Legends of Loudoun: An account of the history and homes of a border county of Virginia's Northern NeckWilliams, Harrison
History
Legends of Loudoun: An account of the history and homes of a border county of Virginia's Northern Neck
Williams, Harrison
Historic buildings -- Virginia -- Loudoun County; Loudoun County (Va.) -- History
This first Saint James Church "was built of brick and quite small, the
windows not arched and there was a yard in front. This church was torn
down in 1836 and a new one, much wider and larger built, the foundation
brought more to the front. It was enlarged in 1848, the vestibule built
over the remainder of the yard, bringing the front of the church even
with the street."[123] This building continued to be used until the
present Saint James Church of gray stone on the corner of Cornwall and
Wirt Streets was completed in 1897.
[123] _Old Saint James Episcopal Church_, by Miss Lizzie Worsley.
To the diversity in origin of the county's population frequent reference
has been made. The inhabitants of the southern part were far more in
sympathy in political philosophy, in manner of living, in agricultural
practices and in traditional background with the people of Fairfax than
were they with, perhaps, the majority of the heterogeneous population of
upper Loudoun. Also their leaders belonged to the class which has ruled
in Tidewater Virginia since its English beginnings and they none too
willingly faced the prospect, after the Revolution, of dividing their
authority with and perhaps losing their dominance to the upper-country
people. In 1782 they sought to create a new county coextensive with
Cameron Parish; failing in that, a compromise was reached in 1798 by
which the erstwhile area of Loudoun, south of Sugar Land Run, was
returned to Fairfax--"All that part of the County of Loudoun" reads the
act of division "lying between the lower boundary thereof and a line to
be drawn from the mouth of Sugar Land Run, to Carter's Mill on Bull Run,
shall be and is hereby added to and made a part of the County of
Fairfax."[124] This action had the immediate result of greatly
strengthening the political power of the Quakers, Germans and
Scotch-Irish in the remaining part of the county and correspondingly
diminishing the influence of the descendants of the old Tidewater
aristocracy there.
[124] 2 Shepherd, 107.
In the year 1787 Colonel Leven Powell laid out the town of Middleburg on
the road running to Ashley's Gap, for his purpose devoting fifty acres
on the southerly edge of the 500 acre tract of land he had purchased
from Joseph Chinn in 1763;[125] the town, of course, obtaining its name
from the position it occupied approximately halfway between the major
towns of Alexandria and Winchester as well as halfway between the
courthouses of Loudoun and Fauquier. The first trustees were Francis
Peyton, William Bronaugh, William Heale, John Peyton Harrison, Burr
Powell, Josias Clapham, and Richard Bland Lee.[126]
[125] See Chapter VII ante.
[126] 12 Hening, 605.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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