Page:Annals of Augusta County.djvu/30

 had to leave behind, and as soon as possible erected log meeting houses in which to assemble for the worship of God, with school-houses hard by.

Although the Church of England was established by law throughout the colony, and a spirit of intolerance inseparable from such a system prevailed in lower Virginia, the Dissenters of the Valley, as far as we know, had comparatively little to complain of in this respect.

For about twenty years the immigrants were unmolested by the Indians. "Some," says Foote, " who had known war in Ireland, lived and died in that peace in this wilderness for which their hearts had longed in their native land." During this halcyon time, the young Lewises, McClanahans, Mathewses, Campbells, and others were growing up and maturing for many a desperate encounter and field of battle.

But the authorities at Williamsburg had by no means relinquished the rights of the British crown, as held by them, to the paramount title to the lands of the Valley. In assertion of those rights, and without ability on the part of the people of the Valley to resist, on September 6, 1736, William Gooch, "Lieutenant-Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Colony and Dominion of Virginia," in pursuance of an order in council, dated August 12, 1736, and in the name of "George II, by the grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, Defender of the Faith," etc., issued a patent for the "Manor of Beverley." The patentees were William Beverley, of Essex; Sir John Randolph, of Williamsburg; Richard Randolph, of Henrico, and John Robinson, of King and Queen; and the grant was of 118,491 acres of land lying "in the county of Orange, between the great mountains, on the river Sherando," etc. On the next day, September 7, the other grantees released their interest in the patent to Beverley. This patent embraced a large part of the present county of Augusta, south as well as north of Staunton.

William Beverley was a son of Robert Beverley, the historian of Virginia, and grandson of the Robert Beverley who commanded the royal forces at the time of "Bacon's Rebellion." He was a lawyer, clerk of Essex County Court from 1720 to 1740, a member of the House of Burgesses and of the Governor's Council, and County-Lieutenant of Essex. He