only about eight or ten days. Thus was this tory insurrection crushed in the bud. The party themselves became ashamed of their conduct, and in some degree to atone for it, and wipe off the stain, several of the young men volunteered their services and marched to aid in the capture of Cornwallis.

Within three or four days after these men were disbanded, two expresses in one day arrived at Winchester, and informed Col. Smith that Tarlton was on his way to rescue the British prisoners at the Winchester barracks. Col. Smith had again to call out the militia ; and ordering four hundred men as a guard, removed the prisoners to Fort Frederick, in Maryland, at which place they remained to the end of the war.*

The summer of 1781 was emphatically the summer of militia campaigns. There were frequent alarms that Tarlton and his legion (of devils, some people termed them,) were on their way to visit our valley; and sometimes it was reported that Cornwallis and his whole army would be upon us. The militia was almost constantly marching and counter-marching.

It however pleased Heaven so to order things, that Cornwallis and his large army should be entrapped and captured at York-town, in Virginia. This put an end to the scourge of the war; and our people being permitted to enjoy the blessings of peace and agriculture, commerce and the mechanical arts improved in a most astonishing degree. The French and British armies. circulated immense sums of money in gold and silver coin, which had the effect of driving out of circulation the wretched paper currency which had till then prevailed. Immense quantities of British and French goods were soon imported: our people imbibed a taste for foreign fashions and luxury; and in the course of two or three years, from the close of the war, such an entire change had taken place in the habits and manners of

*Gen. John Smith communicated all the particulars of the foregoing narrative to the author, with the exception of branding Payne with the spade; this fact was stated by Mr. Chrisman, on Lost river.

our inhabitants, that it almost appeared as if we had suddenly become a different nation. The staid and sober habits of our ancestors, with their plain home-manufactured clothing, were suddenly laid aside, and European goods of fine quality adopted in their stead. Fine ruffles, powdered heads, silks and scarlets, decorated the men; while the most costly silks, satins, chintzes, calicoes, muslins, &c. &c. decorated our females. Nor was their diet less expensive; for superb plate, foreign spirits, wines, &c. &c. sparkled on the sideboards of many farmers. The natural result of this change of the habits and customs of the people-this aping of European manners and morals,—was to suddenly drain our country of its circulating specie; and as a necessary consequence, the people ran in debt, times became difficult, and money hard to raise.

The sufferings and hard dealings with the Quakers deserve some notice in this place. The unfortunate proceedings of the Philadelphia Quakers drew down upon the whole order the strong prejudices and even hatred of the friends to the American cause. The treasonable proceedings of a few individuals, ought not to have been visited upon the whole order of Quakers. It must be admitted, however, that this proceeding was a great blot upon the Quaker character, and stamped the individuals concerned in it, with base hypocrisy, and gave the lie to their religious professions. Whilst they professed to hold it unlawful to shed human blood; whilst they disclaimed all concern with the war; they were secretly giving intelligence to the enemy, and aiding and abetting them in every way they could, except resorting to arms. But it is again repeated that it was unjust with one fell sweep to condemn the whole order, for the malconduct of a few individuals. The Quakers in the valley, notwithstanding their entire neutrality, were unquestionably the greatest sufferers by the war. They refused to bear arms, they refused to pay war taxes, and hence the sherifs or collectors were compelled to distrain

and sell their property to raise their respective proportion of the public burthens.

At the beginning of the war, attempts were made to compel them to bear arms, and serve in the militia: but it was soon found unavailing. They would not perform any military duty required of them: not even the scourge would compel them to submit to discipline. The practice of coercion was therefore abandoned, and the legislature enacted a law to levy a tax upon their property to hire substitutes to perform militia duty in their stead. This, with other taxes, bore peculiarly heavy upon them. Their personal property was sold under the hammer to raise these public demands; and before the war was over, many of them were reduced to great distress in their pecuniary circumstances.

There is an amusing story told of James Gotharp, who resided on Apple-pie ridge. He was forced to march with a militia company, and on one particular occasion was placed as sentry at a baggage wagon, with orders to suffer no man to go into the wagon without a written order from the commanding officer. One of the officers walking to the wagon to go in, Gotharp demanded his written authority: the officer cursed him and stepped upon the houns of the wagon. Gotharp seized him by his legs and pulled his feet off the houns. The officer fell with his face. upon the houns, and had his nose and mouth sorely bruised.

This selling of Quakers' property afforded great opportunity for designing individuals to make profitable speculations. They continued to refuse to pay taxes for several years after the war, holding it unlawful to contribute their money towards discharging the war debt. This being at length adjusted, no part of our citizens pay their public demands with more punctuality, (except their muster fines which they still refuse to pay.) Owing to their industrious and sober habits, they soon recovered from their pecuniary distress produced by the war, and are generally speaking the most independent part of our community. Vast numbers of them

have migrated to the western country, and several of their meetings are entirely broken up. There is, however, still a considerable number of them in the counties of Frederick and Berkeley. They continued their ancient practice of depending upon their household manufactures for their clothing; and it was a long time before they gave into the practice of purchasing European goods. A few of them entered into the mercantile business; several others erected fine merchant mills; others engaged in mechanical pursuits; but the great body of them are farmers, and are generally most excellent cultivators of the soil.

The greater part of the Germans, also, were a long time dependent upon their domestic manufactures for their clothing; but they, too, have imbibed a taste for foreign finery. They however manage to effect their purchases of fine goods by bartering, in a considerable degree, their own household manufactures in exchange.

Some three or four years ago the author called at the house of a farmer in the south west part of Shenandoah county, where he saw five spinning wheels at work. The old lady, three of her daughters, and a hired girl, were busily engaged in spinning finely prepared hemp. The author inquired of the old lady, whether she sold any part of her domestic goods. To which she replied, "Yes; when de gals wants to puy some fine dings in de sthore, dey bay for it in linen und linsey; und I puy sugar und goffee und salt und any dings we wants, und bay for it all in our own coods."

The author stopped at a neighboring house, and inquired of the inmates how their neighbor I got along. "O," replied the man, "Mr. I. buys a plantation every four or five years, and always pays the money down."

203

CHAPTER XII.

Mode of living of the primitive settlers.

The first houses erected by the primitive settlers were log cabins, with covers of split clapboards, and weightpoles to keep them in place. They were frequently seen with earthen floors; or if wooden floors were used, they were made of split puncheons, a little smoothed with the broad-ax. These houses were pretty generally in use since the author's recollection. There were, however, a few framed and stone buildings erected previous to the war of the revolution. As the country improved in population and wealth, there was a corresponding improvement in the erection of buildings.

When this improvement commenced, the most general mode of building was with hewn logs, a shingle roof and plank floor, the plank cut out with the whip saw. Before the erection of saw mills, all the plank used in the construction of houses was worked out in this way. As it is probable some of my young readers have never seen a whip saw, a short description of it may not be uninteresting. It was about the length of the common mill saw, with a handle at each end transversely fixed to it. The timber intended to be sawed was first squared with the broad-ax, and then raised on a scaffold six or seven feet high. Two able-bodied men then took hold of the saw, one standing on the top of the log and the other under it, and commenced sawing. The labor was excessively fatiguing, and about one hundred feet of plank or scantling was considered a good day's work for the two hands. The introduction of saw mills, however, soon superseded the use of the whip saw, but they were not entirely laid aside until several years after the war of the revolution.

The dress of the early settlers was of the plainest