people, because the cheapest, and was bought by the puncheon. Most
every cellar, especially in the Cavalier settlements, had its barrel
of cider, Bordeaux and sherry and Madeira wines, French brandies,
delicate Holland gins, cordials, syrups, and every sort of ale and
beer. Drunkenness was so common as to excite no comment, and drinking
after dinner and at parties was always hard, prolonged, and desperate,
so that none but the most seasoned old topers--the judges, squires,
and parsons of six-bottle capacity--ever escaped with their sea-legs
in an insurable condition.

While a large proportion of the home-seekers that had settled in the
County immediately after the Revolution had received a rudimentary
education, and had lived among communities which may be said to have
been comparatively cultured, most of them were hardy, rough,
uncultivated back-woodsmen, accustomed only to the ways of the
frontier and camp. Many of them had served in the war of the
Revolution and all of them in the border wars with the Indians. Though
brave, hospitable and generous, they were more at ease beneath the
forest bivouac than in the "living-room" of the log-cabin, and to
swing a woodman's axe among the lofty trees of the primeval forest was
a pursuit far more congenial to their rough nature and active
temperament than to mingle with society in settled communities. Their
habits and manners were plain, simple, and unostentatious. Their
clothing was generally made of the dressed skins of the deer, wolf, or
fox, while those of the buffalo and elk supplied them with covering
for their feet and heads. Their log-cabins were destitute of glass,
nails, hinges, or locks.

Education during the early settlements received but little attention
in Loudoun, and school-houses, always of logs, were scarcely to be