Читать книгу Green Spring Farm, Fairfax County, Virginia - Ross De Witt Netherton - Страница 9

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When Green Spring Farm came into being in the middle years of the eighteenth century, it represented the second generation of Virginia’s agriculture. By 1750, the great plantations of the proprietor and his grantees, laid out on land cleared from the virgin forest and planted with as much tobacco as the owner’s supplies of manpower and London credit would allow, were disappearing. In the evolution of farming, another generation of farms and farmers was taking over the Tidewater. Smaller in size than the great tobacco plantations, these farms utilized a larger proportion of their acreage for crops and cultivated a greater diversity of crops than before. For these second-generation farms, wheat and corn for export to England and the West Indies became the principal income crops.

The men who assembled and worked these new farms were themselves part of a new generation of Virginians. Many belonged to families which in 1750 could look back on more than a century of residence in America, and they were more attuned to the problems and potentials of the New World than those of the Old. They were the generation that successfully brought forth a new nation in their own times and added new dimensions to both its spirit and substances. John Moss was one of this new generation of Virginians.

Precisely when and how John Moss assembled the acreage that comprised Green Spring Farm is not certain. Fairfax County land records show a purchase of land by John Moss in September 1777, but, although this is the first connection of his name with the land of Green Spring Farm in these records, there is reason to believe that he may have occupied and farmed the land prior to that date. For him to have done so would have been consistent with the practice of his times and also would be in accord with the tradition of his present-day descendants which holds that John Moss built the mansion house at Green Spring Farm in or about 1760.[1]

John Moss lived in this house until his death in 1809. Here he raised four sons—John, Samuel, William, and Thomas—the last two of whom successively inherited and worked the farm from 1809 until 1839. On the death of Thomas Moss in 1839, the farm was sold and the proceeds of the sale were divided among his heirs.

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Figure 1. John Warner Survey Map, 1740. Northern Neck Grants, Book E, 1736–1742, pp. 216–17.

In the case of John Moss, more is known of his activities in the community than of his life as a farmer. In particular, he was a leader of the early Methodist church in Virginia. The well-known itinerant Methodist preacher, John Littlejohn, records several visits to the home of John Moss in Fairfax County, beginning in May 1777. Many Methodist meetings were held at Green Spring Farm in the 1770’s and 1780’s. One, held on April 29, 1778, led to the following interesting note:

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At B^r Jn^o Mosses, met with M^r afterward Lord Fairfax we found our trials as to preach^g were very similar, he is very serious but his religion is a mystry to me. Lord help us both.[2]

And, in 1787, Francis Asbury noted in his journal:

Preached at Brother Mosses on 2 Chronicles XV, 12–13 on the peoples entering into a covenant with God.[3]

It seems evident that during these years, John Moss’s home served as a meeting place for a Methodist congregation which lacked a church building and was served by the occasional visits of itinerant preachers. That the congregation grew and prospered also seems evident from the fact that in June 1789 John Moss served as a trustee of a Methodist Episcopal church to be built in Alexandria “just north of the Presbyterian Meeting House” (Duke and Fairfax Streets) for the use of Reverend Thomas Cooke and Reverend Francis Asbury.[4]

In the county community, John Moss also was one of the group of gentlemen freeholders in whom the responsibility of power was reposed. He enjoyed the friendship and trust of Bryan Fairfax to the extent that he witnessed and served as coexecutor of the latter’s will,[5] and he was a party to several land sales and leases which involved Fairfax.[6] By these transactions, he acquired extensive lands in Loudoun County as well as land on Dogue Creek in Fairfax County.[7]

In colonial times, he served the Crown as Commissioner of the King’s Revenue in Fairfax County and also as a justice of the County Court.[8] In the War for Independence, he served as a captain and afterward took an active part in organizing the new government—in particular, serving on a commission to supervise the Presidential election of 1788. Under the new State Government, he continued to serve as the Commissioner of Revenue for the county and a justice of the County Court. In 1796, in a law suit in Prince William County, John Moss, then 72, was able to state that he was the oldest justice of the court in commission at that time.[9]

Service as a justice presumably involved John Moss in a wide range of decisions affecting the life of the county. The business of the County Court in this period was both judicial and administrative. Minor crimes were disposed of monthly, while major crimes and civil cases were handled in quarterly sessions.[10] At these sessions, the justices also acted on appointments, licenses for mills and ordinaries, road construction and repair, and the levying of taxes. Most of the justices were not trained in the law, and law books were scarce; therefore, the quality of justice and the transaction of public business were frequently leavened by reliance on common sense and experience.[11]

If gentlemen freeholders held the power of government in colonial and post-Revolutionary Virginia, they also paid much of the cost of government. In 1786, John Moss and James 6 Wren, Gentlemen, were appointed Commissioners of the Land Tax, the large counties in Virginia being allowed to have two such officials.[12] They were responsible for maintaining the tax book, personally calling on every person subject to taxation, and making four lists of taxable property in the county. (One was for the Clerk of the County Court, one for the sheriff, one for the Solicitor General, and one for the commissioner.) Annually, they submitted a list of changes in land ownership, by sale or inheritance.[13]

For his service as a justice and as Commissioner of the Land Tax, John Moss’s compensation came in the form of fees; he received no salary but under certain circumstances he was reimbursed for out-of-pocket expenses connected with his duties.[14]

As one of the results of the American Revolution, the Anglican church was disestablished, and many of the welfare functions formerly performed by the parish vestry were assumed by the Overseers of the Poor. John Moss served as an overseer, and the powers and duties he had in this unusual office were set forth in detail in the revision of the state laws in 1792.[15] Overseers could prevent the poor from moving from one county to another and could get a warrant from any magistrate ordering the removal of a pauper back to his former county, with a court hearing to determine residence in case of a dispute. On the other hand, each county was obliged, through its overseers, to look after its own poor; and if the overseers refused to provide needed relief, there could be an appeal to the County Court.[16]

Further, they could bind out dependent children placed under their care as apprentices, appoint collectors-for-the-poor rates, have a paid clerk, and be paid for attending meetings. They had power to control vagrants, force fathers of bastards to contribute to their support, and operate the county poorhouse. In 1806, they were given the power to take over funds and endowments left in the charge of the vestries, accounting to the court annually.[17]

John Moss served as justice of the County Court until his death, and so saw the time come when the county courthouse was moved from Alexandria to its present site. His view of the history of his county, state, and nation saw more than mere physical change, however, and he was sensitive to the changing spirit of the time and place in which he lived. As to the depth of this feeling, there is no evidence in the form of public document or speech; but eloquent testimony comes from a simple, personal act he performed in 1795. As recorded in a deed of manumission issued to his slaves, he wrote:

I, John Moss … being fully satisfied that it is contrary to our bill of rights as well as to our principles and sentiments as a free people and also contrary to common justice to hold and keep in a state of slavery any part of our fellow men … [release and set free at various specified times from the date of this deed] Sarah, Nan, Harry, Maria, Hannah, Nero, Abram, Fox, Nat, David, John, Sam, Milla and Sal. … [18]

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The tradition of public service which John Moss commenced was carried on by his son, William Moss, who was appointed Clerk of the County Court in 1801. The duties of the clerk at this time differed somewhat from those of the clerk in colonial times. As enumerated in the general revision of the law in 1792,[19] the clerk must be a resident of the county and keep his office in the courthouse, unless ordered to do otherwise. He received his compensation in small fees charged for performing small acts, but in a growing county this produced a substantial income. His chief functions involved issuing licenses, warrants, writs, and orders connected with litigation. He also took inventories, recorded legal instruments, and kept vital statistics. Frequently, the clerk was the only officer of the court who was in any way learned in the law, and thus his advice on the law was regularly sought by the court. As the information he gave frequently was seasoned with experience, he became sought after for advice on many issues and problems which reached beyond the technical terms of the law, and his importance in the county’s government was substantial.

William Moss served as Clerk of the County Court for 32 years, until 1833. In 1831, he was appointed Clerk of the Circuit Court, when that body was created by the General Assembly, and he served in that position until 1835, the year of his death. At this time, William Moss’s brother, Thomas, who had served as a Delegate from Fairfax County to the Virginia General Assembly in 1828, was appointed to fill the vacancy left by William’s death. When Thomas Moss died in 1839, his son, Alfred, was appointed Clerk but served in that office only one month. Later, however, Alfred Moss moved from Alexandria to Providence [Fairfax] where in 1852 he was again appointed Clerk of the Circuit Court. He served in this capacity until 1861, at which time Civil War activities in the area disrupted the normal conduct of county business.[20] It was at this time that Alfred Moss removed George Washington’s holographic will from Fairfax Courthouse to take it to Richmond for safekeeping for the duration of the war. Because there was considerable risk in getting it to Richmond, Alfred’s wife, Martha Gunnell Moss, hid it for a time in her daughter’s home, “Evergreen,” in Fauquier County. Alfred Moss was captured and sent to Capitol Prison, and when he was released by exchange, he took the will to a safe place. Shortly after the war, the Fairfax County Court sent a private citizen, O. W. Hunt, to Richmond where he found the Washington will, some other papers, and the County Seal, which he returned to the Fairfax Courthouse where they may be seen during regular hours of business.[21]