County Louth

“ The debt due to the 'adventurers' was primarily charged on the forfeited lands in the moieties of ten counties, which were to be divided equally by them with the soldiers, as it was considered that peaceable possession would be thereby secured to the civilian owners, viz.: Waterford, Limerick, Tipperary, Meath, West Meath, King's County, Queen's County, Antrim, Down, Armagh, and on the whole county of Louth as an additional security. ”

“ In the south-west Carlingford Lough separates the county from Louth. There are no lakes of importance. Between Strangford and Carlingford loughs the county is occupied by a range of hills known in its south-western portion as the Mourne Mountains, which give rise to the four principal rivers—the Bann, the Lagan, the Annacloy and the Newry. This mass includes, several striking peaks, of which the principal is Slieve Donard, rising finely direct from the sea to a height of 2796 ft., which is exceeded in Ireland only by one peak in the Wicklow range, and by the higher reeks in Killarney. ”

“ Louth, by Margaret, daughter of Dowell O'Reilly, esq., of the Heath, Queen's County, was born in Dublin in 1825. He was educated at St. Cuthbert's College, Ushaw, Durham, and at the university of London, where he graduated B.A. in 1845 (London Univ. Calendar, 1870, p. 203) . Subsequently he took the degree of LL.D. at Rome. He joined the Louth rifles militia, in which he held a captain's commission. Being invited to Rome by Pius IX, he entered the pontifical service, with the rank of major, and was appointed to the command of the Irish brigade. ”

“ In the Parts of Lindsey the county boroughs of Grimsby and Lincoln have each a separate commission of the peace and a separate court of quarter sessions, while the municipal borough of Louth has a separate commission of the peace, and there are 14 petty sessional divisions. The three administrative counties and the county boroughs contain together 761 civil parishes. ”

“ An Act for amending and widening several Roads leading from or near the North End of the Town and Borough of Totnes, in the County of Devon. An Act for making a Navigation from the River Humber, by a Canal or Cut, at or near Tetney Haven, to the River Ludd, in the Parish of Alvingham, in the County of Lincoln; and for continuing the said Navigation in or near the said River, from thence, to or near the Town of Louth, in the said County. An Act for maintaining, regulating and employing the Poor within the Parish of Saint Matthew Bethnal Green, in the County of Middlesex. ”

“ At the general election of 1818 he was returned for both Armagh and Lisburn, when he elected to serve for Armagh, and continued member until 1820. He was returned for the county of Louth at a by-election on 21 Feb. ”

“ As another contributing cause, it can be positively stated that the disfavor in which agriculture is held by the young men of Loudoun, who seek less arduous and more lucrative employment in the great cities of the East, is, in part, responsible, if not for the depletion, certainly for the stagnation of the county's population. ”

“ Revolution, of dividing their authority with and perhaps losing their dominance to the upper-country people. In 1782 they sought to create a new county coextensive with Cameron Parish; failing in that, a compromise was reached in 1798 by which the erstwhile area of Loudoun, south of Sugar Land Run, was returned to Fairfax—"All that part of the County of Loudoun" reads the act of division "lying between the lower boundary thereof and a line to be drawn from the mouth of Sugar Land Run, to Carter's Mill on Bull Run, shall be and is hereby added to and made a part of the County of Fairfax." ”

“ First let me say a few words about how the use of history can be directly relevant to Loudoun County. Before going further I should explain to you that, even though I am not a resident, I am no stranger to the County or to Leesburg. For about twenty years the Dupuys have been property-owners in Loudoun County. As my father used to comment, we are thus modern recruits of the Army of Northern Virginia. My wife and I even have plans for a house which we someday expect to build on our property on the banks of Goose Creek. ”

“ To the diversity in origin of the county's population frequent reference has been made. The inhabitants of the southern part were far more in sympathy in political philosophy, in manner of living, in agricultural practices and in traditional background with the people of Fairfax than were they with, perhaps, the majority of the heterogeneous population of upper Loudoun. ”

“ No modern institution of the county has spread more generally knowledge of its charms than the famous school which Miss Noland then founded; and it is particularly appropriate that the institution should owe its inception and development to one who in singular degree is a representative of Loudoun's founders. Those Loudoun citizens of today who trace their descent to one of the earlier Nabobs of the county feel a complacent satisfaction therein ”

“ Within the limits of Loudoun are included 313,902 [16] acres of the finest farm land to be found in any county of the State. The farms number 1,948, the average size being 162 acres. They are smallest in the northwestern portion of the county and of moderate size in the central portions, the largest occurring in the southern and eastern portions. In 1900, 1,754, or 90 per cent, were operated by white farmers, and 194, or 10 per cent, operated by colored farmers.
[16] It will be understood that the total land in farms by no means equals the total area of the County. ”

“ The genesis of Raspberry Plain, just north of Springwood, has already been given. As shewn in Chapter VII, the property had been originally acquired from Lord Fairfax by Joseph Dixon in 1731 and he had sold the farm which he had improved with a dwelling, orchard, etc., to Aeneas Campbell in 1754. Campbell, as we have seen, was Loudoun's first sheriff. He maintained the county jail and the ducking-stool at his home while he held that office. He sold the place in 1760 to Thomson Mason. So far the residence, long since vanished, was near the large spring, now a part of Selma. ”

“ The eye travels entirely across the fertile expanse of the latter to where, in the far distance, the Alleghany and North Mountains rear their wooded crests. A few of the summits offer even more extensive prospects. From some nearly all of Loudoun, with a considerable area of Fairfax and Fauquier, is in full view. Other more distant areas within visionary range are portions of Prince William, Rappahannock, and Culpeper counties, in Virginia, Frederick and Montgomery counties, in Maryland, and even some of Prince George County, east of Washington City. ”

“ In 1918, in the midst of the war, a new State Administration assumed the reins of government under the leadership of Westmoreland Davis of Loudoun who became Governor of Virginia in that year and whose administration was accepted by the people as efficient, sound and well balanced.
[231] In culture the county is recovering the position it proudly held one hundred years ago before ground down by war and poverty. ”

“ Sugarland Run, a still smaller stream, rises partly in Loudoun, though its course is chiefly through Fairfax County, and empties into the Potomac at the northeastern angle of the County.
In its southeastern angle several streams rise and pursue a southern and southeastern course, and constitute some of the upper branches of Occoquan River.
Perhaps no county in the State is better watered for all purposes, except manufacturing in times of drought. Many of the farms might be divided into fields of ten acres each and, in ordinary seasons, would have water in each of them. ”

“ Of Virginia counties Loudoun ranked fourth in amount of sales and third in area of glass surface.
The total area devoted to nursery products in 1899 was 10-1/4 acres [101] and the amount of sales therefrom $2,225.
FARM LABOR AND FERTILIZERS.
LABOR.
The scarcity of efficient labor is one of the most serious troubles with which the farmers of this County have to cope. In the northern portion the labor is principally white, while in the southern part there is a greater proportion of the negro race. ”

“ The industries include the manufacture of agricultural implements, iron-founding, brewing, malting, and rope and brick-making. The town is governed by a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. Area, 2749 acres.
Louth (Ludes, Loweth) is first mentioned in the Domesday record as a borough held, as it had been in Saxon times, by the bishop of Lincoln, who had a market there. The see retained the manor until it was surrendered by Bishop Holbeach to Henry VIII., who granted it to Edward, earl of Lincoln, but it was recovered by the Crown before 1562. ”

“ In moral endowments—even if not in mental attainments—these sturdy pioneers of Loudoun were, it must be admitted, vastly superior to many of those who followed them when better facilities for transportation rendered the County more accessible.
Society before and for many years after the Revolution was easy, agreeable, and somewhat refined. Traveling was slow, difficult, and expensive. For society, the inhabitants were mainly dependent upon themselves; the ties of social life were closely drawn. ”

“ Loudoun, at the time of the Revolution, was one of the most densely populated counties in the State. Her militia, according to the returns of 1780 and 1781, numbered 1,746, [132] which number was far in excess of that reported by any other Virginia county.
It is probable that a few Loudoun patriots served in Captain Daniel Morgan's celebrated "Company of Virgina Riflemen," thus described by a line officer of the Continental Army: "They are remarkably stout and hardy men; many of them exceeding six feet in height. They are dressed in white frocks, or rifle shirts, and round hats. ”

“ The exceptionally healthy climate, the rich and well watered lands of Loudoun, together with the fine sport for horse lovers carried on through its long hunting season, have proved a potent magnet to draw new residents to the county. Country homes are constantly being created or restored and surrounding farms are, for the most part, self-sustaining and well handled. With Virginia's assumption of the rôle of a leader in good roads, the old reproach of impassable highways has vanished.
And Loudoun is proud of her people. It is an American community, its roots very deep in soil and tradition. ”

“ There is a huge belt of red land, known as "the red sandstone formation," extending from the Potomac through a part of each of the counties of Loudoun, Fairfax, Prince William, Fauquier, Culpeper, and Orange, which, with judicious cultivation, might be rendered liberally productive. ”

“ Patrick A. Deck and Henry Heaton published their Economic and Social Survey of Loudoun County which is somewhat similar in its scope to the work of Mr. Head but not so large a volume. In the meanwhile, however, in 1924, Mr. Fairfax Harrison, himself a scion of the Fairfax family, had privately published his comprehensive Landmarks of Old Prince William covering the early history of all the territory originally comprised in old Prince William County ”

“ The county of Loudoun, as now constituted, is an area of 525 square miles, lying in the extreme northwesterly corner of Virginia, in that part of the Old Dominion known as the Piedmont and of very irregular shape, its upper apex formed by the Potomac River on the northeast and the Blue Ridge Mountains on the northwest, pointing northerly. ”

“ Of the 100 counties in Virginia, Loudoun ranked third in corn acreage in 1899, reporting 46,248 acres, and, the same year, headed the list in the production of corn with 1,538,860 bushels, an excess of 350,830 bushels over its nearest competitor, Fauquier county, which had planted in corn 981 more acres. ”

“ There never was unanimity of religious belief in Cameron the Parish nor in Loudoun the county. From the very beginning, as we have seen, the land was peopled by men and women of definitely divergent religious views—the Churchmen from Tidewater with some Baptists and Presbyterians, a large number of Quakers from Pennsylvania, Germans from overseas and no small number whose religious convictions, if existent, were of nebulous tenuity. Had the vestries stood annually for election the populace might have felt more closely represented ”

“ That the French and Indian War did not overly affect Loudoun County is well known. However, the people well knew the hardship endured by the Friends in the Valley, as this bit from the “Autobiography of William Reckitt,” who was a visitor in our county in 1757 shows. “Crossing Potomac we came into Virginia to Fairfax; where we had a meeting on the second day of the week and 12th of the 12th month. It was a good meeting, truth having the dominion—We lodged at Mary Janney’s, a discrete orderly woman, who had several sober, well inclined children. ”

“ Two other men in Loudoun must again be cited for their activities in the cause of independence—one as a statesman, the other as a soldier. Thomson Mason, from his ownership of Raspberry Plain, was identified closely with the county although not a continuous resident there. We find him constantly devoting his time and abilities to the American cause. ”

“ As he never married, his title upon his death at Loudoun Castle on the 27th April, 1782, passed to his cousin, James Mure Campbell, a grandson of the second Earl.
Of the first officials of Loudoun County, the following men by commission of the Virginia Council, dated the 24th May, 1757, became its first court or governing body: Anthony Russell, Fielding Turner, James Hamilton, Aeneas Campbell, Nicholas Minor, William West, of the Quorum, Richard Coleman, Josias Clapham, George West, Charles Tyler, John Moss, Francis Peyton and John Mucklehany. These men may be taken as outstanding residents. ”