From the book:
“Inventory of the County Archives of Virginia No. 13 Brunswick County (Lawrenceville) “Historical Records Survey Work Projects Administration”
This is being typed just as it is in the documents “even with the misspelling of words”.
Historical Sketch
The area that is now Brunswick County began early to figure in Virginia history. Before a single English generation had lived and died in Virginia, white men began to find their way across what is now Brunswick County. In 1650 Abraham Wood and Edward Bland traveled through the district on their journey of exploration to Occanooci Island, which is the middle one of the tree islands in the Roanoke River just west of where Clarksville now stands. Within the next 10 years the route came to be traveled regularly. In 1673 James Noodham and Gabriel Arthur went this way on their journey to explore the route leading farther south and up into the southern mountains. As the fur trade prospered between Fort Wood, near what is now Petersburg in Dinwiddie County, and the Indians of the southern mountains, this path, usually called the Occaneechi Path or the Trading Path, became one of the world’s highways of commerce. During the last quarter of the seventeenth century and the early years of the eighteenth, loads of fur were brought years after year over the Trading Path for sale in the great world markets of Leipsic, Amsterdam, Paris, Vienna, and London.
This path led in a fairly direct line from the falls of the
Appomattox River to Occaneechi Island and then southward through North Carolina. Like many
other paths used by white men, this one seems to have been well traveled by the Indians in
their many comings and goings before the white men arrived on the continent. Apparently,
too, like other such paths, the original track through the wilderness was marked out by
the feet of the herds of buffalo that had made their way into this region long before the
landing of the early settlers.
Ref. Material:
By 1715, before Brunswick County had entered into any legal
existence of its own, the Virginia trade with the Indians had passed its peak of
prosperity, but for many years it continued to be a factor in the economic life of
Virginia. Direct participation of the county area in the profits of the trade can not be
traced, but the indirect effects of the constant travel through the region ought not to be
overlooked. It also made and important group of men aware of the desirability of obtaining
patents of ownership in this pleasantly situated district, and it helped to open the way
to agricultural settlement, because many of these men began to acquire land and stimulate
settlement.
William Byrd’s account of the survey of the boundary between
North Carolina and Virginia in 1728, as well as such other writings as his “Journey
to Eden,” reflects this interest in the region for himself, and for others. By 1728
families already settled and enjoying large holdings in the older parts of Prince George
and of other counties had added new patents in the sparsely settled part of Prince George
that was cut off to make the present Brunswick County. The process of settlement had
already begun.
It was at Christanna---- about 15 miles south of the Nottoway
River near what is now Gholsonville in Brunswick County that then in Surry County --- that
Gov. Alexander Spotswood settled friendly Indians from the Saponi, Tutolo, Occanneechi,
and Stogaraki tribes. This was according to his general policy of undertaking the
establishment of compact communities of friendly but fairly powerful Indian tribes in
places where they would be a protection to white settlements and where they would be
conveniently near for trade and missionary activites. In 1714 he made Christanna the
headquarters for the monopolistic Virginia Indian Company established the same year.
Spotswood also subsidized an Indian school there, and in 1715 Charles Griffin was its
teacher with a salary paid by Spotswood.
In 1720 the Virginia Assembly passed and act to create Brunswick
County out of territory that had formerly been part of Prince George County, but left the
actual definition of the boundaries to the Governor with the consent of the Council. Like
many other places names of the period, the name chosen for the new county was associated
with the rulers of Great Britain. Brunswick County was named for the Duchy of Brunswick,
one of the possessions of the House of Hanover that had become the ruling house of Great
Britain when George I became King in 1714.
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Settlers in Brunswick and in Spotsylvania County, which was
created by the same act, were to enjoy exemption from taxation for a period of 10 years
beginning May 1, 1721. A fund of 1000 pounds was provided for arms and ammunition to be
distributed among the settlers of both Brunswick and Spotsylvania, and another 500 pounds
was set aside to pay for building church, courthouse, prison, and pillory and stocks for
Brunswick.
Nevertheless, the newly created county was not actually organized
at this time. By the terms of the act of creation in 1720, the county court of Prince
George County was to continue to have jurisdiction over the affairs of Brunswick, and the
sheriff of Prince George was to function in Brunswick also and to have double fees for his
trouble.
During the next few years Brunswick County developed less swiftly
than seems to be expected. In 1722 the Council failed to recommend the election of
burgesses for the county on the ground that it was “too thinly Inhabited” and
that there were “neither courts nor officers of Justice: there. At the end of the
same year the colonial council was positioning the British government in London to exempt
inhabitants from the purchase of rights and payment of quitrents in order to stimulate
Spoody settlement, and early in 1724 and order in council from London approved the
position and provided for the remission of quitrents for a period of 7 years beginning May
1, 1721.
At the same time the entry or survey of more than 1000 acres of
land to any one person was forbidden in order to prevent the engrossment of large tracts
by non-resident owners and to encourage actual settlement or relatively small parcels. The
reitoretion of this denial of the right to take up more than 1000 acres indicates that
there was some difficulty in enforcing this law; but on the whole the provision hold, and
the area benefited by an increasing number of actual settlers.
Ref. Material:
In 1723 the Council defined a portion of the boundaries for
Brunswick. In that year the boundary between Brunswick and Surry County was ordered to be
surveyed at once and was to begin where the: upper line of Surry County crosses Nottoway
River, “thence in a straight line to the Meherrin at or near the mouth of “Reedy
Creek or branch, “ and down the Meherrin to the lower part of Surry County and south
to the North Carolina line. The northern boundary was to be from the mouth of the said
Reedy branch up the north branch of the Nottoway to its head and thence by a northwest
line “ to the Mountains.” The
southern extent of the county was necessarily limited by the dividing line between North
Carolina and Virginia, which was not finally fixed until after 1728, and the western
limits of Brunswick were never fixed except by implication as other counties were formed.
By 1728 there seems to have been a relatively prosperous
population in the county in spite of the fact that neither a courthouse nor a church had
as yet been erected, and it is also evident that about half of the 500 pounds allowed in
1720 had not been spent in distributing arms and ammunition among Brunswick settlers.
William Byrd’s accounts of the region at this period are surprisingly clear in
showing the general outlines of the county very much as it exists today, and the surviving
land grants and surveys show a good deal of activity in real estate.
Moreover during those years several factors operated to relieve
Indian pressure in the neighborhood. Chief among those were the success of the white men
in their wars against the Indians of North and South Carolina and the treaty of 1722 at
Albany between the Northern Indians and those of Virginia and the Carolinas. In 1722 also
Spotswood was removed from the governorship of Virginia, and the Indians lost his support
and that of the Virginia Indian Company when it was abandoned. Increasingly the Indian
tribes around Christanna found it difficult to maintain themselves in the changing
situation, and they loosened their hold over the region year by year, although they did
not finally go North until 1740.
Ref. Material:
In 1732 the government of Brunswick County was actually organized.
By April a courthouse had been built, and ten justices of the peace were appointed. The
commission for holding the first court in the county was issued on April 22. Probably the
county court was organized with Drury Stith as clerk on May 4, which any Perpetual
Calendar will show was the first Thursday in the month and the legal day for holding the
Brunswick Court. The earliest extant record is that of June 1. In this year two
representatives were sent to the House of Burgess. About the same time the county court
first sat – on May 5 or 6 – the General Assembly passed an act making the
situation of Brunswick County General Assembly passed an act making the situation of
Brunswick County much more favorable for an organized political life. Since, as the
preamble to the act stated, the number of tithables in the area was still small and the
burden of the poll taxes was very heavy, and also since some of the inhabitants of Surry
County and Isle of Wright were inconveniently removed from the courthouse and the church,
the Assembly therefore added parts of the counties of Surry and Isle of Wight to the area
that had been formed of Brunswick County in 1720. The enlarged county included what is now
Greensville County, which lies to the east and was made a separate county in 1781, as well
as all that was already incorporated in Brunswick County by the provisions of 1720.
The county seat in 1732 was located in what was then nearly the
center of the inhabited parts of the country, probably approximately at the place known
now as Cochran, six or seven miles northwest of the present county seat of Lawrenceville.
Since that time its location has been changed twice in order to adjust to successive
changes in the county’s area.
In 1735 a small part of Brunswick County was incorporated in
Amelia County. In 1746 all that part of Brunswick that lies west of the present county was
cut off to make Lunenburg County, which was later divided and subdivided into the
following counties: Halifax in 1752, Bedfore in 1754, Charlotte in 1765, Mecklenburg in
1765, Pittsylvania in 1767, Henry in 1777, Patrick in 1791, Campbell in 1782, Franklin in
1766. In 1845 Appomattox County was formed from parts of Charlotte, Campbell, Budingham,
and Prince Edward. In 1781 Greensville County was formed to the east out of the territory
that had been Brunswick County.
Ref. Material:
These changes in area affected the location of the approximate
center of the county and therefore the convenience of the location of the county seat. In
1746 the courthouse site was removed by court order of July 3, 1746 to the land of the
clerk, Sterling Clack, which is usually believed to be some place about 8 miles east of
where it had been, that is, probably along the present route 140 between Lawrenceville and
Emporia at a place not far from the present Smoky Ordinary. The Virginia Railroad now
follows the old Cumberland Road. In 1783 the county seat was moved again, this time to
Lawrenceville, where it has remained. In 1814 the General Assembly provided for the
establishment of the town of Lawrenceville on the 20 acres of land at the courthouse of
Brunswick County. It is now 1942 a pleasantly situated town of 1703 inhabitants. It was
incorporated by act of legislature in 1874, and now charter was granted in 1934. The
present courthouse was built in 1854.
Since Brunswick County was organized during the period when there was an established church in Virginia, the General Assembly erected the now parish of St. Andrew in 1720 at the same time that it passed the act to organize the new county. Moreover the act provided for the building of a church by appropriating 500 pounds: for a church, courthouse, prison, pillory and stocks. About 1752 there seems to have been a good deal of controversy over issues that are not at all clear today, and in 1755 the Assembly dissolved the entire vestry and provided for a now vestry; in 1762 the Assembly authorized the sale of old globe lands and the purchase of now; and at various other times the Assembly continued to exercise control.
The difficulties of a frontier parish are constantly apparent in the records of those years, and at one time those difficulties are associated with the name of a great, though little known, Welsh post, Goronwy Owen. In 1757 the conduct of the incumbent clergyman, the Rev. George Purdio, was called into serious question. The case was appealed to the Commissary, and although he acknowledged his neglect of duty and scandalous behavior, it was decided to try him for a while longer. When the parish was finally relieved of the burden of his ministry in 1760, the parish received the Welsh post, Goronwy Owen, as its rector, but apparently the change did not improve conditions. It has been charged that Owen’s talents as a writer of lofty poetry of the purest strain – but in the Welsh language – were hardly enough to offset the unfortunate difficulties of his situation. He seems to have left his native country under a cloud, and in America his love of alcoholic stimulation continued to betray him. The Vestry Book of the Parish of Saint Andrew, however, does not itself contain any reference to dissatisfaction with his conduct, and he served as rector until his death sometime between July 3, 1769, and July 22 of that year.
The early years of the Presbyterian Church in Brunswick County are also associated with great names. John Caldwell, the great-grandfather of John Caldwell Calhoun of South Carolina and the father of James Caldwell, the celebrated Presbyterian clergyman and Revolutionary patriot, was a leader of a group of Scotch Presbyterians who in 1739 obtained from the governor of Virginia, William Gooch, the promise to relax the laws requiring everyone to worship according to the rites of the established church. Since the governor was eager to have the outlying parts of the colony settled as soon as possible, he was willing to grant special privileges to this hardy group. Not long before Lunenburg was cut off from Brunswick they settled themselves on Cub Creek in the part of Brunswick County that was cut off to form Lunenburg County in 1746 and Charlotte County in 1765.
Ref. Material:
1. Vestry Book of the Parish of Saint Andrew, 1732, pp. 72, 74, 89, 125; his will is dated July 3, 1769, Will Book, vol. 4, pp 8-9; see entries 413 and 169; sketch with discussion of his life in Wales and in England, and of his poetry in Dictionary of National Biography; Robert Jones, The Poetical Works of the Rev. Goronwy Owen: with his Life and Correspondence; the spelling Goronwy follow that of DNB Life but the Brunswick County records have the spelling Gronow.
2. William Henry Foote, Sketches of Virginia, Historical and Biographical, p. 104, speaks of John Caldwell as grandfather of John C. Calhoun but the true relation seems obvious from letter written May 11, 1825, by John Rodgers, a grandson of John Caldwell, in Elizabeth Venable Gaines, Cub Crook Church and Congregation, 1738-1838, pp. 90-91; see also Life of John C. Calhoun, p., 4. (actually written by himself) and J. B. O’Neall, The Annals of Newberry (South Carolina), p. 40.
3. Foote, Sketches, pp. 103-104; see also Percy Scott Flippin, William Gooch, pp. 54-56, and Henry Read McIlvaine, The Struggle of Protestant Dissenters for Religious Toleratier in Virginia, p. 40.
4. This church had a long and distinguished history, see Gaines, Cub Creek Church; among these distinguished enough to be the subjects of separate sketches in the Dictionary of American Biography were: Archibald Alexander, Samuel Davies, Drury Lacy, Thomas Peck, David Rice, John Holt Rice, John Blair Smith, and Samuel Stanhope Smith; the church also barely missed having as its clergyman one of the most important American theologians of the eighteenth century, Jonathan Edwards, see Gaines, Cub Creek Church, pp. 18-19 and Foote, Sketches, pp. 41-43, for exchange of letters on the subject.
5. Deed Book, vol. 4, pp. 58-60, 66-68, 70-73, see entry 36.
The Presbyterians settled down quickly, built churches, and became substantial members of the community. A series of deeds from Richard and William Kennon to three sons of John Caldwell is dated Jan. 1, 1745k, and recorded in 1746, to William Caldwell 621 acres, to John Caldwell, son of John Caldwell, 1400 acres, and to David Caldwell 584 across. The older John Caldwell’s will, dated Nov. 26, 1748, but no probated until Apr. 3, 1751, disposed of at least 2,600 acres of land. When the new county of Lunenburg was formed, John Caldwell was active in its organization and was one of the members of the first county court. He was present at the first meeting on May 5, 1746, and continued to serve until 1748. Moreover, although he was a stalwart member of the flourishing Presbyterian Congregation of the community, John Caldwell was also chosen in 1746 to be a member of the vestry of Cumberland Parish.
The practice of choosing dissenters for membership in vestries of the established church was by no means unknown in counties whose population was almost entirely made up of dissenters. Often the most influential men of the community, even though they were members of one or the other of the dissenting communions, were able to overcome whatever scruples they may have had and to assume the responsibilities of regular members of the vestry. During the early years of settlement in such a county as Augusta, for instance, the vestry members were for the most part men who were politically Episcopalians and doctrinally Presbyterians.
John Caldwell, however, in 1746 refused to take the oath of a vestryman and resigned. On the other hand, he does seem to have taken at least some interest in the business affairs of the established church because the vestry book of Cumberland Parish show that from time to time money was paid out to him for the payment of an Episcopal reader on the Cub Creek settlement.
The rise of Methodism in England, and its spread through the American colonies became increasingly important. Brunswick County lay in what has been called the cradle of Methodism. In 1774, on the eve of the Revolutionary War, Robert Williams founded the first Methodist circuit in Virginia, extending from Petersburg across the Roanoke River into North Carolina and called Brunswick Circuit. The next year this circuit included fourteen counties in Virginia and two in North Carolina. Almost at once the whole region was in the midst of a great revival, and during the first summer of the Revolution, interest in the revival was so great that the quarrels between Great Britain and her rebellious colonies seemed to have been forgotten.
Ref. Material:
1. Gaines, Cub Creek Church, p. 95.
2. Landon C. Bell, The Old Free State, I, 91, 108-9, 290.
3. Ibid., p. 327.
4. Landon C. Boll, Cumberland Parish, pp. 25, 27, 81.
5. McIlwaine, The Struggle of Protestant Dissenters, pp. 41, 42.
6. Bell, Cumberland Parish, pp. 73, 333.
7. Wesley M. Gowohr, The Great Awakening in Virginia, 1740-1790, p. 144.
8. Ibid., pp. 144, 151; sketch of Williams in Dictionary of American Biography.
When the exigencies of the war actually began to be felt in the South, the Methodists were hard pressed. John Wesley clung firmly to the cause of Great Britain and the English Church, as did many others of the ablest Methodist leaders. Two at least of the strongest preachers in Brunswick area returned to England, Thomas Rankin who in 1776 conducted the stirring revival meetings at Mabury’s Chapel, and George Shadford who had been assigned to the Brunswick Circuit in 1775 but felt that his conscience could not permit him to renounce his allegiance to the King.
It was only after the Revolution was over that the Methodist’s finally cast their lot with the dissenters and took the final step of renouncing their connections with the Established Church of England, which by this time had became the Protestant Episcopal Church of America. In 1784 they organized themselves into the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. John Wesley died in 1791—dying, as he had lived, a member of the Established Church of England.
In the struggle over the question of withdrawing governmental support for the established church, Brunswick County seems, with certain inconsistencies, to have on the whole supported the party that had set itself in opposition to the old established way of life. After the struggle was over the community settled down to the church organization that has become characteristic of the United States as a whole. Throughout the nineteenth century the various churches played a vigorous part in the life of the community, and today most of the Protestant denominations are represented by one or more churches. There is, however, no Roman Catholic Church.
Ref. Material:
1. Gowohr, ep. Cit., pp. 148, 149, 151, 158-159, 169.
Education
Until after 1870 Brunswick County, like the rest of Virginia, had no general public school system. There was a state law that provided for the elementary education of poor children at public expense. Indigent children could be taken into any school already operating in the county and a pre diem allowance paid for them by the county court. Very few children, however, seem to have gone to school under the provisions of the law.
In 1870 the rate of illiteracy in the county was high; among the colored, illiteracy was practically universal. Out of a total white population of 4,525 persons of all ages, the census of 1870 enumerated 796 as being illiterate. Since at this period a little less than a third of the population in Virginia as a whole was under 10 years old, it seems evident that even among the white population older than 9 years more than a quarter were illiterate.
Ref. Material:
1. U. S. census, Ninth Census of the United States, 1870, Population, pp. 69, 432, hereafter cited by census number and date.
2. Alfred J. Morrison, The Beginnings of Public Education in Virginia.
3. Ibid., Tenth Census, 1880, Population, pp. 636, 919.
A few, as for instance Robert Munford who wrote the play “Candidates,” in which appeared the first Negro character in the American drama, were
Educated in Europe. Munford lived in that part of Brunswick County which in 1765 was cut off from Brunswick to become Mecklenburg County. He was educated at Wakefield, which at that time was a famous school in Yorkshire, England.
Most children who were taught at all were taught at home or in the neighborhood private schools. The oldest of the private schools of which there exists a record of continuous life was Ebenezer Academy, which was in what is now Mecklenburg County some 20 miles north of South Hill. This boy’s school was probably founded in the last quarter of the eighteenth century by Bishop Francis Ashbury and the Rev. Edward Dromgoole, the father of George C. Dromgoole. Although the Methodists were numerous and powerful in the region, they lost control of Ebenezer Academy, which nevertheless, continued to be an influential institution for many years. When Randolph-Macon was established, the citizens of Brunswick County tried to have it located near Ebenezer. They offered subscriptions amounting to as much as $20,00 on condition that the now college be located at Physic Springs, about 4 miles from Lawrenceville and not far from the old Ebenezer Academy. In 1861 an act of Assembly authorized the trustees of Ebenezer Academy to sell the real estate and pay over the proceeds to the superintendent of schools for the education of poor children in the county.
There were other academies in the county during the early nineteenth century. One, Diamond Grove Academy, was for both boys and girls. In 1835 there was a “female school” and an “academy” at Sturgeonville. In 1847 the cost of board and an English education for a term of 5 months at Harmony Grove Female Seminary was %50; music was $15 extra, and French $5. a boy’s education came slightly higher at Brunswick Academy, at Lawrenceville, during the same time. The catalog announcement of that institution advertised that board might be had in the best families at $40 for the term, and the fee for taking the Latin and Greek course was $20, algebra and geometry $20, English only $12.50. French was extra at $5.
Ref. Material:
1. See sketch in Dictionary of American Biography.
2. Morrison, Beginnings of Public Education in Virginia, 1776-1860, pp. 128, 153, and interleaved notes by author in copy in Virginia State Library, between pp. 128 and 129.
3. Richard Irby, History of Randolph-Macon College, p. 12, for picture of Ebenezer Academy, p. 75; J. H. Claiborne, Seventy-five Years in Old Virginia, pp. 21, 27-30.
4. L. 1861, ch. 272, sec. 1.
5. Joseph Martin, ed., A New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia, p. 133.
6. Brunswick Academy, Lawrenceville, Va., and Harmony Grove Female Seminary, Announcements, no p. numbers.
7. Ibid.
The attendance rolls of such a representative college as William and Mary reflect the interest of Brunswick County in education. Over and over again there occurs the name of some student from Brunswick County: a Meade, and Edmunds, a Jones, a Gee, etc., through the long lists of distinguished county names.
During these years the geographical, and therefore cultural, relation of the county to the northern part of North Carolina rather that to the rest of Virginia was evident in the field of education also. Of the men born in Brunswick County who attained enough eminence to be awarded individual sketches in the Dictionary of American Biography, several went to North Carolina for their education and others were educated there because the family had emigrated from Virginia.
Thomas Saunders Gholson, who became a distinguished jurist and member of the Confederate States Congress, was born in 1808 in Gholsonville and attended secondary school in Oxford, North Carolina. He returned to Brunswick County and practiced law there and later at Petersburg, where he is buried. Aaron Venable Brown, the son of Aaron Brown, a Methodist clergyman and justice of Brunswick County from 1800 to 1813, was born there in 1795 but received all except his earliest education in North Carolina and entered the University of North Carolina in 1812. Later he went to Tennessee, where his family had by that time settled themselves, and became a leading lawyer, congressman, and governor. Thomas Person and North Carolina Revolutionary leader, was born in Brunswick County in 1733 but was educated in North Carolina because his family went to settle in that state about 1740. William Yates Atkinson, governor of Georgia from 1894 to 1898, was probably born in Brunswick in 1854 and educated at Oxford, North Carolina, and later in Georgia where his family had emigrated. James Robertson, a pioneer leader of the early Watauga Settlement in Tennessee, was born in Brunswick County and as a boy was taken by his parents to Wake County, North Carolina.
In 1871 when the county first undertook public education in accordance with the new law, there were 17 white and 8 colored teachers, with 571 white and 518 colored children enrolled. A term of five months was taught. By 1885 there were 33 white and 34 colored teachers, with 1, 175 white and 2, 259 colored children—which was 57 percent of the white and 52 percent of the colored school population---enrolled in school. The actual average daily attendance was 32 percent for white and 23 percent for colored. In the Virginia School Report of 1872 the Brunswick County superintendent wrote that “There is a considerable change in the public sentiment of the county in relation to the present free school system. It was at first looked upon with great disfavor but is now regarded with a more favorable eye” By 1930 there were 26 white schools employing 89 white teachers and 44 colored schools employing 68 colored teachers. Out of 2, 675 white children of school age, 2,429 were enrolled in school, and out of a colored school population of 4,243, there were 3, 460 enrolled.
Ref. Material
1. For these records see William and Mary College Quarterly, 2nd series, XIII (1933), and following volumes.
2. Individual sketches of each of these men appear in the Dictionary of American Biography.
3.
Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Schools, 1871, pp. 112, 158,
201.
4.
Ibid., 1885, pt. l1, pp. 11, 14.
5.
Ibid., 1872, p. 21,
Horses and Horse Races
Another factor in the life of the community ought not to be overlooked --- horse breeding and horse racing. The improvement of the Virginia horse bean in 1730 either prosperity due to the enactment and enforcement of Governor Gooch’s tobacco inspection law and the importation from England of the horse Bulle Rock. The practice of crossing the English horse with the Chickasaw pony – the Indian pony of the region – is usually credited with giving size and lasting bottom, as well as speed, to the Virginia horse of the period, and the blood strain continued to be important. As late as the middle of the nineteenth century, the birth of a colt with a real Chickasaw color was the cause of a bitter argument in the famous horse magazine, The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, as to whether the sire or dam was of the Chickasaw line rather than pure thoroughbred stock. From 1740 to 1750 Richard Lee, James Balfour, and John Willis of Brunswick County imported a number of English thoroughbred horses. When the estate of John Willis was settled in 1771, about 20 likely blooded horses were sold. Many thoroughbreds imported into other sections of Virginia spent their last days in the Southside with Brunswick County owners. Among these were James Balfour’s Jolly Roger, William Edwards’ Foarnaught, and James Maclin’s Valiant. So it was that when a now supply of English horses was imported from 1784 to 1805 the Southside was the natural place for them to go, and for many years thereafter the counties of Brunswick, Groonsville, and Mecklenburg led in the production of more and better racers.
Horse racing became and continued to be an absorbing interest. A match race between two horses for a quarter of a mile, developed from informal and impromptu trials of speed, was called quarter racing. Any straight and level place a quarter of a mile long and wide enough for two horses to run abreast without touching either man or beast was suitable. The main street of a small village was admirably adapted and frequently used for quarter racing. Permanent double tracks a fourth of a mile long were also constructed. Each horse was to keep his path, not being allowed to cross over after the first two or three jumps, and the one that came in first between the poles placed at the finish was the winner.
Ref. Material:
1. Annual Report of the Superintendent of Public Schools, 1930-31 pp. 123, 125, 132, 150, 153.
2. Fairfax Harrison, :Equino F.F.V.’s Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, XXXV (1927), 333, 334, 336, 359.
3. The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, XIII (1842) K 479.
4. William G. Stanard, “Racing in Colonial Virginia, “Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, II (1894-1895), 301, 304.
5. Fairfax Harrison, The Background of the American Stud Book, p. 20.
6. The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, III (1832), 343.
Although quarter racing was replaced by course racing in the Tidewater after 1739, quarter racing remained popular in the Southside until after the Revolution. It included the banter of owners, the bets of whole crops of tobacco, the disguising of well known horses, the two parallel straightaway race paths lined throughout their brief length with neighbors and visitors, the signal of the smacked whip, the jockeying start by turn and lock, the thrilling dash, the cheers of victory, and the collection of its fruits. Many and varied were the stories of the skill and speed of this and that horse or famous owner. About 1773 a race was run in Brunswick, which in popularity and interest exceeded most others of the time and would rank with famous sectional matches of later times.
A gentleman from Virginia and another from North Carolina, regretting that quarter racing was going out of fashion, decided to have one more race. The terms were soon settled: to run in 3 months, at 160 pounds racing weight, a quarter of a mile, for a stake of 100 hogsheads of Petersburg inspected tobacco. The large crowd gathered from far and near saw a sight that was remembered for a long time in Virginia and in North Carolina, for the North Carolinian won ---but with a horse that he had borrowed from its Brunswick County owner.
During the first half of the nineteenth century Brunswick County continued to be the center of an important horse racing region and kept interest in racing alive when it languished elsewhere. It was believed by many that a good breed mare made more clear money than many a Southside farm that worked 30 slaves. At this time from Petersburg to Charleston, South Carolina, there was not public place for the training of horses, but gentlemen trained their own horses and those of great promise belonging to friends. A local Southside race field was usually prepared from a stubble field ploughed up deep and thoroughly harrowed, and, if the weather proved dry, this provided a very satisfactory race track. Permanent race tracks were also established at Lawrenceville and in the counties adjoining Brunswick.
Course racing included Spring and Fall meetings, the elaborate and specific announcement of conditions, purses, and fees, purses raised by general subscription or by the owners, three or more entries, distances of from 1 to 4 miles, heats run off in rapid succession until some horse succeeded in winning the race by winning two heats, and assemblage of wealth, style, and beauty from far and near. The Fall races at Lawrenceville in 1830 continued for 4 days with sweepstake, post stake, and handicap races, and furnished uncommon interest and sport to the large company attending from the North as well as the South.
The fame of some of the Brunswick horses extended far beyond the immediate neighborhood. Pictures and careful descriptions of some were published in The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine even after the editorial offices were removed from Baltimore to New York, and the magazine had stopped publishing full accounts of Southern racing news. Daniel Duggor’s Wagnor who won his first race at Lawrenceville in 1837, and his Portsmouth who won fro Boston at Petersburg in 1839, Philip Claiborno’s Carolinian,, James J. Harrison’s Virginian and Sir Charles were all horses whose fame was testified to and enhanced by the distinction of such publication of pictures and descriptions. Theophilus Field of Brunswick County was the proprietor of the Newmarket race course Club in 1824. At a disposal sale in 1826, the prices paid for the horses of Theophilus Field averaged about $1000 each. From Long Island, Now York, to Charleston, South Carolina, James J. Harrison of Brunswick County was admired for his tact in victory, his cheerfulness in defeat, and his wit in story telling. His Virginian earned $10,000 before dying prematurely, 12 and his Sir Charles won 20 races before breaking down in the City of Washington, in 1822 at the first intersectional match hold. The present county seat of Lawrenceville is usually believed to have been named for the horse Lawrence owned by James J. Harrison.
Ref. Material:
1. The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, IV (1833)
2.
Edward A. Watt, IV. Newmarket of the Virginia Turf, “ William and Mary
Quarterly, Second Series, XVII (1937), 487.
3.
Fairfax Harrison, The Background of the American Stud Book, p. 72.
4.
The American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, I (1830), 372
5.
The American Farmer, July 11, 1823.
Transportation
The rivers and streams of Brunswick County have not been important for transportation, and throughout its history the main burden of traffic has been carried overland. The early influence of Indian paths on the course of most of the existing highways is no longer clearly evident, but its existence can not be doubted. The course of the main artery of communication has maintained its identity throughout the period – Federal Highway number one.
Before the coming of the white man it was a buffalo trace and an Indian trail. After the middle of the seventeenth century it was important in the fur trade as the Occaneechi or Trading Path between the trading post at Fort Wood and the Indians of the southern mountains. In 1751 the Map of the Most Inhabited Part of Virginia, Containing the Whole Province of Maryland with part of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and North Carolina, drawn by Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson show the old Trading Path carefully traced across the county.
As agricultural settlement spread, the Trading Path became a main highway for each succeeding generation. A map dated as early as 1770 and names three bridges across the Nottoway River between Dinwiddie County and Brunswick: Stokers’ Bridge, Jones’s Bridge, and Burche’s Bridge, although no roads are indicated. On the map of 1818 made under the direction of James Madison, later president of William and Mary College, the name “Burches” is preserved as the name of the road crossing the river at this bridge, and the route of the Burche’s Road on this map is the route of the old Trading Path. Later the road was called the Boydton-Petersburg Road, and in 1853 was operated as a toll road by the Boydton and Petersburg Plankroad Co. Today 1942 the same route across the county is followed with a good deal of accuracy by Federal Highway number one, although in some places it is the roadbed of the Seaboard Railroad that follow the route of the old Trading Path while Highway number one runs along approximately parallel to the site of the old path.
At a surprisingly early date the general pattern of the modern system of county roads had emerged. Available maps earlier that 1807 do not indicate highway routes, but the Madison map of that date marks out the pattern of most of the present roads with only slight variations from their present course. The development in the years that have intervened has been for the most part leveling, straightening, and improving the roadbed. Today there are about 108 miles of primary highway in the county, and 482 miles of secondary highway. Of these some 50 miles are hard surfaced, and 118 miles surfaced.
Railroad building in the county was not begun until late in the nineteenth century. When the Atlantic and Danville Railroad Company, a narrow gauge railroad, was projected in 1882, there were no railroads in Brunswick County, nor was there a canal. From earliest times tobacco was rolled to Petersburg in hogsheads, and such other produce as cotton was carried to market by men more laborious methods. Men and materials for railroad transportation had to be carried to Belfield in Greensville County – now Emporia. In 1891 the Atlantic and Danville Railway was completed with a standard gauge instead of the projected narrow gauge. It ran through Brunswick County over the right of way which is now a part of the Southern Railway System. In 1900 the road from Richmond through Petersburg to Norlina, which is now the Seaboard Air Line Railway, was opened. The Virginian Railway from the coal fields to Norfolk was run across the county in 1902. The total railroad mileage in Brunswick is about 80 miles.
Ref. Material
1. “Report of Commission to Study Primary and Secondary Systems of Highways in Virginia,” General Assembly, 1940, Sonato Document no. 6, pp. 63, 99, 118.
2. Annual Report of the Railroad Commission of the State of Virginia, 1882, p. 47; ibid., 1883, p. 40; map in front of ibid., 1877.
3. Corporation Commission of Virginia, Statement showing the Assessed Value of Railroad Companies in Virginia, 1941, passim.
Population
In its earliest beginnings life in Brunswick County was modified by its remoteness from the more populous centers of the colony. Even as late as 1743 tow Moravian missionaries traveling south from Brunswick Courthouse reported that they did not see a single house in the 15 miles between the place where they crossed the Mehorrin River and where they crossed the Roanoke. By 1790 there were 12, 827 inhabitants of the County. In 1800, 15,900 inhabitants are recorded. In 1830 the figure was 15, 411; in 1840 it was 14,440; in 1850, 13, 894; and in 1860, 14,809. In 1870 the census reported a population of 13, 422, but in 1880 there were 16,707 persons living in the county. In the next decades the numbers increased: 17,245 in 1890, 18,217 in 1900, 19,244 in 1910, 20,286 in 1930, and 19, 575 in 1940.
The proportion of colored population to white has changed from time to time. In 1790 there were 6,051 white persons in the county, and 6, 777 slaves. In 1800 there were 6,478 whites, and 9,422 slaves, which is a proportion of slaves rather higher than in the whole of eastern Virginia, where the census in this year counted 354,473 white inhabitants of the eastern part of the state and 322,199 slaves. In all of western Virginia there were only 23, 597 slaves to a total population of 203,518. In 1820 the total white population of Brunswick County was still only 6,052, but the slave population had grown to 10,081. In this year also the census listed 717 free colored person. In 1830, the year of the Virginia constitutional convention, there were 9,368 slaves to 6,043 white persons. Ten years later there were only 4,972 white persons, 8,805 slaves, and 563 free colored persons.
These figures remained substantially the same until after emancipation. In 1860 the 9,146 slaves were owned by only 772 masters. The census of 1870 counted 4,525 white populations, and 8,902 colored. In 1880 the white population was 6,022 and the colored, 10,685, and in 1890 the proportion was 6,661 white to 10,584 colored. These proportions have continued to much the same ever since. In 1930 there were 8,994 white inhabitants to 11, 492 colored.
The white population of Brunswick County has continued to be homogeneous. In 1870 there were only 5 foreign-born persons in the county, 2 from Ireland and 3 from Germany. Moreover only 50 other persons in the whole county registered themselves as being born outside of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Of these 50, 49 were born in North Carolina and 1 in Tennessee. In 1930 there were still only 14 foreign-born inhabitants of the county, and all but 4 had been naturalized.
Ref. Material
1. U.S. Bureau of the Census, First Census of the United States, 1790, p. 9.
2. Census records, 1800, 1830, 1840, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1890, 1900, 1930.
3. Advance material from the Census for 1940 through the kindness of Mr. William A. Galloway, Commercial Agent, U.S. Department of Commerce, 601 Atlantic Life Building, Richmond.
Economic Development
Although the economic development of the county has been largely agricultural, there has been from and early period some industrial development. As early as 1761 there was a good deal of complaint that the establishment of gristmills was interfering with the supply of fish on which the inhabitants of the county depended for a part of their food supply. In that year the General Assembly passed an act to compel mill owners to provide for the passage of fish up the river, by building openings or steps.
In 1840 the United States Census reported 4 flour mills producing 570 pounds of flour a year in Brunswick County, 19 gristmills, and 2 sawmills. There were also 5 tanneries. The total capital invested in all manufacturing was $24,700. In that year only 217 persons were engaged in either manufacturing or trade, whereas 3,318 were engaged in agriculture.
In 1860 there were 23 flour and meal mills, 1 establishment to make iron castings and another to make saddles and harness, 2 for boots and shoes, 3 tanneries, and 6 sawmills. The total capital invested was $70,200, and 65 persons were employed.
The years of the Reconstruction period and those immediately following were difficult. The census of 1870 and of 1880 reported 14 and 21 flour-and gristmills with capital investment of $36,300 and $37,300 respectively. In 1870, 29 persons were employed, and in 1880, 36 persons. Also in the county during those years there were a few smaller establishments whose products were consumed locally, as many as 9 in 1870 and 12 in 1880. By the census of 1900 the number of manufactories of all kinds in Brunswick was listed as 52 with a total capital of $196,152, and annual payroll of $71,563, and 193 employees. Since 1919, census figures have been omitted for small manufacturing establishments with and annual output whose value is under $5,000, and therefore it is impossible through them to trace accurately the developments in the county. The figures for 1930 are 40 establishments, 499 employees, and an annual payroll of $395,590, for 1939, 23 establishments, 261 employees, and an annual payroll of $107,691.
Throughout the county’s existence agriculture has been its main source of income, and the county has remained predominantly rural. In 1930, out of a total population of 20,486 persons, 15,823 lived on farms.
Up to 1860 not more than a half of the total area of Brunswick was reported in the Federal census as improved land. The census of 1860 described 160,870 acres as improved farm land, and 178,984 as unimproved. In that same year the county was divided into 645 separate holdings, of which 87 were between 50 and 100 and 500 acres, and 44 between 500 and 1000 acres. Only 14 holdings were larger than 1000 acres. According to the census, the value of the land was $2,318,267. Of the 772 persons who owned the 9,146 slaves in the county, 392—more that half – owned not more than 5 slaves apiece; another 251 persons owned between 5 and 20 slaves; and only 3 owned more than 100 slaves.
During the economic depression from 1860 to 1875 the assessed values of all realty in Brunswick County decreased more than 25 percent. In 1930 the estimated value of the land in Brunswick was $3,181,388.
The census of 1930 accounted for 250,216 acres of land as in farms. The crop land was listed as 79,141 acres, pasture land 54,660 acres, and 98,398 acres as woodland. There were 2,631 farms, and the average size of a farm was 95. All but 45 farms were under 500 acres, and only116 of them were between 260 and 500 acres. The largest number, 676, were between 20 and 50 acres, and the next largest, 650, were between 100 and 175 acres.
Brunswick County has grown each of the three great staple crops of the South: tobacco, cotton, and, in recent years, peanuts. The cotton crop has never been important, although, except in 1870, some cotton has been reported in every census ever since the Federal census undertook to report such figures. In the 1840 census the cotton crop was reported as 12,699 lbs; in 1850 it was 108 bales and in 1860 only 12 bales; in 1880 there were 2,950 bales but in 1890 only 1,282; and in 1930 the figure was 6,412 bales.
The tobacco crop has continued to be important. There are no figures for the first century of the county’s existence, but by 1840 the annual crop was 2,140,813 lbs. In 1860 it was about twice that amount. In 1870, 1880, and 1890 it was a little over 1,000,000 lbs. In 1900 and 1910 it was 3 times that amount, and in 1930 it was over 5,000,000 lbs.
During recent years a now crop – peanuts – has become important. The 1890 census reported a crop of 1,088 bu. of peanuts. In 1900 the crop was 20,377 bu. And tripled in the census of 1910. By 1930 the crop was 41,383 bu.
Other crops have been important in Brunswick County also. In 1860 – a year in which almost 5,000,000 lbs. Of tobacco were grown --- there was also grown 142,155 bu. Of wheat and 427,805 bu. Of corn, but at the time there were 2,944 milk cows in the whole county and only 1,792 horses and 18,931 hogs. In 1870 the general depressed situation was reflected in the census figures. In that year the wheat and corn crop was only 44,309 bu. of the one and 166,892 bu. of the other, and the value of all the livestock in the county was only $199,220. By 1900 the county was growing 396,050 bu. of corn a year and 47,130 bu. of wheat, and the figures were hardly changed in 1930. In 1930 there were also 2,847 milk cows, 1,129 horses, and 2,765 miles.
Ref. Material
1. U.S. Bureau of the Census, years 1840-1930.
2. Sketch of each in the Dictionary of American Biography; Hugh Blair Grigsby, The Virginia Convention of 1776, p. 82-83.
Political Development
Brunswick County has played and active part in political controversies that have agitated Virginia. In 1775 Henry Tazewell, who was born in Brunswick in 1753, was a delegate to the House of Burgesses from the county. Though he had raised a troop of cavalry and was its captain he still hoped for reconciliation with Great Britain and offered resolutions in answer to the conciliatory propositions of Lord North. When, however, the convention of 1776 declared in favor of independence, he was a member of the committee that framed the Virginia Constitution. In 1778 he moved his home to Williamsburg and as a resident of Williamsburg had a distinguished career as a delegate to the General Assembly and later as a jurist and a member of
theUnited States Senate.
In the State he advocated the abolition of primogeniture and entail, and the separation of Church and State. Of him the Dictionary of American Biography said that :never defeated in a political contest, he was probably the most popular Virginian of his day and this without surrendering strong opinions strongly hold.: His son, Littleton Waller Tazewell, was born in Williamsburg while his father was there as delegate from Brunswick County.
During these years public opinion within the county seems to have been divided in the struggle to reorganize Virginia society by withdrawing governmental support from vested interests. In the long controversy over the established church the available evidence points now this way and now that. In 1784 Brunswick County favored the unsuccessful general assessment bill to require every tax payer to contribute to the support of an established church, which was denounced bitterly by the Presbyterians and the Baptists as a denial of the Declaration of Rights and of the essential spirit of the newly won American Liberty and which is often considered one of the causes for the final break of the Methodists away from the Episcopal Church and the organization of an independent Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. In 1785 and 1786 there were citizens of Brunswick who signed a petition in favor of separation of Church and State and on the other hand also citizens who signed another petition protesting against such a separation in the General Assembly. The delegates from Brunswick, Thomas Edmunds and Thomas Claiborne, supported the act for incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church. When James Madison’s great bill for religious freedom to remove all religious tests in Virginia came to a vote in the General Assembly in 1785, Thomas Claiborne was one of the small minority who voted against it. Thomas Edmunds is not listed as voting.
When the new Federal Constitution was drawn up and submitted to the states for ratification, opinion in Brunswick County seems to have been more nearly united. Apparently it was the liberal sentiments of the county that had became articulate, and liberal sentiment opposed ratification. Both of Brunswick’s delegates to the Virginia Federal convention of 1788, John Jones and Binns Jones, feared the centralizing effects of the proposed constitution, favored amendment before adoption, and in the end both voted against the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. Henry Tazewell, then living in Williamsburg but a native and former representative of Brunswick in the General Assembly, also was in the forefront of the fight against ratification.
Even at this early date current opinion was in conflict over the question of slavery. On Dec. 14, 1785, Thomas Edmunds of Brunswick voted against the resolution calling for the repeal of the act authorizing the manumission of slaves in Virginia, but his colleague, Thomas Claiborne, voted in favor of repealing the act.
As the question of slavery became more pressing, spokesmen for the county became more and more decided in favor of the institution; but there is evidence to indicate that general opinion continued to be divided. In the General Assembly’s discussion of the problem of slavery and the possibilities of state emancipation after the Nat Turner insurrection of 1831, James H. Gholson, a member of the House and brother of Thomas Saunders Gholson, opposed the proposition to emancipate all children of slaves on the ground that the owner of slaves had as reasonable a right to their increase as did the owner of land or stock. “Did any one question the title of the farmer to the fruits of his orchard? Could any one deprive him of the colts born of his mares?” In equal security could he not claim children born of his slaves?” On the other hand about this time another Gholson
Kinsman, William Yates Gholson, who was born in Southampton County but had been living on his plantation near Gholsonville in Brunswick County, removed to Mississippi and later freed his slaves, went to the free state of Ohio, and won an important place for himself as jurist and author there.
Ref. Material:
1. Jour. Of the H. of D., 2nd Sess., 1785, pp. 30, 61; Eckenrode, Separation of Church and State, pp. 93, 95, 96, 111, 120, 125.
2. Hugh Blair Grigsby, The History of the Virginia Federal Convention of 1788. Collections of the Virginia Historical Society, New Series, IX, 344, 346, 352, X, 363, 369.
3. Theodore M. Whitfield, Slavery Agitation in Virginia, 1829-1832, pp. 77, 78, 20, 146; Richmond Constitutional Whig, Jan. 21, 1832; sketch of Thomas Saunders Gholson in Dictionary of American Biography.
Two of the delegates to the Virginia Constitutional Convention, 1829-30, were natives of Brunswick, George C. Dromgoole who represented the county, and William H. Brodnax who was born in the county in 1786 but was a delegate from Dinwiddie. Brodnax was one of the most active of the younger leaders, but Dromgoole said little – indeed so little that John Randolph complained bitterly of the county by name on account of the silence of its representative. Both Brodnax and Dromgoole supported the conservative eastern counties in the effort, the successful effort, to oppose a radical extension of the suffrage and to keep the western counties from increasing their representation in the General Assembly and thereby exercising and influence over state decisions in proportion to the section’s numerical importance. In regard to the immediate problems of slavery, also, they both supported the conservative group. Later, as one of the leaders of the Southern group in the House of Representatives, Dromgoole supported the gag rule to prevent all discussion of slavery in that body.
On the question of internal improvements, however, Brunswick County was on the whole entirely out of sympathy with the decisions in the Constitution of 1830. Although that Constitution, so loyally supported by Brunswick, left the western counties little hope of help with internal improvements and although in the late 1830’s Dromgoole opposed internal improvements vigorously in Congress, Brunswick County had from the earliest years exhibited a keen desire for internal improvements, which was natural to an area that was in great need of extensive additions to its transportation facilities but could hardly expect to pay for them out of its own resources. The movement spent itself however without any important State or Federal undertakings in the county. There were some miles of plank road, especially the Boydton and Petersburg Plank Road, and the Brunswick and Roanoke Plank Road from Lawrenceville to the Nottoway River where it crossed the Boydton and Petersburg Plank Road – subsidized by the state but financially unsuccessful and finally torn up. The many proposals for improvements to make the rivers navigable and for canals across the county all came to nothing. The nineteenth-century invention of the railroad had to wait until after the War for Southern Independence fro extension into the county, and in the end it was only modern high-speed roads that have to any extent solved the problem.
In 1861 James B. Mallory, the representative from Brunswick County to the Secession Convention, voted for the ordinance of secession, and the county took its part in the struggle that followed, and when it was over suffered the common disaster The economic and political depression that overwhelmed the South made itself felt in the county. Property in slaves was an entire loss to the owners, and with a large Negro majority the county faced problems of constant difficulty Other kinds of property declined sharply in value.
When, out of the general situation there arose a demand for political methods of alleviation, Brunswick County was again on both sides of the question, especially during the Roadjustor struggle in the 1870’s to provide for repudiation or “ readjustment” of the public debt and during the Populist movement of the 1890’s. Although the county was usually considered as predominately Roadjustor, John Dugger, its representative in the General Assembly, voted for the funding bill of 1871. In the bitter election of 1877 Gen. P. B. Starke and Independent who was understood to favor funding paying the debt, was elected to the legislature, but his record as a Funder in that body is by no means clear. His successor, Johnson Collins, voted as a Roadjuster. In 1882 the delegate from Brunswick voted for the remodeled “Riddleberger bill, “ and in the next two sessions Brunswick’s representatives voted to sustain the settlement thus made.
A generation later the Populist movement found Brunswick County in sore straits on account of the depressed price of tobacco, its Negro Problem, lack of capital and credit facilities, and the prevailingly wasteful system of tenant farming as well as on account of the policies of the National government. The agricultural situation throughout the Southside was in as bad a condition as any region in the whole country, and like seventeen other counties of Virginia’s Southside, Brunswick’s substantial voters wavered in their traditional loyalty to the Democratic Party. As late as 1897 and 1899 the county returned an Independent candidate to the House of Delegates.
Ref. Material:
1. Sketch in Dictionary of American Biography.
2. Proceedings and Debates of the Virginia State Constitution of 1829-30.
3. Edward James Woodhouse, :The Public Life of George C. Dromgoole,” John P. Branch Historical Papers, I, 260-285, passim.
4. Virginia Board of Public Works, 1851
5. Report of Second Auditor, 1845, Martin, A Now and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia, Virginia Board of Public Works, 1818, vol. III, pp. 42-28’.
6. Starke is not listed with these voting on important questions in the special session of 1879, although he was present according to the House Journal, 1878-79.
7. William D. Sheldon, Populism in the Old Dominion, p. 148.
