The Last of the Foresters: Or, Humors on the Border; A story of the Old Virginia FrontierCooke, John Esten
General
The Last of the Foresters: Or, Humors on the Border; A story of the Old Virginia Frontier
Cooke, John Esten
Frontier and pioneer life -- Fiction; Virginia -- Fiction
The neighborhood in which this ancient dwelling stood was not without
a certain picturesqueness, thanks to the old, low-eaved houses, dating
from the French-Indian wars, and grassy knolls, from which quarries of
limestone stood out boldly; above all, because of the limpid stream,
which, flowing from the west just by the portico of the old tavern,
murmured gaily in the traveller's ear, and leaped toward him as he
crossed it, or allowed his weary animal to bathe his nostrils in the
cool water. Two or three majestic weeping-willows plunged their broad
trunks and vigorous roots into the clear stream, and sighed forever
over it, as, passing onward, it ran away from the Bousch hostelry
toward its ocean, the Opequon.
This old tavern, which exists still, we believe, a venerable relic
of the border past, was, in the year 1777, the abode of a "number of
Quakers, together with one druggist and a dancing-master, sent
to Winchester under guard, with a request from the Executive of
Pennsylvania, directed to the County-Lieutenant of Frederick, to
secure them." The reasons for this arrest and exile may be found in
a Congressional report upon the subject, (Anno. 1776,) which states,
that well-attested facts "rendered it certain and notorious that those
persons were, with much rancour and bitterness, disaffected to the
American cause;"--for which reason they were requested to go and
remain in durance at Winchester, in Virginia. How they protested at
Philadelphia against being taken into custody--protested again at the
Pennsylvania line against being carried out of that state--protested
again at the Maryland line against being taken into Virginia--and
ended by protesting at Winchester against everything in general--it is
all written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Valley of Virginia,
by Mr. Samuel Kercheval, and also in an interesting Philadelphia
publication, "Friends in Exile." To this day the old sun-dial in the
garden of "Bousch's Tavern" has upon it the inscription:
"_Exul patria causâ libertates_" with the names of the unfortunate
exiles written under it--always provided that the dial itself remains,
and the rain, and snow, and sun, have not blotted out the words. That
they were there, the present chronicler knows upon good authority.
How the exiles passed their time at Winchester, and finally returned,
will, some day, be embodied in authentic history.
It was many years after the quaker inroad; in fact the eighteenth
century, with all its philosophical, political, and scientific
"protests" everywhere, was nearly dead and gone, when another scene
occurred at Bousch's tavern, which history knows something of. As that
august muse, however, does not bury herself with personal details, we
will briefly refer to this occurrence.
It was about mid-day, then, when a carriage, with travelling trunks
behind it, and a white, foreign-looking driver and footman on the seat
before, drew rein in front of the old hostelry we have described.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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