WASHINGTON COLLEGE, one of the oldest literary institutions south of the Potomac, was established as an academy in the year 1776, under the name of Liberty Hall, by the Hanover Presbytery, (then embracing the whole of the Presbyterian church in Virginia.) Its first rector was the Rev. William Graham, a native of Pennsylvania, and a graduate of Nassau Hall, N. J. Mr. Graham was a man of extensive acquirements, great originality of thought, warm patriotism, and indomitable energy; and to his exertions, more than to those of any other one man, the institution owes its establishment, and its continuance during the troublous times of our revolutionary struggle. Liberty Hall received its charter from the state in the year 1782, still retaining the name of an academy, although its charter authorized it "to confer literary degrees, to appoint professors, as well as masters and tutors," and, in short, to perform all the acts which properly belong to a college. In the year 1796, it received its first regular endowment, from the hands of the "Father of his country." The legislature of Virginia, “as a testimony of their gratitude for his services," and "as a mark of their respect," presented to Gen. Washington a certain number of shares in the old James' River improvement, a work then in progress; this Washington, unwilling to accept for his own private emolument, presented to Liberty Hall Academy. To perpetuate the memory of this noble act, the name of the institution was, by the unanimous vote of the trus tees, changed to Washington Academy; and in the year 1812, by an act of the legislature, still further changed to Washington College. Subsequently, John Robinson, Esq., a soldier of Washington, emulating the example of his illustrious leader, bequeathed his whole estate to the college; and still more recently, the Cincinnati Society of Va., after having accomplished the patriotic purpose for which it was established, bequeathed the residue of its funds to the college, on condition that provision should be made for military instruction in the institution.

George A. Baxter, D. D., succeeded Mr. Graham. About the year 1827, he resigned the presidency, and was succeeded by Louis Marshall, M. D., of Kentucky. Mr. Henry Vethake succeeded him in Feb., 1835. His successor was the present president of the college, the Rev. Henry Ruffner, D. D., who was inaugurated Feb. 22d, 1837.

Like most of the older literary institutions of our country, Washington College has had its seasons of adversity as well as prosperity. At the present time, its prospects appear more flattering than they have done at any previous period since its first establishment. For the last four or five years its number of students has varied from 80 to 100, as large a number as its buildings would accommodate. Additional buildings, now just completed, will enlarge the accommodations so that it can receive about 150; probably as large a number as the region from which the college draws its patronage, will furnish for years to come. The faculty of the institution at this time consists of, Henry Ruffner, D. D., president, and professor of ethics and rhetoric; Philo Calhoun, A. M., prof. of mathematics; Geo. E. Dabney, A. M., prof. of languages; Geo. D. Armstrong, A. M., Robinson prof. of natural philosophy and chemistry; Capt. Thomas H. Williamson, Cincinnati prof. of military tactics. The bill of expenses in the college are Treasurer's bill for tuition, room-rent, deposite, and matriculation, $42 per annum; board $7 to $8 per month; washing, fuel, candles, bed, &c., about $3 per month. Total, per session of 10 months, about $140.* With such advantages as Washington College enjoys, in its location in the midst of one of the most fertile and healthy por. tions of the great valley of Virginia, surrounded by a population, moral, frugal, and industrious in their habits, and prizing highly the advantages of a liberal education, we confidently expect that its prosperity will continue; and that it will continue a lasting monument to the wisdom, as well as the benevolence, of the illustrious man whose name it bears.

THE VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE.-This is a military academy, established in connection with Washington College by an act of the legislature, passed during the session of 1838-39. Formerly, a guard of soldiers was maintained at the expense of the state, for the purpose of affording protection to the arms deposited in the Lexington arsenal, for the use of the militia of western Virginia. About the year 1836, some zealous friends of education, among whom we may mention Gov. Jas. Mc Dowell, thinking that the arsenal might be converted into an educational institution, without any increase of expense to the state, and affording at the same time equal security to the public arms, applied to the legislature to make the necessary change. After various delays, this ap plication resulted in the establishment of the Virginia Military Institute, in the year

By an act of the Board of Trustees, indigent students, of good moral character, are admitted without the payment of tuition fees; and such persons can, with prudence and economy, maintain themselves at college at from $80 to $100 per year.

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1839. Thus far, its success has been such as to fulfil the wishes of its warmest friends, and to render it a deservedly popular institution in the state.

The course of instruction is a three years' course, requiring for admission a good common school education. It embraces the full course of mathematics and natural science taught in our colleges, with drawing, military tactics, and engineering, and so much of the French and Latin languages as the student's other studies leave him time to acquire during the first two years of his course. The corps of instructors consists of Col. Francis H. Smith, A. M., prof. of mathematics; Maj. John T. L. Preston, A. M., prof. of languages and English literature; Capt. Thomas H. Williamson, instructor in tactics and drawing; Geo. D. Armstrong, A. M., prof. of chemistry, &c., assisted by such cadets as are detailed, from time to time, to assist in the business of instruction. The annual expenses of a student at the institute are about the same as those of one at Washington College. The present number of students is 61, of whom 22 are maintained at the expense of the state.

The Alum Springs are 17 miles west of Lexington, on the road to the warm and hot springs of Bath county. The improvements at this place are recent, and the springs, although but comparatively little known, are gaining rapidly in favor with the public.

"The water contains a rare and valuable combination of materials: the principal are iodine, sulphates of iron and alum, magnesia, and sulphuric acid. The water is tonic, increasing the appetite and promoting digestion. It is alterative, exciting the secretions of the glandular system generally, and particularly of the liver and kidneys; it is cathartic, producing copious dark bilious evacuations; and it also effects a determination to the surface, increasing the perspiration.

"From the efficacy of these waters in purifying the blood, they are invaluable in the cure of all diseases of the skin, and all indolent sores, not disposed to a healthy action. In the use of them for such diseases, if the disease of the skin appears to be irritated at first, or if the ulcers become more inflamed, and discharge more freely; let not this circumstance alarm any one, or deter him from persevering in their use. These are the evidences of the good effects of the waters, in expelling the vitiated humors from the blood to the surface; and, until the blood is purified, such diseases cannot be cured In scrofulous ulcers, the use of these waters invariably causes them to discharge more freely, and in a short time of a more healthy appearance. They are a very useful remedy in cholera infantum, or the summer bowel-complaint in children. They immediately give a good appetite, promote digestion, and will effectually correct and cure acidity of the stomach. In amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhea, and leucorrhoea, the waters

are peculiarly efficacious. Most obstinate cases of scrofula, erysipelas, and dyspepsia, have been cured by these waters, which preserve their medicinal qualities when sent away in barrels."

The first settlements in this portion of the valley were made by the Scotch Irish, with a few original Scotch among them. They settled in the neighborhoods around Martinsburg, in Berkeley co.. Winchester, and almost the entire counties of Augusta and Rockbridge. The same race went on into North Carolina, and settled in the counties of Orange and Guilford, especially in the northern and middle parts of the latter county. Rockbridge and Augusta have always been the strongholds of Scotch Irish and Presbyterianism. From the introduction to the history of Washington College, a manuscript volume written by President Ruffner, we have been allowed to introduce the following graphic sketch of the settlement of the valley, and the characteristics of its early inhabitants; some of the facts are elsewhere given in this volume,— a repetition we prefer to breaking the connection:

From the year 1606, when Jamestown was first permanently settled, it required about one hundred years for the infant colony of Virginia to extend itself upwards to the Blue Ridge. The settlements on the upper branches of the Rappahannock, and in the Northern Neck between this river and the Potomac, seem first to have approached the high mountain barrier, whose top, enveloped in a blue mist, had long since attracted the eyes of settlers in the distant plains below. Near the Potomac the ridge is less rugged and forbidding in its aspect than it is further towards the southwest. When it was surmounted by exploring parties of white men, and displayed to their eyes the beauty and fertility of the vale of Shenando, and of the uplands beyond it, the temptation was irresistible, and hardy adventurers resolved to brave every danger for the sake of a possession so alluring. They first planted themselves on the rich low grounds of the Shenando, but soon ventured upon the pleasant uplands beyond the river. Here, in a basin-shaped cavity, they founded the town of Winchester, where fountains of water proved more attractive than fine prospects from the neighboring hills. This, the oldest town in the valley, continued to be a frontier-post until the French were driven out of Canada.

The eastern part of the valley being conveniently situated for emigrants from Pennsylvania, as well as from lower Virginia, the population there came to be a mixture of English Virginians, and German and Scotch Irish Pennsylvanians. Some of the latter were recent emigrants from Europe, who had landed at Philadelphia, and thence made their way by land to the new settlements.

The German Pennsylvanians, being passionate lovers of fat lands, no sooner heard of the rich vales of the Shenando and its branches, than they began to join their countrymen from Europe in pouring themselves forth over the country above Winchester. Finding the main Shenando mostly preoccupied, they followed up the North and South Branches, on both sides of the Massanutten, or Peaked Mountain, until they filled up all the beautiful vales of the country for the space of sixty miles. So completely did they occupy the country, that the few stray English or Irish settlers among them did not sensibly affect the homogeneousness of the population. They long retained, and for the most part do still retain, their German language, and the German simplicity of their manners. Of late years, indeed, a sensible transition has been going on about the borders of their old settlements, and about the villages, where law and trade have caused a mixture of population, and made inroads upon the speech, manners, and dress imported from their fatherland. This change has grieved their old people, who cannot give up the energetic language of their sires, corruptly as they speak it, nor the plain homespun dress of old times, nor see their children give them up without sorrowing for the degen. eracy of their race. Not a few of these Germans of the valley have become anglicised by dispersion, where they have been led, by the temptation of good farms, to plunge into the mass of their Scotch Irish neighbors.

How far they might have originally filled up the valley, if the way had been clear, we cannot conjecture; but, ere they had reached the head-branches of the Shenando, their immigrant columns were met by another race, who soon filled up an equal space beyond them in this land of promise.

For the want of towns and roads, the first settlers in the valley were supplied with many needful articles by pedlers who went from house to house. Among these itinerant venders of small wares, was one John Marlin, who traded from Williamsburg to the country about Winchester. His visits to the inhabited parts of this romantic country inspired him with a curiosity to explore the unknown parts towards the southwest. In Williamsburg he got John Salling, a bold weaver, to join him in an exploring expedition. They proceeded through the valley in safety until they reached the waters of the Roanoke, where they were met by a roving party of Cherokees, and of course treated as spies upon the Indian territory. Marlin had the good fortune to escape from the hands of the savages, but Salling was carried as prisoner to their towns upon the upper Tennessee. Here he lived with his captors about three years, until he went with a party of them to the Salt Licks in Kentucky, to hunt the buffalo. Kentucky, like the valley, was a middle ground of contention between the northern and southern tribes. This party of Cherokces was attacked and defeated by some Indians from Illinois. Salling was again captured, and carried to Kaskaskias, where an old squaw adopted him for a While thus domiciled in this remote region, he accompanied his new tribesmen on some distant expeditions-once, even to the gulf of Mexico-and saw many countries, and tribes of savages, then wholly unknown in Virginia. But after two years, he was bought of his Indian mother by an exploring party of Spaniards, who wanted him for an interpreter. He was taken by them on their way northwards, until he reached Canada, where he was kindly redeemed by the French governor, and sent to New York; whence he found his way to Williamsburg again, after six years of strange and eventful wanderings.

son.

In Williamsburg, two strangers from Britain, John Lewis and John Mackey, heard Salling's story with admiration. They were particularly struck with his glowing description of the valley of Virginia, a broad space between parallel ridges of mountain; its vales watered by clear streams, its soil fertile, its plains covered only with shrubbery and a rich herbage, grazed by herds of buffalo, and its hills crowned with forests; a region of beauty as yet, for the most part, untouched by the hand of man, and offering unbought homes and easy subsistence to all who had the enterprise to scale the mountain barrier, by which it had been so long concealed from the colonists. Lewis and Mackey joined Salling in making an expedition to this newly-discovered land, in order first to see it, and then, if it fulfilled their expectations, of making a settlement there. They were not disappointed; and having the whole land before them from which to choose, Lewis selected his residence near the Middle River, on a creek which bears his name. Mackey went further up the Middle River, and settled near the Buffalo Gap; but Salling, who in his captivity appears to have acquired a taste for wild solitude, went fifty miles apart from the others, and pitched his habitation in the forks of James River, where a beautiful bottom is overshadowed by mountains.

Lewis, who was evidently a man of energy and forethought, obtained authority to locate 100,000 acres of land in separate parcels in the country around him. While he was exploring the country to select good lands, his neighbor, Mackey, would frequently accompany him for the pleasure of hunting the buffalo. The result was, that Mackey died as he had lived, a poor hunter; but Lewis provided for his family a rich inheritance of lands. The pioneer-tribe of white hunters have generally followed the example of Mackey.

In the spring of the year 1736, Lewis, on a visit to Williamsburg, met with Benjamin Burden, who had lately come over as agent for Lord Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern Neck. Burden accepted Lewis's invitation to accompany him to his new home in the valley. He spent several months with his friend, exploring the country and hunting the buffalo, with Lewis and his sons, Samuel and Andrew. But he was a more provident hunter than Mackey. The party happened once to take a young buffalo-calf, which Samuel and Andrew Lewis turned and gave to Burden, to take with him to Williamsburg. This sort of an animal was unknown in lower Virginia; the calf would, therefore, be an interesting object of curiosity at the seat of government. Burden presented the shaggy young monster to Governor Gooch. The governor was so delighted with this rare pet, and so pleased with the donor, that he promptly favored his views, by enter. ing an order in his official book, authorizing Benjamin Burden to locate 500,000 acres of land, or any less quantity, on the waters of the Shenando and James Rivera, on the conditions that he should not interfere with any previous grants, and that wibia ten years he should settle at least one hundred families on the located lands. On these conditions, he should be freely entitled to 1,000 acres adjacent to every house, with the privilege of entering as much more of the contiguous lands at one shilling per acre.

Burden returned forthwith to England for emigrants, and the next year, 1737, brought over upwards of one hundred families to settle upon the granted lands. At this time the spirit of emigration was particularly rife among the Presbyterians in the northern parts of Ireland, in Scotland, and in the adjacent parts of England. Most of Burden's colonists were Irish Presbyterians, who, being of Scottish extraction, were often called Scotch Irish. A few of the pure Scotch and northern English were mixed with the early settlers, but all, or nearly all, of the same Presbyterian stamp. Among the primitive emigrants to Burden's grant we meet with the names of some who have left a numerous posterity, now dispersed far and wide from the Blue Ridge to the Mississippisuch as Ephraim M'Dowell, Archibald Alexander, John Patton, Andrew Moore, Hugh Telford, John Matthews, &c.*

The first party were soon joined by others, mostly of their connections and acquaintances in the mother country. These again drew others after them; and they all increased and multiplied, until, ere the first generation had passed away, the land was filled with them. Then they began to send forth colonies to new lands, southward and westward, until now there is scarce a county in the great valley of the Mississippi where some of their descendants may not be found.

Although some lands on the upper branches of the Shenando were not included in Burden's grant, yet from the German settlements upwards to the vale of James River, the population was generally Presbyterian; so that the whole mass, for 60 miles or more along the valley, was scarcely less homogeneous and peculiar than the mass of Germans below them. Few of the old colonists of Virginia migrated to these parts of the valley. They lived by the cultivation of tobacco; tobacco was the sole staple of their trade; tobacco was their money. An Arcadian life among green pastures and herds of cattle, had no charms for them: tobacco was associated with all their ideas of pleasure and of profit. But how was a hogshead of tobacco to be rolled to market through the rugged defiles of the Blue Ridge? Not until roads and navigation offered new facilities for trade, and the Indian weed itself lost some of its importance, did the valley cease to repel settlers from the lowlands of Virginia. Hence the mixture of heterogeneous elements in the population has never, until lately, been sufficient to vary the true-blue hue of their primitive Scotch and Irish Presbyterianism. When, in addition to the names before mentioned, we give others of the more numerous families long settled on Burden's grant-the Prestons, the Paxtons, the Lyles, the Grigsbys, the Stuarts, the Crawfords, the Cumminses, the Browns, the Wallaces, the Willsons, the Carutherses, the Campbells, the M'Campbells, the M'Clungs, the M'Cues, the M'Kees, the M'Cowns, &c. &c.—no one acquainted with the race who imbibed the indomitable spirit of John Knox, can fail to recognise the relationship.

One who is of a different race, may be permitted to speak freely of their characteristics.

They had no sooner found a home in the wilderness, than they betook themselves to clearing fields, building houses, and planting orchards, like men who felt themselves now settled, and were disposed to cultivate the arts of civilized life. Few of them ever ran wild in the forests, or joined the bands of white hunters who formed the connecting link between the savage aborigines and the civilized tillers of the soil. They showed less disposition than the English colonists to engage in traffic and speculative enterprises. Without being dull or phlegmatic, they were sober and thoughtful, keeping their native energy of feeling under restraint, and therefore capable, when exigencies arose, of calling forth exertions as strenuous and as persevering as the occasion might demand.

In their devotion to civil liberty, they differed not from the majority of their fellow colonists. Their circumstances, in a new country planted by themselves, far remote from the metropolitan government, fostered and strengthened their ancestral spirit of freedom. As Presbyterians, neither they nor their forefathers would submit to an ecclesiastical hierarchy; and their detestation of civil tyranny descended to them from the covenanters of Scotland. Hence, in the dispute between the colonists and the mother country, the Presbyterians of the valley-indeed, of the whole country-were almost

Among others (says Withers) who came to Virginia at this time, was an Irish girl named Polly Mulhollin. On her arrival she was hired to James Bell, to pay her passage; and with whom she remained during the period her servitude was to continue. At its expiration, she attired herself in the habit of a man, and, with hunting-shirt and moccasins, went into Burden's gran' for the purpose of making improvements and acquiring a title to land. Here she erected thirty cabins, by virtue of which she held one hundred acres adjoining each. When Benjamin Burden the younge came on to make deeds to those who held cabin rights, he was astonished to see so many of the name of Mulhollin. Investigation led to a discovery of the mystery, to the great mirth of the other claimants. She resumed her Christian name and feminine dress, and many of her respectable descendants will reside within the limits of Bur den's grant.-H. H.