At a local hearing held by the Virginia Corporation Commission in answer to a proposed 765 kV power line by American Electric Power Company, Pete Ferguson, a black resident of Dry Fork Creek, showed his anger about the line encroaching over his land. He held up a cane made from a tree found on land his grandfather Mack (McHenry) Ferguson, a freed slave, had settled over 100 years prior on Dry Fork Creek in Bland County Virginia. He waved the cane in the courtroom and said the cane had a lot more life in it for anyone who would try to destroy his grandfather’s land.

Pete’s display that day best describes the connection to the past and for the future of many of those who have manage to remain or have family ties in the Dry Fork Creek Community 120 years after their ancestors settled there.

As a historical researcher, and infant historian of history in my home county of Bland, I was moved by Pete’s testimony that day. I found myself wanting to know more about his ancestors. I wanted to learn about the entire history of our county that included the history of the black residents of Dry Fork Creek. I wanted to put to work what I had learned to do, historical research, and teach myself a historical lesson you in my experience you can’t really obtain in a history book. The research of actual people teaches more than I could ever gain from any book. Though my work is not perfect and never can be complete I hope to take what I have learned to help to tell the remarkable story of Dry Fork Creek and keep the memory alive for generations to come.

Begin with the Land

Since land and who has control over its use was the beginning of all of this, I decided to tell the story of the land. But first one has to understand why land in United States history is so important. The land of North American is so paramount in acting as a catalyst for creating our history you cannot write the history of Dry Fork Creek without understanding the meaning of some of the basic beliefs behind land ownership.

Many a historian of United States history will tell you that westward expansion was fueled by an idealism that was based on an agrarian social theory. The idea of land ownership became a thing to aspire to, to rise to in the New World. The theory as described by Henry Nash Smith, was coined the "freehold concept" by historian Chester E. Eisenger. This "freehold concept" is used to "designate a complex of general notions arising from the effort of many writers to interpret the new society that was coming into being under the influence of an abundance of land awaiting settlement." This doctrine held specific beliefs:

1. Agriculture is the only source of real wealth.
2. Every man has a natural right to land.
3. That labor spent in cultivating the earth confers a valid title to it.
4. That ownership of land makes people independent and gives them social status and dignity.
5. That constant contact with nature makes a person virtuous and happy.
6. That America offered a unique example of a society embodying these traits.
7. That as a general inference of all these propositions, government should be dedicated to the interests of the freehold landowner.

Benjamin Franklin’s writings from the 1750’s onward supported this theory. Franklin according to Nash, "when he surveyed the society of the new nation, the aging statesman consoled himself for the idleness and extravagance of the seaboard cities with the reflection that the bulk of the population was composed of laborious and frugal inland farmers." Franklin thought that since hundreds of millions of acres of land still covered by the great forest of the interior would every year attract more and more settlers, the luxury of a few merchants on the coast would not be the ruin of America. Selling that idealism with westward expansion was the rule of new United States and what became Bland County.

Many of those who live in Bland County have always presented characteristics of the basics of these beliefs to some extent even to the present modern day landowners. These beliefs rooted in our history have clashed from time to time with those who would speculate to use the land for profit at the benefit solely for the expansion of business over those who live on the land to take care of it. Volumes of American history are written concerning wars, economics, control, etc. When all these events are narrowed down, the concern is over LAND, who owns it, uses the resources of it and controls or has the benefit of it.

Land in Bland County its usage and control, is as important today as it was in the days of the earliest records found. The story of Dry Fork is a history of the people who want to own and/or live on the land. Dry Fork’s history becomes a smaller version of our nation’s history and an important piece of the history of Southwest Virginia. Dry Fork was a community of free men and women that resembled some of the same experiences of their eastern counterparts in such communities like Holy Neck in Nansemond County. Except Dry Fork is unique in that; 1. It is in the Appalachian Mountains of Southwest Virginia and 2. There are descendents still living on the original tracts of land and they still have a very real sense of the community ties that bind them together.

Still Holy Neck has similarities. Israel Cross was a leader, preacher and farmer in this Holy Neck. It is said Holy Neck under his guidance, prospered for forty years and they built homes, a church and a school. Every Sunday after toiling all week in the fields, Cross would preach at the church and would at the end of every sermon admonish and advise "Buy some land, build a home, and get some education."

So I will begin with the history of the land of Dry Fork Creek to tell the story of those today who wish to preserve and control what they hold very close to their hearts.

Early Owners of Dry Fork Lands

We begin this history of Dry Fork in the late 1700s. The United States is just an infant, George Washington is President and Tennessee is not yet a state. The boundary of Virginia extends to the Mississippi River. The red, black and white peoples of America have already laid a pattern of interaction with each other that still today reverberates with inequality. The red native peoples fought and failed at maintaining control over lands they controlled for thousands of years (including Dry Fork Creek) by failing to stop the progression of white emigration that pushed them ever westward.

Most black people began life in America as slaves to the white and though some would achieve "free" status, that status was always precarious at best prior to the Civil War, and never really on equal terms with whites who controlled any form of government afterward.

With the Proclamation Treaty of 1763 under British rule, using the crest of the Appalachians as a dividing line between the Indian and settlers a long faded memory, land speculation became part of the movement westward. Land grants were issued to those who have served as patriots in the Revolutionary War. Those who had laid claim to lands prior to the treaty of 1763, beyond its boundaries began the process of having those claims recognized. Sometimes scandalous land speculation became the rule. Patriots of the Revolutionary war such as Patrick Henry took advantage of the westward movement and its idealism by becoming involved in investing in large tracts of land for profit.

Henry’s land speculation gives a good example of the use of title to land. As the president of the Virginia Yazoo Company, Henry invested and sold land in Georgia among other places. The problem was Henry’s company like others of that time sold and claimed more land than actually existed, actually netting him profits for selling worthless deeds. This led one modern day historian to refer to Henry as "Patrick, if you can’t give me liberty or death at least give me a big chunk of graft, Henry."

It has taken years to sort these early boundaries of grants out in the courts, congress and state legislatures with even modern day landowners still dealing with 200 year old boundary issues.

Under this movement in 1794, "the Dry Fork of Laurel Fork of Wolf Creek, a branch of the New River" was part of the survey and land grant to Samuel and Levi Hollingsworth. This grant was known as "Angel’s Rest". By 1814, this tract was owned by the Bank of Deleware, in Wilmington Deleware and contained 73,031 acres (more or less) and was reported situated in Wythe and Giles Counties. Kegley’s Adventures on the Western Waters mentions the land grants of the Loyal company and others having clashes over these claims but does not mention in some cases who the participants were. This area claimed by the Bank of Delaware would certainly have crossed some of the lands the Loyal Company claimed.

In 1814, the banks appointed representative, Rev. Joseph Willard, to manage the land for the Bank of Delaware. The bank gave Rev. Willard the power to collect rents, sell land, convey deeds, and pay the taxes due. In 1828 upon the death of Joseph Willard the Bank of Deleware appointed a successor, James Hector, an attorney from Giles County, to the same position. Hector’s management was given the authority to manage the bank’s investments in not only the Angel’s Rest property but also another 27,000 acres the bank had acquired known as "Spring Brook’ that reached deeper into Wythe County. The bank was specifically interested in "disposing of the properties’ listed for a profit. Probably in part due to the mountainous region the grant was in, partly due to the economy at the time, it took almost 25 years for the Bank of Delaware to dispose of the lands of Dry Fork Creek. They sold a portion of it to Thomas Walker of Monroe County.