The Stronghold.

by Miriam Haynie.

Acknowledgements

References have been given for each chapter so that in this way the persons who so kindly gave personal interviews could be recognized specifically.

I wish to express my appreciation to the personnel of the Reference and Circulation Section, General Library Division, of the Virginia State Library, for their splendid service. Without the books from the Library it would have been impossible for me to have accumulated the material for this book.

I wish to thank the _Richmond Times-Dispatch_, the _Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star_ and _Virginia_ and _The Virginia County Magazine_, for their kind permission to use any material which might be needed from articles written by myself and previously published in those publications.

M. H.

_Reedville, Virginia, June, 1959._

_Introduction_

I have read with a great deal of pleasure the book called _The Stronghold_, which relates the history of the Northern Neck of Virginia in story form and was written by my good friend, Miriam Haynie of Reedville, Virginia. Mrs. Haynie is a native of the Northern Neck of Virginia, her family on both sides having settled there in the seventeenth century, and her direct ancestors having remained there until this day. She is the author of a number of articles dealing with the history and traditions and customs of the peninsula between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers that have appeared in the _Richmond Times-Dispatch_, the Washington papers and national publications. She is devoted to this section of Virginia and has spent a large part of her life in accumulating an enormous fund of historical data of the region.

_The Stronghold_ is a most interesting book, especially to Virginians and to natives and descendants of natives of the Northern Neck of Virginia. It is divided into three sections, the seventeenth century, the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century. It tells a great deal about the early history of the Colony and more especially of that portion of the Colony of Virginia, of which she is a native, from the days when the white man first came to the Potomac and Rappahannock Rivers down to the beginning of the twentieth century. She relates in a most pleasing language the first visits of Captain John Smith to the waters surrounding the Northern Neck, also the capture of Princess Pocahontas by the colonists, which occurred on the Potomac River or on one of its tributaries, and many other events connected with our early history that we are prone to overlook in the rush and whirl of these modern days. Her book will be particularly interesting to children as it is written in simple language and in story form so that a child in the fifth grade may read and understand it. It is a most entertaining and interesting work and will impress upon children the early history of our part of the Colony of Virginia and the hardships endured by our ancestors who came here to settle in the wilderness. In saying that it will be particularly interesting to children I do not mean to restrict interest in the book entirely to children for it will be both interesting and educational to all lovers of history regardless of age.

As is true in all works of this kind some of the historical statements she has made will be open to contention but in the main it is a true and correct history of the Northernmost Peninsula of the Old Dominion and pays proper attention to the distinguished men and women who first saw the light of day within its confines. It will be excellent parallel reading to be engaged in by every student of history in the high schools of the State. It is also interesting in that it discusses and makes a record of many traditions and customs peculiar to the region. It will be both interesting and valuable as a reference book for future historians of Virginia and will afford great pleasure to all of us who love to read about the history of our State.

Prior to the coming of good roads to Virginia and the building of the bridges across the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers what is known as the Northern Neck, although actually a peninsula, was to those living in the eastern portion almost an island and it was but natural that marked peculiarities of the people of this section distinguished them not only from those who lived in other sections of the country but to a less extent from those living in other parts of Virginia. These distinct peculiarities appeared in pronunciation, in folk-lore and traditions.

With the exception of the colored people at least ninety-five per cent of the ancestors of the present population of this section came from Great Britain and preserved with little change the speech, the culture and the habits of the British people and it is these things that distinguished them to some extent from people living in other parts of the country. In Colonial days a very high state of culture was in existence among the great plantations of the Northern Neck and their contributions to the development of this country have included several of the great heroes of the nation. To a considerable extent all these attributes have been handed down from generation to generation and every one in the Northern Neck well knows and is proud of the fact that George Washington and Robert E. Lee were natives of the section.

All these things are emphasized by Miriam Haynie in her most excellent and readable book, which will be a real contribution to the history of Virginia.

ROBERT O. NORRIS, JR.

_Lively, Virginia, May 16, 1959._

PART I

Seventeenth Century

THE STRONGHOLD

_TIDEWATER_

The country surrounding the Chesapeake Bay, which is known as the Tidewater, has been compared to the Bible Lands, the Netherlands and Venice.

Captain John Smith, military leader of the expedition to Virginia in 1607, who explored and mapped the Chesapeake Bay and the Bay Country, described it thus:

"There is but one entrance by sea into this country, and that is at the mouth of a very goodly Bay, the widenesse whereof is 18 or 20 miles.

"Within is a country ... heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation.... Here are ... hils, plaines, valleys, rivers and brookes all running most pleasantly into a faire Bay compassed but for the mouth with fruitfull and delightsome land...."

"_YE NORTHERNE NECK_"

On the western shore of the Bay there are three peninsulas, or necks, carved out of Virginia's shoreline by the tidal rivers.

The third, and northernmost, of these peninsulas lies between the Rappahannock and the Potomac Rivers. It was probably referred to orally by the first white men who settled at Jamestown as "the northern neck."

The name appeared in print certainly as early as 1677, when in an official document it was mentioned as "ye Northerne Neck."

This third peninsula north lies aloof, and long, between its broad rivers, as they flow into the Chesapeake Bay on the east.

From the Bay the narrow strip of land, only fifteen or twenty miles wide, runs inland between the rivers for almost a hundred miles, until it narrows near Fredericksburg so that the rivers almost join--not quite an island but more cut-off than the usual peninsula. In the old days when there were almost no roads, and no bridges, the Neck was to those living in the eastern portion more like an island than a peninsula. Only from the west could one travel in or out by land and that exit was rarely used.

Its geographical position made the Northern Neck for many years almost as inaccessible as an ancient stronghold surrounded by a moat.

_THE PEOPLE_

The Northern Neck could be compared with ancient Mesopotamia--a land between two rivers where a new civilization started.

The early settlers came to the wilderness in satins and velvets, they surrounded themselves with the niceties of living, as near like those they had left in England as was possible. They shopped in London as they had before and traded with the world directly from their own habitations.

But the conditions of their new wilderness home changed and moulded them and made them into something different--a new breed of men.

By the time unusual men were needed to shape an unusual type of government, descendants from this stock were ready for the undertaking.

In the Northern Neck there are still so many reminders of these remarkable people that it is not hard to imagine them as they might have been in their habitat several centuries ago--John Mottrom sailing into the Coan in his brightly-colored shallop; the Mottrom children playing their medieval games in the shadow of the primeval woods; Ursula twirling the venison roast on its hempen string before the fire; Hanna Neale passing the witchcraft test; young Jack Lee dashing down the forest aisles on his spirited mount; George Mason pulling the arrows from the "poor people"; Moore Fauntleroy measuring off his thirty arm's lengths of rhoanoke for the waiting Accopatough; King Carter rumbling down his avenue in his coach and six; Mary Ball on her dapple gray; James Monroe and John Marshall walking down the Parson's Lane with school books and muskets; Nelly Madison singing to her new baby; young George Washington riding down to see "Miss Betsy" on a fruitless mission, and little Robert E. Lee saying good-bye to the cherubs in the nursery fireplace....

_INDIANS AND EARLY EXPLORERS_

What men first knew this land between the Rappahannock and the Potomac Rivers?

It is believed that Indians lived along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay's tributaries three thousand years ago.

The Vikings may have entered the Bay and explored the nearby streams and lands in the eleventh century.

Cabot, an Italian seaman under commission from King Henry VII of England, may have entered the Chesapeake at the end of the fifteenth century.