hibald
Alexander. Besides these, among the early settlers of this part of
Virginia, were the families of Moore, Paxton, Telford, Lyle, Stuart,
Crawford, Matthews, Brown, Wilson, Cummins, Caruthers, Campbell,
McCampbell, McClung, McKee, McCue, Grigsby, and others.[429:B]

An austere, thoughtful race, they constituted a manly, virtuous
population. Their remote situation secured to them religious freedom,
but little interrupted by the ruling powers. Of the stern school of
Calvin and Knox, so much derided for their Puritanical tenets, they were
more distinguished for their simplicity and integrity, their religious
education, and their uniform attendance on the exercises and ordinances
of religion, than for the graceful and courteous manners which lend a
charm to the intercourse of a more aristocratic society. Trained in a
severe discipline, they expressed less than they felt; and keeping their
feelings under habitual restraint, they could call forth exertions equal
to whatever exigencies might arise. In the wilderness they devoted
themselves to agriculture, domestic pursuits, and the arts of peace;
they were content to live at home. Pascal says that the cause of most of
the trouble in the world is that people are not content to live at home.
As soon as practicable they erected churches; and all within ten or
twelve miles, young and old, repaired on horseback to the place of
worship. Their social intercourse was chiefly at religious meetings. The
gay and fashionable amusements of Eastern Virginia were unknown among
them.[430:A] Other colonies, emanating from the same quarters, followed
the first, and settled that portion of the valley intervening between
the German settlements and the borders of the James River. The first
Presbyterian minister settled west of the Blue Ridge was the Rev. John
Craig, a native of the north of Ireland. His congregation was that of
the church then known as the Stone Meeting House, since Augusta Church,
near Staunton, in the County of Augusta. He became pastor there in the
year 1740. Augusta was then a wilderness with a handful of Christian
settlers in it; the Indians travelling through the country among them in
small parties, unless supplied with whatever victuals they called for,
became their own purveyors and cooks, and spared nothing that they chose
to eat or drink. In general they were harmless; sometimes they committed
murders. Such was the school in which the tramontane population were to
b