Emigration from Virginia to North Carolina and the Other Southern Colonies; W and M Q, V.14-2

Transcribed by Kathy Merrill for the USGenWeb Archives Special Collections Project

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Emigration from Virginia to North Carolina and the Other Southern Colonies

   James Maury

   William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 2.

   (Oct., 1905), pp. 95-96.

         EMIGRATION FROM VIRGINIA TO NORTH CARO-
          LINA AND THE OTHER SOUTHERN COLONIES.

      Letter of James Maury to Hon. Philip Ludwell(1).

   I beg leave to inform you, that such numbers of people have lately
transplanted themselves hence into the more southerly governments, as must
appear almost incredible to any except such as have had an opportunity of
knowing it, either from their own observation, or the credible information
of others.

   From the waters of Potomac, James River, and Roanoke, on the eastern 
side of the above-mentioned ridge of mountains, nay, from the side of the
Blue Ridge, hundreds of families have, within these few months past, re-
moved, deserted their habitations, and conveyed themselves and their
most valuable movables into other governments.

   By Bedford Court House, in one week, it is said, and I believe truly
said, near three hundred persons, inhabitants of this colony, passed on
their way to Carolina.  And I have it from good authors, that no later in
autumn than October five thousand more had crossed James River, only at 

one ferry, and that at Goochland Court House, and journeying towards the
same place; and doubtless great numbers have passed that way since.  And,
although all these lands had not been settled in Virginia, yet a large
porportion of them had.  From all the upper counties, even those on this
side the Blue Hills, great numbers are
_________________________________________________________________________
   (1) Maury, Memoirs of a Huguenot Family, 431.  Letter is without date.
The context shows that it was written about 1756.

Page 96.

daily following, and others preparing to follow in the spring.  Scarce do
I know a neighborhood but has lost some families, and expectes quickly to
lose more.  What aggravates the misfortune, is, that many of these are
not the idler and the vagrant, pests of society, whom it is every salutary
to a body politic to purge off, but the honest and industrious, men of
worth and property, whom it is an evil at any time to a community to lose,
but it most eminently so to our town in the present and critical juncture.

   Now, sir, as many have thus quitted fertile lands and comfortable habit-
ations, left behind them their friends, relations, and country, to all
which they were attached by many powerful and endearing ties, we may con-
clude that weighty have been the reasons, at least these people have thought
them such, which have already determined so many to act as these have done,
and will determine others to follow their example.  But, whether they be
weighty in themselves or not, it is certain they are such as reduce the
numbers of our inhabitants very fast, to the great detriment and loss of
the public.