and a rich assortment of herbs and grasses for which we likely have no contemporary analogous community. Lacking periodic disturbance from fire – as this presettlement landscape had been shaped by – the community would shift to increased forest cover and/or more mesic species. However, over the past century a different set of cultural drivers has resulted in forest decline, increase of open areas, loss of species, and introduction of exotic taxa. HUMAN HISTORY The Virginia Piedmont between the Blue Ridge and Bull Run Mountains has a long history of human habitation. By 13,000 years ago archeological records suggest the Americas were widely inhabited with people in almost every corner. In the Oak Spring volume, I highlighted the impressive collection of Indian artifacts collected around Oak Spring, Rokeby, and other nearby locations by Boyd Pauley – long time gardener at Oak Spring. The collection of 77 artifacts – mainly projectile points and a few ax heads – documents local presence of indigenous people for over 10,000 years. In general, the collection agrees with archeologists’ interpretation of regional population changes and environmental preference by people. In Archaic times (8,000 – 3,200 years ago) people used the uplands for hunting large game. Later, as agriculture expanded among American
Indians, populations moved to the bottomlands of larger rivers where a wider array of resources were available. The uplands around Rokeby and Upperville were much less frequently used during these recent times. European arrival resulted in massive cultural and ecological upheaval. Through a number of treaties (and broken treaties), as well as population losses mainly on account of disease, Native American populations fell in the Piedmont. As a result, European settlers colonized in large numbers. The original land grant that included Rokeby, and all of the area around Upperville – and most of northern Virginia – was ultimately acquired by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax. His Northern Neck Proprietary included six million acres from the coast to the mountains. Slowly Fairfax doled out land while living on the frontier in Shenandoah Valley, foxhunting and sharing time with a young George Washington. His holdings were divided up as settlers arrived to the fertile lands of the Piedmont. By the mid-1800s the landscape around Upperville was filled by productive farms. Rokeby was owned by Nathan Loughborough, whose father, Nathan Sr. was a high-level member of the US Treasury. Rokeby was a productive farm producing over 1,000 lbs. of butter, 2,000 bushels of grains, almost 100 pigs, and 80 cows. Most of this production occurred on the backs of Loughborough’s 24 slaves.
15