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
These mounds, for there are others scattered to the west of the one so
noticeable from the highway, have always excited local interest but the
present generation has all but forgotten their traditional story.
Somewhere in the neighbourhood of the house of Mr. T. W. Gaines, on
whose land rises the mound nearest the road, or perhaps over the land
where the mounds themselves now stand, there was fought a hardly
contested Indian battle at about the time the first of the white
pioneers were coming into that neighbourhood. Many years ago the late
Mrs. William H. Martin, then a bride recently come to Leesburg, with the
assistance of the late Miss Lizzie Worsley, who gave a lifetime of study
to the past of Leesburg and Loudoun, carefully gathered up what she then
could of the old story which had been handed down from generation to
generation and incorporated it in a gracefully written "History and
Traditions of Greenway" which was published in the _Record_ of Leesburg,
then edited by her husband.
"Numberless were said to be dead warriors," wrote Mrs. Martin, "who
found their last resting place so far from their native lands beneath
the mounds that were easily distinguishable in the gloom of the thick
forest. This battle had been between the Catawbas of the Carolinas and
the Delawares.[38] An hereditary enmity existed between these two
tribes, distant as they were, the one from the other. A large band of
Delawares, pushing into the territory of the Catawbas had severely
punished that tribe, and victorious, were travelling northward to their
home. The Catawbas followed and unexpectedly fell upon them, having
overtaken them at the Potomac. Terrible and swift was their revenge, yet
such were the fighting qualities of the Delawares thus brought to bay,
that the Catawbas were forced to retreat, without prisoners. But when
the remaining Delaware warriors looked upon their dead they saw the
flower of their tribe, stark in death, and too far to be carried to
their own hunting grounds. So there they were buried...."[39]
[38] According to C. W. Sam's _The Forest Primeval_ (p. 382) the
Delawares and Catawbas were at war in 1732.
[39] Balch Library. Loudoun Clippings, Vol. 2, p. 66.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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