planters became heavily indebted financially to the London merchants. The plantation owners also became the influential individuals within the colony—politically, economically and socially. Thus, Virginia at this time was practically ruled by an aristocracy. Although the governing power of the assembly had increased gradually, the political power of the commoner or average citizen had not increased accordingly. Membership in the Virginia Council was considered a position of the greatest prestige and was almost an hereditary position. The two required qualifications were wealth and social position. The era of aristocratic living which predominated in the Virginia Colony between 1700-1750 is often referred to as the "Golden Age" of Virginia's colonial history.

The Pre-Revolutionary War Era

While Robert Dinwiddie was the acting Governor of Virginia, the English and French rivalry in colonial settlements was becoming bitter in America. In 1753, Governor Dinwiddie selected George Washington to visit General St. Pierre, the commander in charge of the French fort at Presque Isle on the shore of Lake Erie, and to inform him that the Ohio country belonged to the English and that he should withdraw his troops from there at once. Dinwiddie sincerely believed that the land upon which the French fort had been built was English territory. Washington and four comrades rode on horseback from Williamsburg to Fredericksburg where he hired Jacob Vanbraam as an interpreter since Washington could not speak French. They rode to Alexandria where Washington purchased food and essential equipment because there were no towns between Alexandria and Winchester. Two weeks later he reached Winchester, after having made the dangerous crossing of the unbridged Shenandoah River. At Winchester, Washington hired a well-known guide, Christopher Gist, to assist him on his journey to Fort LeBoeuf where the French General had arrived to supervise its fortifications. Two Indian traders also accompanied him. They traveled to Maryland and to Pennsylvania until they reached the French fort, Fort LeBoeuf. The destination was approximately five hundred miles from Williamsburg. Although St. Pierre was polite and friendly, Washington was informed that the French had been ordered to eject every Englishman from the Ohio Valley and that the French had the rightful claim to such territory. Before he departed, Washington noticed a large fleet of birch-bark canoes and boats of pine and was convinced that a war between the English and French would be necessary to settle the dispute over the control of the Northwest.

Washington returned to Williamsburg in January 1754, and reported to Governor Dinwiddie a detailed account of his journey. Washington then prepared a written report which persuaded the members of the General Assembly to realize the seriousness of this matter. Colonel Joshua Fry, with Washington second in command, marched with a troop of one hundred and fifty men against the French in the Ohio Valley. On March 28, near Great Meadows, Washington's group killed the French commander, Coulon de Jumonville, and killed or captured all his soldiers except one. On March 31, 1754, Washington was granted a commission as Lieutenant Colonel of the Virginia Regiment, which he later received at Gadsby's Tavern in Alexandria. In the meantime, Colonel Fry had died suddenly from an accidental fall, and Washington had succeeded to the command.

Fort Necessity, near Farmington, Pennsylvania, a crude structure of defense, was in the process of being constructed by the Virginians at the forks of the Ohio River when seven hundred French soldiers appeared, outnumbering the Virginian troops by at least four hundred men. Washington and his troops were forced to surrender, were allowed to leave with the honors of war and finally trudged back to Winchester. The Battle of Great Meadows and the Battle of Fort Necessity were of historical importance because they marked the beginning of the French and Indian War in America, they were actually the first fighting attacks in the Seven Years War in Europe between the English and the French, and they provided the first real combat fighting experience for George Washington who was only twenty-two years old at the time. The French proceeded to occupy Fort Necessity and after improving it considerably, they changed its name to Fort Duquesne, in honor of Canada's governor.

The following summer, in 1755, Washington returned with a larger army to the Ohio area. Two regiments, one thousand, of British regulars had been sent from England under the command of General Edward Braddock. These soldiers arrived at Alexandria from England, and Washington, having been assigned as an aide-de-camp to General Braddock, joined them there. A conference of five royal Governors—Dinwiddie (Virginia), Morris (Pennsylvania), Sharp (Maryland), DeLacey (New York) and Shirley (Massachusetts)—was held at the Carlyle House in Alexandria on April 14 to formulate plans for the protection of the western frontier against the French and Indian raids along the Ohio River. After much discussion, a campaign plan was adopted whereby General Braddock was to capture Fort Duquesne and expel the French from the Ohio Valley. At this same conference, the suggestion was made that the British Ministry could levy taxes on the colonies to help pay the expense of the war.

Braddock and his troops marched westward from Alexandria into western Pennsylvania near Fort Duquesne through dense wilderness from April 12 to July 9. General Braddock had been accustomed to fighting the European tactics way, but he was wholly unfamiliar with Indian and ambush fighting. Washington anxiously warned Braddock of ambush possibilities, but Braddock continued to have his army march in regular step in close order and in full uniform regalia through the underbrush. Indian scouts daily reported the progress of Braddock's army to the French at Fort Duquesne. When the British troops were within eight miles of the fort, they were attacked by the French and the Indians. The Virginia soldiers, many of whom were experienced in wilderness fighting, ran for cover behind the trees. Braddock, however, ordered his men to keep their formation and fire simultaneously. Thus, they were easy targets for the French and the Indians. Finally, they became so frightened at this unusual type of fighting that they broke ranks and tried to flee. Half of Braddock's 1600 troops were killed or wounded, Braddock himself being fatally wounded in action. This defeat occurred on July 9, 1755.

In addition to this military slaughter, numerous Cherokee Indian raiding parties took place from 1759-1760 in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia where homes were burned and men, women and children were killed unmercifully. Washington was put in charge of this frontier campaign with his headquarters at a fort in Winchester. Eventually, the General Assembly of Virginia raised troops of its own for its defense. The General Assembly then passed a law whereby a "Scalp Market" was established, and anyone bringing male scalps of hostile Indians above the age of twelve years to the market would receive ten pounds per scalp in 1755 to forty-five pounds per scalp in 1758 when the law expired. In July, the British General John Forbes with a large number of English soldiers and some Cherokee allies went to Fort Duquesne via Philadelphia. They were rejoined in September by Colonel Washington. Fort Duquesne was finally won by the English and colonial and Indian soldiers, and Washington, himself, raised the British flag over its ruins on November 25, 1758, ending the Indian attacks also on the frontier. Fort Duquesne had its name changed to Fort Pitt in honor of William Pitt the Elder, a British statesman, who had given ample support to Virginia's colonial policies. Thus, the inhabitants of Virginia played their role in the French and Indian War, apparently a misnomer because the war was actually fought between the French and the Indians and the British and the Indians.

In December 1763, Patrick Henry distinguished himself as a young lawyer by challenging the authority of Parliament and the King in a case commonly called the "Parsons' Cause." The Church of England was the established church of Virginia, and the people were taxed for the parsons' salaries. Because coin money was scarce in the colonies, Virginia, like the other colonies, had adopted the custom of paying their clergymen in tobacco. One disadvantage of this system was the fluctuation of the value of the tobacco, based upon the law of supply and demand. Whenever there was a tobacco crop failure, the value of tobacco increased considerably. This occurred in 1758 when there was so little tobacco available that the House of Burgesses passed a law stating that all debts payable ordinarily in tobacco might be paid in money at the rate of two pence per pound of tobacco. The parsons' salary was 16,000 pounds of tobacco. When the above law was passed allowing the parsons to be paid in money, they felt that it was unfair because tobacco at that time was more valuable at the rate of six pence per pound of tobacco than the money value itself. Furthermore, the parsons had had to accept the same amount of tobacco when the prices had previously declined. King George agreed with the parsons and requested that they be given their 16,000 pounds of tobacco or else a sum of money equivalent to the amount which 16,000 pounds of tobacco would be worth. Such an order was contrary to the law passed by the House of Burgesses and was a continuation of a custom which England had been using of "disallowing" a law passed by the colonial legislature. The Burgesses refused to accept the "disallowing" of their law; in turn, the parsons, knowing that the King had favored their opinion in the matter, took their problem to the Hanover County Court as they believed they were entitled to the back pay for the time which the House of Burgesses' law was in effect. The court had ruled that the parsons were entitled to the back pay and was ready to proceed with the problem of deciding upon the amount which it believed was due each parson.

When this case was first brought to the court for consideration, the individual citizens of the colony tried to obtain the services of a lawyer who would fight against the parsons. Since such a lawyer would be fighting not only against the parsons but against the King himself, some of the lawyers, when asked to act as attorney against the parsons, refused the offer. Patrick Henry, who was only twenty-seven at the time and practically an unknown individual as far as law was concerned, accepted the offer. The self-educated Hanover County resident surprised the people in the court when he began to speak, at first hesitatingly and then most confidently. He first criticized the parsons for trying to take advantage of the scarcity of the tobacco which caused its extraordinarily high price. He then dared to speak against the British Parliament and the King for usurping the power of "disallowing" a law passed by the Virginia legislature. The following quotation illustrates the strong language which he used to express his attitudes in these matters: "The king, by ... disallowing acts of this salutary nature, from being the Father of his people degenerates into a Tyrant, and forfeits all the rights to his subjects' obedience." Thus, he questioned the right of the King to veto a colonial law. He followed these words with comments concerning the rights and privileges of the colonists and the unjust taxing of the colonists for goods brought to the Virginia Colony from England. The jury handed down the verdict that the parsons were entitled to their back pay but awarded damages of one penny to each parson. As a direct result of this case, Patrick Henry became famous and he became a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses shortly afterward. He had dramatically, though unexpectedly, expressed the attitude of most of the colonists toward Parliamentary and royal control of their colony.

In spite of Patrick Henry's strong protests against the taxes imposed upon the colonists, Parliament passed the Stamp Act in 1765 whereby the colonists were required to put stamps of differing value upon wills, deeds, mortgages, newspapers, almanacs, advertisements, college diplomas and all other legal documents. This tax was not directly levied for protection as the regular duty tax on imports had been but was levied for revenue purposes. The revenue from the sale of these stamps was to be used in paying the governmental cost in the territory acquired from the French and Indian War and for defending the colonists. Previous acts and taxes had affected a comparatively small number of colonists and usually only one or two social classes. The Stamp Act, however, affected practically every class, particularly editors, lawyers and parsons who usually exert strong influence upon any group of people. The Stamp Act was the controversial issue at the time Patrick Henry became a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. Some of the members felt that Parliament had the right to tax the colonists and others felt that it was illegal for them to do so. Patrick Henry offered five resolutions against the Stamp Act to the effect that the "General Assembly of the colony have the only sole and exclusive right and power to levy taxes." A fiery discussion then occurred over these resolutions, and, after hearing the heated arguments on both sides on May 29, 1765, Patrick Henry rose in the House and described Virginia as being tethered in chains under the rule of Parliament and the King. Then he shouted: "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I, his Cromwell, and George III...." Here he was interrupted by cries of "Treason! Treason!" Very calmly he finished the sentence by saying "may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!" Patrick Henry's brilliant oratory persuaded public opinion again, and his "Virginia Resolves" against the Stamp Act were passed by a majority of one vote. Such a small majority seems insignificant, but these Resolves were publicized throughout the colonies and played an important part in creating serious opposition to England throughout the British colonies. Soon similar resolutions were adopted in the other colonies.

The first Colonial Congress was called to meet in New York City in October 1765 to form a plan of resistance to the Stamp Act. Although delegates from nine colonies attended, Virginia was not represented because the Virginia legislature had adjourned before Massachusetts had sent its invitation circular to her. However, Virginia approved a three point program of this "Stamp Act Congress" at its next legislative session: namely, a Bill of Rights, a statement of grievances and the principle of no taxation without actual representation. The colonists believed that, since they had no actual representation in Parliament, there could be no taxation except that authorized by their individual legislatures. Therefore, the members of the Stamp Act Congress adopted petitions to the King, the House of Commons and the House of Lords asking repeal of the Stamp Act. This congress was the first significant step in the direction of unity for the British colonies in America. In addition to this orderly method of opposition, in some of the colonies mob violence, rioting and even personal molesting of the stamp officials took place.

On February 8, 1766, the Northampton County Court severely opposed the Stamp Act by stating that "the said act did not bind, affect or concern the inhabitants of this colony, inasmuch as they conceive the same to be unconstitutional, and that the said several officers may proceed to the execution of their respective offices, without incurring any penalties by means thereof."

On February 27, 1766, a group of one hundred and fifteen planters met at Leedstown in the Northern Neck to publicly oppose the Stamp Act. A series of resolves or resolutions written by Richard Henry Lee but presented by Thomas Ludwell Lee, his brother, were passed by those present. These resolves condemned the Stamp Act and defiantly acclaimed the rights which they considered essential to civil liberty. These resolves are usually referred to as the Leedstown or Westmoreland Resolves because they were presented at Leedstown which is located in Westmoreland County. In March of the same year a pamphlet, entitled "An Enquiry into the Rights of the British Colonies," was written and circulated by Richard Henry Bland which strongly opposed the Parliamentary measures and stated that the colonies were bound to England directly by the King and not by Parliament. Therefore, Bland concluded that Parliament technically had no jurisdiction over the American colonies.

Finally, on March 18, 1766, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act but at the same time passed the Declaratory Act stating that Parliament had the authority to pass laws for the colonies "in all cases whatsoever." In their triumph over the repeal of the Stamp Act, many of the colonists overlooked the strong, powerful wording of the Declaratory Act.

Soon after the repeal of the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts were passed in 1767. They were called the Townshend Acts because the British Chancellor of the Exchequer (a position similar to the present-day United States Secretary of the Treasury) who originated them was Charles Townshend. The acts placed a duty (an external tax) upon glass, paper, painters' colors, white lead and tea. The revenue collected from these duties was to be used for the payment of salaries of judges and other colonial officials in the attempt to make such positions less influenced by the colonial legislature. The colonists objected strongly to the Townshend Acts, again stating that the taxes so collected were for the purpose of revenue and not for protection.

The merchant class of the large cities in the colonies and the Virginia planters in particular were so strongly affected by these acts that they formed a retaliatory organization called the Non-Importation Association. Although Lord Botetourt, the royal Governor of Virginia at this time, dissolved the Virginia Assembly, and individual members met privately at the Raleigh Tavern in Williamsburg and agreed to enter into such a non-importation agreement. This group agreed not to import slaves, wines or goods from Great Britain unless the objectionable taxes were abolished. This agreement caused a great reduction in the number of imports from Great Britain to these colonies. Since Virginia had the largest amount of commerce trade in England at this time, this method proved effective. Acts of violence even occured in some of the colonies—for example, the Boston Massacre. Finally, on March 5, 1770, the Townshend Acts were repealed with the exception of the tax on tea: three pence per pound. This tax was retained supposedly to assert the right of Parliament to tax the colonists whenever it so desired.

In spite of this repeal, friction between colonial legislatures and royal Governors continued. Under the leadership of Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, Committees of Correspondence were appointed in 1773 whose chief objective was to keep the various colonies informed by correspondence of the events occurring within their colony which were contrary to the rights and privileges of the colonists. The Virginia General Assembly appointed a Committee of Correspondence under the leadership of Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and George Mason. The condition which caused this permanent committee to be organized at this time was the continuous threat of England to force Americans to be tried in England for offenses against the law. These committees within the various colonies became very active and persuasive. The British soon abandoned their idea of sending Americans to England to be tried. However, these committees increased rapidly in number as the grievances of the colonists increased, and they gradually created a feeling of unity in the colonies as a result of a better understanding of common problems.

The next act which is believed to have led directly to the Revolutionary War is the Tea Act. After the three pence per pound tax on tea was levied, some of the colonists bought their tea from smugglers who had purchased it from the Dutch East Indies. In 1773, in an attempt to curb this illegal trade and to help create a monopoly of the tea trade for the East India Company, Parliament passed a law allowing this company to ship tea from Asia directly to the American colonies without bringing it to English warehouses first, as had previously been the regulation. This situation resulted in the East India Company selling its tea cheaper than the other companies. In spite of this change, Parliament refused to repeal the three pence duty tax on tea which still had to be paid by the colonists.

The American colonists realized the scheme of England, and not wanting to admit the right of Parliament to tax them even under these conditions, they decided not to submit to the payment of the duty tax. When the ships from the East India Company sent cargoes of tea to Charleston, Philadelphia, New York and Boston, some of it was stored indefinitely (at Charleston), some was returned (from Philadelphia and from New York City) and the rest was dumped into the Boston Harbor on December 16, 1773. The famous Boston Tea Party caused Parliament to pass the "Intolerable Acts" as punishment for the colonists of Massachusetts: (1) the Boston Port Bill closed the port of Boston to all trade until the colonists there had paid for the tea which had been destroyed and had agreed to obey the laws of Parliament and to maintain peace in the future, (2) the Massachusetts Government Act changed the charter of Massachusetts so that more governing power was in the hands of the royal officials and much less in the hands of the colonists, (3) the Administration of Justice Act provided that British officials in Massachusetts who had been charged with serious violations of colonial laws were from that time on to be sent to England for their trial and (4) an act provided that any colonial Governor was empowered from that time on to quarter British soldiers in barns or vacant buildings whenever the need arose. The first of these acts was to go into effect on June 1, 1774. Therefore, the colonists realized that something had to be done immediately if their resentment and ill feeling was to be recognized by Parliament and acted upon accordingly.

A description of the Boston Tea Party first reached Virginia from a visitor to the old Market Square in Alexandria. The Virginia House of Burgesses was in session when the Virginians learned of the "Intolerable Acts." Led by Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, the members of the House of Burgesses passed a resolution designating June 1, the day on which the "Intolerable Acts" were to be enforced, as a day of fasting and prayer to God to encourage Parliament to abandon its unwise punitive policy towards the people of Massachusetts. When Governor Lord Dunmore, who had succeeded upon the death of Governor Botetourt, heard of this resolution, he dissolved the House of Burgesses. Before all the members had left Williamsburg, a messenger arrived from Boston with a circular letter which pleaded with the colonies for united support and which suggested the cessation of all trading relations with Great Britain. The twenty-five Burgesses members, who were in the Apollo Room of the Raleigh Tavern when the letter arrived, discussed its contents and decided that it was too important a matter for the Committee of Correspondence to assume complete responsibility. Consequently, they asked the counties to appoint deputies to a special convention to be held on August 1, 1774 at Williamsburg for a two-fold purpose: to consider the possibility of complete cessation of trade with Great Britain and to choose delegates to a proposed Continental Congress. Peyton Randolph, Speaker of the House of Burgesses, is believed to have been the leader of this special convention movement. The actual summons was signed by Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Henry Lee. The calling of this First Virginia Convention is most significant in American history as well as in Virginia history because it was a positive action on the part of the American colonists to assert the people's sovereignty over and against the King's authority.

The convention at Williamsburg which began August 1, 1774 lasted for six days and representatives attended from fifty-six counties and four boroughs. Each county sent two delegates and each borough, one. Peyton Randolph was chosen as president of the convention. The convention members agreed to purchase no goods, with the exception of medicine, from Great Britain after November 1, 1774 and agreed neither to import slaves nor to buy imported slaves after November 1. Seven members were selected to represent Virginia at a Continental or General Congress: Richard Bland, Benjamin Harrison, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, Edmund Pendleton, Peyton Randolph and George Washington. The convention delegates also stated that unless American grievances were diminished by August 10, 1775, all exports of Virginia products to Great Britain would be stopped. It was at this convention that a written treatise on American rights was prepared for the convention by Thomas Jefferson. This paper, later entitled "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," was published by the Virginia convention and was responsible for making Jefferson's great ability as a writer well known. This pamphlet was a forerunner of the Declaration of Independence.

While the colonists were having political and economic difficulties with Great Britain, other domestic difficulties were occurring on the frontiers. As mentioned previously, the Piedmont area of Virginia, located between the Fall Line and the Appalachian Mountains, was actually the first American frontier. People who settled there came originally for several purposes: to acquire fertile but cheap land, to enjoy new personal freedom (in many cases, the settlers were former indentured servants), to carry on fur trade with the Indians, to obtain fresh pasture land for cattle and to establish plantations. After the Piedmont area became heavily settled, the westward movement continued. The settlements in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia followed directly after the crossing of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the late 1760's, William Bean, a Virginian, constructed the first cabin along the Watauga River, and later, James Robertson and John Sevier pioneered in the Watauga Valley. Settlements were also made at this time along the fertile Holston River Valley in eastern Tennessee. During this period, Daniel Boone explored the Cumberland Gap area and started a settlement in the region now known as Kentucky. While he was taking a group of approximately eighty settlers to this region, he was attacked by a band of Indians. The group decided to return to North Carolina with the exception of the Boone family, and they stopped near the Kentucky-Tennessee border.

Indian uprisings were common until the soldiers of Virginia defeated them in Lord Dunmore's War. As the settlers pushed westward, more and more of the Indians' hunting grounds were being seized and used for farming. Since the Indians felt that this was most unjust treatment, they resorted to making war upon the settlers. In 1774, many frontier Indian raids occurred involving the Shawnees, Cherokees, Mingos, Delaware and Wyandots. One incident which had great repercussion was the killing of nine members of the family of John Logan, a friendly Mingo chief, by a group of white settlers. This incident caused the Indians to be extremely revengeful.

When Lord Dunmore became the new royal Governor, the settlers appealed to him for protection and asked that he send military troops at once. He decided personally to command one group of troops at the Forks of the Ohio River and he ordered Major Andrew Lewis, a pioneer's son of Augusta County whose father had founded Staunton, Virginia, to raise a force of Virginia troops and bring them to a meeting-place located at Camp Union (now known as Lewisburg, West Virginia). With approximately 1100 men, General Lewis started on his march to the Ohio River in September 1774 to fight the Indians. After nineteen days of marching, they arrived at Point Pleasant, the site at which the Kanawha River empties into the Ohio River, approximately 160 miles from their starting point. General Lewis and his troops waited four days and heard no word from Lord Dunmore although he had ordered them to this particular position. On October 10, two of Lewis' men went hunting, strictly against his orders. Two miles from camp they were attacked by the Shawnee Indians, and one of them was killed. The other escaped, rushed back to the camp and reported to General Lewis that he had observed "four acres of ground" of Indians. General Lewis then commanded his men to form two lines of battle, one to be under the leadership of his brother, Colonel Charles Lewis, and the other under the leadership of Colonel William Fleming. He himself was to be the supreme commander. The battle began immediately, and after the Indians rushed forward the first time, Charles Lewis was killed and Colonel Fleming was wounded. The Indian leader was Chief Cornstalk who was a popular and powerful Indian warrior. However, after fighting all day, the Indians finally retreated across the Ohio River, and the Virginians were considered the victors of the Battle of Point Pleasant or the Battle of Great Kanawha because they were not driven back by the Indians. Consequently, Lord Dunmore's War was fought without his presence, although it is believed that he may have been negotiating a peace treaty with the Indians simultaneously at some distant place. The winning of this war by the Virginians made the winning of the west much easier for the later settlers.

On September 5, 1774, the first Continental Congress was called by Virginia, and invitations were issued by Committees of Correspondence. The purpose of this Congress was "to deliberate and determine wise and proper measures, to be by them recommended to all the colonies, for the recovery and establishment of their just rights and liberties, civil and religious, and the restoration of union and harmony between Great Britain and the colonies most ardently desired by all good men." The Continental Congress began in Carpenters' Hall, Philadelphia, on September 5, 1774 with 56 members present. Two-thirds of these were lawyers, and the membership itself consisted of representatives of both the liberal and the conservative groups although the majority appeared to be in the former group. The Virginian, Peyton Randolph, was unanimously elected President of the First Continental Congress. During the Congress, Patrick Henry expressed the need for unity when he exclaimed: "The distinctions between Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian but an American." Concerning its chief accomplishments, the Congress (1) drew up a Declaration of Rights (a series of resolutions declaring that the colonists were entitled to certain rights: life, liberty and property, the right to vote their own taxes and the right to trial by jury; that these rights had been violated by the King and by Parliament since 1673; that unjust taxes and standing armies had been imposed upon them and their local assemblies unfairly interfered with by Parliament; that their repeated petitions for a redress of their grievances had been practically ignored in England) and (2) adopted "a non-importation, non-consumption and non-exportation agreement" called the Continental Association Plan. It should be noted that complete separation from England was not demanded at this time but rather cooperation from, and peace under, English rule. The session lasted approximately seven weeks, and then on October 26, 1774, after a motion had been passed setting May 10, 1775 as the date of a second congress meeting, the session was adjourned to await a reply from the King of England.

The resolutions passed by this Congress were circulated throughout the colonies for their approval. All sections of the Virginia colony approved them, even sections as far west as the area now occupied by the State of Kentucky. Two illustrations of such approval are the Fairfax Resolutions and the Fincastle Resolutions. The freeholders of Fairfax County met in Alexandria in July 1774 and passed the so-called Fairfax Resolutions, written by George Mason. The Fairfax Resolutions or Resolves, as they are sometimes called, reflected Virginia's attitude toward taxation, Parliament and even the King. In January 1775, at Lead Mines, Fincastle County seat, the freeholders met and prepared a paper congratulating and thanking the Virginia delegates for their part in the First Continental Congress. These Fincastle Resolutions also included strong written opposition to English tyrannical power.

In November 1774, Virginia had a tea party, similar in purpose to Boston in that it was an act of defiance against Great Britain's tea tax. On November 7, the Virginians discovered that a British ship, "Virginia," which had docked in the York River at an earlier date, contained tea cargo. The Committee of Safety for York County immediately sent to the House of Burgesses (which was meeting at Williamsburg) a message in the form of a protest against accepting this tea for sale in the colony. The Committee received a reply to the effect that the matter would be discussed in the House and an answer would be forthcoming the next Monday morning. Large groups of people gathered at Yorktown where the boat had been docked and waited for the reply. The House of Burgesses failed to send the reply, and the captain of the ship declared that he had received no message. The Committee waited a while longer and then proceeded to throw the tea out of the ship's hold into the York River. By this time, the Yorktown inhabitants had been informed of the "Intolerable Acts" which had been passed to punish the inhabitants of Boston. Therefore, they filled the ship with necessary supplies and sent it to the Bostonians. This incident was another example of the methods by which the colonists were learning to unite and to help each other in their common objectives.

When the American colonists began to carry out the non-importation agreement, the British merchants were very much affected: for example, the import trade from Great Britain to the American colonies declined about 95% by 1775. The Americans had some great British leaders on their side, but they were definitely in the minority. Edmund Burke and William Pitt urged that the "Intolerable Acts" be repealed and predicted that war was approaching with the American colonies if most of the objectionable laws were not repealed at this time. Burke and Pitt were overruled, however, in Parliament. Thus, the breach between the American colonies and the mother country became wider as time passed.

Continued growth in the number of counties reflected increases in population and a trend toward the rising importance of community life. From 1750 to 1775, several additional counties were formed: Halifax (formed from Lunenburg and named for George Montagu Dunk, Second Earl of Halifax and the first Lord of the Board of Trade), Dinwiddie (formed from Prince George County and named for Lord Dinwiddie, acting Lieutenant Governor of the Virginia Colony from 1751-1758), Prince Edward (formed from Amelia County and named for Edward Augustus, Prince of Wales), Bedford (formed from Lunenburg and part of Albemarle County and named for John Russell, Fourth Duke of Bedford, Secretary of State in Great Britain from 1748-1757), Sussex (formed from Surry County and named for Sussex County, England), Loudoun (formed from Fairfax County and named for John Campbell, Fourth Earl of Loudoun, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces during the latter part of the French and Indian War and Governor-General of the American Colonies from 1756 to 1763), Fauquier (formed from Prince William County and named after Francis Fauquier, Lieutenant Governor from 1758 to 1768), Buckingham (formed from Albemarle County and named probably for the Duke of Buckingham), Charlotte (formed from Lunenburg and named for Princess Charlotte Sophia of Mecklenburg, George III's queen), Mecklenburg (formed from Lunenburg and named in honor of the same queen, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz), Pittsylvania (formed from Halifax County and named for Sir William Pitt, a famous English statesman who was pro-American toward the British Colonies in America), Botetourt (formed from Augusta County and part of Rockbridge County and named for Norborne Berkeley, Lord Botetourt, Governor of Virginia from 1768 to 1770) and Amherst County (formed from Albemarle County "and certain islands in the Fluvanna River" and named for Sir Jeffrey Amherst, Governor-General of Virginia, 1759-1768).

SUMMARY

The historical Life of Virginia from 1584 to 1775 illustrates the "trial and error" method of learning to live cooperatively, comfortably and profitably in the New World. The inhabitants of the "Cradle of American Civilization" were faced with severe personal handicaps, problems of government (many of which had to be solved in an original fashion), explorations into untrodden and often uncivilized areas, the task of establishing a land economy, rebellions of the common man against the privileged few and the establishment of a culture and way of life adapted to the type of environment and peoples living in the area. The efforts of such leaders as John Smith, John Rolfe, Edwin Sandys, George Yeardley, Benjamin Syms, Thomas Eaton, James Blair, Alexander Spotswood, Thomas Lee, Robert Dinwiddie, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Bland, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Peyton Randolph and Andrew Lewis helped unite the colonists in Virginia in their development of democratic living.

During this period, the first representative legislative assembly in America was held, the first group of Negro slaves were imported to America, the first group of unmarried women arrived in the colonies, the first royal colony of England was organized, a county system of local government was established, the Commonwealth of Virginia was created, the second oldest college in America was founded, the first theater in America was built, many of the most beautiful plantation houses were constructed, the British became the dominant colonists in America, slavery became an accepted characteristic of plantation life, fifty-four counties were formed and strong opposition of the colonists in Virginia to political and economic control by the British King and Parliament was becoming very apparent. The first special Virginia Convention held in Williamsburg to determine the extent of Virginia's boycott of British goods and to choose delegates to a Continental Congress and the York River Tea Party at Yorktown exemplified mounting opposition. The stage of life in Virginia seemed naturally set for specific action against strict foreign regulation and control.

3
Historical Life: 1775-1860

The Revolutionary War Era

A second Virginia Convention was held from March 20 to March 27, 1775 at St. John's Church, Richmond. Peyton Randolph was again chosen president of the convention. The members of this convention soon were divided into distinct groups: (1) the conservative group, led by Peyton Randolph, which deplored radical thinking and actions and still favored reconciliation with the mother country, England, and (2) the aggressive group, led by Patrick Henry, which believed conciliation and compromise were no longer possible or feasible and advocated military preparedness within the colony.

On the first day, March 20, Patrick Henry delivered his famous speech, the most significant and oft-repeated section stating: "Gentlemen may cry: Peace! Peace! but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!... Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" This fiery speech combined with his others earned for Patrick Henry the title, "The Tongue of the Revolution" or "The Mouthpiece of the Revolution." The first three days passed without either group committing itself. On the fourth day, however, a resolution was adopted bestowing thanks upon the Assembly of Jamaica for its petition to the King on behalf of the American colonies and stating an ardent desire for peace. Patrick Henry then proposed an unusual resolution to follow the preceding one, namely: the establishment of "a well-regulated militia, composed of gentlemen and yeomen." His brilliant oratorical powers of persuasion caused the resolution to be carried, and the military resources of the colony were immediately directed to be organized and made efficient. The convention also appealed to all the people for contributions for the relief of the Bostonians because they were "suffering in the common cause of American freedom." Later at this convention, delegates to the Second Continental Congress were elected: Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Peyton Randolph and George Wythe.

On April 21, 1775, Governor Dunmore, who had unsuccessfully tried to prevent the Richmond convention from taking place in order that delegates could not be elected to attend the Second Continental Congress, became very much aroused over the bitter feeling of the colonists toward Great Britain. He decided that he could break down some of the colonial assuredness and resistance against the King and against his personal orders if he could remove from the powder magazine at Williamsburg the munition powder which belonged to the colony. Therefore, he ordered twenty sailors from a British ship anchored at Williamsburg to obtain this powder. They hid in the Governor's Palace; during the night, they visited the magazine, removed all the powder which they could fit into the Governor's wagon and took it to their armed ship, the "Fowey," in the harbor for safekeeping. When the colonists learned the next morning of this activity, a company of Hanover volunteers, led by Patrick Henry, marched upon Williamsburg and forced the King's sailors to compensate by giving bills for the value of the powder taken from the magazine. Governor Dunmore was then beseeched to pay for the cost of the powder, at least in sterling. He finally paid this amount because of the persistence of Patrick Henry. Only strenuous efforts on the part of Patrick Henry's personal friends kept him and the local militia from imprisoning the Governor himself for such action. Patrick Henry was declared an outlaw by Governor Dunmore. Anti-British feeling rapidly increased on the part of the colonists after this incident.

Approximately a week after this unpleasant incident, John Paul Jones, a Scottish-Virginian who was a resident of Fredericksburg, recommended that the colonies should have an official navy. He was a former British seaman, and he offered his services to the colonies at this time in an attempt to raise a naval force. The Second Continental Congress later appointed a Naval Committee whose chief duty was to organize a naval force. At its invitation, John Paul Jones explained to the Committee the great strength of the British Navy and the futility of the colonists to try to compete with it. He stated, however, that, if the colonists had fifteen ships armed with guns, these could be successfully utilized to annoy British ships. His suggestion was accepted, and thirteen frigates plus two brigs made up the first American Navy. John Paul Jones received the first naval commission at Independence Hall on December 22, 1775. Therefore, he is often referred to as "The Father of the American Navy."

Before the Second Continental Congress was due to meet, the Battle of Lexington and Concord (near Boston) had taken place on April 19, 1775. After this "shot heard 'round the world," the Americans were most sympathetic toward their fellow-colonists of Massachusetts. On May 10, 1775, the Second Continental Congress began in Independence Hall, Philadelphia. Although there was a majority of the members who now believed a revolution was inevitable, there were also many conservatives who preferred compromise of any type rather than war. This congress proceeded to take necessary steps for organizing and equipping an American army. On June 16, 1775, it assumed control of the colonial forces already formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after the Battle of Lexington and Concord. It appointed George Washington as Commander-in-Chief of this American Continental Army and assumed complete responsibility for the salaries and supplies of the servicemen.

On June 1, 1775 Governor Dunmore called the Virginia House of Burgesses together for the purpose of discussing some British proposals originated by Lord North. The members did not favor these, however, and proceeded to suggest the levying of a tax of five pounds per head on each imported slave as an attempt to raise revenue for payment of the recent Lord Dunmore War with the Indians. In order to protect the slave trade benefits for England, the Governor vetoed this proposal. This action was his last veto in the Colony of Virginia. Later that month, Lord Dunmore, sensing the sincerity of the Americans in this revolution, feared for his royal governorship life. Consequently, on June 8, he fled from Williamsburg to a British man-of-war ship, the "Fowey," in the Yorktown harbor. His flight practically dissolved the royal government in Virginia. The Virginia Assembly asked Governor Dunmore to return under its protection but he refused to do so. His refusal to return after an official petition had been issued was considered by the Virginians as abdication on his part from office. Thus, when it adjourned on June 20, 1775, the last Virginia colonial General Assembly ended.

On July 3, 1775, Washington took official command of the American Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and his first military objective was to drive the British away from Boston. After he had been there a few weeks, he visited some troops for inspection. Upon inquiring about the place of origin of one company, he was surprised and delighted to hear the answer, "General, from the Banks of the Potomac." The speaker was Daniel Morgan, who had accompanied his corps of riflemen from Winchester, Virginia to Boston, 600 miles distance in twenty-one days without a single death. Morgan had fought with Washington during the French and Indian War and had participated in the war against the Indians in the Ohio Valley campaign. Washington was so happy to see these fellow-Virginians that he took time from his busy schedule to shake hands personally with each member of the corps. After Morgan and his troops had participated successfully in the Massachusetts Campaign, he later sent them to Canada for the Quebec campaign. This campaign unfortunately resulted in a defeat for the Americans, and Morgan was taken prisoner. Although Morgan was offered a commission in the British army while he was imprisoned, he violently rejected the offer. Although he remained a prisoner for a long time, he rejoined the American Army as soon as he was free to do so. The famous American victory at the Battle of Saratoga is now accredited to the military strategy and tactics of General Daniel Morgan. Another important later victory for which he was directly responsible was the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina. He is one of the many great military men furnished by the colony and by the state of Virginia.

From July 17 to August 26, 1775, the Third Virginia Convention was held. The meeting place was Richmond, and Peyton Randolph was elected president of the convention. George Mason had been appointed to succeed George Washington at this convention because Washington was busily engaged as Commander-in-Chief of the American Army. Since Governor Dunmore had already fled from the colony, the royal government had been theoretically dissolved and Virginia gained the status of an independent state. Therefore, the members of this convention believed that they had to assume responsibility for governing Virginia under the circumstances. Consequently, the one hundred and fifteen delegates present proposed acts and passed them as laws called ordinances. Ordinances passed contained the following provisions: (1) the organization of military forces for the defense of Virginia into two regiments; (2) the creation of an executive body called the Committee of Safety to act as the government while the convention was in recess; (3) a plan for adequate revenue for the provisional government and for the Army of Virginia; (4) the establishment of executive county committees; (5) the regulation of the election of delegates to future conventions; (6) the election of new representatives to a future Continental Congress, and (7) the division of Virginia into sixteen military districts.

On August 17, 1775, the first Committee of Safety for Virginia was appointed by the Virginia Convention of July 1775. It consisted of eleven members, namely, Richard Bland, Carter Braxton, William Cabell, Paul Carrington, Dudley Digges, Thomas Ludwell Lee, George Mason, James Mercer, John Page, Edmund Pendleton and John Tabb. Edmund Pendleton was the chairman of this committee. Various members of the Committee of Safety actually ruled Virginia from the time it ceased to be a British colony until it officially became an independent state.

On December 1, 1775 the Fourth Virginia Convention was held at Richmond, but soon after the convention had become organized, it moved to Williamsburg. Edmund Pendleton was elected president of the convention. The chief problem of this convention was military protection and security for Virginia in the face of war. The army was increased from two regiments to nine regiments with an enlistment requiring two years of military service. The chief measures passed during the Fourth Virginia Convention of December 1775-January 1776 included the appointment of a commission of five men in each county to try cases of those individuals believed to be enemies of America, the creation of an admiralty court to hear cases involving maritime or naval affairs, the granting of permission for county courts to elect a sheriff for a one-year term and the issuing of special instructions to the Virginia delegates to the next Continental Congress to encourage the opening of American ports to the commerce of all foreign nations except Great Britain and the British West Indies. It was also decided at this convention to allow the Virginia troops to be merged or absorbed into the Continental Army and to have future military officers commissioned by the Continental Congress rather than by individual state or colonial legislatures. Another Committee of Safety for Virginia was named: nine members were re-appointed and two new members were substituted. Edmund Pendleton was still the chairman and the other committee members were Richard Bland, William Cabell, Paul Carrington, Dudley Digges, Joseph Jones, Thomas Ludwell Lee, James Mercer, John Page, John Tabb and Thomas Walker. On January 20, 1776, the convention adjourned.

During the convention, another Lord Dunmore episode took place. Lord Dunmore had become a real threat to the Virginians because, after he had fled from Williamsburg and from Yorktown, he armed many Negroes and persuaded them to fight for the King in return for their future freedom. He commanded a force which at this time was in possession of Norfolk and its adjacent areas. Eight days after the convention began, Lord Dunmore dispatched a few of his British regulars to attack some of the Virginian troops under Colonel William Woodford. These Virginians had constructed a breastwork along the southern branch of the Elizabeth River, approximately twelve miles from Norfolk. Colonel Woodford's Virginia troops killed almost all the British regulars, much to the surprise of Lord Dunmore, who quickly retreated to a part of the British fleet docked in Norfolk harbor. Later, while the convention was still in session, on January 1, 1776, Lord Dunmore with a small land and sea force bombarded and burned Norfolk itself which consisted of about 6,000 residents at the time. Many houses were completely burned and others badly damaged. St. Paul's Church was the only building to survive this bombardment and embedded cannon balls in the south wall of the church may still be seen which were fired from the ships in the harbor. Dunmore and his forces finally sailed up the Chesapeake Bay and stationed themselves off Gwynn's Island, near the present Mathews County mainland. From this area, Dunmore and his friends made repeated plunder attacks along the coast of Virginia until summer.

During the same month of January, a dramatic episode occurred at Woodstock. John Peter Gabriel Mühlenberg, an ex-German soldier who had migrated to Virginia and had become a minister, was very strongly pro-Virginia and very strongly anti-British King. He had received a military commission as a colonel from General George Washington due to his past military experience. His duty was to form a regiment of Germans living in the valley. On this particular Sunday, he ascended the pulpit and began to preach concerning the theme, "There is a time to every purpose ... a time to war and a time to peace!" He proceeded to describe the unjust treatment which the American colonies had received from the British King and the Parliament. At the conclusion of his sermon, he stated: "There is a time for all things—a time to preach and a time to pray; but there is a time to fight, and that time has come now." With these surprising words, he threw back his minister's attire and stood fully clothed in the blue and buff uniform of a Continental Colonel with the official sword at his side. He immediately descended from the pulpit and, in a very short time, had enlisted three hundred citizens within this small community in the Eighth Virginia Regiment. Thus, Mühlenberg earned for himself the title of the "Fighting Parson" and with his regiment marched directly to help the South Carolina Army. The regiment was later referred to as the German Regiment because it was made up solely of German Americans. It served with great honor during the Revolutionary War. Mühlenberg himself had the distinction of being with General Washington when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown.

The Fifth Virginia Convention, now called the Virginia Constitutional Convention, began on May 6, 1776 at Williamsburg. By this time, the British had been driven out of Boston and out of the New England area in general. The American attempt to invade Canada had been unsuccessful, but the British had been defeated in North and South Carolina. Public opinion in Virginia which had been only "lukewarm" to complete separation from England at the early stages of the war now became very strongly in favor of it—particularly after the bombardment and burning of Norfolk. Most of the delegates had been instructed before coming to the convention to work toward two specific objectives: American independence and a representative government for Virginia. There were one hundred and thirty-one delegates present at this convention, representing sixty-six counties and corporations. Some of the outstanding members at this convention were James Madison, Edmund Randolph and Archibald Cary.

The various sections of Virginia were represented at the Fifth Convention. The type of clothing worn at the convention made the sections easily recognizable: there was an outstanding contrast between the homespun, practical clothing of the frontiersmen and the fancy British-made clothing of the wealthy traders and plantation owners. The convention members elected delegates to the Continental Congress and instructed them to propose American independence from England. The delegates chosen were George Washington, John Blair, James Madison, George Mason, James McClurg, Edmund Randolph and George Wythe. On May 15, a resolution was introduced by Archibald Cary and passed which declared the colony of Virginia a free and independent State. Immediately the British flag was lowered from the Capitol at Williamsburg and the colonial colors were raised instead. At this same convention, on May 27, Archibald Cary presented to the members the "Declaration of Rights" prepared by George Mason for this convention. This document stated the fundamental rights of English colonists as well as of Englishmen.

On June 12, 1776 Mason's "Declaration of Rights" was unanimously adopted. Its principles were considered so important that they were later the basis of the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution and eventually were used as the background for state constitution Bills of Rights. The Virginia Bill of Rights is often referred to as the "Magna Charta of Virginia." George Mason also recommended the original motto of the official seal of the State of Virginia at this convention: "Sic Semper Tyrannis"—"Thus Always (or ever) to Tyrants."

In the same session, James Madison actively participated in a discussion concerning religious liberty and tolerance. He proposed a clause in the Virginia Bill of Rights to allow the "free exercise of religion" because he strongly believed that the state should have no coercive power over religious thought. This clause was adopted, and James Madison for the first time attracted state-wide attention to his thinking and philosophy.

Once the idea of independence from England was formally expressed and a specific objective was established, the Virginians at this convention proceeded to write a state constitution for Virginia. This constitution, the first written state constitution, was officially adopted on June 29, 1776, making this the birth date of the State of Virginia. Since George Mason was primarily responsible for the actual wording of the constitution, he is called the "Father of the Virginia Constitution." Virginia was organized as the Commonwealth of Virginia, the name believed patterned after the Commonwealth of England, the title acquired by the government of England after its Civil War. The first constitution for Virginia provided for a bicameral (two-house) legislature: the Senate and the House of Delegates. Membership in these groups was to be by election by the qualified voters. Each county was to choose two delegates annually to represent them and one-fourth of the Senate was to be elected annually. The combined balloting of the House and the Senate was to determine the election of the Governor (whose term was to be one year with a maximum three years possible), an eight-man Council of State and members of the Congress of the United States. A general system of courts was created. Patrick Henry was elected the first Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia and he served from 1776 to 1779. The Commonwealth of Virginia was now ready to function, and the new government went into effect immediately. The Williamsburg Convention which began May 6, 1776 adjourned on July 5, 1776.

While this convention was in session, the Second Continental Congress was meeting at the State House, now called Independence Hall, in Philadelphia. On June 7, 1776 Richard Henry Lee, a Virginian, introduced a resolution "that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political convention between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved." The motion was seconded and urged strongly by John Adams of Massachusetts. The usual discussion and argumentation period followed, and it became obvious that six states hesitated to vote favorably for the resolution at this time. Consequently, the official voting was postponed for three weeks, but Lee's resolution was adopted by the Congress on July 2, 1776. However, a committee of five was selected on June 10 to draw up a declaration of independence: Thomas Jefferson (Virginia), Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania), John Adams (Massachusetts), Roger Sherman (Connecticut) and Robert H. Livingston (New York). Although Thomas Jefferson was one of the youngest Continental Congressmen, he was selected as the chairman of this committee. Since only a few deletions in the original plan drawn up by Jefferson were made by the other members of the committee, the writing of the formal Declaration of Independence is justly attributable to Thomas Jefferson, the Virginian. This Declaration of Independence coupled with his "A Summary View of the Rights of British America" later earned for Thomas Jefferson the title "The Pen of the Revolution."

The logical, thorough reasoning behind the content of the Declaration is easily apparent. The first part of this document describes the nature and the purpose of a government and the belief that a people have the right to change their government when it no longer fulfills the purpose for which it was created. Then Jefferson enumerated the various acts of the King and of the British Parliament which the American colonists considered most unfair and contrary to the purpose of the original founding of the colonies, as justification for their desire to change their type of government. The next section reaches a conclusion from the previous two sections: namely, that the colonists are renouncing their allegiance to the King and are declaring that "these colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States."

On July 4, 1776 twelve states had voted for the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. The thirteenth one, New York, accepted it on July 9. On July 19, a resolution was adopted by the Second Continental Congress to have the July 4 Declaration engrossed on parchment entitled "The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America" and, upon its completion, to have it signed by each member. Fifty of the fifty-six members signed the official document by August 2, and, of the remaining six signers, two were Virginians: George Wythe who signed it later in August and Richard Henry Lee who signed it in September. The seven Virginia delegates who signed the Declaration of Independence were Carter Braxton (farmer), Benjamin Harrison (farmer), Thomas Jefferson (lawyer), Richard Henry Lee (farmer), Francis Lightfoot Lee (farmer), Thomas Nelson, Jr. (soldier) and George Wythe (lawyer).

After Richard Henry Lee had introduced his independence resolution, he proposed another one suggesting that a permanent central government be created for the new United States. A committee was appointed to draw up such a plan and, in 1777, it submitted the Articles of Confederation to Congress. From 1775 to 1781, the Continental Congress acted as the central governing body of the United States.

After Lord Dunmore had bombarded Norfolk in January 1776, he went up the Chesapeake Bay to Gwynn's Island, near the present-day Mathews County mainland. With about 500 men he set up a camp there in May 1776. General Andrew Lewis, whom he had fought previously along the Ohio River, encamped with a small Virginia army on the shore opposite the island on July 8. Although it was very difficult to plant the cannon on the sandy shores, the next day General Lewis and his troops fired upon the camp and the fleet and badly damaged many of the ships. However, when his men invaded the island on the next day, they found it evacuated. Lord Dunmore had sailed away from Virginia taking with him the last governorship endowed with royal power. Thus, the Battle of Gwynn's Island or Cricket Hill was famous because of its effect of driving the last royal Governor from Virginia. It was, in a sense, ironic that Patrick Henry, who had been detested by Lord Dunmore while Dunmore was Governor of Virginia, became the first elected Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

During the governorship of Patrick Henry, population growth was again apparent by the formation of eight new counties in 1777-1778. These counties were: Montgomery (formed from Fincastle County and, later, parts of Botetourt and Pulaski and named for General Richard Montgomery—an American Revolutionary officer), Fluvanna (formed from Albemarle County and named for Queen Ann), Washington (formed from Fincastle County and, later, parts of Montgomery, named for George Washington and having the distinction of being the first locality in the United States so named), Powhatan (formed from Cumberland County and named for Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas), Rockbridge (formed from Augusta and Botetourt Counties and named in honor of the Natural Bridge—a natural wonder of Virginia), Rockingham (formed from Augusta County and believed named for the Marquis of Rockingham, England's Prime Minister), Shenandoah (originally, Dunmore County and named for the Indian-named Shenandoah River which translated means "Beautiful Daughter of the Stars") and Henry (formed from Pittsylvania County and named in honor of Patrick Henry).

George Rogers Clark, an older brother of William Clark of the well-known Lewis and Clark expedition, had explored and had surveyed much of the territory south of the Ohio River in the area now called Kentucky: at this time, it was the western part of Fincastle County. He believed that this section was ready to become an independent county and felt that, under such political status, the settlers could better organize and protect themselves. Only the Virginia Assembly could authorize the formation of this new county in 1776. Clark, therefore, called the settlers together, explained his objective for Kentucky and succeeded in getting John Gabriel Jones and himself elected as delegates to make a personal visit to the Virginia General Assembly at Williamsburg. The trip was long, difficult and dangerous, and to their dismay, the Assembly had already adjourned before they arrived. Being a determined individual, however, Clark decided to talk to the newly elected Governor, Patrick Henry, at his home. Hence, he traveled to Hanover County, discussed his problem with the Governor and sought permission to fight the Indians of the Kentucky area and to secure powder for the settlers' muskets. His trip was successful and, on December 7, 1776, the western part of Fincastle County was authorized to become the County of Kentucky in Virginia.

The British had been helping and encouraging Indian raids at this time in Kentucky, along the border settlements of Virginia and in the Illinois area. Clark believed that the Illinois area rightfully belonged to Virginia and felt that it must be conquered in order to attain peace for the Virginia settlers. The reports of official observers convinced him that this land could be invaded and captured with little effort. He returned to Williamsburg to get Governor Henry's approval for this objective and was happy to be commissioned to raise several companies of soldiers to be used in the invasion of the Illinois territory. Clark obtained his troops, and, after traveling north through Virginia and then westward to the Ohio River, they floated down the Ohio River on rafts and in boats. They landed near Louisville on the northern bank of the Ohio and marched westward approximately two hundred miles to Fort Kaskaskia. On July 4, 1778, they captured Fort Kaskaskia and its leader, Colonel Henry Hamilton. Marching another 150 miles northeastward, on February 25, 1779 they captured Fort Vincennes on the banks of the Wabash River. The post of Cahokia was also captured. In honor of his great bravery and extremely difficult marching, Clark was entitled the "Hannibal of the West." This entire area was known as the Northwest Territory, and these conquests of Clark and his troops gave Virginia complete claim for the control of this area as part of the Virginia state at the end of the American Revolution in 1783. Without such conquests, England would undoubtedly have held this territory after the Revolution, and it would probably have been an important part of Canada today. Simultaneously, the capture of these forts reduced the danger of Indian attacks considerably.

When the city of Philadelphia was about to be occupied by British troops on September 18, 1777, the famous Liberty Bell was taken from the State House in Pennsylvania for safekeeping. It was camouflaged with the heavy baggage of the American army in a supply train of 700 wagons and was carefully guarded by two hundred Virginian and North Carolinian cavalry-mounted troops. It was hidden in the Zion Church in Allen town, Pennsylvania, until June 27, 1778 when it was returned to its tower in Independence Hall.

During the same month and year, Henry Lee, a native of Westmoreland County, Virginia, who had been a captain in Colonel Thomas Bland's legion of Virginia cavalry, joined Washington's army in Pennsylvania. His personal achievements were many in this assignment and his excessive courage was noted by Washington. He was soon promoted to major and was given special command of three troops of horsemen plus an infantry company. He became a great annoyance to the British while they were on the march as well as in camp. This comparatively small group became so distinguished that they earned the tide of "Lee's Legion" and Henry Lee was nicknamed "Light Horse Harry" Lee. He later captured an important British post at Paulus Hook, New Jersey, and fought diligently also in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia. He was awarded a gold medal by the Continental Congress for his brilliant cavalry exploits during the Revolutionary War.

On May 9, 1779, a Britisher, General George Collier, arrived at Hampton Roads with approximately 2,000 troops. They used Portsmouth as a base and after making several raids in that area, destroyed not only the American navy yard at Portsmouth (called Gosport at this time) but also large supply deposits stored there. After awaiting reinforcements from General Henry Clinton in New York, they decided to abandon Virginia because they believed a Virginia blockade had prevented these reinforcements from arriving. Upon their departure, the inhabitants of Virginia were once more able to carry on necessary and important trade with the West Indies.

During this same year, a most unusual naval feat occurred in the Revolutionary War. John Paul Jones was in command of an American ship called the "Bonhomme Richard" off the coast of England when he spotted a British warship, the "Serapis." After fierce fighting between the two ships, although his own ship sank, he captured the "Serapis" and sailed away in it. Virginia had the honor of providing the greatest naval hero of the Revolutionary War, John Paul Jones.

Thomas Jefferson was the second elected Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. He held this office during most of the Revolutionary War Period. In addition to peace and military warfare, Jefferson had personal interest in religion and in education. In 1779, he wrote a proposed "Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom." He believed that the State Constitution had not included practical religious liberty although the theory of religious freedom had been guaranteed. Jefferson's proposal was finally passed by the General Assembly of Virginia in 1785. It is considered as one of the greatest Virginia documents because it guaranteed religious freedom to all.

While serving as Governor, Jefferson proposed a plan for education called "A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge." He based this plan upon the premise that democracy would be more successful if greater numbers of individuals were educated. The plan was an attempt on his part to encourage the establishment of free public schools for the children of the wealthy and the poor alike. This proposal suggested three years of free elementary schooling for all children regardless of their social or financial condition, free secondary education for those individuals who were mentally equipped to gain from this experience and free higher education for those who had displayed above average scholastic qualifications. The bill was not passed, but it resulted in a consideration of the possibility of public education at this time. Another example of Jefferson's enthusiastic interest in education was his personal establishment, in 1779, of a chair of law at William and Mary College in honor of a former teacher, a great lawyer and a personal friend, George Wythe. As a result, George Wythe had the distinction of being the first professor of law in the United States in the first law school in America.

While Jefferson was still Governor, the capital was moved in 1780 from Williamsburg to Richmond in an effort to escape the invading British soldiers and to provide a safer place of protection for the future. Lord Cornwallis, at this time, was proceeding with his plans to move north through the Carolinas to Virginia. Cornwallis had had a great victory at Camden, South Carolina, and had decided to persuade many of the western mountain people to fight on behalf of the British. Americans who favored the British in this revolution were called "Tories" and those who favored the Americans were called "Patriots."

Cornwallis sent Major Patrick Ferguson and approximately a thousand Tories to threaten these mountain folk in North Carolina and Southwest Virginia to the extent of marching over their land, causing destruction and hanging their leaders unless they discontinued their past resistance to the British army. Two American military frontiersmen, Colonel John Sevier and Colonel Isaac Shelby, decided to organize a group of riflemen and attack Ferguson before he had the opportunity to cross the mountains and attack them. They contacted Colonel William Campbell whose duty had been to protect the lead mines in Wythe County whose resources were being mined and smelted for equipment for the American soldiers. Colonel Campbell was invited to join Colonel Sevier and Colonel Shelby in their attack against Ferguson. He accepted and later was selected by the officers as their commander. Ferguson heard of their plan and selected a wooded mountain ridge on the border between North Carolina and South Carolina, called King's Mountain, for his battlefield. Ferguson's troops far outnumbered Colonel Campbell's troops and were much better equipped with military supplies. Colonel Campbell's troops, however, defeated the British badly on October 7, 1780. Major Ferguson and two hundred other Britishers were killed in battle. This Battle of King's Mountain is often called the turning point of the Revolutionary War in the South because not only did it upset the military strategy of Cornwallis but it also encouraged the southern patriots at a time when the morale had been low. Colonel Campbell was promoted to a Brigadier-General as a direct result of this battle. The British in the meantime had sent General Alexander Leslie to Portsmouth with approximately 3,000 troops. After the severe British defeat at King's Mountain, he left Portsmouth and headed his troops south to join Cornwallis.

Morale in Virginia at this time was very low because there was a great shortage of clothing, military equipment and supplies, there was a lack of money in the state treasury, Virginia soldiers were fighting outside their state and British soldiers in large numbers were stationed in eastern and central Virginia. General William Phillips and Cornwallis had seized and destroyed property valued at ten million dollars in eastern Virginia alone by the spring of 1781.

Meanwhile, by March 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation had been ratified by all the states and thereby became the basis for the central government of the United States. Since Maryland had refused to ratify the Articles until the states which owned large western land-holdings would cede them to the central government, Virginia, following a pattern of New York State, surrendered most of its large holding claims in 1784. By this action, Virginia ceded the Northwest Territory to the new nation, the United States. The entire region beyond the Ohio River (now comprising the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin) had rightfully been claimed by Virginia and cession to the United States for the beginning of its public domain was a most generous gesture on the part of Virginia. This action played an important part in creating a stronger feeling of unity on the part of the thirteen original colonies and in giving Virginia another nickname, "Mother of States."

The Confederation Congress was later faced with the problem of raising revenue for the new government under the Articles of Confederation and for payment of debts caused by the Revolutionary War. The Northwest Territory which Virginia had ceded to the central government had become part of the national domain, public lands of the United States. Congress decided to sell some of this land to obtain necessary revenue. It passed the Land Ordinances of 1785 and 1787, which became practically the written bases for the rest of the frontier settlements. The plan which was the forerunner of these ordinances concerning the public domain was proposed by Thomas Jefferson and enacted on April 23, 1784. In his plan, he outlined the territorial status preceding statehood and originated the idea of dividing the public domain into districts before statehood could be achieved. Two years later, the Confederation Congress gave a grant of 150,000 acres of land to George Rogers Clark and his followers as a reward for their great services in conquering the Northwest Territory and in establishing the only legal claim to this land on behalf of the United States. Virginia also reserved the ownership of 6,000 square miles of land called the Virginia Military District (presently located in the southern part of Ohio).

While General William Nelson, commander of the Virginia forces, was recruiting additional militia in the counties near the coast, twenty-seven British ships entered the Chesapeake Bay and headed for the mouth of the James River. Since Governor Jefferson believed Richmond was not militarily prepared for such an attack, he had the only five brass cannon of the capital city thrown into the river and had the remaining arms and ammunition taken seven miles from Richmond to Westham. On July 4, the Governor evacuated from Richmond and most of the inhabitants did likewise. On the next afternoon, General Benedict Arnold, the American traitor who had joined the British forces, accompanied by nine hundred British soldiers captured and burned Richmond unopposed. For two days the British burned and destroyed public and private property and later returned leisurely to Portsmouth.

Subsequently, as some of the British vessels attempted to sail up the Appomattox River, General Smallwood accompanied by three hundred American soldiers armed only with muskets attacked the British fiercely and drove them down the river. A short time later, General William Phillips brought additional British troops to combine with those of Arnold and took command over General Arnold. The combined forces marched first to Petersburg and then to Manchester (now, South Richmond). Lafayette had been placed in charge of the defense of Virginia at this time and he arrived in Richmond two days after Phillips had arrived. When General Phillips heard that Lafayette was in Richmond, he changed his mind and decided not to attack this city. In the meantime, Colonel Simcoe had been sent by General Arnold to Westham where he destroyed the military stores and the foundry. During this same period, General Phillips had sent General Arnold to Chesterfield Court House where he destroyed the barracks and burned the flour as they had previously burned the tobacco at Petersburg. As General Phillips was proceeding down the James River towards Chesapeake Bay, he received a message from General Cornwallis ordering him to meet with his forces at Petersburg so Phillips returned to Petersburg. Four days after he had arrived, General Phillips died of a fever in Petersburg and General Arnold succeeded to the command once more.

General Arnold, however, realized the hatred of the Virginians toward him for the burning and destruction for which he was responsible in Richmond. Consequently, after his army had united with Cornwallis' troops at Petersburg, he asked for a transfer to New York. Cornwallis, who disliked Arnold himself, granted the request. When Lafayette was informed of the tremendous number of British soldiers massed in Petersburg, he realized that it would be futile for his comparatively small force of 3,000 men to try to combat them. Consequently, he retreated slowly from Richmond towards Fredericksburg where he was joined by General Anthony Wayne. Cornwallis who had expected to trap Lafayette and his army was surprised by the orderly retreat and decided not to attack Richmond again as the legislature had already withdrawn to Charlottesville. On May 10, 1781, as the British neared Richmond, Governor Jefferson had ordered the General Assembly, which was then in session, to leave Richmond and continue the session at Charlottesville on May 24. Thus, Charlottesville for a brief time was the official capital of Virginia. Governor Jefferson's home, Monticello, was used as a guest house for many of Jefferson's legislative friends. Cornwallis decided to capture Jefferson who was at his home at Monticello, approximately three miles from Charlottesville, to seize the legislators at Charlottesville and to destroy a large quantity of military stores at a place called Point-of-Fork (at the junction of the Rivanna and James Rivers). Cornwallis believed that such a plan, if successfully carried out, would result in the complete surrender of the State of Virginia. Therefore, Cornwallis divided his cavalry into two groups: one commanded by Colonel John G. Simcoe who was to proceed to Point-of-Fork and the other commanded by Colonel Banastre Tarleton who was to proceed to Charlottesville, approximately seventy miles from his headquarters. After accomplishing these objectives, Tarleton was to continue to Point-of-Fork and help Colonel Simcoe.

General Baron Von Steuben heard about Simcoe's plan and was able to have all the military stores hauled across the river before his arrival. Simcoe, however, used military strategy in this instance which worked most successfully: he had his men spread out, cut down trees and build large camp-fires at great distances apart thus giving the impression that all of Cornwallis' army was on this campaign. General Steuben observing the large radius of camp concluded that Cornwallis' entire force was across the river. Consequently, he had his lighter baggage moved and had his troops evacuate the area. Simcoe destroyed all the heavy baggage and military stores and returned successfully to Cornwallis the next morning.

The British soldiers under Colonel Tarleton stopped for refreshments in Louisa County at a place called Cuckoo Tavern. The tavern keeper had an American soldier son, Captain Jack Jouett of the Virginia Militia, who happened to be at the tavern but out of sight of tavern visitors on that particular Sunday afternoon. He observed the two hundred and fifty British soldiers, overheard some of their personal conversations and their casual references to their military mission. He waited until the British had departed from the tavern and then he traveled on horseback over a different road—forty miles of brush and thicket, field and forest, vines and brambles. He rode without delay although the scars of some of the branches which struck him in the face as he was riding so rapidly became permanent ones. He believed that the British would probably make another stop for refreshments at the home of Dr. William Walker, the only one in the vicinity. Thus, he took time out to warn them of Tarleton's plans and to urge them to delay the British as long as possible. Jouett reached Monticello at dawn, roused the inhabitants within and informed them of Tarleton's plan. Jefferson and his guests fled on horseback and Mrs. Jefferson and their three children escaped to a neighbor's house by carriage. As the British rode up one side of the steep hill of Monticello, the Governor and his friends reached the bottom of the hill on the other side. Jouett then safely led the Governor's party via a secluded road to Staunton, which became another temporary capital. In the meantime, Tarleton had tarried before coming to Monticello to burn a wagon train filled with Continental Army supplies and had stopped as predicted at Castle Hill, the home of the Walkers. Mrs. Walker fed the soldiers before the officers, thus causing an added delay in their departure. Jack Jouett can be truly classified as the "Paul Revere of the South." The Assembly members were so appreciative of the courage and perseverance of Jouett that they subsequently presented him with a sword and a pair of pistols.

RICHMOND CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Gunston Hall

Home of George Mason, Author of "Declaration of Rights"

On July 4, 1781, General Cornwallis and his troops left Williamsburg, fought an inconsequential battle at Greenspring (near Jamestown) and then crossed the James River to Portsmouth where he proceeded to Yorktown. By September 1781, he had approximately eight thousand soldiers garrisoned on the peninsula at Yorktown. He had selected this site because he thought it was a secure one: the Chesapeake Bay was on the east, the York River on the north and the James River on the south. Actually, he had placed his soldiers in a most penetrable trap.

Marquis de Lafayette played an important part in the Revolutionary War. An outstanding example of foreign help received by the Americans, Lafayette had volunteered at the age of nineteen to serve in the American Army in 1777. After arriving from France in North Carolina, he rode horseback to Philadelphia to appear personally before the Continental Congress to offer his services to the American colonies. He had been appointed a Major-General by Congress and had been placed on Washington's staff. He had fought in the Battle of Brandywine Creek (Pennsylvania) and had been seriously wounded. His outstanding bravery had been recognized by Washington and they had begun a strong friendship which was to continue throughout their lives. He had endured with Washington the terrible winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (1777-1778) and acted as a morale builder to Washington's disheartened forces. He had been the hero at the Battle of Monmouth, New Jersey. After France had officially recognized the independence of the United States, Lafayette had returned to France, and, after encouraging many French soldiers to help the Americans fight, he had rejoined Washington. In 1781, Washington had sent him to defend and protect Virginia where he had cleverly pursued Cornwallis from near Charlottesville to Yorktown. After his role in the final strategy of Yorktown defense and his return to France, one can understand why Virginians consider Lafayette one of their heroes and have a famous bust of him created by the great sculptor, Jean Antoine Houdon, located in the rotunda of the State Capitol Building in Richmond.

As soon as Lafayette had noticed Cornwallis gathering his troops at Yorktown, he realized the possibility of surrounding Cornwallis and his forces since Lafayette was so well acquainted with this terrain. He immediately informed Washington of this situation and Washington quickly headed for his home state. In the meantime, General Lafayette surrounded Cornwallis and his troops on the south and on the west. Simultaneously, a fleet of twenty-five French warships from the West Indies under command of Admiral de Grasse sailed up the Chesapeake Bay with 3,000 French troops. This movement prevented Cornwallis from either receiving British enforcements or from escaping out to sea. General Washington, after feigning an attack against General Henry Clinton in New York, rapidly moved his army southward, joined with the forces of General Count de Rochambeau. Washington soon attacked the British on the north and on the west. Although Cornwallis realized that he was completely surrounded by American and French forces, he and his troops fought valiantly for weeks.

The home of General Thomas Nelson, the Governor of Virginia at this time, was located in Yorktown. General Cornwallis had taken possession of this house for his headquarters at Yorktown. Out of deference to the Governor, the American soldiers had refrained from firing upon it. However, General Nelson ordered them to fire upon the house, regardless of its sentimental value, because it housed British officers. The first shot killed two British officers and a cannon ball still embedded in one wall may be observed today in the Nelson House at Yorktown.

Finally recognizing the futility of fighting any longer, on October 17, 1781, General Cornwallis requested a parley, ordered a cease firing, and exchanged messages with Washington. At two o'clock of the next afternoon, Cornwallis selected the Moore House in Yorktown for a discussion of surrender terms: this house was out of range of the firing and conveniently located. The British, the French and the Americans sent representatives for the consultation, John Laurens representing the Americans. After long discussion and debate, the articles of capitulation were agreed upon and the generals signed them the next day. At twelve o'clock on October 19, 1781, the British signing was done by General Cornwallis and Thomas Symonds, the American signing by General Washington, and the French signing by General Rochambeau and Count de Barras for Count de Grasse. On October 19, at 2 p.m., as agreed upon by the surrender terms, the British army of 7,000 troops left Yorktown and laid down their arms at Surrender Field, just south of the town. They marched between two long lines of the French on one side and the Americans on the other side. General Charles O'Hara, the leader of the British, apologized to Washington for the non-appearance of Lord Cornwallis who was reported ill. The Battle of Yorktown ended the Revolutionary War although the peace treaty was not signed until 1783.

In this same year, the American army was demobilized. George Washington bade farewell to his officers at Fraunces' Tavern, New York City, on December 4, resigned on December 23 and returned to Mt. Vernon to retire. Already he had won the admiration of the new nation for his continued courage, bravery and great military strategy so ably exemplified during the American Revolutionary War. He also had earned the well-deserved title: "The Sword of the Revolution."

The Adoption of the United States and State Constitutions

By 1785, the Americans began to realize that the Articles of Confederation were too weak to become effective. The central government did not have sufficient political power to govern, the lack of a single executive resulted in a lack of leadership, the Confederation Congress could make laws but had no power to enforce them, the Congress could issue paper money and coins but had no power to buy gold and silver for backing this money and the Congress could levy taxes but had no power to collect them. There was no provision for a national court system. In order to pass a law, nine states had to agree in its favor; in order to amend the Articles, all thirteen states had to agree. Under the Articles of Confederation, the government was a confederacy in which each state retained its own political authority and the central government was responsible to the states. The control of foreign and interstate commerce was left entirely to the individual states. Chaos and confusion resulted. Consequently, in 1785, George Washington invited some representatives from Maryland and from Virginia to meet with him to discuss the problem of a stronger central government and to settle a dispute which had arisen concerning the navigation of the Potomac River.

The conference started at the City Tavern (later known as Gadsby's Tavern) in Alexandria and was later continued at Mount Vernon, home of Washington. During the discussion, Washington stated that there should be a common money system for all the states as well as a common plan for regulating domestic and foreign commerce. James Madison was one of the Virginians present, and he felt that there must be other problems of common interest to all the states. Therefore, when the next General Assembly met in January 1786, Madison proposed that representatives from all the states should meet at Annapolis, Maryland on September 11, 1786 to discuss trade problems and other areas of mutual interest. The Virginia legislature, therefore, invited all the states to send representatives to Annapolis to attempt to formulate a uniform currency and commerce system for all the states.

In September 1786, only five states sent delegates to the Annapolis meeting: Virginia, Delaware, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. These delegates, nevertheless, suggested that a convention be held on May 25, 1787 at the State House in Philadelphia for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. After this recommendation had been submitted to the Confederation Congress, it hesitatingly invited all the states to meet the next year at Philadelphia. Virginia sent seven delegates to this Philadelphia convention: George Washington, John Blair, James Madison, George Mason, James McClurg, Edmund Randolph (Governor at this time) and George Wythe.

Seventy-three individuals had been chosen as delegates from the twelve states, but only fifty-six members were present at the convention. All the states were represented at the convention except Rhode Island. When the convention began on May 25, 1787, George Washington was unanimously chosen President of the convention to preside over the meetings and rules of procedure were adopted. It is significant to note the absence of three of the Virginia Revolutionary Period leaders: Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry. Lee declined membership because he believed that, since he was a member of the Confederation Congress and since he thought the revised Articles would be submitted to this Congress for approval, he should not become a member of the Convention to revise the same and, subsequently, be a member of the Confederation Congress which would be asked to pass upon the revised plan. Jefferson was the United States Minister to France at this time and was out of the country. Although Patrick Henry had been elected as a delegate to the convention, he had refused to accept the assignment because he was skeptical about governmental changes which the convention might make. Two Virginians who were present made written comments concerning the type of individuals who represented their states as follows:

(1) George Mason (in a letter to his son)—"America has certainly, upon this occasion, drawn forth her first characters.... The eyes of the U. S. are turned upon this assembly, and their expectations raised to a very anxious degree." Mason's personal attitude toward the responsibility of being a state delegate at this convention is summarized in this remark: "I would not serve upon pecuniary reasons alone in this convention for a thousand pounds a day."

(2) James Madison—"It contains in several instances the most respectable characters in the U. S., and in general may be said to be the best contribution of talents the States could make for the occasion."

The meetings were held secretly behind closed doors because of the grave problems which the convention had to solve. After the delegates began to discuss the necessary changes which had to be made, they realized the impossibility of simply revising the Articles of Confederation and the absolute necessity of writing a new constitution which would make the central government a much stronger political power. James Madison, a most profound student of government, is considered as the most influential member of the convention. He was the most active speaker at the convention and he kept careful notes of the entire session. Madison is regarded as the "Father of the United States Constitution."

One of the first questions to be decided at the convention was the type of organization of the government. Governor Edmund Randolph presented Madison's "Virginia" Plan recommending a strong, central government and one in which each state would be represented in proportion to its population. This plan is sometimes referred to as the "Large State" Plan because most of the larger states favored it: according to this plan, the more population a state had, the greater the representation. The small states had their plan also: it was presented by William Paterson of New Jersey and is known as the "Paterson" or "New Jersey" or "Small State" Plan. The small states favored states' rights rather than a strong, central government and believed that each state should be represented equally regardless of its population. The "Great Compromise" which was finally adopted was a combination of both plans: a bicameral legislature called Congress was to be created consisting of (1) the House of Representatives with membership from each state based upon the population of the state and (2) the Senate with membership based upon equal representation from each state—two Senators from each state. The plan of government finally adopted provided for a strong central government but with the state governments retaining essential reserve powers.

After the Constitution had been completed on September 17, 1787, it was submitted to the Confederation Congress with the recommendation that Congress inform each state legislature about the Constitution and ask for state ratification. The Constitutional requirement for making the document effective was ratification by nine states. Washington was very eager for the Constitution of the United States to be adopted. He wrote many personal letters favoring its adoption including a public letter in which he reminded the states that each state must be willing to make certain concessions for the benefits of the country as a whole.

Thirty-nine of the fifty-six delegates signed the Constitution. Only three of the six delegates from Virginia signed it: George Washington, John Blair and James Madison. Madison, in fact, was consulted for an opinion on almost every phase of the Constitution. During the campaign period for and against ratification, Madison joined Alexander Hamilton and John Jay of New York and contributed to a series of essays called "The Federalist." The essays included a discussion of the meaning of the various provisions of the Constitution and attempted to prove that the federal or central government would not misuse the power granted to it. Madison wrote twenty of the eighty-five essays contained in "The Federalist." This series of essays is believed to have influenced more people to favor the adoption of the Constitution than any other written or oral effort.

The most influential writings against the adoption of the Constitution were authored by Richard Henry Lee in his "Letters of a Federal Farmer." George Mason and Edmund Randolph refused to sign the Constitution of the United States because it contained no bill of rights, it did not provide either for the immediate prohibition of slave traffic or for the eventual abolition of slavery and, in their opinion, gave Congress too much control over navigation and tariff policies. Edmund Randolph, Governor of Virginia and a delegate at the Philadelphia Convention, played an unusual role: he did not sign the Constitution himself because he did not approve of the final document but he did urge the State of Virginia to accept it because he believed that a union of states was necessary. James McClurg and George Wythe did not sign it because they were absent, but they did encourage the ratification of the Constitution by Virginia.

On June 2, 1788, a Virginia State Convention was held in Richmond to determine whether or not Virginia would accept the new Constitution of the United States. There were one hundred and sixty-eight official delegates present, and they elected Edmund Pendleton president of the convention. Sectionalism appeared obvious in the state at this time: the Piedmont area and the southwest area which did not have many slaves opposed ratification while the Tidewater area and the northwest area favored the adoption of the Constitution. James Madison, John Marshall (who actually explained much of the Constitution to the members of the convention), Edmund Randolph, George Wythe and General "Light Horse Harry" Lee spoke on behalf of the Constitution; George Mason, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, James Monroe and William Grayson spoke very strongly against it. The chief arguments against ratification were that the central government had been given far too much power and the individual states far too little power, that the commerce clause was too powerful and that the continuance of the slave trade was permitted. Finally, after Madison had agreed to suggest and to urge adoption of many amendments, the Virginia convention ratified the Constitution of the United States by the close vote of 89 to 79 on June 26, 1788. It is interesting to note that, at this time, the State of Virginia included the present area of Virginia and the area now included in the States of Kentucky and of West Virginia.

The State of Virginia missed by five days the honor of being the necessary ninth state to ratify the Constitution, New Hampshire having this honor. As Virginia became the tenth state to ratify it, the following declaration was officially recorded: "We, the Delegates of the People of Virginia, ... Do, in the name and in behalf of the People of Virginia, declare and make known, that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the People of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their Will; that therefore no right of any denomination can be canceled, abridged, restrained, or modified by the Congress ... or any department or Officer of the United States, except in those instances in which power is given by the Constitution for those purposes: and that, among other essential rights, the liberty of Conscience and of the press cannot be canceled, abridged, restrained or modified by any Authority of the United States." This declaration expressed fear on the part of Virginians concerning the new Constitution. At the same time, the members of the Virginia convention proposed forty amendments which became the bases of the ten amendments of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the United States: James Madison introduced the first nine amendments and Richard Henry Lee, the tenth amendment, to the Constitution of the United States—all eventually adopted in 1791.

Between 1783 and 1789, on the domestic scene, Virginia had gained five new counties: Campbell (formed from Bedford County and named for General William H. Campbell, the hero of the Battle of King's Mountain), Greensville (formed from Brunswick County and, later, parts of Sussex County and named for General Nathaniel Greene or Sir Richard Grenville), Franklin (formed from Bedford and Henry Counties and, later, parts of Patrick and named for Benjamin Franklin), Russell (formed from Washington County and named for General William Russell, a military hero also at the Battle of King's Mountain in the Revolutionary War) and Nottoway (formed from Amelia County and named for an Indian tribe, "Nottoway"—the word meaning "snake or enemy"). Two years later, Patrick County was formed from Henry County and was named in honor of the patriot, Patrick Henry.

Another domestic problem during this period concerned the boundary dispute between Pennsylvania and Virginia. When the Penns colonized Pennsylvania, they claimed the 39th degree parallel as their southern boundary. Virginia, however, claimed all the territory as far north as the 40th degree parallel including the choice section of Fort Pitt (now the site of Pittsburgh). After Pennsylvania authorities had established courts at Hanna's Town (now Greensburg), Governor Dunmore of Virginia sent Dr. John Connelly to establish a rival court with competing magistrates in 1773. The struggle for ownership of this area was temporarily postponed during the American Revolution, although the Virginia courts continued to remain in session in western Pennsylvania from 1774 to 1780. Finally, negotiations took place, and an agreement was adopted to allow a survey to be made in the region and to accept a boundary recommended by the joint boundary commission. The Mason and Dixon Line was extended to the southwest corner of Pennsylvania in 1784; the western boundary line of Pennsylvania was permanently agreed upon in 1785-1786.

In the following year, in December, an historical event took place which contributed greatly to science. James Rumsey, a native Marylander who had moved to Bath, Virginia (now Berkeley Springs, West Virginia), was interested in boat-building and in the possibility of steam propulsion. After the Virginia General Assembly had given him exclusive permission to navigate specific types of boats constructed by himself on the state waterways for ten years, he successfully transported six individuals for the first time in a steamboat four miles up the Potomac River near Shepherdstown. Rumsey continued to experiment with additional steamboats on the Potomac. In order to obtain financial assistance, he traveled subsequently to London and ironically died there before his second boat, the "Columbia Maid," had been completely constructed. This event occurred twenty years before Robert Fulton made his historic trip up the Hudson River in the "Clermont."

By 1789 George Washington had retired to Mount Vernon and had become a gentleman farmer at the time of the adoption of the Constitution. He was overseeing his fields on horseback one day when a messenger arrived from New York City informing him that his name had appeared unanimously on the ballot of every elector, electing him as the first President of the United States—"The Father of His Country." The American people still remembered his great leadership qualities during the Revolutionary War and during the Constitutional Convention. Thus, Washington was faced with a most difficult task: to make a new government work successfully though it was practically only in outline form and even though there was opposition and criticism awaiting the first President. Washington was also informed that the new government was to begin operating on March 4, 1789 and that Congress desired that he arrive in New York City for his inauguration on that date.

It took the Congressmen themselves longer to arrive from their various states, however, than they had expected. John Adams, the Vice-President, did not arrive until April 22 from Massachusetts to take his oath of office. Washington had much farther to travel than did John Adams and had many preparations to make before leaving Mount Vernon. He visited Fredericksburg to bid his mother farewell and traveled via stagecoach through Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania to New York. Roads were in poor condition making traveling very slow and Washington was such a prominent figure that he was stopped along the way by his old friends, especially in New Jersey. One significant incident was his welcome at Trenton, New Jersey, part of which consisted of a presentation of flowers by thirteen young ladies dressed in white, symbolic of the thirteen stars of the flag of the United States and of the thirteen states that had honored him by electing him to the Presidency. When he arrived at the New York ferry, thirteen sailors in red, white and blue uniforms were waiting to row him across the Hudson River to New York City. On April 30, 1789, Washington took his official oath of office in Federal Hall as the first President of the United States. A marble statue stands today on the spot on Wall Street where this event took place. New York became the first capital city of the United States. Since the capital was changed to Philadelphia in the following year, Washington was the only President of the United States to be inaugurated in New York City.

State and National Events (1789-1860)

Since Washington was a strong believer in the Constitution of the United States and had put forth much effort in getting it ratified, he tried conscientiously to set up a government satisfactory to all Americans. He wisely used his talent of recognizing individuals with a particular skill when he selected his first cabinet to advise him: Thomas Jefferson (Virginia), Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Alexander Hamilton (New York), Secretary of the Treasury, and Henry Knox (Massachusetts), Secretary of War. Edmund Randolph, a Virginian, was appointed Attorney-General, but this office did not become a cabinet post until 1814. The men holding these positions for the first time had a heavy responsibility in deciding specifically the range of duties each position should include and in properly carrying out these duties.

The practice of "log-rolling," defined as the "joining together of politicians to mutually further each other's plans of activities," was followed at this early time of our new government. The question had arisen in Congress whether or not Congress should assume the state debts, most of which had been accumulated during the Revolutionary War. The Congressmen who favored such assumption believed that such action would not only tend to strengthen security and confidence of the American people in their new government but would also make it easier for the United States to borrow money, either at home or from a foreign country. Since Virginia and many of the Southern States had already assumed and had paid most of their debts, the Virginia legislature opposed this bill strongly in 1790 and believed that it placed an unjust hardship upon the State. This state legislative objection was the first official action of a state against a federal bill. Since the Northern States preferred a location in the north for the national capital, Hamilton and Jefferson encouraged their friends to vote for each other's proposals. Hamilton's friends in the north voted for locating the capital along the Potomac in return for Jefferson's friends in the south voting for the assumption of state debts by the national government.

There had been discussion for a long time about changing the location of the national capital from New York City to a more central location along the Atlantic seaboard. When a site along the Potomac River was finally agreed upon, Maryland and Virginia agreed to cede part of its land for the establishment of a Federal District to become the seat of government of the United States. On December 3, 1789, Virginia ceded thirty and three-quarters square miles of land including the town of Alexandria and part of Fairfax County. The stone locating the original southern corner boundary, officially laid by Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick, may still be seen near Jones Point, Alexandria.

Early efforts to commercialize waterways materialized in 1790. One of the earliest commercial canals built in either Virginia or in the United States as a whole was the James River Canal. It was constructed by the James River Company, and, although it was only seven miles in length, it connected Richmond with Westham and was parallel to the James River. This marked the beginning of the canal-building era in the United States.

An event which affected the United States and the State of Virginia occurred in 1792 when Kentucky was admitted into the Union as the fifteenth state (Vermont had entered as the fourteenth one in 1791). This action deprived the State of Virginia of approximately 75,000 inhabitants, of 40,395 square miles of territory and of nine counties. Kentucky was originally part of Fincastle County, Virginia and later had gained status as an independent county in Virginia, called Kentucky County. Virginia gave the necessary consent for the independence of Kentucky, required before statehood could be granted. The boundaries of the State of Virginia thereafter remained fixed from 1792 until 1861 when West Virginia became a separate state.

Washington, during his Presidency, showed his ability to lead in civilian affairs as well as in military affairs. His diplomatic ability predominated in the torn loyalty toward England and toward France when these nations fought each other in 1793: he issued the Neutrality Proclamation whereby the United States would take neither side in this conflict. Throughout his two terms, he created precedents and made decisions of lasting value for the United States. Such a precedent was his refusal to run for a third time as President of the United States, a precedent which was not broken until 1940 when Franklin D. Roosevelt accepted the nomination for the Presidency.

While Washington was President, the population of Virginia continued to grow. Six new counties were created during this period: Wythe (formed from Montgomery County with later additions from Montgomery and Grayson Counties and named in honor of George Wythe, a Virginia signer of the Declaration of Independence, a famous lawyer and the first Professor of Law in the United States), Mathews (formed from Gloucester County and named for Major Thomas Mathews of the Revolutionary War), Bath (formed from Augusta, Botetourt and Greenbrier Counties and named because of the medicinal springs located in the area), Grayson (formed from Wythe County and, later, additions from Patrick County and named for Colonel William Grayson, a United States Senator from Virginia), Lee (formed from Russell County and, later, additions from Scott County and named for General Henry Lee, Governor of Virginia, as well as an outstanding military leader), and Madison (formed from Culpeper County and named for James Madison, a state legislator and member of the United States House of Representatives during this period).

After John Adams had been elected to the Presidency in 1796, the Democratic-Republican Party began to use the typical political method of attacking the party in power, namely the Federalists, through newspaper articles and through written pamphlets. Since many of the foreigners who had come to America at this time were Democratic-Republican in their political beliefs, numerous articles criticizing President John Adams and his administration were written by them. In order to combat these political attacks, the Federalist leaders were responsible for getting two most unusual laws passed: the Alien and Sedition Laws. The Alien Act provided that the residence time required of foreigners for naturalization (the process whereby a foreigner becomes a citizen) was to be fourteen years instead of five years and that the President was henceforth authorized to imprison or deport without trial foreigners whom he considered dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States or to allow others to remain. The Sedition Act stated that any person convicted of defaming, either by spoken or by written word, the government of the United States or the President of the United States or the Congress of the United States was subject to a fine of not more than $2,000 and to imprisonment for not more than two years.

Several Federalists considered the passage of these laws unjust. Thomas Jefferson, the Vice-President of the United States at the time of their passage, decided to attract the attention of voters to the passage of such laws. He drew up resolutions in 1789 which stated that: (1) the Alien and Sedition Laws were unconstitutional because the President of the United States had no power to imprison or deport any person without a judicial trial and because Congress did not have the right to limit the freedom of speech and of press and (2) since the Union was a compact of states and since the federal government had only the particular powers granted to it by the states, each state had the right to decide the constitutionality of Congressional laws. Because these resolutions were first introduced into the Kentucky legislature, they were later called the Kentucky Resolutions. At the same time, James Madison drew up similar resolutions which were introduced into the Virginia Assembly. The Virginia Resolutions are significant since they explain the theory of "strict construction" (that the federal government has only those powers specifically delegated to it) and they illustrate the strong "states' rights" feeling which existed in the State of Virginia. Virginia and Kentucky were the only two states to openly protest the Alien and Sedition Acts. Many of the northern states denied on this occasion the right of a state to judge a federal law. They affirmed, on the contrary, the belief that only the federal courts can decide the constitutionality of a federal law.

On December 14, 1799, George Washington died at Mount Vernon where he had retired after his Presidency. His military genius and brilliant statesmanship are probably best summarized in the "Funeral Oration upon President Washington" by Henry Lee in his now-famous phrase: "First in War, First in Peace and First in the Hearts of His Countrymen."

In 1800, Virginia was considered first among the sixteen states of the Union (Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee having been admitted into the Union before 1800) in wealth and in population: 447,800 whites and 359,777 Negroes. The influence of Virginia in the political, economic and social life of the country was a profound one. The majority of residents now consisted of "average" individuals who regarded the democratic ideas of Thomas Jefferson as a basic philosophy for everyday living. The polite courtesy and hospitality of the olden days still remained, but many of the traditional, dignified ceremonies had become outmoded. The descendants of the aristocratic planters of the early nineteenth century were usually people of limited means and limited acreage because the war and its aftermath had decreased much of their wealth. However, the typical Virginian who could afford it still preferred to live in the country, own horses, dogs and fine cattle, enjoy fox hunting and the social gatherings of friends, celebrate traditional activities and understand and cherish the rich heritage which was theirs.

In 1800, Thomas Jefferson, a native of Shadwell, Virginia, was elected third President of the United States. He was the first President to be inaugurated at Washington, D. C. His ideas concerning government were so numerous and thought-provoking that his political philosophy has been termed "Jeffersonian Democracy." He had strong faith in the ability of the common man, believed in government economy and practiced this belief throughout his administration. He exhibited his broadmindedness by allowing many government officials of opposite political party beliefs to retain their same positions after he became President and he was a strong advocate of States' Rights. After Jefferson became President, he appointed John Marshall of Germantown and Richmond as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Marshall had been a member of the state legislature, an outstanding lawyer, a Congressman and had served as Secretary of State under President John Adams. John Marshall remained Chief Justice for thirty-four years and holds the record for length of service on the Supreme Court of the United States. He was personally responsible for creating a strong foundation for the Supreme Court. Although he was the second Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, it was during his judgeship that for the first time, a Congressional law was declared unconstitutional in the case of Marbury versus Madison. This decision greatly strengthened the theory of judicial review of national legislation. It is interesting to note that John Marshall was as strong a Federalist as his cousin, Thomas Jefferson, was a strong "States' Rights" man.

While Jefferson as President was solving national problems, his home state was solving problems, too. In August 1800, Virginia had its first organized slave insurrection. Led by Gabriel, approximately one thousand slaves in the area around Richmond decided to march on Richmond and massacre the white inhabitants there. However, at the scheduled time for the march to begin, a severe rainstorm delayed the march. During the delay, Pharaoh, one of the Negroes, decided to warn the Richmonders of their impending disaster. In spite of the heavy rains and the fact that it became necessary for him to swim certain swollen streams without being caught by one of his own group, he continued to Richmond and warned the authorities in time. He informed them of the proposed plan to kill the male inhabitants, capture the women inhabitants, seize the public arms and create a general slave insurrection. Consequently, the conspirators, including Gabriel, were caught, convicted and executed. The Virginia Assembly rewarded Pharaoh for his courageous act by giving him complete freedom.

While the State of Virginia was increasing its counties, the United States was beginning to expand beyond its original boundary established after the Revolutionary War. President Jefferson had heard rumors that Spain had ceded Louisiana back to France in secret diplomatic relations. If true, such a condition could ruin American trade along the Mississippi River and could suggest a possibility of a French empire in America. Jefferson decided to have the government of the United States purchase the Island of Orleans, near the mouth of the Mississippi River. After the United States Ambassador to France had been unable to purchase only the Island of Orleans, Jefferson sent James Monroe, a native of Westmoreland County, to assist the Ambassador. In 1803, the treaty making the purchase of Louisiana, that vast area of land west of the Mississippi, official was ratified by the United States. This purchase added 827,000 square miles to the area of the land under the jurisdiction of the United States government at the cost of $15,000,000.

President Jefferson was also very much interested in the Oregon Country. He had made frequent attempts to have this region explored but all his attempts were unsuccessful. However, after the purchase of Louisiana, he persuaded the federal government to finance, by means of a $2500 appropriation, an official government expedition to make the first overland route to the Pacific Ocean and to explore the region which the United States had recently acquired. He selected Captain Meriwether Lewis of Ivy, Virginia, to head this expedition and Lieutenant William Clark, a very close Virginian friend of Lewis' to accompany him. Their group left St. Louis in the spring of 1804, traveled up the Missouri River, spent a rigid winter in an area now located in North Dakota, continued traveling up the Missouri in the spring of 1805, crossed the Rocky Mountains, and built and paddled canoes until they reached the mouth of the Columbia River in November, 1805. There they built a fort near the present site of Astoria. They remained on the Pacific Coast during the winter and returned to St. Louis in 1806. Lewis and Clark were aided considerably in their travel route directions by an Indian woman guide, Sacajawea. This expedition to the Northwest furnished the best claim of the United States in later ownership disputes with England.

Aaron Burr, long the political opponent of Alexander Hamilton, lived in Petersburg. In 1807, Burr was accused of a conspiracy to invade Mexico, to snatch it from Spanish control and to establish an independent Mexican government with himself as the self-appointed ruler. Furthermore, he was accused of having laid plans for setting up a government in the western territory of the United States with the objective of eventually organizing this area into a separate, independent government with himself the self-appointed ruler. Burr was officially tried on a charge of treason at the State Capitol Building in Richmond. Chief Justice John Marshall was the presiding judge. Jefferson, who had disliked Burr for political reasons for a long time and who believed that Burr was guilty of the aforementioned treasonous actions, wanted Burr convicted. Although the trial involved many political entanglements, Burr was finally acquitted.

During the same year, Virginia made national headlines again when the "Leopard-Chesapeake" Affair took place. France and Britain had been having personnel problems with their navy crews, each accusing the other of trying to encourage desertions. Britain had sent a fleet over to Norfolk in an attempt to intercept some French ships harbored in the Chesapeake Bay. One of the British ships had its entire crew desert, and it was believed that they had dashed to Norfolk and would be hiring out soon on a French or American ship. The British captain of the fleet had been informed that these crew members supposedly had enlisted on the "Chesapeake," a new American naval vessel. A British vessel, the "Leopard," was ordered to search the "Chesapeake" outside the jurisdiction of the United States. Consequently, the "Leopard" followed the "Chesapeake" out beyond Cape Henry and then demanded that the "Chesapeake" be searched by British officers. When the "Chesapeake," under the command of Commodore James Barron, denied having any deserters and refused the right to search, the "Leopard" approached very closely the "Chesapeake" and fired at it broadside. Three Americans were killed, seventeen others wounded and four deserters were surprisingly found aboard the "Chesapeake." Although many Americans clamored for war as a result of this incident, Jefferson, who still preferred peace, retaliated by having Congress pass the Embargo Act whereby no American ship could depart for any foreign port. Jefferson believed the lack of American exports would cause the countries of Europe to cease the practice of impressment of American seamen. The Americans, however, suffered more from this act than did the French and the British; eventually, it was repealed and a law was passed allowing American vessels to trade with any country except England and France. By the end of Jefferson's administration, nevertheless, the American people were very restless, and in some sections of the country war was believed to be inevitable with England or with France.

On March 4, 1809, Virginia had another one of her sons, James Madison, inaugurated as President of the United States. He was born in Port Conway, Virginia, and, after graduating from Princeton, he had fought in the Revolutionary War. He had served in the state legislature, had been a member of the Second Continental Congress, had been a member of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia where he had earned the title "Father of the Constitution of the United States" and had contributed to the "Federalist" papers encouraging the adoption of the Constitution. After serving in the United States House of Representatives, he had retired from national politics and had centered his interest upon state government functions. He had written the "Virginia Resolutions" and had served as United States Secretary of State at the request of President Jefferson. Therefore, he came to the Presidency well prepared to assume presidential duties.

In contrast with his desire for peace, Madison held the office of President of the United States during the War of 1812 with England. Only a few battles were fought near Virginia in this war. The British had as one of their objectives the capture of the City of Norfolk. George Cockburn, a British Admiral, entered Chesapeake Bay with a fleet of approximately 1800 men, and they plundered many plantations along the coast of Maryland and Virginia. An American ship, the "U. S. S. Dolphin," was captured by the British ship, "St. Domingo," in the Rappahannock River. A sea battle was later fought at Craney Island, located at the entrance of Norfolk Harbor where American sailors, marines and militia men were defending the small island. As the British rowed toward the island shore on barges, heavy artillery fire sank many of the boats causing hundreds of the Britishers to drown. The British subsequently withdrew and Norfolk escaped serious damage. The British soon desired to attack Hampton. They successfully pillaged the town and proceeded to the Carolinas. Several Virginians participated in the War of 1812 and the students of Hampden-Sydney College, as in the Revolutionary War, volunteered as an entire student body to fight for their country.

Virginia became a famous place of refuge during the War of 1812. When the British invaded Washington in August 1814, President Madison and his wife, Dolly Madison, fled from the White House on August 24 to Salona, a house located in Falls Church. It is believed that Dolly Madison crossed the Chain Bridge over the Potomac River and traveled rapidly over the secondary roads until she finally reached the house of Reverend and Mrs. William Maffitt. Dolly Madison carried with her the Declaration of Independence and the famous portrait of George Washington painted by Gilbert Stuart. Mrs. Maffitt quickly admitted Dolly Madison, and the President himself and some of his cabinet members arrived later with Reverend Maffitt. They could see the burning White House from the Maffitt residence. Although the President had to depart shortly afterwards, Dolly Madison stayed there for the duration of the war.

After his Presidency had ended, James Madison returned to Montpelier, the family homestead near Orange, where he lived until his death in 1836.