your obedient humble servants."—[Signed by all the members of Congress from Virginia.]
The former colonial system having disappeared, all the functions of government were assumed and exercised by the Convention, in which Messrs. Lewis and McDowell sat as delegates from Augusta. The executive authority was entrusted to a committee of safety, consisting of eleven members—Pendleton, Mason and others—appointed by the Convention. To provide local governments until public affairs could be settled, the Convention passed an ordinance in July, 1775, requiring the qualified voters of each county to elect a county committee, to act as a sort of executive authority in the county for carrying into effect the measures of the Continental Congress and the Colonial Convention.—[Hening, Volume VIII, page 57.]
Silas Hart, an old justice of the peace, whose residence was within the present county of Rockingham, was chairman of the Augusta county committee. On October 3d this committee met at Staunton, and, pursuant to summons, Alexander Miller appeared before them to answer charges. Miller was an Irish Presbyterian preacher, who had been deposed from the ministry, and was accused of having denounced as rebellion, etc., the popular opposition to the measures of the British Government. He was solemnly tried and pronounced guilty. His punishment anticipated the recent policy in Ireland called "boycotting." The committee subjected the offender to no restraint, and advised no violence toward him. They only recommended that "the good people of this county and colony have no further dealings or intercourse with said Miller until he convinces his countrymen of having repented for his past folly."—[American Archives, Vol. Ill, page 939.]
The Annals of the county during the war of the Revolution are quite meager. This Valley was remote from the scenes of combat, and only once was there an alarm of invasion. The domestic Hfe of the people and the business of the court were generally undisturbed during the war. Public business was transacted and writs were issued in the name of the Commonwealth of Virginia, instead of the king of Great Britain, and there was little other change. The abolition of the religious establishment in the course of time marked the most important departure from the old order of things. So far from danger was this region
