Transcription
Our viewpoint
Bring the bagpipes!
Wear the plaid!
With tartan plaids and
Scottish music, Dumfries
residents, and anyone else who
cares to join in the festivities,
will celebrate Dumfries'
Charter Day Saturday at the
Weems-Botts Merchants Park
between 4 and 7 p.m. This is the
year of the town's 229th birthday.
Dumfries was one of many
towns founded because
Glasglow merchants got into the
tobacco export business.
Quantico Creek was a perfect
place for getting tobacco on
ships bound for Scotland.
Although it wasn't legal,
under English law, for anyone
but Englishmen to deal in goods
from the English Colonies,
Scot merchants got into the
business as early as the late
17th century. By 1709 their
dealings became legal and they
went into high gear.
As early as 1713 there was an
Agent's House, or inspection
house , on the banks of the
Quantico and by the 1740's Scot
merchants were petitioning the
House of Burgesses for a town
charter.
One was finally granted in
1749 and a town was carved out
on the land of John Graham, a
merchant from Dumfries,
Scotland. So what should the
town be named but Dumfries?
The charter, as reprinted in
"Landmarks of Old Prince
William," by Fairfax Harrison,
paints a pretty good picture of
the times:
"Forasuch as the
Inhabitants of the County of
Prince William have made
humble Application to this
General Assembly that a Town
may be laid out upon the Land
of John Graham, Gentleman,
near the Public Warehouses on
the upper side of Quantico
Creek in the said County, for
the cohabitation of such as are
minded to settle there:
whereby Trade and Navigation
may be greatly increased to the
Advantage of the Inhabitants in
that part of the Country....
"And Be it further Enacted
by the Authority aforesaid, that
it shall not be lawful for any
Person whatsoever to erect or
build or cause to be erected or
built in the said Town any
Wooden Chimney; And if any
Person shall presume to erect
or build or cause to be erected
or built any Wooden Chimney in
the said Town, he or she shall
forfeit and pay twenty shillings
Current Money for every Month
such Wooden Chimney shall be
used;....
"And Be it further enacted,
by the Authority aforesaid, that
no person whatsoever residing
in the said Town shall keep any
swine running at large within
the bounds thereof;...."
Dumfries in its heyday
outshone such ports as
Alexandria and even New
York.
[?]
But the Quantico Creek was
silting up and with the advent of
the Revolutionary War the
Scottish merchants were attracted
to trade in West Indian
sugar. They abandoned
Dumfries.
Although the townspeople
who remained tried to revive
the port with Newport at the
mouth of the creek, as early as
1783, Dumfries was but a ghost
of her old self.
It's unclear just when the
town stopped bothering to elect
officials but in 1961 when some
public spirited citizens wanted
a new town created they went
to a local lawyer, Floyd Bagley.
Mr. Bagley, who currently
serves as a Prince William
delegate to the General
Assembly, along with another
area lawyer of the time, J. Carl
Hill, asked that the University
of Virginia research the
question of whether the original
Dumfries Charter might not
still be good. Sure enough, it
was found that the General
Assembly had never revoked
the charter.
For that first council and
mayor, elected after so many
years of no town government,
the ancestors of the last known
council were sought out. And
several of those who went into
office in 1961 bore the same
names as those who had left
office sometime near the turn
of the century - Garrison,
Brawner, Keyes, Waters.
Dumfries of old must have
been a colorful place, attracting
the great men of
Virginia history to the town.
George Washington often had
business in Dumfries. George
Mason penned the Dumfries
Resolves in protest against
taxation without representation.
The famous Virginia
Lees were prominent in the
affairs and social life of the
town as was Fouchee Tebbs,
who later became Justice of the
U.S. Court of Appeals and Col.
William Grayson, first senator
from Virginia to the Congress
of the State.
So, if you participate in the
activities tomorrow, you will be
celebrating much that
represents not only Dumfries
history, but the history of this
nation.Transcriber
Adam KitchenLanguage
English