The Frontier - Virginia - 1776

 A document which was signed on the 8th of Oct 1776 for Government Service in Fincastle County, Virginia states, “For being legally apart of the colony and for the creation of new counties, a citation of the Committee for the Western Part references the election of John Gabriel Jones and George Rogers Clark as their representatives.  Members of the Committee included in this manuscript are: John Gabriel Jones - chairman,  John Bowman, John Cowen, William Bennett, Joseph Bowman, John Crittenden, Isaac Hite, George Rogers Clark, Silas Harland, Hugh McGary, Andrew McConnel, James Herrod, Wm. McConnel and John Maxwell.  Signed by John Gabriel Jones - Chairman and Abraham Hite Jr. - Clerk at Harrodsburg,  20th of June 1776.  This act formed Kentucky, Washington and Montgomery counties in Virginia and made Fincastle County, Virginia extinct. The act took effect on the 31st of December 1776.

Many of us living today do not grasp the importance of this one single document.  This is extremely important because it formed the two counties of Montgomery and Washington but especially so because it opened the entire frontier including what would become the states of Kentucky and Tennessee for westward expansion.  Also note  that it eliminated Fincastle County, Virginia. 

Please look carefully at the names of the men who were present when this document was created and then who signed it.  Several of these men stand out as having ties to our own Shenandoah Valley area.  These men were indeed friends and neighbors of own families.Men who had a direct bearing upon the lives of many members of our own families. Men who were well respected individuals that influenced our nation’s early settlement.   Note again the date this document was signed, 20 June 1776.

Let’s look more closely at the lives of some of these men who not only influenced events happening in our own Shenandoah Valley but also in Virginia and the colonies which became the United States of America.

Belle Grove

 Major Isaac Hite

Major Isaac Hite was born on the 7th of Feb 1758 at his father’s home, Long Meadows which was then in Frederick County, Virginia.  He died on the 24th of Nov 1836 at his home, Belle Grove near Middletown, Virginia.   He was the son of Isaac Hite, Sr and his wife, Alida Eleanor Eltinge who were married 12 Apr 1745 in Frederick County, Virginia.  Isaac was the grandson of Johann Jost Heyd / Hite and his wife, Anna Maria Merckle of Baden, Germany.

He was educated at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, where he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa Society of 1776, which was the first Greek letter fraternity in America.

Isaac Hite enlisted as a private in the American Revolution and rose to the rank of Major.  He served on the staff of General George Washington.  Isaac was aide-de-camp to General Muhlenberg at Yorktown in 1777.  At one point during the American Revolution, he lost one of his fingers due to the fact that it was shot off.  He was made a member of the Society of Cincinnati by General Washington; however in 1781, Isaac Hite was not on good terms with George Rogers Clark in the area which became Lincoln County, Kentucky.

One of Isaac's Hite’s homes was 'Long Meadows' where he was born and grew up. 'Long Meadows' was located south of Middletown, Virgina.   He is also reported to have lived at a property called 'Old Hall' near the Massanutten Mountains along the South Fork of the Shenandoah between 1787 and 1797.  Note the photos in this article which prove that ‘Old Hall’ was indeed located in the yard of his final home, ‘Belle Grove’. 

Old Hall  sign which is located in the yard of Belle Grove.

Excavated foundations of Old Hall with shadow of the above sign.

Isaac Hite had received 'Old Hall' in 1783 at the time of his marriage to first wife, Eleanor ‘Nelly’ Madison.   Isaac and Eleanor ‘Nelly’ Madison Hite lived at ‘Old Hall’ while he built 'Belle Grove' of limestone quarried from his own land.  In 1794 the construction began on the 40 ft x 100 ft. limestone home which had walls two feet thick.  The capstones were ordered from England. 

Eleanor ‘Nelly’ Madison Hite's brother, James Madison and his wife, Dolley Todd Payne Madison spent part of their honeymoon at Old Hall. James Madison became President of the United States serving in this capacity from 1809 to 1817.  He was President during the War of 1812 which was also known as America's second war for independence. He is also known as the Father of the United States Constitution.

After the death of Nelly Madison Hite in 1802, Major Hite married Ann Tunstall Maury.  Three children had been born to the first marriage and ten were born to the second. Twelve of these thirteen children lived to adulthood.  In 1815, as the family grew, an addition was made at the west end of the original house to finish-out the one-hundred-foot facade of Belle Grove as it stands today near Middletown, Virgina.

Belle Grove

The grain and livestock plantation continued to grow from its original gift of four hundred eighty three acres  from Major Hite’s father until finally the Major owned seven thousand five hundred acres of land and one hundred and three slave workers.  On this land he grew wheat, raised cattle and Merino sheep which were and still are prized for their wool.  Major Hite also owned a general store, a grist-mill, a saw-mill and a large distillery.  He died in 1836, and after Ann's death in 1851, ‘Belle Grove’ was sold out of the Hite family.

Seven of the Hite grandsons lost their lives in the service of the Confederacy during the War Between the States.  Union General Phillip Sheridan made his headquarters at ‘Belle Grove’ during the Battle of Cedar Creek. 

Cedar Creek Battlefield sign at Belle Grove.

‘Belle Grove’ is located one mile south of Middletown, Virginia on U.S. Route 11.  It is now the centerpiece of the new Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historic Park.  Belle Grove is a Historic Landmark, a Virginia Historic Landmark, and a Historic Property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. 

Note 1:  There are two Madison homes/properties named Belle Grove.  The first is a river-seated plantation at Port Conway, VA.  This is where President James Madison was born.  The original house of his birth is no longer standing.  The future President’s mother, Eleanor “Nelly” Conway Madison was living at Mount Pleasant, Virginia, with her husband of a year, as the birth of their first child neared.  Anticipating the event, Nelly traveled to her mother’s home, ‘Belle Grove’, in Port Conway. At midnight on March 16th, 1751, James Madison Jr. was born.  It has long been believed that Major Isaac Hite’s home, ‘Belle Grove’, was named for the earlier ‘Belle Grove’ in honor of his wife’s family where her brother, President James Madison was born and where her mother, Eleanor “Nelly” Conway Madison, grew up. 

Note 2: It has also been long reported that ‘Long Meadows’  was the Middletown home of Isaac Hite and his wife, Alida Eleanor Eltinge.  The Long Meadows Cemetery located on this Virginia farm, is said to contain the graves of Isaac Hite and his wife, Alida Eleanor Eltinge; Major Isaac Hite and his two wives [Eleanor ‘Nelly’ Madison and Ann Tunstall Maury]; and that of Johann Jost  Heyd/Hite's wife, Anna Maria Merckle, who was buried there in 1739 in what is now an unmarked grave.  

When Isaac Hite was 16 in 1737, his father, Johann Jost Heyd/Hite gave him approximately nine hundred acres of land known as the Long Meadow Tract. This property was named for its beautiful view of lovely, fertile meadows along the banks of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River.  The Shenandoah Valley is located between the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east and the Allegheny Mountains to the west. The Massanutten Mountain runs amid the Valley's floor between those two mountain ranges and splits the Shenandoah River into the North Fork and the South Fork. Hite’s Long Meadow Tract is located along the North Fork, at the base of the northern end of the Massanutten Mountain. It extended from the river toward the land where ‘Belle Grove’ now stands.

Isaac Hite who died in 1795, left his vast estate primarily to his son, Major Isaac Hite, who was an up-and-coming planter and entrepreneur in the Shenandoah Valley.  Major Hite divided his father’s land into five separate tracts.  ‘Belle Grove’ was built upon one of those  five tracts. In 1836, when Major Isaac Hite died, he left Traveler's Hall to his daughter, Matilda M. Hite Davison. In 1840, she sold the land to Col. George W. Bowman and his brother, Isaac Bowman, great-grandsons of Johann Jost Heyd/Hite.