members of the Society of Friends or Quakers.[21] Not a few of this
faith came direct from England and Ireland, attracted by the genial
climate, fertile soils and bountiful harvests, accounts of which had
early gained wide-spread circulation. They chose homes in the central
portion of the County, southwest of Waterford and west of Lessburg,
that section being generally known as the "Quaker Settlement."

Each summer brought them new accessions of prosperity and devout
brethren to swell their numbers; and soon they had caused the
wilderness to blossom as the rose. Here they found freedom of
religious and moral thought, a temperate climate, and the wholesome
society of earnest compatriots.

Then, as now, a plain, serious people, they have left the
impress of their character--thrifty, industrious, and conspicuously
honest--upon the whole of the surrounding district.

[Footnote 21: The term Quaker, originally given in reproach, has been
so often used, by friend as well as foe, that it is no longer a term
of derision, but is the generally accepted designation of a member of
the Society of Friends.--_Loudoun Rangers._]

No concerted violence, it is believed, was offered these settlers by
the Indians who seem to have accredited them with the same qualities
of honesty, virtue, and benevolence, by the exercise of which William
Penn, the founder of the faith in Pennsylvania, had won their lasting
confidence and esteem.

The Quaker is a type with which all the world is familiar and needs no
particular portrayal in this work. The Quakers of Loudoun have at all