nists, future plantations, future towns,
for that great valley, large indeed as are some Old World kingdoms.
They drank the health of England's King, and named two outstanding
peaks Mount George and Mount Alexander; then, because their senses were
ravished by the Eden before them, they dubbed the river Euphrates. They
plunged and scrambled down the mountain side to the Euphrates, drank
of it, bathed in it, rested, ate, and drank again. The deep green woods
were around them; above them they could see the hawk, the eagle, and the
buzzard, and at their feet the bright fish of the river.

At last they reclimbed the Blue Ridge, descended its eastern face, and,
leaving the great wave of it behind them, rode homeward to Williamsburg
in triumph.

We are thus, with Spotswood and his band, on the threshold of expanding
American vistas. This Valley of Virginia, first a distant Beulah land
for the eye of the imagination only, presently became a land of pioneer
cabins, far apart--very far apart--then a settled land, of farms,
hamlets, and market towns. Nor did the folk come only from that elder
Virginia of tidal waters and much tobacco, of "compleat gentlemen" at
the capital, and of many slaves in the fields. But downward from
the Potomac, they came south into this valley, from Pennsylvania and
Maryland, many of them Ulster Scots who had sailed to the western
world. In America they are called the Scotch Irish, and in the main
they brought stout hearts, long arms, and level heads. With these they
brought in as luggage the dogmas of Calvin. They permeated the Valley
of Virginia; many moved on south into Carolina; finally, in large
part, they made Kentucky and Tennessee. Germans, too, came into the
valley--down from Pennsylvania--quiet, thrifty folk, driven thus far
westward from a war-ravished Rhine.

Shrewd practicality trod hard upon the heels of romantic fancy in the
mind of Spotswood. His Order of the Knights of the Horseshoe had a
fleeting existence, but the Vision of the West lived on. Frontier folk
in growing numbers were encouraged to make their way from tidewater
to the foot of the Blue Ridge. Spotsylvania and King George were names
given to new counties in the Piedmont in honor of the Governor and
the sovereign. German craftsmen, who had been sent over by Queen
Anne--vine-dressers and ironworkers--were settled on Spotswood's own
estate above the falls of the Rapidan. The little town of Germanna
sprang up, famous for its s