tract obtained from his brother George, Colonel Samuel Washington built in 1771 the stone edifice "Harewood," long the scene of brilliant social gatherings and the rendezvous of soldiers, statesmen, and dis- tinguished travelers. Here Dolly Payne Todd and James Madison were married; here came Louis Philippe and LaFayette to share a friendly but discriminating hospitality; here Washington visited before and after the Revolution. Jefferson County long claimed more Washingtons to the manner born than did any other county in the United States. A reporter of the New York World writing from Charles Town in 1894 said:

Men still living remember when one-third of all the land in the county belonged to the family. They have "run down," as the Southern phrase goes, since then, and now their holdings are comparatively small. They are still a numerous family, however, and the name of Washington appears on the signs everywhere along the main streets of the town, from the Charles Washington Opera House to the coal yards near the railroad station. ³

Geographically the lower Shenandoah Valley is a miniature South, with its black belt, its piney woods section, and its back country ap- pearing in order from east to west--not plainly marked by topography, it is true, but nevertheless distinguishable on the face of the landscape by a noticeable rise in elevation and a perceptible thinning of the soil. The Wilson farm lies upon the rolling hills which separate the narrow Opequon Valley at the west from the broad level plain drained by the Shenandoah River. To be sure, the Wilson homestead contrasts sharply with stately Harewood. Standing on less productive yet by no means less favored ground four miles west, it reflects the modest pretensions of the uplands rather than the affluence of the low. With all its archi- tectural imperfections, however, the two-story frame dwelling sits with quiet dignity commanding one of those rare scenes so common to the valley as it looks down on the lazy Opequon and the wooded banks which mark the stream's northeasterly flow to the Potomac. Wherever the eye turns there are distant mountains, the high walls of the Shen- andoah. Twenty miles to the southeast rise the beautiful Blue Ridge; equidistant at the northwest tower the imperious Alleghenies; north- east and southwest the ranges merge in perspective, giving to the whole a charm of panoramic encirclement. Little wonder that John Brown remarked on the beauty of this country. ⁴

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