The Encyclopedia of Dumfries Virginia 1760-1771 ©

The Encyclopedia of
Dumfries, Virginia 1760-1771

by Robert Hedges VIIII © -

Indian Corn exports from the Rappahannock Naval District grew steadily after 1745, the growth being briefly interrupted by the seven year’s war. Before 1745, the expanding slave population of the west indies, which doubled between 1700 and 1730 provided the most important market for .....................corn.
By the war of Austrian succession, however, the rapidly increasing population of New England taxed food supplies there and opened up another market for corn from the Fredericksburg region. From the late 1750s to the mis-1760s it was New England consumption that sustained the growth of...............corn Exports.
Europe and the middle Atlantic colonies, on the other hand, accounted for the growth of wheat exports from the .............district. Before 1760 the small New England market was almost the sole external outlet for the District’s wheat. Thereafter the rise of markets in Southern Europe, Great Brittain, New York, and Pennsylvania stimulated the export of wheat.

VaM5

Saturday, I2th January 1760.
George Washington. - Set out with Mrs. Bassett on her journey to Port Royal. The morning was clear and fine, but soon clouded and promisd much rain or other falling weather, which is generally the case after remarkable white Frosts as it was to day. We past Occoquan without any great difficulty, notwithstanding the wind was something high and lodged at Mr. McCraes [Allen McCrae] in Dumfries, sending the Horses to the Tavern.

Thursday, I7th January 1760. The Snow had turn'd to Rain and occasiond a Sleet, the Wind at No. E't. and the Ground cover'd ab't. an Inch an half with Snow, The Rain continued with but little Intermission till noon and then came on a Mist which lasted till Night. Abt. Noon I set out from my Mother's and Just at Dusk arriv'd at Dumfries.

Friday, I8th. Continued my Journey home, the Misting continuing till noon, when the Wind got Southerly, and being very warm occasioned a great thaw. I however found Potom[ac]k River quite cover'd with Ice, and Doctr. Craik at my House.

DGW1

May? 1760 . . . . . . to avoid Chopawamsic Swamp, he crossed the Potomac to Maryland and proceeded in his chair. . . . . .

WGW p. 35

26 May 1760
Grahams Road . On a motion of John Graham, Ordered.....road leading by his saw mill at Quantico Run to Dumfries - town . . . . . . surveyor . . . clear the same the way it is now opened.

Order Bk. 1759-1761

The region's timber supply began to disappear in the late 1760's, and this would have hampered both shipbuilding "there is no timber to be got, therefore little demand for rigging."

VaM4

1761- Dumfries additions. note #15. Hemings

DWMQuarterly

1761
The Dumfries - Shennandoah Rd. originally ran along the north run of Quantico Creek beginning at the warehouse at the Potomac path a least from 1731 and was moved in 1761, to the ridge between the forks of Quantico . . . . . beginning at Murray's Landing .
. . . . . Journal House of Burgesses 1758-1761 pp. 219-230

LOPW [note pg 506n #75].

.1762 = six tan vats seven feet long, four feet deep, and four feet wide, two lime holes and one water hole of same dimension......four handlers or small tan vatts four feet square, a mill house, stone sufficient to grind bark, a house over the lime holes and the water hole sufficient to work and labor in, and a dwelling house 24 feet by sixteen feet with a chimney.

Fairfax Deed Bk. E-1 p. 40

...Financial panic in 1762 and again in 1772-3 caused merchants to withdraw credit, forcing up the exchange rate . . . . . . Corn and wheat sales brought bills of exchange into Virginia, forcing down their price. Moreover, grain sales gave planters and merchants leverage to exercise some control over the exchange rate and set it to their advantage.

Va Magazine

p.401
VIRGINIA            DEC     MARCH    SEPT.    MAY
   Alexandria        35        12          23        5
   Dumfries            0          0           0         3

   Fredericksburg     1         8          18       18
                            

                             1279    1975     1806    1483

TOTAL FOR THESE FOUR MONTHS

Outgoing Philadelphia Mail, 1764-1767
Printed forms with manuscripts insertions: American Philosophical Society

October I8th 1764

Benjamin Franklin's brother Peter was postmaster of Philadelphia from about the middle of October I764 until his death on July ,I766. [9] He was succeeded by Thomas Foxcroft, brother of the other joint deputy postmaster general. Both the Foxcrofts became Loyalists upon the outbreak of the American Revolution and ended their service in 1775.

As early as 1753 instructions to the local postmasters had required them not only to maintain exact accounts of their financial transactions but to keep detailed records of letters received from or dispatched to other offices in the colonies. Printed forms were supplied for the purpose. Form "B" provided columns in which to list each outgoing shipment of mail, showing the date, the number of pieces of each kind ;(single, double, and triple letters, and packets) sent to every destination on that day under each of the three categories of unpaid, prepaid, and free mail, and (for each of the first two categories) the total charge for the group of letters, reckoned in pennyweights and grains of silver. [10]

A set of sixty-four of these completed forms, printed on both sides, survives from the Philadelphia Post Office among the Franklin papers. The entries are dated from Oct. I8, 1764 to Sept. 22, 1767 thus spanning the whole of Peter Franklin's postmastership and the beginning of Thomas Foxcroft's. There are several breaks in the series, four of them for periods of about a month apiece and one for six weeks; several sheets are badly torn, and, especially for the first part of the period, the ink was often so weak or has faded so badly that the writing is now virtually illegible. Nevertheless, the series is complete enough to permit one to form a reasonably clear idea of the amount and the destinations of the postal correspondence carried on by the people in the area served by the Philadelphia Post Office during the period.

To reprint in full the contents of these forms would serve little useful purpose. Instead, the records for four calendar months, distributed through the whole period, have been chosen and the total amount of mail of all categories sent from Philadelphia to every other post office has been tabulated for each of these months. Inadequacies in the records, as mentioned above, have necessarily played some part in the choice of months, but those selected are believed to be fairly representative of that time of year and of that year in general. [11]

Examination of the tabulations printed below reveals several aspects of the colonial postal system in general, as well as of the Philadelphia operations in particular, during the years which followed closely upon the considerable personal attention the deputy postmasters general,Franklin and Foxcroft, had been giving the service in I763 and I764. Several new post offices, especially in the South, appeared at this time, and expanded routes became available, notably the new one to Pennsylvania towns west of Philadelphia. [12]

Perhaps most enlightening is the distribution of outgoing Philadelphia mail. It may come as something of a surprise to observe that almost half of all these leKers and packets were going to New York City. Some of the New York total - it is impossible to say just how much was sent there to be placed on board the monthly packet boats to England, but the correspondence between these two colonial cities themselves had become impressively heavy and clearly justified the increase in service to three times a week which had recently been provided. [13] Boston led all other single communities in the colonies, receiving a little over 8 percent of Philadelphia's mail.

. n9. Pa. Gaz., Oct. I8, I764; July 3, I766.

. n10. The full instructions, issued by BF and Hunter, are printed above, v,161-77, and their sample form "B" is reproduced at v, 171.

. n11. It would have been desirable to include one tabulation from a January or February—the worst months for the post riders—but breaks in the series or the condition of some sheets prevented such a choice.

. n12. Comparison of the list of offices given below with that for 1763 (above, X, 418) shows the establishment of several new offices in Maryland and Virginia and changes in the names of a number of others there. On the new Pennsylvania route, see above, pp. 247-8.

. n13. Since Philadelphia was the junction between the northern and southern postal routes, some of the mail recorded as sent to New York undoubtedly originated further south.

Distances from Philadelphia to Post Offices; (later year's list)
Alexandria           =156m
Dumfries             =182m. [26m diff.]
Fredericksburg    =208m [26m diff.]
Richmond             =278m

Papers of Ben Franklin

1765, Sept 12 - The opposition voiced in Patrick Henry's famous resolves was dramatized by the inhabitance of Dumfries when they set an effigy of the stamp distributor on horseback with a halter tied around his neck, rode him backwards through the town striking the figure with canes and whips, and burning it as a finale.

Maryland Gazette

1767 Apr.
. . . . ...Dr William Savage, who lived at or near Dumfries, wed Margaret Green, [ widow of Rev. Charles Green, of Ireland and Fairfax]

WGW p.182

Shipping= 1768-1772
                   tobacco  =  612,659
                         rice  =   20 cwt
   wheat, flour bread  =   Ireland   =  23,427 cwt. @ 112 lbs.
                                   Great Brittain  9,049 cwt @
112 lbs.
                                   South Europe  70,027 cwt @ 112
lbs.
                                   West Indies    27,788 cwt @
112 lbs.

     Dried fish  226 cwt.

1775- George Mason remarked on the shortage of tobacco plants...more severe than the shortage of 1768......

LGM Mason Papers p. 234 & 339.

May 12/13, 1768....... Thomas Montgomerie of Dumfries, Dr. Savage affairs and power of attorney. . . [p.206].

. Nov 1768..... Four years in five George Washington had received less money, net for the leaf he had sent to England than he could have commanded for it at Dumfries . .p.207]

WGW to GW 491

1 July 1768. Went over to Stafford Court House to a meeting of the Missisipi. Dind and lodged there.

27 December 1769. Dined and lodgd at Dumfries with Mr. Boucher and J. P. Custis, who overtook us on the Road.

DGW1

28. Reachd home to Dinner with Mr. Boucher, &ca. ٤.
By Expences at Dumfries £.3.9 (ledger A.) 𧵇.15.2.

DGW2

"Grahams" may have been in the 60-by-28-foot "Assembly room" which was constructed about 1769 under the management of Richard Graham and financed by subscription in Dumfries for assembly balls, celebrations, and entertainments on public occasions.

Va Gazette, R, 23 Mar. 1769

Non-Importation 18 May 1769, 22 Jun 1770, 18 Jul 1771 Va Gazette Series IV Reel 32 1431-1436 - Papers of GW - [no Dumfries]

LGW

RVR 24, IV p.43, note 6

1769. . . . . . . ..association, ordered tea from England before May 18 could accept . . . . . ..September 1, no member was to buy......Everything else in the the agreement could be changed by a general meeting of the asociation on thirty days notice, but the ban on the importation of any taxed goods was to be permanent. tea, glass, paint, pigments: [p.228-230]

July 1769. . . . . . . ....sincerely and cordially accede thereto and do hereby voluntarily and faithfully each and every person for himself upon his word and honor agree and promise that he will strictly and firmly adhere and abide by every article and resolution therein contained accordingly to the true intent and meaning thereof." Washington then circulated these papers among his neighbors and doubtless entrusted to other hands the copies meant for Alexandria and Dumfries. [134] I Diaries, 389. Nearly everyone signed them from George Mason to five humble men who had to make their mark- until the total reached 420.

12 Papers of GW, LC.......p.254 III

CF I Diaries #399 3 GW 16 12 Papers of GW {LC} 420 signatures 1769.

DGW2

The barrel was adopted as a standard in 1769.

VaM5

In his letters to his employees, Harry Piper left us a fine account of the local trade. ....demand for grain and flour was strong in 1770 and that increased as the decade progressed. The intensity of the competition among the ........ grain buyers amazed Piper; late as 1771 he wrote that " the people here are running mad"......"more [shops] are expected and goods is a great drug".......the people are going out of town before day to meet the waggons to buy, I don't know where the farce will end, some I imagine will suffer." [21]

VaM4

MERCHANTS AND MILLS from the LETTER BOOK OF ROBERT CARTER OF NOMINY, WESTMORELAND, probably 1770-1771. Paper endorsed Carter vs Edwards from Miss Kate Mason Roland

Merchants and Factors now residind at Colchester on Occoquan
River.

1. Mr John Gray
2. Alexander Henderson.  
3. John Gibson.
4. John Halney.

Merchants and Factors now residing at Dumfries, on Quantico River

  1. William Carr.
  2. Thomas Chapman.
  3. John Riddle.
  4. William Cunningham. 
  5. James Dunlope.  
  6. John Gordon.
  7. Andrew Leigh.
  8. Henry Glass.
  9. Original Graham.
 10.       Dyle.
 11. Alexander Gamble.

Merchants and factors now residing in Alexandria, Potomac

1. Hooe & Harrison, wheat purchasers.
2. Steward & Hubard, do.
3. Fitzgerald & Piers, do. 
4. Harper & Hartshorn, do. Dissolved.
5. John Allison, do.
6. William Sadler, do.
7. Robert Adams & Co., do.
8. Henby & Caldee, do.
9. William Hayburne, do.
10. James Kirke, do.
11. George Gilpin, inspector of flour, do.    
12. Tholnas Kilpatrick, do.
13. McCawley & Mayes, import British goods, which they [sell] by
      wholesale.
14. Wm. Wilson, seller of British goods,  who buys tobacco.      
15. John Locke, do, do. 
16. John Muire, do, do. 
17. Brown & Finley; they import goods for Philadelphia, and
purchasers
      tobacco and wheat.
18. Josiah Watson; he imports goods for Philadelphia and
purchases
        tobacco and wheat.
19. Robert Dove & Co., distillers.
20. Carlyle & Dalton, sell rum and sugar.

William and Mary College Quarterly Vol. XI, 245-246

The equation was simple. Tobacco promised to continue to bring low prices in the face of high freight rates and, therefore, to yield small profits into the 1770s. Grain markets, on the other hand, remained open, and grain sales offered planters the opportunity to increase profits and pay off debts . . . . . the financial interest seemed to lie with the grain farmers rather than with cash purchasers of tobacco.

VaM5

p.289 1770, 4th of January. That morning the dogs got on the trail of a bear and pursued furiously. When he eluded them, they sprang a fox and harked him, too, in vain. [l22- Diaries] Field sports ended unhappily and with suddenness. On the 26th of January, snow began to fall in tons, as if the gods of wind and rain had repented the mercy they had shown the -
Potomac Valley during the floods of the previous May. By the 29th, when the storm ended, the snow was "up to the breast of a tall horse everywhere" on the plantation, according to the ready-made measure that Washington employed. [l23- Diaries] So deep was the fall that roads disappeared, unless their course could be followed by trees that lined them.
Life on the farm became a struggle to feed the stock and to keep the fires alive. The snow was, Washington wrote,"the deepest . . . I suppose the oldest man living ever remembers to have seen in this country," [125] or, in Jonathan Boucher's words, "a kind of Greenland winter." [126] Not until February 21 could an open boat cross the Potomac. [l27] Even on the 25th, when Washington started to Williamsburg to attend a session of the General Assembly that had begun on February 10 [l28] Accotink Creek was so high from rains which had washed away the deep snow, that he had to turn back and wait a day for the water to fall. [l29]

DGW1

19 May 1770. Set of for Williamsburg.l Din'd at Dumfries. Called at my Mother's and lodged at Colo. Lewis's in Fredericksburg.

DGW1

In 1770 J.F.D.Smyth, Esq. said : At Fredricksburg happening in company with an acquaintance that proposed to travel round by Dumfries and Colchester in Virginia, and Piscattawa and Port Tobacco in Maryland, I agreed to accompany him. After crossing the Rapphannock at Falmouth, Potomack Creek, and Acquila Creek, both of which fall into the river Potomack, we arrived at Dumfries, a little town situated on a pretty water-course named Quantico Creek. Here we met with excellent accommodations at an inn, one of the best perhaps in America, kept by a Mr.----, a Scotsman, where we dined, and afterwards travelled as far as another little town named Colchester, upon the river Ocquaquan, which also, as well as Quantico Creek, falls into the Potomack. If the accommodations were good at Dumfries, they were proportionably bad at Colcheser at a house kept by one Coates, whom we found to be equally disagreeable with the entertainment we met with. Colchester, although it be larger than Dumfries, has not half as much trade, and is an ill-built nasly little town, situated on the north side of the river Ocquaquan, within three miles of the Potomack, of which the eminences above it command a very fine view.

The trade of Dumfries and Colchester consists chiefly of tobacco and wheat; and there is a very fine back country to support it, and a considerable number of ships were loaded here annually.

The face of all that part of Virginia,named the Northern Neck, ...................the Northern Neck on the contrary is extremely broken and hilly, the land too is generally stiff, but very rich, strong and fertile and the situations and perspectives are delightful and in the highest degree elegant, grand, and commanding.

The rich variety of land and water, hills and dales, woods and fields, that to be seen from every eminence bordering on the Potomack, is beyond defeription beautiful, and is not to be paralleled perhaps in the world.

[p46] To describe the most delightful and charming situations and villas on this majestic river would far exceed the bounds of a volume; merely to enumerate a few of the most striking, is all I can here undertake, beginning at Alexandria, a little below the falls.

On the Virginia side Mr. Alexander's, General Washington's, Colonel Martin's, Colonel Fairfax's, Mr. Lawson's near the mouth of Oquaquan; Colonel Mason's, Mr. Lee's near the mouth of Quantico, Mr. Brents, Mr. Mercer's, Mr. Fitzhugh's, Mr. Alexander's of Boyds hole and aII Chotank, Colonel Frank Thornton's of Marcbodock, Mr. Thacker Washington's, Mrs. Blair's, Mr. M'Carty's, Colonel Phil Lee's of Nominy, . . . . . . .

Washington. . . . an officer in the Virginia regiment. . . .public man then known . . . . .proper to be entrusted therewith. . . . . .. the command was offered for two reasons.......and the next reason was . . . . ..because they secured the attachment of the whole colony of Virginia, the most extensive, the richest and the most powerful of all the provinces.

A Tour of J.F.D.Smyth p.175-8 Chapter LX; p 46;

1771
[Robt. Carter's] boats now sailed regularly up the Potomac to Alexandria and Dumfries. These boats were not large ones. In 1771, the Herriot, a scooner 0f 38 foot keel, 14 ft. beam, and a depth in the hole of 6 ft. was valued at 𧵄.0.0. [Day Book 1776-1778 Feb 27, 1777, p.33]

1771 October 25
To provide funds for the redemption of this new treasury issue [tobacco flood losses] , new taxes were laid on all vehicles other than wagons. New taxes were also enacted on certain kinds of legal papers, on licenses issued to taverns, and on all tobacco exported after October 25, 1771. The legislators regarded these levies as "easy to the people, and not as burdensome as a poll tax."

Virginia Cavalcade

22 January 1771
Dined at home and afterwards went to Colcherster with Mr. Ross on my way to Dumfries on the Arbitration between Doctr. Ross & Co. and Mr. Semple.

This arbitration, which had been begun in Colchester 27 Aug. 1770, was in GW's opinion "a very disagreeable" one (GW to Charles Washington, 25 Jan 1771, CSmH). The arbitrators were obliged to meet in Dumfries for a third session beginning on 28 Mar. to settle it.

DGW2

23 January 1771.
Waited at Colchester till 2 Oclock for Colo. Mason. Dined at Courts's & went to Dumfries afterwards & to the Play of the Recruitg. Officer. Lodgd at Mr. Montgomeries.

William Courts kept an inn, commonly called the Stone House, at the ferry landing in Colchester (Va. Gaz, P, 8 Sept. 1775). The Recruiting Officer: A Comedy, by George Farquhar, was a genial satire about the British army and its brutal recruiting system. First performed in London in 1706, the play was a great favorite of English and American audiences throughout the eighteenth century (FARQUHAR, 2:33-112) . This production was staged by the American Company of Comedians, which had recently left Annapolis and would soon return to Williamsburg for the spring court days.

24. On the Arbitration.

25. Ditto . . . Ditto

26, Ditto . . . Ditto

28. Returnd to Dumfries [after a quick trip home] on the above arbitration.

29. Employd therein. In the Evening went to a Play.3

30. Imployd as above, and abt. oclock at Night finishd all the business we coud at this meeting.

[Under January 26th, in Ledger A, is th' entry, 'By 2 pr of Shoes from Mr. Montgomerie 13s/5d.]

[By two Play Tickts 10/s. By Exps. at the Play 6s./3d.] (Ledger A.)

27 April 1771.

Set out with Mrs. Washington and Patcy Custis on my journey to Williamsburg. Dined at Colchester and Suppd and lodgd in Dumfries.

28. Dined at my Mother's and lodgd at Colo. Lewis's. Supped at my Brother Charles's.

DGW1

1751 Autumn

The flooded Rappahannock River spoiled much tobacco in the public store-houses at Falmouth in Stafford County and at Dixon's in King George .The same fate befell still more of the 1770 tobacco crop at Quantico on the Potomac in Prince William County.

Virginia Cavalcade It was estimated by various guessers that three, four, or six thousand hogsheads of stored tobacco had been destroyed and that half of that spring's crop of seedlings had sur'fered the same fate in the fields. As to the crop of 1771 there is conflicting testimony, however, for during that autumn Captain Moses Robertson wrote from Virginia to the London importing house of John Norton & Sons that he had never seen tobacco so plentiful during the years of his experience as a transporter of Virginia's staple.

In July, 1771, thc General Assembly was convened three months before the regularly appointed time. It acted promptly to relieve the "Sharers in this Melancholy Catastrophe." Since tobacco was the basis of the colony's wealth, something had to be done to offset the impoverishment which resulted when thousands of hogsheads of stored leaf were swept away or were soaked by the unbridled waters. The legislature therefore assumed responsibility for the damages which had occurred in public warehouses. Rates of reinbursement were set . . . . . . . . Quantico at18 shillings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .while all of the tobacco destroyed had not yet passed inspection and that its value was to be recompensed at rates approximately 10 per cent lower........an appropriation of 㿊,000 would indicate an official estimate of about 3,500 hogsheads as the amount of cured tobacco lost in the public warehouses.
Since each hogshead contained about 1,000 pounds of the leaf, the loss evidently equaled or exceeded three million pounds of tobacco.

To provide funds for the redemption of this new treasury issue, new taxes were laid on all vehicles other than wagons. New taxes were also enacted on certain kinds of legal papers, on licenses issued to taverns, and on all tobacco exported after October 25, 1771. The legislators regarded these levies as "easy to the people, and not as burdensome as a poll tax."

Virginia Cavalcade, Autumn 1951, p 21-22

Non-Importation 18 May 1769, 22 Jun 1770, 18 Jul 1771 Va Gazette Series IV Reel 32 1431-1436 - Papers of GW - [no Dumfries]

LGW

RVR 24, IV p.43, note 6

26 July 1771 Breakfasted at my Mother's. Dined at Dumfries, and lodgd at Home.

15 September 1771. Set of home.[ from Fredericksburg] Din'd in Dumfries and got up by Sunset.

DGW1

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