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    Madison County
    Madison County
    Madison County
    Ebook200 pages1 hour

    Madison County

    By Trish Crowe, Doris Lackey and Madison County Historical Society

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    About this ebook

    This fertile and beautiful land, with its small rivers and valleys and surrounding mountains, was designated Madison County in 1792. The county was named for the family of James Madison, fourth president of the United States and the father of the Constitution. His family ran a mill on the Rapidan River, which is now located in the southern section of Madison County. Early in the 18th century, descendants of English and French colonials settled the southern sections of the county, and Quakers and German Lutherans settled the northern sections. Madison County’s first church, Hebron Lutheran, was built in 1740, and its public church school was opened in 1748. Archaeologists have gathered evidence that Native Americans hunted and gathered in the region thousands of years earlier.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439641675
    Madison County
    Author

    Trish Crowe

    Authors Trish Crowe and Doris Lackey have their feet planted firmly in Madison County soil. Crowe is the founder and president of the Firnew Farm Artists Circle and president of the Blue Ridge Foothills Conservancy, an organization dedicated to the preservation of farmland and open space. Lackey is a board member of the Madison County Historical Society and a former Madison County supervisor. Images of America: Madison County was compiled in collaboration with the historical society.

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      Book preview

      Madison County - Trish Crowe

      book.

      INTRODUCTION

      The granite underlying the Blue Ridge Mountains that mark the western border of Madison County is about one billion years old. Human beings have been living among these mountains for 11,000–12,000 years, but the first European saw them only 350 years ago. Madison County as a political entity is just 218 years old. Its history, in terms of its mountains, is like the blink of an eye, but is interesting nevertheless. The purpose of this little book is to relate with many pictures and few words the story of Madison County and its people that has developed over the years. As one turns the pages, old friends and relatives may be seen, perhaps even oneself a bit younger.

      Madison County’s recorded history begins with John Lederer’s late-17th century visit to western Virginia and Governor Spotswood’s rollicking ride over the Blue Ridge with the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe in the early 1700s. Early Madison was populated by individuals and by communities of people bound together by cultural similarity who settled together throughout the county. The Germans of the Hebron Valley who were one of the first groups to settle in a community are an example. English settlers populated the southern, eastern, and western parts of the county. Some Scots-Irish and others chose the mountains and they and their descendents made a hard living there. All the people who settled in Madison County faced hardships in the early years but the lives of the mountain folk were particularly affected in the 20th century by the chestnut blight, the Great Depression, and the formation of Shenandoah National Park.

      Once there were more than three billion American chestnut trees east of the Mississippi. One quarter of the trees covering the Appalachian Mountains were American chestnuts. In 1640, Spanish adventurer Hernando DeSoto recorded that the mountains were white with the bloom of chestnut blossoms. The trees’ products of wood, bark, and nuts were important to the mountain settlers for their own use and as a money crop. A fungus, which was deadly to the American chestnut tree, was accidentally imported to North America around 1900 and by 1940 had destroyed almost all of the billions of mature trees.

      The tragedy of the chestnut blight was compounded by the Great Depression of the 1930s. Falling prices for their produce hurt all farmers. Business activity declined. Jobs were lost and unemployed men looking for work were everywhere. Necessary supplies were frequently purchased by barter rather than with cash. Not only the mountain families but the whole county suffered during the Great Depression, as did the rest of the state and nation. But agriculture continued to be the county’s economic bedrock, and businesses in Madison County continued to develop manufactured goods and provide services. Most of these remained local but some grew into large enterprises with statewide and even nationwide consumers.

      Shenandoah National Park was established in 1935. Almost 200,000 acres of Virginia was ceded to the federal government by the Commonwealth of Virginia in an area about 80 miles long along the crest of the Blue Ridge. The western extremity of Madison County lies within the park. A number of mountain families lived in this area. The policy of the state government was to remove private occupants from park property. Poverty and hard times in the mountains encouraged some families to take the compensation the government offered and they left of their own accord. Some of the older people who wanted to stay were granted life tenancy. But the requirement to remove some mountain families forcibly caused much distress and is still a hard memory for some Madison County citizens.

      Sunday mornings find a good many Madisonians on their way to church. The early hegemony of the Anglican Church as the official church inhibited the establishment of other denominations while Virginia remained a colony. After independence, the separation of church and state became a political issue that was settled by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Freed of restraint, other denominations, particularly Baptist, developed rapidly in the county.

      Education and the establishment of schools was a priority for the first settlers. The school set up by Hebron Lutheran Church in the 1740s was open to all children and lasted for almost 100 years. In the early 19th century, old field schools were built by communities, which also paid teachers’ salaries. The state became responsible for public schools in 1870, but funding was scarce and private schools continued to grow. Locust Dale Academy, established in 1858, and Woodberry Forest School, established in 1889, were both private college-preparatory high schools.

      There is great natural beauty in the mountains and rivers and forests and fields of Madison County and there is much natural wealth in the soil. However, the real worth of Madison County is in the people who have tended its forests, tilled its fields, loved its springtime, and weathered its storms. These Madison citizens are farmers, teachers, business people, politicians, soldiers, preachers—men and women of all races and religious persuasions, all of whom have made individual contributions to the quality of life in Madison County. Only a few are pictured in these pages. There are many more.

      Madison County people have taken some part in all the wars that have been fought by American troops since the French and Indian War ended in 1756, but only two battles have actually been fought within the county. Union and Confederate cavalry forces clashed at Jack’s Shop near Rochelle and again at James City near the border with Culpeper County in 1863. The county suffered heavily during the Civil War, as did the rest of Virginia and all of America as men were killed, died of wounds, or died from illness far from home. Casualties during later wars were fewer but no less tragic.

      On May 1, 1793, Madison County became officially separated from Culpeper County. In June of the same year a two-acre lot was purchased in the central part of the county on which to build a courthouse. This area was called Madison Courthouse and it was the county seat. In the 19th century, Madison Courthouse was incorporated as the town of Madison and grew to become a thriving community of 500 people. Today the population of the town is only 215 people

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