A History of the Valley of Virginia by Samuel Kercheval (1833; 3rd ed. 1902)

55

FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE VALLEY.

and cattle. The author was told by Col. J. B. Larue, who is the owner of part of his grandfather's fine landed estate, that his grandfather frequently owned between ninety and one hundred head of horses, but it so happened that he never could get his stock to count to a hundred.

The Hites, Frys, Vanmeters, and many others, raised vast stocks of horses, cattle, hogs, &c. Tradition relates that Lord Fairfax, happening one day in Winchester to see a large drove of unusually fine hogs passing through the town, inquired from whence they came. Being informed that they were from the mountains west of Winchester, he remarked that when a new county should be laid off in that direction it ought to be called Hampshire, after a county in England celebrated for its production of fine hogs; and this, it is said, gave name to the present county of Hampshire.

The author will only add to this chapter, that, from the first settlement of the Valley, to the breaking out of the war, on the part of the French and Indians, against our ancestors, in the year 1754, our country rapidly increased in numbers and in the acquisition of property, without interruption from the natives, a period of twenty-two years.

In my next chapter I shall give a brief account of the religion, habits, and customs, of the primitive settlers.

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