old friend of Westover laughs at him; since his present matrimonial raptures are in direct conflict with the maxims "he used to preach up before he was married." The Westover wit cannot "forbear from rubbing up the memory" of those former views; but Spotswood "gave a very good-natured turn to his change of sentiments by alleging that whoever brings a poor gentlewoman into so solitary a place from all her friends and acquaintances, would be ungrateful not to use her with all possible tenderness."

Such is a glimpse of the two worthies, Byrd and Spotswood, at the "enchanted castle." A chance page draws their portraits, and we hear all the talk borne away long ago on the winds of the Rapidan. The worthy Governor had another residence on the banks of the Chesapeake, "Temple Farm," the former name of the Moore House, where, in October, 1781, the Revolution came to an end with the capitulation of Lord Cornwallis. Here he spent his last days after retiring from his post of Governor, enjoying the society of his dear family, riding out in "one of the handsomest and easiest chariots made in London ;" and respected by everybody. In 1740 he was commissioned MajorGeneral and assigned to command the expedition to the West Indies, but he died suddenly (June 7, 1740), when he was about to embark. He was buried at Temple Farm, where his grave was recently discovered with a fragment of the inscription on his tomb.

The name of Spotswood is greatly honored in Virginia, where his descendants still reside. He was an admirable type of the soldier and statesman combined, a ruler born, with the resolute will and strong brain which give

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the right to govern; and, first and last, all his exertions were for the good of Virginia.

XXIII.

THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY.

VIRGINIA in these years was reaching out steadily past the mountains. The smiling valley of the Shenandoah was becoming the home of brave settlers who carried civilization into this wild region, long the battleground, tradition said, of the Northern and Southern tribes of the continent. We have seen the first attempts to explore the country, the expedition of Batte in 1670, and the march of Spotswood in 1716. The impetus was thus given, and adventurous explorers followed the Knights of the Horse-shoe. The Virginians began to hold out longing arms toward the sweet fields along the Shenandoah; and the wave of population, like a steadily rising tide, advanced up the lowland rivers, reached the mountains at last, and flowed over into the Valley of Virginia.

Cotemporary with or a few years before this lowland immigration, the region toward the Potomac had been settled by Scotch-Irish and Germans, who had come to Pennsylvania, and thence, attracted by the rumor of its fertility, passed on to the Shenandoah Valley. The exodus thither began about the year 1732. The ScotchIrish, who were good Presbyterians, were the pioneers, and established their homesteads along the Opequon, from the Potomac to above what is now Winchester. As soon as they had built their houses they proceeded to build their churches; and the "Tuscarora Meeting

House," near Martinsburg, and the "Opequon Church," a little south of Winchester, are, it is said, the oldest churches in the Valley of Virginia, they are still standing.

The Germans followed closely. Joist Hite obtained forty thousand acres of land in the vicinity of Winchester; and his thrifty Teutons built Strasburg and other towns along the Massinutton Mountain. To this day the Germans constitute an important element of the population, and in some places the language is spoken. It was an excellent class of immigrants. Everywhere was the appearance and the reality of thrift: well-kept fields, fat cattle, and huge red barns. "The Dutchman's barn," says Kercheval, the old historian, "was usually the best building on his farm. He was sure to erect a fine large barn before he built any other dwelling-house than his rude log cabin." They were an honest, merry people in their good Fatherland manner, keeping festivals and enjoying themselves at weddings and other ceremonies. The groomsmen waited in "white aprons beautifully embroidered;" and their duty was to protect the bride from having her slipper stolen from her foot; and if any one succeeded in capturing it, the groomsmen must pay a bottle of wine for it, since the bride's dancing depended on it. These kindly Germans, says their historian, were generally of three religious sects, Lutherans, Mennonists, and Calvinists, with a few Tunkers, or Dippers, who believed that immersion was the true form of baptism. But they were not stern people. "Among the Lutherans and Calvinists, dancing, with other amusements, were common, and were sometimes kept up for weeks together." The Irish Presbyteriaus were no less merry, and celebrated their wed

dings by "running for the bottle," a ribbon-decorated prize for the fastest rider, and by "great hilarity, jollity, and mirth." The only exceptions to this border hilarity were the few Quakers, who married without the intervention of clergymen, and conducted the ceremony with the "utmost solemnity and decorum."

When Winchester, the capital of the lower valley, was founded there were two log cabins there in 1738, and the town was established in 1752-the Dutch and Irish entered on a war of Guelphs and Ghibellines. The historian Kercheval paints the hostilities in glowing colors. On St. Patrick's Day the Dutch would form in grand procession and march through the streets, carrying effigies of "the Saint and his wife Sheeley,” the saint decorated with a necklace of Irish potatoes, and his spouse with an apron full of them. And on the day of "St. Michael, the patron of the Dutch," the Irishmen would retort by exhibiting an effigy of that saint with a necklace of sour-kraut; whence misunderstandings and bloody noses and cracked crowns for the consideration of the worshipful justices of Frederick, who have just begun to hold their sessions in the "log cabin courthouse."

The lower Valley is full of these old traditions handed down from father to son. Another is here repeated. It is said that an Irish laboring man and his wife came about 1767 to the house of Mr. Strode, a German landholder on the lower Opequon, and lived with him some years, during which time a son was born to them. Then they resolved to go further southward, and set off; but the children of the Strode family followed begging that they would leave the baby, who was a great favorite with them. When they stopped for a

moment, and the child was laid on the grass, the Strode children snatched him up, and would have carried him off if they had not been prevented. The journey was then resumed, and the wanderers finally reached the Waxhaws in North Carolina. Here the boy grew up, and in due time made his mark, since he was Andrew Jackson, President of the United States. The tradition is possibly true. Jackson is said to have been doubtful about his birth-place, and a spring near the Strode house is still called "Jackson's Spring."

While the Germans and Irish were thus settling on the banks of the Potomac and the Opequon, the upper waters of the Shenandoah became the home of adventurous explorers from tide-water Virginia. These were nearly without exception Scotch-Irish Presbyterians: men and women driven out of Ulster by the English persecutions there; and the pioneer was John Lewis, the founder of a distinguished family. Lewis belonged to a Huguenot family which had taken refuge in Ireland. He put to death an oppressive landlord there and escaped to Virginia, where he obtained a great grant of land. It covered half of what is now the large county of Rockbridge; and Lewis was to settle one family on every thousand acres. He brought over from Ireland and Scotland in 1737 about one hundred families; and from these families descended some of the most eminent men of Virginia: among them Archibald Alexander, James McDowell, Andrew Lewis, and others. These "Scotch-Irish Presbyterians" were conscientious and law-abiding persons; Calvinists of the straightest sect, pious, earnest, grave of demeanor, not at all sharing the fox-hunting and horse-racing proclivities of the tide-water Virginians; but bent on doing earnest work.