ISAAC LARUE SR.

The childhood, youth and early manhood of Isaac LaRue, Sr., were doubtless spent in the vicinity of his birthplace, in past thirty years of age when he located with his young wife on the frontier which five years previously, in the year 1738, had been organized as Frederick County, Virginia, and where, it appears from the contract of which a copy appears next after this chapter, he bought land June 3, 1743. Mrs. Ellis says; "Isaac LaRue, B 1712, mentions in the letter referred to that before he came to Virginia in 1743, he married, in New Jersey, Phebe Carman." This sentence settles two important facts - the identity of his wife and the time when he moved to the Shenandoah Valley. We have already observed that Phebe was a daughter of the Rev. James Carman, Baptist minister of Middletown, Cranbury, and later Hightstown, New Jersey, who in early life was affiliated with the Quakers.

The primitive condition of the country which Isaac LaRue, Sr. chose for his home may be imagined from reading the preamble of the Act of the Virginia legislature of November 1738, the 12th year of the reign of George II., establishing Frederick County, which is as follows:

"Whereas, great numbers of people have settled themselves of late upon the rivers of Sherando, Cohongeruten and Opechon, and the branches thereof, on the northwest side of the Blue Ridge of mountains, whereby the strength of the colony, and the security upon the frontiers and his Majesty's revenue of quit rents are like to be much enhanced and augmented: For giving encouragement to such as settle there: Be it enacted" -that the counties of Frederick and Augusta be established from portions of the territory of Orange County, etc. (Heatag's Virginia Statutes, Vol. 5, page 78)

The town of Winchester was not established by legislative set until 1752. (Hening, Vol. 6, Chap. 26) By an act of the Virginia legislature of 1756, provision was made for the erection of a fort at Winchester for protection of inhabitants against French and Indians. (Hening, Vol. 8, page 33.)

From these legislative sets, it would appear that the region in which Isaac LaRue, Sr. settled in 1743 was not less wild and inhospitable than was the valley of the Ohio when most of his children migrated there forty years later. Finecastle County, Virginia, was not organized until 1772 when it was cut off from Botetourt. In October 1776, it became extinct, its territory being divided into Counties of Kentucky, Washington and Montgomery.

From a letter of John J. LaRue (IX, B b) to Mrs. Ellis, written in 1906, it appears that Isaac LaRue, Sr., on his arrival in Virginia, settled on Long Marsh, a stream about three miles from the site of Berryville (formerly called Battletown), now the county seat of Clarke County, which county has been organized from a portion of the territory of Frederick. "Isaac came from New Jersey (Hunterdon County), as shown by an old deed dated 1743 * * * His first purchase of Lindsey (was) on the Marsh, and he afterward look up land lying back from the stream * * * The old house where Isaac lived was of logs, one and a half story high, and as his family increased he would add another log pen, until he had, as I have been told, five or six. A potion of the old house stood until some thirty years ago" Again, Mrs. John J. LaRue says: The latter (referring to Jabe LaRue -X) lived at Villa LaRue, where Isaac (his father) settled, but built a new stone house * * * The old prim house of stone is still standing." (1906)

With the clearing of his land and the care of a young family, the days and hours of Isaac LaRue, Sr., for a quarter of a century after his arrival in Virginia, were fully occupied. His first child, Jacob, was born May 1, 1744, the year after Isaac moved from New Jersey. The mother, Phebe, was then just nineteen years of age. The second child, John was born before the expiration of two years from this date. The youngest child, Jabez (X) was born in 1768.

The activities of Isaac LaRue, St., however, were not limited wholly to the clearing and cultivation of his land. Mr. John J. LaRue says: "He raised horses and tried to keep a hundred but could not keep this number, so he had 98, or over 100: In the city of Washington is preserved a list of voters for members of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, at an election held July 24, 1758, in the district which then embraced Frederick County. This list is said to be in the handwriting of George Washington, who was one of the candidates voted for at the election. Among the voters for George Washington, as shown in copy of the list as published in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography for 1898-9, at page 165, is the name of Isaac Lareu of Frederick County. This doubtless refers to Isaac LaRue, Sr., at that early day, Alexandria, fifty miles down the Potomac, was the trading place for the people of Frederick County. It is by no means improbable that Isaac LaRue, Sr., occasionally came into personal contact with Washington in that town. And they may also have met in Frederick County, where Washington in his young days was engaged as a surveyor. The lands on Long Marsh which Isaac LaRue, Sr., purchased from the Lindsey's were granted to them by Lord Fairfax, and in the Lord Fairfax's grant these lands are referred to as having been "surveyed by Mr. George Washington in 1761"

From all that can now be learned, it is apparent that Isaac LaRue, Sr., became a prosperous Virginia planter, which perhaps rather more than the usual zeal of farmers to own more land with each succeeding year. Although his family increased rapidly, until the support and education of his children must have required his constant attention, he seems to have been able to purchase immense tracts of land in various portions of Virginia. The published Abstracts of Records of Augusta County show several such purchases by him about the years 1770 and 1771. As early as the year 1779 he was entering lands in the western county of Kentucky.

Among the depositions taken to perpetuate testimony in regard to land titles, preserved in the office of the Clerk of the County Court of Hardin County, Kentucky, are six depositions of Squire Boone, brother and fellow-adventurer of the more celebrated Daniel, all of which relate of lands patented by Isaac LaRue, Sr., or by members of his family. In one of these depositions, which was given September 13, 1797, Squire Boone says that "in the year 1779 he was passing through this way" and saw the tract of 6,250 acres of land (below the mouth of the Beech Fork of Salt River) and "when he had opportunity, ordered it to be entered in the name of Isaac LaRue, Sr., by direction of Boone, in the year 1783.

The fact that members of the family of Isaac LaRue, Sr., had some arrangement with Boone under which he was entering lands for them in Kentucky is evident, no only from the depositions of Boone, which are shown in Appendix A, but also from the letter written by Isaac Hodgen (VI C) and John Hodgen (VI E) to the widow and son of their uncle James LaRue (IX) dated April 8, 1811, which is shown in the chapter relating to Isaac Hodgen (VI C). It is not improbable that the acquaintance of Isaac LaRue, Sr., with the Boone family dagted back to the years when Isaac's father and Squire Boone, the father of Daniel and of the Squire whose depositions are referred to were neighbors in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where, according to the Life of Daniel Boone in Sparks' American Biography, the latter was born in February, 1735, and where he remained until he was "a small boy," when he removed to the neighboring County of Berks. As we have seen, in a preceeding chapter, Peter LaRue bought land in Bucks County, PA., in December, 1738, "and settled thereon." While it appears that Isaac LaRue, Sr., claimed Hunterdon County, New Jersey, as his place of residence when he bought land in Virginia, in 1743, he would naturally have known the neighbors of his father, whose home in Bucks County, PA., was just across the Delaware River from the New Jersey County in which Isaac himself then lived.

By far the greater part of the Virginia lands which Isaac LaRue, Sr., acquired were in the territory which is now included in the State of Virginia. As late as the year 1806, the Virginia legislature passed an act establishing a ferry across the Little Kauawha River from a point in Wood County to "the lands claimed by the heirs of Isaac LaRue, on the opposite shore." (Shepherd's Virginia Statutes, Vol. 3, page 246) This point, of course, is now in West Virginia.

How many thousands of acres of land, in Virginia and Kentucky, Isaac LaRue, St., entered or purchased and gave to his children in his lifetime, it is impossible to say. His will makes provisions for only three of his ten children -James (IX.), Jabez (X.), and the sons and daughters of his daughter Elizabeth (IV.) There is no reason to doubt that the other children had been equally as well provided for before his death. The land of Middle Island referred to in his will consisted of 2,300 acres-300 acres on an island in the Ohio River, and 2,000 acres at the mouth of Middle Island Creek, in Ohio County (Abstract of Records of Augusta County, VA Vol. 2, page 116) And it appears that he owned land in Cabell County, which was not disposed of by his will -21,000 acres, "granted by Dinwiddie's proclamation to Nathaniel Barrett and others, they being soldiers under Capt. John Savage, and sold by them to Isaac LaRue." (Id., page 50.) this land was conveyed by the heirs of Isaac LaRue, Sr., in the years 1809 and 1810 (Id.)

In the Appendix to the "Journal of Colonel George Washington" of his expedition in 1754 to the Ohio River, at page 214, is copied the following advertisement from the Virginia Gazette of February 17, 1775.

It is now become indispensably necessary that the claimants in the patent to Mr. John Savage and others who were with Colonel Washington at the battle of the Meadows, for 28,627 acres of land on the River Ohio and the Sandy Creeks, should come to a speedy division of the said lands: They and every one of them, or their represtatives, are therefore desired to attend at the contluence of the Great Kanhawa on Monday, the 8th day of May next, in order to proceed to a division. It will also be expected that the costs attending the original survey be by such claimants then paid." Signed by Van Swearengen, R. Rutherford, Isaac Lareu and James McCormick. It appears from the transcript shown on page 50 of the Records of Augusta County that Isaac LaRue, Sr., finally became the owner of 21,000 of this 23,627 acres, by purchase from the original grantees.

George Washington was grantee of a large tract under the same proclamation of Gov. Dinwiddie, and he seems to have had a part in making the survey and division of the lands. The original ledgers, in Washington's handwriting, showing receipts and disbursements on account of this survey, are in the State Department at Washington, and they are copied in Appendix to his "Journal" above referred to, on page 209 of which appear the following Credits:

• "1771, December 11.
• By Isaac Lareu, for Nathan Barrett, L1-s. 1.
• By George Washington's quote, L11 -s, 5."

As an instance of the liberality of Isaac LaRue, Sr., toward his clidren, a copy of an instrument of writing, which was evidently intended as a deed of conveyance, and which is of record in the office of the Clerk of the County Court of Hardin County, Kentucky, is given below:

"October the twenty-seventh, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two. I do hereby give a tract of land in Kentucky conveyed by warrant and location in my name, of some thousand acres, on the waters of Salt River, unto my son Isaac Larue, his heirs and assigns forever. Given under my hand and seal, the twenty-seventh of October, 1792.

		Isaac Larue (Seal)
Witnesses present:
Jabez Larue,	Joseph Hamton,
Benjamin Denny,	Phebe Larue."

His will, which was written wholly by himself-though doubtless the wording of the introductory portion was taken from some from in current use, as many of the Virginia wills of that period show the same phrascology-is sufficient evidence that he spoke the English language. The French of his great-grandfather or the Dutch of his great-grandmother was never spoken or heard in his home in the Valley of Shenandoah.

As is disclosed in the record of a land suit filed in the court of Hardin County, Kentucky, in the year 1812, Isaac LaRue, Sr., died in the month of March, 1795. He was eighty-three years of age at the time of his death. His wife, Phebe Carman, born in 1725, was then seventy years old. She died about the beginning of the year 1804. Administration on her estate was granted in Frederick County, Virginia, in April of that year.

The graveyard of the old Buck Marsh Meeting House, a quarter of a mile from Berryville Clarke County, Virginia, where Isaac LaRue, Sr., his wife, Phebe Carman LaRue, and his father Peter LaRue were buried. The stones placed at their graves have disappears. The tall stone at the left is at the grave of James LaRue (IX.) who died in 1823.

The papers in the land suit just referred to, which was styled Larue's Heirs vs Slack, set 1 out the will of Isaac LaRue, Sr., as shown on another page of this book. The records of this suit also give the names of the heirs of Isaac LaRue, Sr., who were living in the year 1812.

Among the several lists of heads of families of Frederick County, Virginia for the year 1782, may be seen on which was made by George Noble. Evidently his territory included the Long Marsh neighborhood, for on his list we find the names of Isaac Larue, which a household consisting of twelve whites and six blacks, Robert Hodgen, his son-in-law, with eleven whites and two blacks, and Joseph Carman, another son-in-law, with nine whites and no blacks. We shall see, in the sketch of the Rev. Joshua Carman in the chapter on Early Churches and Pastors that slavery was not in favor with at least one member of the Carman family. On George Noble's list of heads of families also appears the name of David Castleman, with a household of ten whites and five blacks. Two fo the seven sons of David Castleman followed the children of Isaac LaRue, Sr., to the Nolynn Valley, and descendants of these two neighbors on the Long Marsh intermarried in Kentucky.
(See 1. L. I. M. and I.H. c.)

The children of Isaac LaRue, Sr., and Phebe Carman, his wife, were ten-

1. Jacob LaRue (1744 - 1821)
2. John LaRue (1746 - 1792)
3. Isaac LaRue
4. Elizabeth - married Peter LaRue
5. Mary LaRue Carman (later Harris).
6. Sara LaRue Hodgen (1755 - 1825)
7. Rebecca LaRue Helm
8. Samuel LaRue
9. IJames LaRue (1762 - 1809)
10. Jabez LaRue (1768 - 1823)

COPY OF THE CONTRACT FOR PURCHASE OF LAND BY ISAAC LARUE (1743).

"Articles of agreement made and concluded this 3rd day of June in the year of our Lord 1743 between Isaac Larue, of Hapewell in ye county of Hunterdon and province A of west New Jersey, yeoman of one part, and Nathaniel Doherty, of the county of Orange and colony of Virginia, of the other part. Witnesseth that ye said Nathaniel Doherty haith sold unto ye said Isaac Larue a tract of land on the long marsh near Shanandor in the county of Orange, containing two hundred & fifty acres, be it more or less, with all the improvements on the same, it is also agreed that the said Nathaniel Doherty, Senior, is to have the use of the improvements during his life, also his widow, if she lives over, during her life. It is to be noted that the land is to be sold from the seller and his heirs ot the buyer and his heirs foever from the heirs, exxecuters, adminst & assigns of the seller to the heirs, executors, admst, and assignes of the byer, Isaac Larue is to have a patent from Joiste Hite pursuant to a bond signed from the said Nathaniel Doherty to said Isaac Lare bearing date in the year 1737. The price of the land is one hundred pounds. Virginia money, sixty pounds to be paid about the middle of October next and the other 40 pounds in March 1745.

		Isaac Larue (seal)
		Nathaniel Doherty (seal)
Signed, sealed & delivered
In the presence of
Thomas Lindsy
Edmond Lindsy
Wm. Stone

The children of Isaac LaRue, Sr., and Phebe Carman, his wife, were ten-