Page:Annals of Augusta County.djvu/160



While the strife between the colonies and mother country was brewing in 1774 the port of Boston was closed by the British, and the people of that city, mainly dependent upon commerce for subsistence, were reduced to a state of destitution and suffering. The sympathy of the country was aroused, and contributions for their relief were made in various places. The remote county of Augusta sent her quota the very autumn her sons fought the Indians at Point Pleasant. Says the historian, Bancroft: "When the sheaves had been harvested and the corn threshed and ground in a country as yet poorly provided with barns or mills, the backwoodsmen of Augusta county, without any pass through the mountains that could be called a road, noiselessly and modestly delivered at Frederick one hundred and thirty-seven barrels of flour as their remittance to the poor of Boston." (Volume VII, page 74.) What a task the transportation was, may be inferred from the fact that nearly fifty years afterwards Bockett's stages took three days to make the trip from Staunton to Winchester.

Again, in 1777, the people of Augusta sent supplies to the destitute. From some cause unknown to us there was a scarcity of provisions in Washington county, southwest Virginia, and the records of that county show that Augusta contributed flour for the use of "the distressed inhabitants." [See Howe, page 501.]

But our Annals are designed to exhibit the contentions of men, rather than the charities of life. We come now to a curious episode in the history of the county. Lord Dunmore, the last