Page:Annals of Augusta County.djvu/63

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ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.
47

deliver the several goods in his possession (supposed to belong to the said Perkins or some of his followers) to the said Scholl, he being one of the coroners, till further order" And again, February 19, 1751: "The petition of John and Reuben Harrison, praying a reward for killing two persons under the command of Ute Perkins, who were endeavoring to rob them, was read and ordered to be certified." The Harrisons lived in the northern part of the county, now Rockingham.

On the 29th of November, 1750, the Rev. John Todd, a Dissenting minister, appeared in court and took the prescribed oaths. Mr. Todd was a Presbyterian minister and lived in Louisa county. He never resided in Augusta, but his object was to qualify himself, according to law, for officiating here occasionally.

In the early winter of 1750, the country was visited by a storm of unusual violence, as we learn from a paper found in the clerk's office of the circuit court, having been filed in the old cause of Stuart vs. Laird, &c. There is no signature to the paper, but it is endorsed, "Hart's Field-Notes." In the answer the notes are called "Trimble's," and it is probable that the writing was scribbled on the back of his field notes by the assistant county surveyor, who was caught out in the storm while on a professional excursion. He thus relates his dismal experience, and gives expression to his alarm, but, at the same time, deep piety:

"December 21, 1750, being fryday, and being the most dismal Judgment-like day that I have seen, the day before having been excessive great rain, &c., frost freezing on tbe trees and branches, as also 2 nights, and the snow beginning before day this morning, so overloaded the trees and branches, that their falling is as constant as clock-work, so that there seems to be scarce a whole tree left in the woods. Doubtless whoso lives to hear of the end of this storm thence will account of many men and cattle lost and killed; and this day was 8 years, was the Day that 8 corps killed by the Indians, was bury'd at Mr. Bordin's, where I am now storm-stead or weather bound, being 22 years since I was cast away, but through God's Great Mercy preserved on the windy Saturday in harvest, being the 24th of August, 1728. Blessed be Almighty God who has saved me hitherto from many Eminent Dangers. O Lord, Grant it may be taken as special warnings to me and others."

The following order of the County Court of Augusta was