A Separate Place: The Formation of Clarke County, Virginia

Abstract

A Separate Place: The Formation of Clarke County, Virginia. By Warren R. Hofstra. (Madison: Madison House Publishers, 1999. Pp. xv, 128. Appendix. $19.95.) A Separate Place is fascinating but incomplete micro-study. Warren Hofstra offers close examination of the links between geography and politics as he traces the founding and division of Frederick County in western Virginia. Like most North American counties, Frederick County began as some lines drawn on map. Its political origins would prove as determinative of the county's later character as its geographic nature. The political struggle began in the 1720s with the competing land claims of Governor William Gooch and Robert King Carter. The governor and Carter had intentions for settling the land, and their land policies had long-term (5). Gooch wanted the land settled as quickly as possible; Carter was in no hurry, seeking to preserve large landed estates for his heirs. As consequence, the sections controlled by the colony became home to diversity of settlers, mostly from outside of Virginia, while Carter's lands filled slowly and primarily as extension of the plantation system. Hofstra writes that the resultant between east and west Frederick can be described as the differences between the plantation and the farm (13), with the western half of the county given over to small farms. Unfortunately for the farmers, they had received the lesser lands. The center of Frederick County, site to most of the early settlements, was hilly shale; the better limestone soil lay to the east, where members of Virginia's elite recreated their traditional slave economy. An ethnically diverse group from Pennsylvania settled the center of the county, content, in Isaac Weld's words, with a happy state of mediocrity, and unambitious of more elevated station (23). But these were not simple subsistence farmers; they produced and sold small surplus, and many of their number practiced variety of artisan skills. Within fifty years, Winchester had become trade hub for the region, with orientation toward the north and the Ohio River. The western part of the county became more nationalist than the rest of Virginia, emphasizing internal improvements and commerce, while the east remained loyal to southern localism and slavery. The settlers of Frederick County had thus constructed two worlds (25) with competing values and visions for the future. Despite the business orientation of the center of the county, wealth lay in the hands of few men living to the east. Trade distributed property more evenly, generating simple competence; great wealth in Virginia still depended on slaves. By the 1830s, half the population of the eastern part of Frederick County was enslaved, with one-sixth of the remainder of the county slaves. And slavery was increasing in economic importance as the railroads directed traffic away from Winchester. One of the real contributions of A Separate Place is its demonstration of the economic and social impact of the railroads. Winchester had never diversified its economy. Consider, for example, that though there were 170 master craftsmen and several hundred journeymen and apprentices practicing forty-six different trades, Winchester did not have single gunsmith or large-scale factory of any kind (31). The townspeople's business consisted mostly of providing supplies to migrants headed further west on the Northwestern Turnpike, making this an agrarian, not commercial society (35). …