Medico- Topographical Remarks on the County of Fauquier, Va.
By G. R. B. Horner, M. D., Surgeon U. S. Naval Station,
Philadelphia.
This county—one of the largest in the State—lies forty miles
westward of the District of Columbia, and extends fifty miles
from North to South. On the East it is bounded by Broad Run,
one of the tributary streams of the Potomac ; and on the South-
west by the Hedgmon, the northern branch of the Rappahan-
nock. The lower half of the county is gently undulated and
level, the upper portion generally hilly and mountainous. The
soil of the former is very sandy in parts,—alluvial and clayey
in others. Hence its marshyness and unwholesomeness during
wet weather. The soil of the latter, or northern portion, is
generally loamy, lighter, and more productive ; but there are
exceptions, as the part termed Marshall’s manor, in the western
portion of the county, which is gladv, sandy, and barren to a great
extent. Other exceptions might be made ; but the soil of the
northern portion may be justly called fertile, both naturally and
artificially. Grain of every kind, clover, hay, various fruits,
and vegetables abound ; farms are in fine order, and sell at high
rates. The most valuable mineral production is gold, which is
found in the white flint or quartz rocks, about the central part of
the county, in small quantities, but more abundantly in the mines
at the southern part. Slate, black rock, limestone, sandstone of
fine quality,—for paving and building,—are found plentifully in
quarries here and there; but limestone chiefly north of the Rap-
pahannock mountain. In the sandy parts the pine flourishes ;
in the flinty the chestnut; in other parts grow the red, white and
black oak, the walnut, white poplar, cornus florida, hickory, and
other forest trees. Interspersed are the haw, quince, chinquepin,
cedar, locust, cherry, apple, pear, peach, persimmon; and many
medicinal plants, as the dewberry, serpentaria, stramonium, ta-
raxicum, night-shades, sage, horehound, green and spear-mint,
pennyroyal, hop, wild turnip, chenopodium anthelminticum and
sassafras. Some of these plants are due to cultivation, others
grow spontaneously and luxuriously, when located in suitable
soils—as the green mint along branches ; the pennyroyal or
mentham pelegium on the road sides, and hills uncovered by
forests. In neglected fields the dew and blackberry and luscious
strawberry abound, until the young pines shoot up, spontane-
ously, and ultimately overwhelm them. This occurs with
surprising rapidity ; and in a few years once barren land is
seen shaded by a dense, high waving forest of these trees.
In a short time longer, they become fit for fences and build-
ings, and always afford shelter to wild and domestic animals
during winter, and the severe storms of rain, thunder and light-
ning, so common in summer. Cattle are the most abundant and
profitable of the latter. Vast numbers are driven, when half
grown, from the north western part of the State, grazed for a
year, and then sold at a large advance,—usually at double
price,—from the richness of the pastures, and the abundance of
fine water found in every valley.
Hares, opossums, raccoons, foxes, squirrels, larks, robins,
woodcock, snipe, sparrows, blackbirds of several species, part
ridges, and wild turkeys, are the principal game. Wild pigeons
occasionally appear, and are killed in great numbers. Hawks,
and especially crows, are the pests of the land, and the turkey-
buzzard, in mild weather, is ever seen soaring aloft in quest of
his epicurean fare.
From the proximity of the Blue Ridge, which bounds the
northern and north-western parts of the county, and from the
height of the other mountains, as well as other causes, the cli-
mate is cool and variable,—subject to great changes in tempe-
rature, and in warm weather to occasional tornadoes of great
violence, which always come from towards the mountains.
Within a few years, several of the former have occurred, and
blown down dwellings and other houses, including a large brick
church in Warrenton, the county town—a handsome one, situ-
ated on an elegant hill in the centre of Fauquier, 650 feet above
tide-water, and overlooking the whole of the lower part of the
county. Hail-storms sometimes happen; and one which took
place-about thirty-five years ago was so violent and destructive
to vegetation and buildings, that it cannot be forgotten. It
then fell in lumps so large as to shiver every glass struck, to kill
grass, and leave its marks not only on it, but on every housetop.
From this vicissitude of climate, pulmonary affections are very
common ; pleurisy, pneumonia, and phthisis are familiar causes
of death; and scarlet fever, in winter, has been still more fatal
among children. In 1815 the typhus pneumonia prevailed ex-
tensively in the low, damp country south and east of the town,
and carried off many victims. Rheumatism abounds among the
slaves, and in summer miasmatic fevers, remittent and intermit-
tent, occur in some parts, near mill-dams and large streams; but
of late years the bilious fever has been rare. Indeed, from Dr.
Chilton, one of the chief physicians in the town, I understand be
has hardly ever met with it, and that another physician, of much
greater experience, informed him he had not had a case for ten
years. Notwithstanding the climate is faulty, the inhabitants
of Fauquier are distinguished for health, activity, energy, and
enterprise, and attain as great longevity as any in the State.
Those who become invalids have access to that delightful
and commodious watering-place, called Lees, or the Warrenton
Springs. They are on the left bank of the Rappahannock, six
miles southwest of the town, and accessible by a well-graded
turnpike extending .from the town to them. The railroad from
Alexandria to it renders them very convenient to Eastern inva-
lids ; and as the water is sulphurous, magnesian, and palatable,
it is found w’ell adapted to those affected with digestive disorders,
and particularly dyspepsia. But of late, an alum spring in the
adjoining county of Culpepper has become a rival; and I found
a lady, who had long suffered from this complaint, using it largely,
having procured a supply at her residence in Warrenton. But
the most important case occupying the medical faculty was
one of medical jurisprudence. The facts were these, so far as I
could learn by attending the trial and from report:—Last fall, •
two negro men kindled a fire on the eastern branch of the above
river, near the springs, and engaged at night in fishing. While
there, two overseers—Hunter and Curtis—forming a patrol, and
intoxicated, it was asserted, discerned the fire and negroes,
and hailed them. In answer, as it was dark, and they
could not see distinctly, they inquired whether the former
were white or black. This enraged the patrol, and, rush-
ing up, they assaulted the negroes: one fled and saved himself;
the other was seized, beaten, thrown down, and choked to death,
without his assailants being fully aware of it, as they dragged
him to an adjacent house and left him. Anxious concerning
him, they returned after a while, and finding him dead, to con-
ceal their guilt, dragged him along a branch, and threw
him into the river where it was not over a foot deep. He was
there found; an inquest of physicians and others was held, and
his body was dissected. From the marks of violence about it,
the bruises on the face, engorgement of the lungs, and bloated
features, they wrere satisfied he was strangled. The overseers
were apprehended, made some confessions, retracted them, and
were tried in April before Judge Tyler of the Superior Court.
The counsel for the defence cross-questioned the witnesses, puz-
zled the doctors no little, and endeavored to prove that the man
was either drowned or unintentionally killed; and to sustain him
in the first position, urged the fact of some water having been
found in the lungs. After hearing the arguments on both sides,
the jury—believed to have been packed from persons of a like
kind to the criminals—retired, and in a short time returned into
court, and rendered a verdict of death “ from involuntary homi-
cide.” When the learned judge heard this, he became enraged,
reprimanded both jury and criminals, and told the first he did not
believe any other persons in the courthouse besides themselves
believed the deceased owed his death to that cause. He then
imposed on the prisoners a heavy fine—with the price of the
negro, it was said, amounting to $2000—and sentenced them to
three months’ longer imprisonment. To end the chapter, it may
be well to state that incensed justice or some malignant wretch,
on the first day of this month, applied the torch to the court-
house steeple during the night; and that handsome edifice, so
’ many years the pride and admiration of the country, crumbled
into ruins, while its antique bell, tumbling from its dizzy height,
gave its last knell and sounding its own funeral dirge, sank
into the fiery gulf beneath. It. was there soon irrecoverably
melted. At this sad spectacle every beholder mourned; and
among the sorrowful crowd looking on—as the Jews of old in
sight of their burning temple—was an old negro man, leaning
against the brick enclosure of the courthouse, and sobbing bit-
terly, that one of his race had so recently been allowed to be
murdered, and to remain unavenged. Who was the incendiary
is still a conjecture. Many have been suspected—whites and
blacks, slaves and freemen, have been accused of burning this
and the many other houses burnt in Warrenton within the last
two years. A member of the bar has been accused of it, and
acquitted. From the burning of the courthouse so soon after
the above trial and unsatisfactory sentence of the overseers, rea-
son is entertained of that having been caused by the negro
who escaped from them, or some other one offended at their being
so slightly punished; but the author of this fire is still un-
known, and we shall have to ascribe it to that very common
and convenient origin of mischief in modern times, spontaneous
combustion, which is supposed to have caused the late destruction
of such a great amount of public property at the New York navy-
yard. To the same cause we might plausibly ascribe all the
fires mentioned before, had they not occurred in the cool of
the night, instead of the heat of the day, when there is so
much greater tendency to that phenomenon.