ParisTimes Genealogy 1939 inheritance & 159 year old deed.

1939 Story - 159 Year-old Deed

Highland County, Virginia

[The following information is from a Highland County newspaper printed approximately in the fall of 1939 aroung September. It concerns a 159 year old deed signed by Thomas Jefferson (Governor of Virginia) to Robert Carlisle September 1, 1780. It is a deed to 65 acres of beautiful Highland County, Virginia, between the Alleghany and Shenandoah mountains.]

Robson Inherits Deed
Signed 159 years Ago by Jefferson

David Robson often fishes and hunts on land in Virginia deeded by "Great Democrat".

by Joseph Guess, Press-Scimitar Staff Writer

A faded square of paper that has been worn in two by the finger of time is one of the most prized possessions of David Robson, Mempis cotton man.

The paper is 159 years old and to it is attached the signature of one of the world's greatest men, Thomas Jefferson, who penned the original draft of the Declaration of Independence and whose signature was affixed to the treaty which gave this country its greatest acquisition of land, the vast Louisiana Purchase.

Mr. Robson's paper is a deed to 65 acres in beautiful Highland County, Va., between the Alleghany and Shenandoah mountains. It was granted to one of his forbears, Robert Carlisle, on September 1, 1780, and signed by Jefferspn, then governor of Virginia.

The deed passed from Carlisle to the Memphian's paternal great-grandfather, became a family treasure and was inherited by Mr. Robson at his father's death.

Jefferson's signature, still plainly legible on the deed, is written in large but gracefully and regularly shaped letters, indicating the strong, fine and unflinchable character of the Great Democrat.

The slice of mountain wilderness to which Robert Carlisle went to make a home in 1780 has now been enlarged, thru purchase of adjoining land by his ancestors, to an 1120-acre stock farm, known as one of the "most beautiful mountain farms in the state."

Still standing, however, is a cabin erected by Carlisle soon after his purchase, which would make it well over 150 years old.

From it, Mr. Robson's grandfather, one of the first country physicians in that part of the state, went by horseback over mountains to attend the sick.

Mr. Robson's father, just before his marriage, built another home upon the farm.

But the cabin is still an important site on the large estate, and to it Mr. Robson returns several times a year. He uses it as a fishing and hunting headquarters. Thru the farm runs the Bull Pasture River, which empties into a tributary of the James and thus provides, most of the year a 250-mile access by motorboat to the sea, altho the farm is imbedded deep in the mountain country.

The Bull Pasture is the clearest of rivers, Mr. Robson says, and you can see fish swimming 10 or 15 feet beneath its surface. Mountain streams abound and fishing is great. There are many "Fish ladders," or flat, inclined beards in these streams, according to state law, so that fish can move out of deep holes.

There's deer hunting, too, during season, for the mountains around the valley farm still contain many rough and inaccessible spots.

"As one goes down into the valley toward my farm," Mr. Robson said, "you can see a great panorama of beautiful green valley, cut in two by a clear stream of blue, and neatly cultivated lands rising up on the plateau and almost to the tops of the mountains in the distance."

The Civil War Battle of McDowell was fought near the farm and Southern cavalrymen once chased Yankee infantry over its meadows.

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