them. Only forty-one men could be mustered, and on leading them out the colonel found, instead of Indians, three drunken soldiers of the light horse on a carousal. A mulatto and a negro hunting cattle and mistaken for Indians, had caused the alarm at the further point. The inhabitants, however, pressed across the Blue Ridge, firmly believing that Winchester was taken and in flames. Captain Waggoner, who had arrived from Eastern Virginia, reported that he "could hardly pass the Ridge for the crowds of people who were flying as if every moment was death."
Washington had lately made a visit of inspection from Fort Cumberland, on the Potomac, to Fort Dinwiddie on Jackson's river. On the 14th of October Major Lewis arrived at Winchester.
Badly as the Governor thought or wrote of our forefathers of Augusta county, he did not think more favorably of the people elsewhere. In October he condoled with Lord Fairfax, County Lieutenant of Frederick, for having to live among such a set of people.
After so much strife and excitement, it is a relief to close this chapter and the year 1755 with a peaceful extract. At a meeting of the vestry of the parish, November 27th, it was "ordered that the Rev. Mr. John Jones preach at James Neeley's on Roan Oke; at John Mathews, Sn., in the forks of James river; at Augusta Courthouse; at Captain Daniel Harrison's, and at any place contiguous to Mr. Madison's, at such times as said Jones shall think proper." The forks of James river was in the present county of Rockbridge, and Captain Harrison and Mr. Madison lived in Rockingham.
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