Page:Annals of Augusta County.djvu/39

Rh manner as should be directed by the court-martial to be held annually in the county.

What the people had to sell, and where they sold their products, are questions we cannot answer. Probably peltries and such live-stock as they could raise and send to market were their only means of obtaining money.

The state of the country and of society in the settlement, from its origin till the year 1745, was quite singular. The dwellings of the people were generally constructed of logs, and the furniture was simple and scanty. There were no roads worthy of the name, and probably no wheeled vehicles of any kind; horseback was the only means of transportation. There was no minister of religion till Mr. Craig arrived, except transient visitors on two or three occasions; no marriage feasts, nor funeral rites, and very few sermons on the Sabbath to call the people together. There were no courts and court days, except at Orange Courthouse, beyond the mountain. From allowances by the vestry for professional services to the poor, subsequent to 1747, we learn the names of several physicians who lived in the county at an early day. Drs. Foyles and Flood are mentioned in 1753, but we have no other information in regard to them. No lawyer was known in this bailiwick till 1745, when we find Gabriel Jones, the "king's attorney," residing on his estate near Port Republic. But the sturdy Scotch-Irish people pressed into the country, and by the year 1745 the Alexanders, Aliens, Andersons, Bells, Bowyers, Breckenridges, Browns, Buchanans, Campbells, Christians, Craigs, Cunninghams, Dickinsons, Doaks, Finleys, Johnstons, Kerrs, Lewises, Lyles, Matthewses, Millers, Moores, McNutts, Moffetts, McPheeterses, McClanahans, McClungs, McDowells, Pattons, Pickenses, Pattersons, Pilsons, Poages, Prestons, Robinsons, Scotts, Sithngtons, Stuarts, Tates, Thompsons, Trimbles, Wilsons, Youngs, and others abounded in the settlement. Other immigrants of the same races came in afterwards.

It has been thought that the German inscription on an ancient tomb-stone in an abandoned grave-yard near Conrad's store (now Elkton), in Rockingham county, proved that a settlement of German people existed in that part of the Valley at least as early as 1724.