[44] _Encyclopedia Britannica_, and W. S. Walsh's _Curiosities of Popular Customs_. "Between the south fork of Kitoctan and Williams Gap, no free holder in this precinct; between Williams Gap, Ashley's Gap, the County line and Goose Creek, to the Beaver Dam, and back to the Gap, no freeholder in this precinct. Between the Beaver Dam and the north east fork of Goose Creek no freeholder in this precinct." Level Jackson and Jacob Lasswell were ordered to procession between the northeast and northwest forks of Goose Creek; John Middleton and Edward Hews between Little River and Goose Creek; William West and William Hall Junior between Little River and Walnut "Cabbin" branch; George Adams and Daniel Diskin between Walnut Cabbin branch, Broad run and Cub run and Popes head. The editors of the record add that these Processioners owned land within their several precincts at that date.[45] [45] _History of Truro Parish in Virginia_, 19. The statement that there were no freeholders (a) between the south fork of "Kitoctan" and Williams Gap; and (b) between Williams Gap, Ashley's Gap, the County line and Goose Creek to the Beaver Dam and back to the Gap; and (c) between the Beaver Dam and the north east fork of Goose Creek is interesting. A and C take in parts of the Quaker Settlement. Also it is traditional in the Osburn family of Loudoun that their forebears John and Nicholas Osburn, sons of Richard Osburn of New Jersey and later of Chester County, Pennsylvania, came from Pennsylvania to the Shenandoah Valley near Harper's Ferry and thence in 1734 crossed the Blue Ridge and settled on its eastern foothills near the present Bluemont. It may be that with other pioneers in the upper lands they occupied their farms at first without title and later were obliged to buy the lands they had rescued from the wilderness from the more shrewd and far-sighted land speculators for we find no grants from the Proprietor to them. Many of the earliest settlers were in that position. Catesby Cocke and Benjamin Grayson particularly, took title to great tracts west of the Catoctin Hills and in 1740 sold their holdings to John Colvil of Cleesch as will later appear.[46] Neither Cocke nor Grayson were settlers in Loudoun. The former was the son of Dr. William Cocke, Secretary of State and he himself had been successively clerk of the counties of Stafford, Prince William and Fairfax. Grayson, a Scotch merchant from Quantico, became the father of Colonel William Grayson of Revolutionary fame who, with Richard Henry Lee, first represented Virginia in the United States Senate. [46] See Chapter VII post. CHAPTER VII SPECULATION AND DEVELOPMENT