Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Virginia

VIRGINIA, one of the original thirteen States of the North American Union, extends from 36° 31' to 39° 27' N. lat., and from 75° 13' to 83° 37' W. long. It is rudely triangular in form,—its southern boundary, the base of the triangle, a nearly east to west line, being 440 miles long, the north-western 565, the northern and north-eastern 230 and the eastern 125 miles. On the S. it is bounded by North Carolina and Tennessee, on the W. and N.W. by Kentucky and West Virginia, on the N. and N.E. by

Maryland, and on the E. by the Virginian Sea of the Atlantic Ocean. Its greatest length from east to west is 476 miles, its greatest breadth from north to south 192 miles. It is subdivided into 100 counties. The area is variously stated at about 44,500 and 42,450 square miles; the latter extent is that given at the census of 1880. Of the 1,512,565 inhabitants of Virginia (1,059,034 of them over ten years of age) in 1880, 494,240 were engaged in gainful occupations,—254,099, or over 50 per cent., in agriculture, 30,418 in trade and transportation, and 63,059 in manufactures and mining and mechanical industries; but now (in 1888) a very much larger proportion of the industrial population is engaged in mining, manufacturing, trade, and transportation, in consequence of the opening of mines, the erection of blast-furnaces, coke ovens, and various manufacturing establishments since 1880.

Physical Features.&mdash;Speaking broadly, Virginia may be divided into a lowland and a highland country. Its south-eastern part—over 23,000 square miles, or more than half of the whole—has the aspect of a broadly undulating plain, that, with but few marked variations of relief, rises from the sea-level to from 400 to 800 feet above it. The north-western portion is a region composed of approximately parallel mountain ranges, running entirely across the State from north-east to south-west, separated by nearly parallel valleys,—the whole presenting all the varieties of relief peculiar to the Appalachian country between the levels of 800 and 5700 feet. To speak more accurately, the State is naturally divided into seven grand divisions or belts, each with marked characteristics of relief and geological structure, and each succeeding the other, somewhat as a more or less ascending stairway, from the sea to the north-west.

1. Tidewater Virginia is the marine plain, of Quaternary and Tertiary structure, 10,850 square miles in area, that extends westward, for nearly 100 miles, from the Atlantic border to &ldquo;The Ridge,&rdquo; the granitic escarpment which by its rise determines the tidal limit in the great rivers of the State. This Tidewater plain, rectangular in form, is divided by Chesapeake Bay and the great estuaries of the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the York, and the James rivers, into five large peninsulas, which are subdivided by arms of the bay and tidal branches of the rivers into hundreds of smaller peninsulas, thus giving to the region great wealth of tidal shore outline—fully 2000 miles—so that nearly every square mile of its surface can be reached by tide-borne vessels. The nearly level surface of its north to south trending peninsulas, those of the eastern marine plain, the Quaternary ones, averages about 12 feet above sea-level; their low-lying semi-insular position and their warm finely comminuted soils make these the highly favoured great market-garden or &ldquo;trucking&rdquo; portions of Tidewater. The north-west to south-east trending peninsulas, those of the western marine plain, the Tertiary ones, have more broken surfaces that vary in altitude from sea-level to about 100 feet, and are disposed in flat watershed ridges and slopes, terraces, and swamps, all deeply trenched by the secondary drainage.

2. Midland Virginia is the triangular area (12,470 square miles) which, 25 miles wide along the Potomac and 100 wide along the North Carolina line, extends from the Tidewater escarpment westward to the eastern base of the Atlantic coast range, the broken eastern range of the Appalachian Mountains. The elevation here varies from 100 to 200 feet above sea-level in the east to from 700 to 800 in the west; once a gently eastwardly sloping plain, mostly underlaid by steeply clipping granitic and other Archæan rocks—with included areas of Jura-Trias—striking north-east to south-west, the rivers have deeply trenched into this, and so given it a greatly broken and

varied relief through a moderate range of altitude; it abounds in stream-valleys. This, with Piedmont and the Blue Ridge, was the first dry land, the oldest portion of Virginia.

3. Piedmont Virginia is the area (6680 square miles) of greatly diversified country, some 250 miles in length and 20 to 30 miles in width, that stretches between the Blue Ridge and the Coast Range mountains, including all of the latter and the east ward spurs and slopes of the former; its valleys, coves, and plains vary in altitude from 300 to 700 feet in the north-east to from 500 to 1000 in the south-west, while its included and bordering mountains range through all gradations from above 4000 feet down to the levels of its valleys. It is charmingly varied and picturesque, and adapted to a great variety of productions.

4. Blue Ridge Virginia is the Virginian portion (300 miles in length) of the great mountain chain of that name, with its numerous tablelands—especially the Floyd-Carroll-Grayson plateau (1230 square miles) in the south-west, having an altitude of from 916 to 5700 feet. It is, for most of its length, a chain of two ranges: the eastern, the chief, in which numerous rivers have their origin, is a grand mountain mass, carved from the Archæan and eruptive rocks, forming the most striking feature of thousands of square miles of Virginia landscape; the western is mainly composed of short ridges, formed from the easterly outcrops of the Palaeozoic rocks, flanking the western slopes of the main range.

5. The Valley of Virginia is the Virginian portion (300 miles) of the length of the great limestone or Appalachian valley of the Atlantic highlands, one that, made up of numerous subordinate valleys, extends with unbroken continuity from Canada to Alabama, and has for its whole length, with varying local names, the Blue Ridge on its eastern and the Kitta tinny or Great North Mountain on its western border. In Virginia this is a plateau-valley,—embracing 7550 square miles,—its greatly varied tillable surface ranging in altitude from about 500 to over 2500 feet and averaging fully 1000. Carved from the limestones and limy shales and slates of the Cambrian group into an almost endless variety of valley and upland forms, the higher ones in gracefully rounded outline, all blending into one or more broad valleys, and bounded by grand mountain chains, this is indisputably one of the most desirable regions in the United States.

6. Appalachia (4500 square miles), a region of alternating &ldquo;rich&rdquo; and &ldquo;poor&rdquo; valleys (according as they are carved from the lime-abounding or from the slaty sandstone rocks of the Silurian or the Devonian groups), is Virginia's portion of the Appalachian Mountains region proper, the one that lies between the Great Valley on the east and the great Carboniferous escarpment of the Trans-Appalachia plateau. Its general features are repetitions of long, parallel, straight, and level-crested mountain ranges—many of them over 4000 feet—succeeding one another in echelon, with narrow, trough-like valleys, ranging from 800 to 2700 feet,—but these are diversified by the occasional dying out of some mountain ranges and the consequent widening of valleys, and by the widening of ranges into plateaus or their opening into double crests or lovely mountain &ldquo;coves&rdquo; and &ldquo;gardens.&rdquo; It is a noted grazing and timber region.

7. Trans-Appalachia (mainly the 1200 square miles in Buchanan, Dickenson, and Wise counties) is the Virginian portion of the tableland that extends westward from the great Carboniferous escarpment or Alleghany &ldquo;backbone.&rdquo; It is eroded from the Carboniferous rocks, and so is the great coal-bearing portion of the State.



Geological Map of Virginia.

Note.&mdash;The first or Arabic numbers and the letters of the above are the numberings of the formations and their subdivisions now generally recognized and used in North America; the Roman numbers in brackets are the equivalent formations as numbered and used by the Rogers Brothers in the Pennsylvania and Virginia reports.

{{EB1911 Fine Print|Prisons.&mdash;One penitentiary, at Richmond, provides for all convicted of serious crimes in Virginia; during 1885-86 it received 337 convicts (80 white, 257 coloured); its expenses were $98,978, and the labour of the convicts yielded $78,000. Each county

{{EB1911 Fine Print|has a jail for persons committed for petty offences or awaiting trial.}}

{{EB9 Margin Note|Lunacy, &amp;c.}} {{EB1911 Fine Print|There are four first-class lunatic asylums, at Williamsburg, Staunton, and Marion, and (for coloured patients) at Petersburg. In 1885-86 there were 1479 patients in the State's three asylums, for which it contributed $345,077. The census of 1880 returned 2411 insane,—1171 males, 1240 females, 1719 white, {{EB9 Margin Note|Pauperism.}} and 692 coloured. Pauperism is not common in Virginia; in 1870 there were only 3890 paupers, supported by public charity at a cost of $303,081; in 1880 the total number was 3138, 2117 of these being in almshouses, of whom 1027 were coloured. Deaf-mutes {{EB9 Margin Note|Deaf-mutes and blind.|6em}} and blind are well cared for in a noble institution at Staunton, which trained during 1885-86 78 deaf-mutes and 44 blind, with an annual grant of $35,000. The disabled Confederate soldiers of Virginia are aided by the State ($83,040 in 1885-86). There is also, near Richmond, a soldiers home.}}

{{EB9 Margin Note|Agriculture.|6em}} {{EB1911 Fine Print|More than 50 per cent. of the labouring population was in 1880 engaged in agriculture. According to that year's census the land area was 25,680,000 acres, 19,835,785 of which (0.772 of the whole) were embraced in 118,517 farms, although only 8,510,113 acres of such area (only two-sevenths of the whole) were under cultivation (leaving 57.1 per cent. of land in farms unimproved), yet the number of farms increased 60.5 per cent. and the acreage in farms 9.3 per cent. from 1870. Seventh-tenths of its farms were cultivated by owners; over half of the remainder were rented for a share of the crop, and the other part for a fixed money rental. The average size of farms was 167 acres; but there were 53,101 containing from 100 to 500 acres, 5561 with from 500 to 1000 acres, and 1563 containing over 1000 acres each,—so that more than half the farms contained from 100 to over 1000 acres each, or a probable average of 300 acres each, large farms being the rule. The farms and their improvements were valued at $216,028,107, their farming implements at $5,495,114, the live stock at $25,953,315; for improvements $1,697,180 and for manures $2,137,283 were spent, and the value of their products was estimated at $45,726,221. The live stock comprised 218,838 horses, 33,598 mules and asses, 54,709 working oxen, 243,061 milch cows, 388,414 other cattle, 497,289 sheep, and 956,451 swine. The wool clip was 1,836,673 &#x2114;; 1,224,469 gallons of milk were sold; 11,470,923 &#x2114; of butter and 85,535 of cheese were made; 859 acres of barley yielded 14,223 bushels; 16,463 of buckwheat 136,004; 1,768,127 of Indian corn 29,119,761; 563,443 of oats 5,333,181; 48,746 of rye 324,431; 901,177 acres of wheat yielded 7,826,174 bushels; 45,040 acres of cotton 19,595 bales; the flax crop was 4526 bushels of seed, 16,430 tons of straw, and 66,264 &#x2114; of fibre; the sorghum crop was 143 &#x2114; of sugar and 564,558 gallons of molasses; from the sugar maple were made 85,693 &#x2114; of sugar and 7518 gallons of molasses; of hay 286,823 tons were grown on 336,289 acres; 17,806 bushels of clover seed and 41,722 bushels of grass seed were raised; there were 1,987,010 barn-yard and 660,147 other fowls, and 8,950,629 dozen eggs were produced during the year; 1,090,451 &#x2114; of honey and 53,200 of beeswax were made; on 140,791 acres were grown 79,988,868 &#x2114; of tobacco; 2,016,766 bushels of Irish potatoes were raised, and on 23,755 acres 1,901,521 bushels of sweet ones; orchard products were valued at $1,609,663, and market-garden products at $837,609; 2,177,770 cords of wood, valued at $3,053,149, were cut; the wool clip was valued $1,836,673; 12 acres of hops yielded 1599 &#x2114;, and 127,976 &#x2114; of broom corn were grown; the crop of pease was 77,758 bushels, and that of beans 45,411. Of the 8,510,113 acres of improved land, 1,152,083 were in permanent meadows, pastures, orchards, and vineyards, and 7,358,030 were under tillage; of the 11,325,672 acres unimproved in farms, 9,126,601 were in woodland and forest, and 2,199,071 in old fields, &amp;c. Virginia was one of the twenty States that produced over 20,000,000 bushels of Indian corn each, ranking thirteenth; it stood second to Kentucky in acreage and quantity of tobacco grown. The United States commissioner of agriculture estimates that in 1884 Virginia had 4,071,401 acres in crops, producing 44,000,000 bushels of cereals, 2,061,000 bushels of potatoes, 99,763 &#x2114; of tobacco, 366,389 tons of hay, and 13,500 bales of cotton, valued at $39,050,052; and had on its farms 2,127,023 domestic animals, worth $39,608,536.}}

{{EB9 Margin Note|Manufactures.|7em}} {{EB1911 Fine Print|Manufactures.&mdash;Though Virginia has great natural advantages for becoming a leading manufacturing State, in 1870 less than 12 per cent. of its population was engaged in manufacturing industries. In 1880, however, its 5710 establishments had invested $26,968,990, employed 40,184 persons (28,779 men), paid $7,425,261 for wages and $32,883,933 for materials, and produced to the value of $51,780,992,—a gain of nearly 60 per cent. in ten years. It is estimated that the value of the products in 1885 was $75,000,000,—a gain of over 44 per cent. in five years. The sales of products of the manufacturing establishments of Richmond city alone amounted in 1887 to $27,887,340. The pig-iron output in 1887 was worth over $3,000,000. The more important manufactures are those of iron, tobacco, leather, coke, cotton, manures, paper, agricultural implements and machinery, builders' materials,}}

{{EB1911 Fine Print|vehicles, lumber, lime, tanning extracts, railway cars and loco motives, flour and mill products, spelter, salt, distilled spirits, canned fruits, vegetables, &amp;c.}}

{{EB9 Margin Note|Communication.|8em}} {{EB1911 Fine Print|Communication.&mdash;The navigable tidal bays, creeks, rivers, harbours, and roads of Tidewater Virginia furnish more than a thousand miles of channels for commerce; Richmond, at the head of the tidal waters of the James, 117 miles from Chesapeake Bay, is reached by ocean ships drawing 15 feet of water; West Point, at York Head, 41 miles from the bay, has 18 feet of depth; Elizabeth river gives to the fine harbour of Norfolk a channel 25 feet deep; while Hampton Roads, with its 400 square miles of area, is the largest as well as the most central and commodious landlocked harbour on the Atlantic coast of the United States. Ship canals connect the great waterways of Virginia with those of North Carolina and beyond to the southward; and, similarly, northward the head of Chesapeake Bay is connected with Delaware Bay. At the beginning of 1888 there were 35 railway companies working 2540 miles of road, all of standard 4 feet 9 inches gauge, except some 256 miles of narrow-gauge short lines. The Virginia railways earned $13,825,909 in 1885 at an outlay of $8,999,853, the work done being equivalent to 971,477,375 mile-tons. Virginia early took part in the construction of railways, investing many millions in the stocks of the various lines now reaching nearly every part of the State; beginning about 1830, it had 147 miles of railway in 1840, 384 in 1850, 1350 in 1860, 1449 in 1870, 1893 in 1880, 2430 in 1885, and 2540, with some 200 miles more in course of construction, at the beginning of 1888. Eight great through railway lines connect its trade and manufacturing centres with those of other States.}}

{{EB9 Margin Note|Finance.}} {{EB1911 Fine Print|Finance.&mdash;For the year ending September 30, 1886, the assessed value of the real estate of Virginia was $257,607,935, and of personal property $83,152,971, or $340,760,906 of taxable valuation; the taxes were $1,029,936 on real estate, $336,366 on personal property, $39,112 on incomes, $316,293 capitation, $141,755 from railways on a valuation of $34,614,427, $299,343 from liquor and $400,325 from other licences. The receipts of the State were $2,773,437, and its expenses of all kinds $2,755,036; of these $657,610 went to the support of the free public schools and $1,064,097 to the support of the State Government. The rate of taxation is low, and on a low property valuation. The State debt at January 1, 1885, was $28,961,829.}}

{{EB9 Margin Note|Militia.}} {{EB1911 Fine Print|Militia.&mdash;In 1880 the natural militia (male persons from eighteen to forty-four years of age inclusive) was 264,033 (102,426 of them coloured) in a male population of 745,589. The organized militia force is small. In 1885-86 there were 51 equipped volunteer companies of active militia under the orders of the State,—mainly in its cities and larger towns,—43 of infantry (18 of them coloured), 5 of artillery, and 3 cavalry,—mustering in all 2904 men. The Virginia military fund is about $11,000 a year.}}

{{EB9 Margin Note|History.}} {{EB1911 Fine Print|History.&mdash;The mound-builders of the Mississippi valley had outposts, as evidenced by remains of their earth-works, in the mountain passes of Appalachia. At the time of the arrival of the whites the Powhatans held most of Tidewater, the Mannahoacks the north-east and the Monacans the south-west of Midland and Piedmont; the Cherokees held the Tennessee basin parts of the Valley and Appalachia, and Algonkin tribes—Shawnees, Delawares, &amp;c.—the rest of those divisions. Many of the place names are still Indian. Cabot probably entered Chesapeake Bay in 1498; when Raleigh's ships, in 1584, brought to England glowing accounts of the Albemarle Sound region, the whole country was named Virginia in honour of Elizabeth, the virgin queen. The first permanent English settlement in America was made at Jamestown, Virginia, May 13, 1607, by one hundred settlers sent from England by Sir Thomas Gates and Company, who had obtained in April 1606 a charter from James I. to plant two colonies in Virginia,—a southern somewhere between 34° and 41°, and a northern between 38° and 45° N. lat., but at places not less than 100 miles apart. In 1609 the London Company superseded Gates's, which had merely held its settlement and given to the world the romantic adventures of Captain John {{sc|Smith}} (q.v.). King James gave the London Company, by charter, a sea-front of 400 miles,—200 north and 200 south from Point Comfort,—all islands within 100 miles of the coast, and all the country back from this 400 miles of frontage &ldquo;throughout from sea to sea,&rdquo; and to its colonists all the rights of natural-born Englishmen; under this charter Virginia had jurisdiction over her imperial colonial territory, and under it holds the fragment of that colony now called Virginia. The colony of the London Company grew and prospered, and in 1619 Governor Yardley organized at James City, the capital, a few miles inland from Jamestown, the first legislative body that met in North America; in 1621 the London Company granted the colony a liberal constitution, the general form of which Virginia has always preserved. In August 1619 a Dutch man-of-war sold at Jamestown twenty African negroes, and introduced negro slavery. In 1624 James I. arbitrarily deprived the London Company of its charter, and Virginia became a royal colony, which was, till the revolution, a favourite and generally a loyal royal province governed}}

{{EB1911 Fine Print|by the constitution of 1621, the king appointing the governor and council and the people electing the members of the house of burgesses. In 1698 the capital was transferred to Williamsburg, where, under royal patronage, William and Mary College had been established in 1693. The colony soon occupied most of Tidewater and its Midland border; in 1716 Governor Spotswood crossed the Blue Ridge, and was, so far as known, the first white man to enter the Great Valley, which was soon thereafter occupied by large numbers of Scottish and some German and English settlers. Indian wars followed as settlers moved westward, but in 1744 Virginia purchased from the Indians the right to make settlements to the Ohio, and built a fort where Pittsburgh now stands; the French captured this in 1754, and the long French and Indian war followed, until the 1763 treaty of Paris ended it and made the Mississippi the western boundary of Virginia. During that war, in 1755, Braddock was defeated; and in 1758 Fort Duquesne, which under the French had taken the place of Pittsburgh, was captured and renamed Fort Pitt. In 1773 the general assembly of Virginia resolved for an &ldquo;inter-colonial committee of correspondence,&rdquo; and was dissolved by Lord Dunmore, the royal governor. In May 1774 it again met and protested against the closing of the port of Boston; Dunmore again dissolved it, but the burgesses, the members elected by the people, reassembled and passed resolutions denouncing British taxation and recommending to the other colonies an annual congress of delegates, leading in this as it had in recommending committees of correspondence. Virginia took a leading part in the subsequent war of independence, but the various steps of her policy need not be detailed here (see {{EB9 article link|United States}}, and compare also {{EB9 article link|Jefferson|Jefferson, Thomas}} and {{EB9 article link|Washington|Washington, George}}).}}

{{EB1911 Fine Print|The great territory of Virginia, reaching from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and now divided into five large States, made the other States of the Union apprehensive of her future domination. In 1781, to promote harmony, she offered to cede to the general Government all her territory beyond the Ohio, and in 1784 she made the cession, only stipulating that the territory thus voluntarily given up should, when peopled, be divided into new States, in which slavery should be for ever prohibited, and that the remainder of her territory—that from the Atlantic to the Ohio—should remain inviolably hers. In 1787 the convention of the States, at Philadelphia, presided over by Washington, adopted the present constitution of the United States, and this Virginia, in convention, ratified in 1788. In the war of 1812-14 with England Virginia bore a conspicuous part, as also in that of 1846-47 with Mexico. The civil war of 1861-65 was more disastrous in its consequences to Virginia than to any other State of the Union; from first to last its territory was overrun, hundreds of battles and minor engagements took place within its borders, and all the destruction incident to gigantic military operations fell upon it; tens of thousands of its best men were killed in battle; its territory was dismembered, and a third part of it cut off, while more than three hundred million dollars worth of property was destroyed in what remained.}}

{{EB1911 Fine Print|For some time after 1865 Virginia was under Federal military control as &ldquo;District No. 1&rdquo;; but on December 3, 1867, a convention, elected by the people, under an Act of the United States Congress, met and framed a new constitution, prohibiting slavery and accepting the results of the war; this was ratified by a popular vote, July 6, 1869, at which time members of a general assembly and State officers were also elected. The chosen governor was inaugurated September 21, 1869; the general assembly met October 5, 1869, and ratified the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution of the United States; and on January 26, 1870, Virginia was readmitted to representation in Congress, and released from military control. (J. H*.)}}

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