Joseph Addison Waddell

“ And so we are determined to maintain unimpaired that liberty which is the gift of heaven to the subjects of Britain's empire, and will most cordially join our countrymen in such measures as may be deemed wise and necessary to secure and perpetuate the ancient, just, and legal rights of this colony and all British America. ”

“ These rights we are fully resolved, with our lives and fortunes, inviolably to preserve; nor will we surrender such inestimable blessings, the purchase of toil and danger, to any Ministry, to any Parliament, or any body of men upon earth, by whom we are not represented, and in whose decisions, therefore, we have no voice. ”

“ We have also respect for the parent State, which respect is founded on religion, on law, and on the genuine principles of the constitution. On these principles do we earnestly desire to see harmony and a good understanding restored between Great Britain and America. ”

“ Public business was transacted and writs were issued in the name of the Commonwealth of Virginia, instead of the king of Great Britain, and there was little other change. The abolition of the religious establishment in the course of time marked the most important departure from the old order of things. So far from danger was this region considered, that the Continental Congress, by resolution of September 8, 1776, advised the Executive Council of Pennsylvania to send disaffected Quakers arrested in Philadelphia, to Staunton for safe-keeping. ”

“ It is impossible to obtain any list or particular account of troops furnished by Augusta county during the Revolutionary war, and the names of only a few comparatively of the soldiers have escaped oblivion. As a general fact, we know that most of the younger men of the county were in the military service. ”

“ The President of the Pennsylvania court informed Governor Penn of the arrest of his associates. He stated that Connoly, having at Staunton quahfied as a justice of the peace for Augusta county, "in which it is pretended that the country about Pittsburg is included," was constantly surrounded by an armed body of about one hundred and eighty militia, and obstructed every process emanating from the court. ”

“ The second term of service was on the invasion of Virginia by Cornwallis, and the third was at Yorktown. Dismissed to return home from the Jerseys, after his time of service had expired, he received his wages in Continental money. "Soon after leaving camp, a landlord, supposed not favorable to the cause, refused him and his companion a meal of victuals for less than five dollars apiece in paper currency. The next landlord demanded two-and-a-half dollars. They determined to travel as far as possible in a day, and to eat but one meal. ”

“ But our Annals are designed to exhibit the contentions of men, rather than the charities of life. We come now to a curious episode in the history of the county. Lord Dunmore, the last royal Governor of Virginia, and his Lieutenant, Connoly, figure therein somewhat as comic actors, it seems to us, although at the time the business was considered serious enough. Viirginia. claimed, by virtue of her charter, all the territory between certain parallels of latitude, which included a part of western Pennsylvania about Pittsburg. ”