Page:Annals of Augusta County.djvu/46

 and a-half pounds of lead 19½ cents, and one ounce of indigo 25 cents.

The rates for ordinaries fixed by the court, March 10, 1746, were as follows: For a hot diet, 12½ cents; a cold ditto, 8⅓ cents; lodging, with clean sheets, 4 cents; stabling and fodder a night, 8⅓ cents; rum, the gallon, $1.50; whiskey, the gallon, $1; claret, the quart, 83⅓ cents.

The ordinary proceedings of the County Court, as recorded in the order books, often illustrate the history of the times, and we shall make frequent quotations.

As soon as the court was established, taverns were needed at the county seat. Therefore, we find that on February 12, 1746, license to keep ordinaries at the courthouse was granted to Robert McClanahan and John Hutchinson. And on the same day it was "ordered that any attorney interrupting another at the bar, or speaking when he is not employed, forfeit five, shillings."

On February 19, 1746, a court was held to receive proof of "public claims," and the losses of several persons by the Indians were proved and ordered to be certified to the general assembly for allowance.

While the white settlers and the Indians who often passed through the country were supposed to be at peace, and the more prudent settlers sought by every means to conciliate the savages, instances of robbery and massacre by Indians were not infrequent, as is shown by the records of the County Court and otherwise. Tradition tells of an Indian raid upon a homestead near Buffalo Gap, but at what date is not stated. The ancestor of the Bell family of that neighborhood lived some two miles from the gap, and the females and children who were at home, learned that a party of Indians were in the vicinity. Feeling insecure, they abandoned their house and sought safety elsewhere. The Indians would have passed the dwelling without discovering it, but were attracted to the place by the cackling of a flock of geese. They plundered the house, setting it on fire, by design or accident, and went off. From that day to the present no member or descendant of that family of Bells has kept geese.

A more disastrous raid occurred, however, in December, 1742. A party of Indians from Ohio came into the Valley,