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Sketches of Virginia

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  • Sketches of Virginia

    Historical and Biographical by The Rev. William Henry Foote D.D. (1856).

    The first habitations of white men, west of the Blue Ridge in Virginia, designed for a permanent residence, were erected upon the waters that flow into the Cohongorooton, and with it form the Potomac. The grant of the northern neck, to the ancestors of Lord Fairfax, claimed for its western boundary a line from the head-spring of the Rappahannoc, supposed to rise in the Blue Ridge, to the head-spring of the Potomac, supposed 'to rise in the same ridge, or not far to the west. The Shenandoah, or more probably the Monoccacy, was reckoned the main branch of the Potomac. As the beauty and fertility of the country, west of the Blue Ridge, became known by hunters and explorers, Lord Fairfax naturally searched for the longest stream that passed through the Blue Ridge at Harper’s Ferry, gave the name of Potomac to the Cohongorooton of the aborigines and looked for its head-spring in the distant ridges of the Allegheny. The name Potomac, became by general use the appellation of the river, that is the dividing line between Maryland and Virginia, from its mouth to its headspring. The western or south-western lines of the grant being extended so far into the Alleghenies, Lord Fairfax claimed that extensive and fertile country embraced in the counties of Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, Hampshire, Frederic, Clarke, Warren, Page, Shenandoah and Hardy. While the claims of Fairfax to this extended grant were not admitted in Virginia, or established in En-land, warrants for surveying and appropriating extensive tracts, west of the Blue Ridge, were granted, by the governor of Virginia, to enterprizing men, on condition of permanent settlements being made, on portions of the territory covered by the warrants. John and Isaac Vanmeter obtained, from Gov. Gooch, a warrant for 40,000 acres to be located among the beautiful prairies at the lower end of the valley. This warrant they sold to Joist Hite of Pennsylvania, who proceeded to make locations of the land, and to induce emigrants from the European nations to take their residence on his grant.

    The above is how the Introduction starts and of course there is a lot more to read in it.

    I started this book as there are a lot of Scots and Scots-Irish that settled in Virginia. Also the author had already written a similar book about North Carolina which I already have up on the site. And so I though this book would make interesting reading.

    You can read this book at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...inia/index.htm

    Alastair
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