History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia | Page 2

of history and geography can be prepared in no other way, no person at all acquainted with the nature of such writings need be told. "As well might a traveler presume to claim the fee-simple of all the country which he has surveyed, as a historian and geographer expect to preclude those who come after him from making a proper use of his labors. If the former writers have seen accurately and related faithfully, the latter ought to have the resemblance of declaring the same facts, with that variety only which nature has enstamped upon the distinct elaborations of every individual mind.... As works of this sort become multiplied, voluminous, and detailed, it becomes a duty to literature to abstract, abridge, and give, in synoptical views, the information that is spread through numerous volumes."
Touching the matter gleaned from other books, I claim the sole merit of being a laborious and faithful compiler. In some instances, where the thoughts could not be better or more briefly expressed, the words of the original authors may have been used.
Where this has been done I have, whenever possible, made, in my footnotes or text, frank and ample avowal of the sources from which I have obtained the particular information presented. This has not always been possible for the reason that I could not name, if disposed, all the sources from which I have sought and obtained information. Many of the references thus secured have undergone a process of sifting and, if I may coin the couplet, confirmatory handling which, at the last, rendered some unrecognizable and their origin untraceable.
The only publication of a strictly local color unearthed during my research was Taylor's Memoir of Loudoun, a small book, or more properly a pamphlet, of only 29 pages, dealing principally with the County's geology, geography, and climate. It was written to accompany the map of Loudoun County, drawn by Yardley Taylor, surveyor; and was published by Thomas Reynolds, of Leesburg, in 1853.
I wish to refer specially to the grateful acknowledgment that is due Arthur Keith's Geology of the Catoctin Belt and Carter's and Lyman's Soil Survey of the Leesburg Area, two Government publications, published respectively by the United States Geological Survey and Department of Agriculture, and containing a fund of useful information relating to the geology, soils, and geography of about two-thirds of the area of Loudoun. Of course these works have been the sources to which I have chiefly repaired for information relating to the two first-named subjects. Without them the cost of this publication would have been considerably augmented. As it is I have been spared the expense and labor that would have attended an enforced personal investigation of the County's soils and geology.
And now a tardy and, perhaps, needless word or two in revealment of the purpose of this volume.
To rescue a valuable miscellany of facts and occurrences from an impending oblivion; to gather and fix certain ephemeral incidents before they had passed out of remembrance; to render some account of the County's vast resources and capabilities; to trace its geography and analyze its soils and geology; to follow the tortuous windings of its numerous streams; to chronicle the multitudinous deeds of sacrifice and daring performed by her citizens and soldiery--such has been the purpose of this work, such its object and design.
But the idea as originally evolved contemplated only a chronology of events from the establishment of the County to the present day. Not until the work was well under way was the matter appearing under the several descriptive heads supplemented.
From start to finish this self-appointed task has been prosecuted with conscientious zeal and persistency of purpose, although with frequent interruptions, and more often than not amid circumstances least favorable to literary composition. At the same time my hands have been filled with laborious avocations of another kind.
What the philosopher Johnson said of his great Dictionary and himself could as well be said of this humble volume and its author:
"In this work, when it shall be found that much is omitted, let it not be forgotten that much likewise is performed; and though no book was ever spared out of tenderness to the author, and the world is little solicitous to know whence proceeded the faults of that which it condemns; yet it may gratify curiosity to inform it, that the English Dictionary was written with little assistance of the learned, and without any patronage of the great; not in the soft obscurities of retirement, or under the shelter of academick bowers, but amidst inconvenience and distraction, in sickness and in sorrow."
If further digression be allowable I might say that in the preparation of this work I have observed few of the restrictive rules of literary sequence and have not infrequently gone beyond the prescribed limits of conventional diction. To these