Transcription
DECLINE OF DUMFRIES
Its History given
THE EISASTER OF THE SILT DEPOSITS
The founders were Men of High Merit
(From An Old Paper)
The founders of Dumfries
were men of high order of merit
in both an intellectual and commercial
sense.
Their ancestors had flown
from the persecutions of arbitrary
government to establish
[a?] home in the wilderness where
[untrammeled], they might exercise
their faculties without
restraint or persecution.
No section of America produced
as many great men as
the tidewater section of the
Potomac and the Rappahannock
Rivers known as the Northern
Neck. Their forbears had left
the political and military turmoils
of old England to seek the
safety and tranquility of the
new land and their descendants
proved worthy of the matchless
energy of the immigrants, but
in order that we may get a full
understanding of this interesting
situation, it becomes necessary
to go back and review
the case in its primal conditions.
The rise of Cromwell at the
[head] of the Roundhead Party
in the seventeenth century
marks the beginning of the political
conflicts in England which
started the stampede of her
leading citizens to America. The
overthrow and capture of Charles I
at the battle of Naseby in
1649, his trial for treason and
execution by the Cromwellites
in 1649, and the complete annihilation
of the royal forces at the
battle of Worchester in 1651
spelled the doom of monarchical
power in England for nearly a
decade.
It forced into exile not only
the King, Charles II, but over
twenty thousand of his royal
followers. Among these were
the Washingtons, Masons, Monroes,
Madisons, Jeffersons, Fauntleroys,
Taliferros, Fitzhughs,
Lees, Marshalls, and most of
the others o fthis class whose
descendants in the fourth generation
founded the American
Republic.
In 1640 there was an estimated
to be fifteen thousand inhabitants
in the tidewater area of
Virginia located on the peninsulas
below the Rappahannock
River and east of the falls of
the several rivers that empty
into the Chesapeake. In 1660 the
population had increased to over
forty thousand, most of whom
had settled in the Northern Neck
and no incident in our history so
no incident in our history so
clearly indicates the rapid increase
in population as the organization
of political institutions
in this location.
In 1648 the General Assembly
established Northumberland
County, which in the beginning
comprised the entire area of
the Northern Neck, from the
Chesapeake to the mountains on
the west. Three years later they
set apart Lancaster County from
the territory of Northumberland.
It comprised the entire
area of land on the Rappahannock
side with the watershed
between the rivers as the dividing
line.
In 1653 Northumberland County
was docked by the organization
of Westmoreland County and
in 1656 old Rappahannock County
was organized from the territory
of Lancaster. This county
was abolished in 1692 and Richmond
was organized in its place.
Stafford was created in 1664
from the western section of
Westmoreland and King George
was organized in 1720 from the
western section of Richmond.
Next came the obect of our
attention today - Prince William
- which was taken from King
George and Stafford in 1730 with
its boundaries extending from
Deep Creek on the Rappahannock
to the headwaters of the Chopawmsic,
thence by that stream
to the Potomac River; all west
and north of these boundaries
comprised the County of Prince
William named for Prince William,
Duke of Cumberland.
It constituted in its early days
what now comprises five counties.
Its first court house was
established in 1730 on the south
side of the Occoquan at what e
know as Woodbridge, where it
remained for about ten years. In
1742 Fairfax was cut off from
Prince William at the Occoquan,
and the court house of
Prince William was transferred
[l?othe?] land of Philemon Waters
on Cedar Run, a more central
location than that of Occoquan.
It continued in the this location
until about 1759 when it was
again transferred to the thriving
town of Dumfries and remained
there until 1820, when it was
transferred to Brentsville.
The subdivisions continued as
the population increased. In 1757
Loudoun was cut from Fairfax
and Fauquier was taken from
the back of Prince William in
1759. In 1800 the Federal Government
annexed the territory
of the present Arlington County
and Alexandria City as a
part of the District of Columbia.
This concludes the subdivisions
as they remain today except that
in 1846 the Federal Government
ceded back to Virginia the territory
which had been taken
from Fairfax for the District
and the Legislature of Virginia
erected Alexandria County from
the retroceded territory giving
Alexandria City a separate and
distinct entity.
The first known industry in
the vicinity of Dumfries was
the erection of the grist mill on
the Quantico by one Richard
Gibson in 1690. In 1713 Governor
Spotswood established on the
land of Richard Britt. The town
of Dumfries was chartered on
the 11th of May 1749 on sixty
acres of the land of John Graham.
The first trustees appointed
in 1749 were John Graham,
Peter Hedgman, William Fitzhugh,
George Mason, Joseph
Blackwell, Richard Blackburn,
and Thomas Harrison, This
board was changed in 1761 to
John Tayloe, Presley Thornton,
John Champ, Richard Henry
Lee, Richard Lee, Henry
Lee, Henry Peyton, John Moncure,
Rev. James Scott, Allan
Macrae, John Bayliss, Jesse
Douglass, Fouchee Tebbs,
Thomas Lawson, and William
Carr. It is interesting to note
the important posts some of
these men and their descendants
occupied in after years
Among the prominent merchants
operating when Dumfries
was at its height of business
prosperity were Collin Dunlop
&sons, Dunlop Cross and Co.,
John Glassford & Co.; William
Cunnnigham & Co., Hinderson
Inc. Caul & Co., George
and Andrew Buchanan &
Co., The McDowells, Macraes,
Mushetts, and Hughey &
Co. Some of its distinguished
citizens and civic leaders were
John and William Graham, Col.
William Grayson, Col. Henry
Lee, Judge Cuthbert Bullitt, Rev.
James Scott, Rev. Mason L
Weems, William Willoughby &
Fouchee Tebbs, Richard Blackburn
and Col. Thomas Blackburn,
Jesse, Charle, and Bertram
[E???T] Richard Bland Lee, and
Allan Macrae. Its known industries
and institutions were a
Masonic Lodge (Dumfries No.
50), eleven public and a large
number of private warehouses,
a warehoue for the storage of
grain at Granary Landing, a
[printing] office and newspaper
(Dumfries Gazette), an [agriculture?]
paper, at least five [ho??]
or ordinaries, a theatric
dance ball, a ferry,
a canal with a tidewater lock, a
jockey club and race track, three
grist mills and flour mills, an
academy, a brick yard, a ship
yard at Graham Park, a bakery
and bread inspector, etc.
The decline of Dumfries was
the result of unpreventable
causes, such as the filling in of
its waterway with sedimentary
deposit, the changes in the mode
of travel and the abandonment
of tobacco as stable crop and
currency. The organization of
the Potomac Steamboat Co. in
1815 from Washington to Potomac
Creek gradually destroyed
the overland traffic through
Dumfries and the final introduction
of the steam railroad
through the back county diverted
the trade to other markets.
Thechange to motor vehicles of
a large proportion of transportation
andtravel has again
bought Dumfries in the channel
of trade and we can with
a measure of confidence look
forward to a revival of the
prosperity of long ago which
is the heritage and distinction of
old Dumfries.
DUMFRIES HISTORY - CONT.
the center of gravity of the
county shifted. When the Court
House was moved to Brentsville
in 1822, the old Court House at
Dumfries, described many years
later as a "fine brick building
on a fine site, with lawn and
shade trees," along with the
jail and clerk's office, sold for
$50.00.
All sorts of disasters came to
the doomed town. It was swept
by dreaded fires. A large old
building, the Long Ordinary,
collapsed one night with a large
assembly, and injured many
people. The plce had become
unhealthy and fevers raged
widely. In 1837, a disastrous fire
laid waste the greater part of
the remaining town, though
several buildings and landmarks
of Colonial Days can still be
seen.
Two Hundred Years Old
The Dumfries Bi-Centennial Will Be
Remembered As A Significant Day In The
History Of This County.
Congratulations
-FROM-
Quantico Motor Co.
TRIANGLE, VA. PHONE 114
GEORGE PURVIS, MGR.
"There's A FORD in Your Future"
CONGRATULATIONS!
TO DUMFRIES
ON ITS
200th Anniversary
With the Rapid Growth of the Lower End of Prince William
County, Dumfries Again Looks To A Prosperous Future.
E. D. GOTHWAITE
MANASSAS, VA.Transcriber
Adam KitchenLanguage
English![Top photo: [BOUT?] HOF QUANTICO CREEK
Great sea-[fearing?] ships used to play the
waters here two-hundred years ago with valuable
cargos of tobacco for Europe. Now this
creek is hardly fit for row-boats, due to silt deposits which crept up to destroy the port of
Dumfries.
Bottom photo: DUMFRIES SCHOOL
Dumfries' future generations
will learn here of the town's historic
past.](https://d8e7jbdw4fu0e.cloudfront.net/14740/0389d350-e97e-11ef-aceb-e5e14aa9ad1f-vUXm9j4.lg@2x.jpg)