Page:Annals of Augusta County.djvu/64

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48
ANNALS OF AUGUSTA COUNTY.

entered February 19, 1751: "Catherine Cole being presented by the grand jury for having a bastard child and refusing to pay her fine or give security for the same according to law, it is ordered that she receive on her bare back at the public whipping post of this county twenty lashes well laid on, in lieu of said fine, and it is said to the sheriff that execution thereof be done immediately." Another woman was ordered at the same time to be punished in like manner for the same offence.

On May 30, 1751, John David Wilpert (the only man with three names, locally recorded to such date,) petitioned the court, setting forth that he had been "at considerable expense in coming from the northward and settling in these parts," and had rented three lots in the new-erected town of Staunton, through which runs a good and convenient stream of water, and praying leave to build a grist and fulling mill. The petition was resisted by John Lewis, who had a mill within a mile of town, and the case was taken by appeal to the General Court. How it was ultimately decided we are not advised, but the petition no doubt indicates the origin of "Fackler's mill," which stood on the creek south of Beverley street and between Water and Lewis streets. Wilpert was afterwards prominent in the Indian wars, and received from the government six hundred acres of bounty land. He went to Kentucky and gave his name to a creek in that State, which has been changed, however, into Wolfert's creek.

In the year 1751, Governor Dinwiddle appointed James Patton, Joshua Fry, and Lunsford Lomax, commissioners, to meet the Indians at Logstown, on the Ohio river, sixteen miles below Pittsburg, and conclude a treaty with them. Under date of December 13, 1751, the Governor instructed Patton to proceed immediately to Fredericksburg, "and there receive from Mr. Strother the goods sent as a present by His Majesty to the Indians, and provide everything necessary for the gentlemen appointed commissioners on behalf of this government, to meet and treat with the Indians, and to order all to be laid down at Mr. George Parish's near Frederick Town." The treaty was concluded June 13, 1752, but was observed for a short time only.—[Dinwiddie Papers, Vol. I, page 9.]

Several acts were passed by the Assembly of Virginia, in the year 1752, "for encouraging persons to settle on the waters of the Mississippi river, in the county of Augusta."