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The Green Bag.

and sympathetically moved by the bright appearance of the youth and the story of his adventure, became the purchaser, and carried him home. He was treated as a son, and grew up to manhood under this kindly care and guidance, developing ability and unusual energy. He loved and subse quently married Sarah, the charming daugh ter of his friend and benefactor. They took up as a homestead a large tract of land on the banks of the James river, near the mountains, and in sight of the lofty and beautiful twin peaks of Otter. Upon a part of burg. marle thisCounty, This tract land now butstands was was atsubsequently, the thatcity timeof inLynchJan. Alber,

1755, incorporated as a part of Bedford, and on Feb. I, 1782, became a part of the county of Campbell. Mr. Lynch was a justice of the first county court held for Albemarle County. It con vened on January 24, 1744. At the June court, 1/45, he produced a "commission from the governor, as captain, and took the usual oath." He afterwards came to be known as Major Lynch, but the writer has seen no record of his promotion to that office. In 1748, he represented his county in the House of Burgesses (Burk's "History of Virginia," vol. Ill, p. 133), and, in 1749, he became high sheriff, then an office of considerable honor and emolument, which position he acceptably filled until 1751. He died in 1753, a wealthy and highly respected citi zen. In the division of his estate, his lands on the James River, including the present site of the city of Lynchburg, passed to his son John, and his extensive possessions on the Staunton became the property of his other son, Charles Lynch. From about the year 1725, to the time of the Revolution, Quakerism made consider able progress throughout Virginia. Among the converts were the family of Major Lynch, and the first Quaker " meeting-house" ever established in that section was located on the lands of his widow, in pursuance of au

thority granted by the Sugar-loaf Mountain meeting on October 12, 1745. The ruins of the stone meeting-house subsequently erected by this congregation, together with its rock-walled, time-worn graveyard, still present a most picturesque object in the landscape some four miles south of the city of Lynchburg. A flat stone, formerly im mediately over the doorway, bears the date of its erection. The younger Charles Lynch, son of Major Lynch, the emigrant, was born in 1736. He married before he was nineteen years of age, and following his mother's example, was a consistent Quaker. For years he was a very active and energetic member of the Society of Friends, and most ofthat time was "Clerk of the monthly meetings." It seems, how ever, that later the Irish blood of his ances try, under the stimulus of the exciting times, coursed too rapidly through his veins for the gentle, peace-loving Quakers, and they con sidered that he had become" unsatisfactory"; and the minutes of the meeting show that in 1767 he was " disowned for taking solemn oaths, contrary to the order and discipline of Friends." Though his Quaker brethren were of opinion that he had declined spiritually, it is evident that he had suffered no loss of the social and political prestige to which his ability easily entitled him. He was an ar dent Whig, and in 1769 we find him, as his father had been before him, a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. And when, in consequence of resolutions passed by that body to the effect that the taxation of the Colony should be in the hands of the Bur gesses, and that all trials for treason should take place in the Colony, the House was dis solved by Lord Botetourt, the governor, we find his name as one of the signers of the Non-Importation Agreement, which the Bur gesses prepared and promulgated from a private house, and which gave the British government so much concern. (See Burk's "History of Virginia," vol. Ill, pp. 345-349.)