OUR HISTORY

Primland - A History Of 250 Years, A Mountain Property That Timber Built

Signs of native habitation near Primland date back to12,000 BC and history records the Saura Indians living in villages on the Dan River from1450 to 1710. Settlement by Europeans began in earnest when Sir William Gooch, Crown Governor of Virginia from 1727 through 1749, made a series of large land grants, some exceeding 70,000 acres in size, to encourage western migration as a buffer against Indian attack and to prevent incursion by French settlers coming east from the Mississippi River Valley. Most of the settlers who responded were of Scotch-Irish descent, coming from Pennsylvania through passes in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Others of English ancestry came directly from Eastern Virginia and parts of North Carolina.

Life in this pioneer setting was harsh and travel was difficult. The few scattered roads that existed were rutted and often impassable in winter. Because transportation was limited, the area had little access to trade goods and settlers were forced to make do with what they could grow or obtain in the immediate area. Medical care was limited and life expectancy short.

As population increased throughout Virginia, larger counties were subdivided into smaller ones. Following this pattern, Patrick County was created from parts of neighboring Henry County in 1791. The 1800 Census, America's first, recorded Patrick County's population at 4,331 or just 9 people per square mile. Even today, it stands at a modest 19,407 or roughly 40 people per square mile.

After the American Revolution, agriculture made steady progress. Farmland in Patrick County varied from steep slopes to rich bottom land, and early planters used oxen and mules as well as horses to plow it. Tobacco became the most important agricultural product with the largest portions grown or processed by the Reynolds Plant and the Penn Company, which evolved into the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and the American Tobacco Company, respectively. Next to tobacco, corn was the most important cash crop in the 1800's including corn by the gallon rather than the peck!

In 1834 the county seat of Taylorsville (renamed Stuart in 1884 after local hero and Civil War Cavalry General J. E. B. Stuart) contained the Court House and various county buildings, 40 houses, 2 mercantile stores, 3 taverns, a tannery, a saddlery, a tailor, a flour mill and 2 tobacco factories.

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