History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, VirginiaHead, James William
History
History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia
Head, James William
Loudoun County (Va.) -- History
His wife wore a linsey petticoat, home-spun and home-made, and a short
gown of linsey or "callimanco," when that material could be obtained.
She wore no covering for the feet in ordinary weather, and moccasins,
coarse, "country-made" shoes, or "shoe-packs" during more rigorous
seasons. To complete the picture Kercheval, the historian of the
Shenandoah Valley, is here quoted: "The coats and bed-gowns of the
women, as well as the hunting-shirts of the men, were hung in full
display on wooden pegs around the walls of their cabins, so that while
they answered in some degree the purpose of paper-hangings or
tapestry, they announced to the stranger as well as the neighbor the
wealth or poverty of the family in the articles of clothing."
* * * * *
It is to be hoped that the desultory sketch furnished above will not
be found uninteresting despite its imperfections. Many details have
been omitted or neglected, but enough has been written to illustrate
in a general way the qualities for which our ancestors were most
distinguished, for which their characters have excited most comment
and perhaps deserved most praise.
As a whole, they were a generous, large-hearted, liberal-minded
people, and their faults were far fewer than their virtues. The
yeomanry, in their own rude, rough-and-ready manner, reflected the
same sort of personal independence of character and proud sense of
individuality as the social aristocracy.
FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR.
Little can be learned of Loudoun's participation in the last great
French and Indian War (1754-1763). It had its beginning three years
prior to her admission into the sisterhood of Virginia counties, and
the services she must have rendered during that period are, of course,
accredited to Fairfax, of which county she was then a part. The few
existing or available records of the remaining six years of warfare,
as of the entire period, are imperfect and unlocalized and would
baffle the most experienced and persevering compiler.
The only deductions that have seemed at all noteworthy are here
presented:
The General Assembly of Virginia, on April 14, 1757, passed an act
providing for the appointment of a committee to direct the pay of the
officers and soldiers then in the pay of the Colony, of "the rangers
formerly employed, and for the expense of building a fort in the
Cherokee country," for the pay of the militia that had "been drawn out
into actual service, and also for provisions for the said soldiers,
rangers, and militia...."
In the following schedule are given the names of Loudoun payees and
the amount received by each:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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