In this way, a congenial, stable, and self-sustaining colony, founded on considerations of common safety and economic expediency, was established amongst these storied hills of frontier Virginia.

Almost simultaneously with these settlements came other emigrants from Pennsylvania and the then neighboring colonies, among them many members of the Society of Friends or Quakers.[21] Not a few of this faith came direct from England and Ireland, attracted by the genial climate, fertile soils and bountiful harvests, accounts of which had early gained wide-spread circulation.  They chose homes in the central portion of the County, southwest of Waterford and west of Lessburg, that section being generally known as the “Quaker Settlement.”

Each summer brought them new accessions of prosperity and devout brethren to swell their numbers; and soon they had caused the wilderness to blossom as the rose.  Here they found freedom of religious and moral thought, a temperate climate, and the wholesome society of earnest compatriots.

Then, as now, a plain, serious people, they have left the impress of their character—­thrifty, industrious, and conspicuously honest—­upon the whole of the surrounding district.

[Footnote 21:  The term Quaker, originally given in reproach, has been so often used, by friend as well as foe, that it is no longer a term of derision, but is the generally accepted designation of a member of the Society of Friends.—­Loudoun Rangers.]

No concerted violence, it is believed, was offered these settlers by the Indians who seem to have accredited them with the same qualities of honesty, virtue, and benevolence, by the exercise of which William Penn, the founder of the faith in Pennsylvania, had won their lasting confidence and esteem.

The Quaker is a type with which all the world is familiar and needs no particular portrayal in this work.  The Quakers of Loudoun have at all times remained faithful adherents of the creed, their peculiar character, manners, and tenets differing to no considerable extent from those of other like colonies, wherever implanted.

It is doubtful if any race has done more to stimulate and direct real progress, and to develop the vast resources of Loudoun, than that portion of our earlier population known as the Scotch-Irish.  Their remarkable energy, thrift, staidness, and fixed religious views made their settlements the centers of civilization and improvement in Colonial times; that their descendants proved sturdy props of the great cause that culminated in the independence of the United States is a matter of history.

EARLY HABITS, CUSTOMS, AND DRESS.

HABITS.

The earliest permanent settlements of Loudoun having been separately noted in the foregoing paragraphs a generalized description of the habits, customs, and dress of these settlers, as well as their unorganized pioneer predecessors and the steady promiscuous stream of home-seekers that poured into the County until long after the Revolution, will now be attempted.