"The Court," so runs the record, "proceeded to rate the Liquor for this County as follows:
For a gallon of rum and so in proportion 8 Nantz Brandy Pr Gallon 10 Peach or Apple Brandy Pr Gallon 6 New England Rum Pr Gallon 2 6 Virginia Brandy from Grain Pr Gallon 4 Arrack the Quart made into Punch 8 For a Quart of White, red or Madeira Wine 2 6 For Royall and other low Wines Pr Quart 1 6 English Strong Beer Pr Quart 1 3 London Beer called Porter Pr Quart 1 Virginia Strong Beer Pr Quart 7-1/2 Cyder the quart Bottle 3-3/4 English Cyder the Quart 1 3 For a Gill of Rum made into Punch with loaf Sugar 6 Ditto with fruit 7-1/2 For ditto with Brown Sugar 3-3/4 For a Hot Diet 9 For a Cold Diet 6 For a Gallon of Corn or Oats 4 Stableage & Fodder for a horse 24 hours or one night 6 Pasturage for a Horse 24 Hours or one night 4 For lodging with clean Sheets 6d. Otherwise nothing All soldiers and Expresses on his Majesty's service paying ready money shall have 1/5 part deducted.
"Ordered that the respective Ordinary keepers in this County do sell according to the above rates in Money or Tobacco at the rate of 12s 6d per hundred and that they do not presume to demand more of any Person whatsoever."
The first deed recorded in Loudoun but on page 2 of the first volume of Deed Books, is dated the 6th day of August, 1757, from Andrew Hutchison "of Loudoun County and Cameron Parish" and runs to his sons John and Daniel, also of Loudoun; it conveys a piece of land "containing by estimation seven hundred acres more or less whereon now lives the said John Huchison and to be equally divided between them." Thus another old and well-known Loudoun family is introduced.
The first will recorded was that of "Evan Thomas of Virginia Coleney in Loudoun County." It was proved at the court held on the 8th day of November, 1757, and its record is followed by a long and interesting inventory of his estate.
For some time prior to the organization of the county there had been a small backwoods settlement, perhaps only a few scattered log houses, near the intersection of the Carolina and old Ridge Roads. This tiny hamlet had dignified itself with the name of George Town in rugged loyalty to King George the Second. Deck and Heaton say that in 1757 a little fort was built there. Protection from attack by the French and Indians was deemed necessary to every frontier settlement. Nicholas Minor, who was a captain in the Virginia Militia and in active service at this period, may have had a hand in the building of this fort and it is probable that he was in military command there. He lived on his nearby plantation of Fruitland and his estate included some sixty acres or more at the intersection of the Carolina and Ridge Roads. In the year 1756, it is believed, he employed John Hough (who, as stated in the last chapter, had in 1744 settled in these backwoods and was acting as a surveyor for Lord Fairfax) to survey this land for a town site. Hough thereupon made his survey and perhaps mapped his first rough draft in 1757, probably making a more carefully detailed copy in 1759, after the establishment of the Town had been formally authorized by the Legislature and Minor had sold off a number of the lots as plotted on the plan. If so, this first rough draft is now lost or has been destroyed and the copy of 1759 was destined for many years also to be involved in mysterious disappearance. Though constantly in use for the first forty years of its existence, through oversight or negligence neither this 1759 "edition," nor the original draft, had been entered on the county records. Then in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the 1759 copy was used as an exhibit in the suit of Cavan vs. Murray, involving land adjacent to the town and in 1798 folded up and filed with the county clerk together with other exhibits in that litigation. The story of its disappearance and recovery is attached to a photostatic copy of the map now before me: