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Sir Alexander Spotswood

When Smith came to Virginia, there was an Indian tribe of the Algonquin stock called by him the Nacothtanks, a name later evolving into Anacostans, which occupied the land about the present city of Washington and some years later having moved its principal village southward to the banks of the Piscataway Creek, thereafter was known by the name of that stream. A daughter of their so called "Emperor" or Chief, having been converted to Christianity, married Giles Brent of Maryland and with him moved across the Potomac to land he acquired on the north shore of Aquia Creek, then still in a frontier wilderness. The Susquehannocks, at the time of their outbreak in 1675, had sought refuge within the fort of the Piscataways but had been refused asylum, the Piscataways remaining loyal to their Maryland neighbours and aiding them in the fighting. In consequence the Susquehannocks bore these lower river Indians bitter hatred. When the Iroquois completed their conquest of the Susquehannocks and reduced them to vassalage, they embraced their side of the quarrel. Toward all the tribes of the east the attitude of the Iroquois was simple, consistent and uncompromising. Rule or ruin, subjugation or extinction, was the harsh choice offered and there was no alternative for these others save in remotest flight. To protect the Piscataways, the Marylanders gave them a reservation amidst their settlements. Blocked and perhaps made jealous by this move, the Iroquois changed from force to guile, seeking every opportunity to turn them against their Maryland protectors and, it is thought, eventually in 1697, persuading them to move across the Potomac into the forests of the Virginia piedmont where they camped for a while near what is now The Plains in Fauquier County. It was not long before white hunters or friendly Indians brought the news to the settlements and the Virginians, still having sporadic troubles with the Iroquois and Susquehannocks in these backwoods, viewed the incursion of another tribe with great alarm. They immediately sought to induce the newcomers to return to Maryland but this they suavely, though none the less stubbornly, refused to do. At length in 1699, feeling the loss of their normal and accustomed diet of fish, they, of their own accord, broke up their camp and traversing the forests of the present Loudoun, settled on what has since been known as Conoy Island in the Potomac at the Point of Rocks. There had recently occurred several murders of English settlers by Indians, probably roving Iroquois; and Stafford County—which some years before, had come into existence to cover this upper country and was to include all this northern piedmont wilderness until through increasing settlement, it was separately formed into Prince William County in 1731—was again in fine ferment over the whole Indian menace. By direction of Governor Nicholson, the county sent two of its officers, Burr Harrison of Chipawansic and Giles Vandercastel whose plantation was on the upper Accotink, to summon the "Emperor" of the Conoy Piscataways to Williamsburg. Mounted on horseback and, we may believe well armed, the two intrepid emissaries promptly set out upon their mission, travelling it is thought, an Indian trail about a mile or more south of the Potomac, which is in its course approximately followed by the present Alexandria Pike, and fording as well as they could the various creeks which run into that stream from the south. The Governor had ordered that they keep a record of their journey and a description of their route and the land traversed and complying with those instructions they wrote the first detailed description of any part of Loudoun. Their report exactly complied with the Governor's orders as to its scope and became a document of primary importance in Loudoun's history. It reads:

"In obedience to His Excellency's command and an order of this Corte bearing date the 12th day of this Instance, April," (1699) "We, the subscribers have beene with the Emperor of Piscataway, att his forte, and did then Comand him, in his Maj'tys name, to meet his Excellency in a General Assembly of this his Maj'ties most Ancient Colloney and Dominion of Virginia, the ffirst of May next or two or three days before, with sume of his great men. As soone as we had delivered his Excellency's Commands, the Emperor summons all his Indians thatt was then at the forte—being in all about twenty men. After consultation of almost two oures, they told us they were very bussey and could not possibly come or goe downe, but if his Excellency would be pleased to come to him, sume of his great men should be glad to see him, and then his Ex-lly might speake whatt he hath to say to him if Excellency could nott come himself, then to send sume of his great men, ffor he desired nothing butt peace.

"They live on an Island in the middle of the Potomack River, its aboutt a mile long or something Better, and aboute a quarter of a mile wide in the Broaddis place. The forte stands att ye upper End of the Island butt nott quite ffinished, & theire the Island is nott above two hundred and ffifty yards over; the bankes are about 12 ffoot high, and very heard to asend. Just at ye lower end of the Island is a Lower Land, and Little or noe Bank; against the upper end of the Island two small Island, the one on Marriland side, the other on this side, which is of about fore acres of Land, & within two hundred yards of the fforte, the other smaller and sumthing nearer, both ffirme land, & from the maine to the fforte is aboute foure hundred yards att Leaste—not ffordable Excepte in a very dry time; the fforte is about ffifty or sixty yardes square and theire is Eighteene Cabbins in the fforte and nine Cabbins without the forte that we Could see. As for Provitions they have Corne, they have Enuf and to spare. We saw noe straing Indians, but the Emperor sayes that the Genekers Lives with them when they att home; also addes that he had maid peace with all ye Indians Except the ffrench Indians; and now the ffrench have a minde to Lye still themselves; they have hired theire Indians to doe mischief. The Distance from the inhabitance is about seventy miles, as we conceave by our Journeys. The 16th of this Instance April, we sett out from the Inhabitance, and ffound a good Track ffor five miles, all the rest of the days's Jorney very Grubby and hilly, Except sum small patches, but very well for horses, tho nott good for cartes, and butt one Runn of any danger in a ffrish, and then very bad; that night lay at the sugar land, which Judge to be forty miles. The 17th day we sett ye River by a small Compasse, and found it lay up N. W. B. N., and afterwards sett it ffoure times, and always ffound it neere the same Corse. We generally kept about one mile ffrom the River, and a bout seven or Eight miles above the sugar land, we came to a broad Branch of a bout fifty or sixty yards wide, a still or small streeme, it tooke our horses up to the Belleys, very good going in and out; about six miles ffarther came to another greate branch of about sixty or seventy yeards wide, with a strong streeme, making ffall with large stones that caused our horses sume times to be up to theire Bellyes, and sume times nott above their Knees; So we conceave it a ffreish, then not ffordable, thence in a small Track to a smaller Runn, a bout six miles, Indeferent very, and soe held on till we came within six or seven miles of the forte or Island, and then very Grubby, and greate stones standing Above the ground Like heavy cocks—they hold for three or ffoure miles; and then shorte Ridgges with small Runns, untill we came to ye forte or Island. As for the number of Indeens, there was att the fforte about twenty men & aboute twenty women and abbout Thirty children & we mett sore. We understand theire is in the Inhabitance a bout sixteene. They informed us there was sume outt a hunting, butt we Judge by theire Cabbins theire cannot be above Eighty or ninety bowmen in all. This is all we Can Report, who subscribes ourselves

"Yo'r Ex'lly Most Dutifull Servants

Giles Vanderasteal

Bur Harrison ."

This "Sugar land" where our emissaries spent the first night of their journey, and the Sugarland Run passing through and named from it, are frequently referred to in the early records and the mouth of the Run became in 1798 the starting point of Loudoun's corrected southern boundary line with Fairfax. They derived their name from the groves of sugar maples found growing there which, with the use of their sap, were well known to the Indians from earliest times. In 1692 David Strahane "Lieut. of the Rangers of Pottomack" tells in his journal that while patrolling the upper woods, he and his men on the 22nd September "Ranged due North till we came to a great Runn that made into the sugar land, & we marcht down it about 6 miles & ther we lay that night." The wording quite clearly shows that the sugar land was then well known to the whites.

Although, as their report shews, Vandercastel and Harrison reached their goal and duly delivered their message, the Piscataways did not then or later comply with the Governor's pressing invitation. That their attitude was not prompted by defiance but rather by worried caution based on their appreciation of the manifold difficulties of their then relations with the whites, is indicated by the report of two other English envoys who, later in the same year, were sent by the authorities to Conoy. These men, Giles Tillett and David Straughan, kept a journal from which we learn that in November, 1699, they in their turn reached the fort and found that "one Siniker" (i.e. Seneca or Iroquois) was among the Piscataways who had had trouble with "strange Indians" who they called Wittowees and that the "Suscahannes" had captured and brought two of these Wittowees to the fort. The "Emperor" received the Englishmen very kindly and told them that he was then willing to "come to live amongst the English againe but he was afeared the sstrange Indians would follow them and due mischief amongst the English, and he should be blamed for it, soe he must content himselfe to live there." He accused the French of stirring up these "strange Indians" and "presents his services to the Gove'n'r, and thanks him for his Kindness to send men to see him to know how he did."

Our friend the Emperor shews his knowledge of statecraft. Doubtless he continued to find plausible reasons for holding on to Conoy where he and his people complacently continued to remain until after the Spotswood-Iroquois Treaty of 1722 which had such a broad effect on Loudoun and which we shall presently consider. During this long occupation of the island, the Piscataways finished building and occupied their fort and village and to this day evidence of their tenure, in arrowheads and other objects, is still, from time to time, discovered.

The journey of Harrison and his companion Vandercastel is important to Loudoun not only because it resulted in the first known description of any of the topography of what is now that county, but also because it marks the first definitely known white exploration of the locality above the Sugarland Run and while unknown English hunters may have theretofore penetrated some part of Loudoun's wilderness, these men were, it is believed, the first whites named and recorded who ever trod Loudoun's soil above the Sugarland. Vandercastel's connection with our story then ends; but Burr Harrison became the progenitor of one of the most prominent and respected families of the county which has now been identified with its best life for five generations. He had been baptized in St. Margaret's, Westminster, in 1637 and came with his father Cuthbert Harrison of Ancaster, Yorkshire, to Virginia some time prior to 1669 when Burr, with others, patented land on Asmale Creek near Occoquan. Afterward, but before 1679, he acquired land on the Chipawansic, presumably from Gerrard Broadhurst. Therefore, to distinguish him and his descendants from the other numerous and not necessarily related Virginia Harrisons, he and they were thenceforward usually known as the Harrisons of Chipawansic. It was not, however, until 1811 that Burr Harrison's descendants in the male line took up their permanent residence in Loudoun; in that year the widow of his great-great-grandson Mathew Harrison moved with her children to Morrisworth, an estate seven miles southeast of Leesburg, now the home of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Fendall, which had come to her from her family the Ellzeys of Dumfries, and there she continued to live until her death.

In the year 1712 another courageous adventurer sought out Conoy. The Swiss Baron Christopher de Graffenreid had been interested in forming a colony of Germans, refugees from the lower Palatinate, at New Bern in North Carolina and also having obtained authority to make a settlement on the Shenandoah in Virginia's remote frontier, he proceeded to explore the neighbourhood. He followed the Potomac up to Conoy Island and drew a map of the surroundings. This map notes the great number of wild fowl on the river, particularly at the mouth of Goose Creek. "There is in winter," he wrote, "such a prodigious number of swans, geese and ducks on this river from Canavest to the Falls that the Indians make a trade of their feathers." Such a description is enough to reduce to envious inanition our Loudoun Nimrod of today whose occasional reward of a few wild ducks may at rare intervals reach the hardly hoped for bagging of a single wild goose, as a rule now far too alert and wary to alight in their spring and fall flights over the county. The wild swan has, alas, wholly disappeared.

De Graffenreid's reference to the vast number of wild fowl on the upper Potomac, in those early days, has abundant confirmation from others. So numerous were the wild geese that the Indians called the river above the falls "Cohongarooton" or Goose River and the English at first gave it the same name; applying the name Potomac to only so much of the stream as lay between the falls and the bay. It was not until well after 1730 that the whole river was generally called by the latter name.

The "Canavest" referred to by de Graffenreid was the village of the Piscataways on Conoy and in his journal he describes it as "a very pleasant and enchanting spot about forty miles above the falls of the Potomac, we found a troop of savages there ... we made an alliance, however with these Indians of Canavest, a very necessary thing in connection with the mines which we hoped to find in that vicinity, as well as on account of the establishment which we had resolved to make in these parts of our small Bernese colony which we were waiting for. After that we visited those beautiful spots of the country, those enchanted islands in the Potomac above the falls." De Graffenreid's "mines" and "establishments" were to be over the Blue Ridge in the nearby Shenandoah Valley; but he shrewdly recognized the advisability of making friends with a tribe so firmly and strategically planted as he found at the settlement on Conoy. As to his "enchanted islands," those contiguous to the Loudoun bank of the Potomac long have had Loudoun owners and seem to its people to be sentimentally part of her domain; as a matter of cold fact and colder law, they lie within the bounds of Maryland; for in 1776 the long dispute over the sovereignty of the Potomac was settled by a clause in Virginia's Constitution of that year relinquishing jurisdiction.

Two years before de Graffenreid's expedition, there arrived in Virginia as Lieutenant Governor, Colonel (afterward Sir) Alexander Spotswood, the most alert, devoted and able ruler the Colony had had since Smith—a man "who still enjoys an almost unrivalled distinction among Virginia's Colonial Governors"[4] and, says Howison, whose "chief advantage consisted in his social and moral character, in which aspect it would not be easy to find one of whom might be truly asserted so much that is good and so little that is evil."[5] Spotswood came to love Virginia as though it were his native land and great was the moral debt the Colony, and especially the counties created from its old frontier, came to owe to his strong and conscientious administration. Under a vicious practice by that time obtaining in England, the titular governship of Virginia had been held, since 1697, by George Hamilton Douglas, Earl of Orkney, who though never setting foot in the Colony, drew £1,200 of the annual salary of £2,000 attached to the office until his death in 1737; and thus Spotswood, preëminent among Virginia's rulers, served but under a lieutenant-governor's commission. A great-grandson of John Spottiswoode, Archbishop of St. Andrew's and Lord High Chancellor of Scotland, who lies buried in Henry VII's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, Spotswood descended from an old and aristocratic Scottish family, whose progenitor, a cadet of the great house of Gordon, married an heiress of the ancient race of Spottiswoode which took its name from the Barony of Spottiswoode in the Parish of Gordon, County of Berwick. Born in 1676 in Tangier where his father Robert Spotswood then served as physician to the English Governor and garrison, Spotswood "a tall robust man with gnarled and wrinkled face and an air of dignity and power"[6] had, in 1704, fought valiantly under Marlborough and had been desperately wounded in the battle of Blenheim. He brought with him recognition of the right of Virginians to the writ of Habeas Corpus, which though, since Magna Carta, the common heritage of every free-born Englishman, had not theretofore run in Virginia. Had this been his all, Virginia would have been his debtor; in the event it was but an augury of many benefactions to follow.

From the first, Spotswood shewed a keen and enlightened interest in the problems of the frontier. His efforts to expand the settlements westerly and to subdue the Indians did not always meet with co-operation from the Virginia legislature, controlled by representatives of the more protected and densely settled tidewater sections, whose people, the "Tuckahoes" as they were called, were frequently unresponsive to the plight of those in the upper country; and from time to time Spotswood's impatience with his legislators boiled up into strong and bluntly worded reproof. To one of his assemblies, recalcitrant in Indian affairs, he addressed his well remembered words of dismissal: "In fine I cannot but attribute these miscarriages to the people's mistaken choice of a set of representatives whom Heaven has not ... endowed with the ordinary qualifications requisite to legislators; and therefore I dissolve you." A few Spotswoods, scattered here and there in the seats of the mighty of our modern America, might not prove inefficacious.

In May, 1717, we find him reporting upon the Indian situation to Paul Methuen, the then English Secretary of State, that though the English had carefully kept the terms of Lord Howard's Treaty of 1685, the Iroquois "had committed divers hostilitys on our ffrontiers, in 1713 they rob-d our Indian Traders of a considerable cargo of Goods, the same year they murdered a Gent'n of Acco't near his out Plantations; they carried away some slaves belonging to our Inhabitants, and now threaten not only to destroy our Tributary Indians but the English also in their neighbourhood." He adds that such conduct requires "some Reparation" and asks the Secretary to instruct the Governor of New York to cause his Iroquois to "forebear hostilitys on the King's subjects of the neighbouring Colonies and likewise any nation of Indians under their protection."[7]

Neither by temperament nor training was Spotswood a man to acquiesce in such conditions. After consulting with and urging co-operation upon the Governors of Maryland and Pennsylvania, he set out in the winter of 1717-'18 for New York "to demand something more substantial than the bare promises of the Chief men of those Indians, w'ch they are always very liberal of, in expectation of presents from the English, while at the same time their young men are committing their usual depredations upon ye Frontiers of these Southern Governments." He was fortunate in arriving in New York "very opportunely to prevent the march of a Great Body of those Indians w'ch I had Advice on the Road was intended chiefly against the Tributaries of this Governm't, and the Governor of New York's Messengers overtook them upon their march and obtained their promise to Abstain from any hostilitys on the English Governments."

It being late in the season for a conference with the Sachems of the Long House and the New York Assembly being in the "height of its business and like to make a larger session than ordinary," Spotswood arranged, through the Governor of New York, preliminary negotiations with the Indians and returned to his Virginia.

The discussions thus begun dragged along during the ensuing five years. At length, in 1721, the Iroquois sent their representatives to Williamsburg with more definite proposals and in May, 1722, the General Assembly passed an act reciting in detail the terms on which the treaty would be made.[8] Later in the summer Spotswood, with certain of his Council, went to New York on a man-of-war and thence proceeding to Albany (where he was joined by the Governor of Pennsylvania) the new treaty was closed after the usual endless speech making and other ceremony. By its terms the Iroquois were prohibited from ever again crossing the Potomac or the Blue Ridge "without the license or passport of the Governor or commander-in-chief of the province of New York, for the time being"; and the Virginia tributary Indians were similarly prohibited from crossing the same boundaries. Moreover, there were provisions that should any Indians—Iroquois or tributary—ignore the prohibition, they were, upon capture and conviction, to be punishable by death or transportation to the West Indies, there to be sold as slaves. There was added a clause rewarding him who captured an Indian found in Virginia without permission, with 1,000 pounds of tobacco when the latter should be condemned to death; or, if he should be condemned to transportation, the captor should "have the benefit of selling and disposing of the said Indian, and have and receive to his own use, the money arising from such sale."

There was nothing ambiguous in this treaty's terms; the Iroquois in signing it realized that their Piedmont hunting grounds were lost to them and that the sportive raids of their war parties below the Potomac were ended.

And now Spotswood's consulship had reached its end. His enemies in London and Williamsburg had been industriously intriguing and upon his return he found he had been superseded. He had acquired a vast estate of over 45,000 acres in the Piedmont forests and to settle and improve those lands he proceeded to devote his great and able energies. But he had far from retired from his public labours. As Postmaster General for the American Colonies he, by 1738, developed a regular mail service from New England to the James; and was about to sail as a major-general on Admiral Vernon's expeditions against Carthagena when he suddenly died. He was buried on his estate, Temple Farm, near Yorktown, where latterly he had made his home. It was in his mansion there, then owned by his eldest daughter Ann Catherine and her husband M. Bernard Moore, Senior, that many years later the negotiations for the surrender of Lord Cornwallis to General Washington closed the American Revolution.