Ar-Qua Springs

"Ar-Qua Springs" is one of the older houses in what is now Berkeley County, West Virginia. Begun in the mid-eighteenth century, the stone and log building has served mostly as a farmhouse, but it also may have been used at times as a meeting place for early Quakers of the area. Sett led as part of the Ross-Bryan tract of 1735, this was one of the first locations west of the Blue Ridge to receive permanent white inhabitants, and the fact that many around the community of Arden were Quakers is an interesting facet in the history of that religious sect. The old Thornbrough house is simple in lines and style, yet its plan and detail present an important glimpse of construction techniques of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

The colony of Pennsylvania had not only been a haven for Quakers since its inception; for many years into the eighteenth century, it was politically under their control. As the number of inhabitants increased and the proportion of Quakers decreased, however, pressures and influences caused many of the sect to seek a new place of abode. By an order of the Lieutenant Governor and Council of Virginia dated April 23, 1735, Alexander Ross, a Friend, and Morgan Bryan, both of Chester County, Pennsylvania, were granted leave to survey and settle up to 70,000 acres (1,000 acres for each family settled up to a maximum of seventy families) in northwestern Virginia south of the Potomac River. The large expanse provided an opportunity for numerous Pennsylvania and New Jersey Quakers to take an old wagon road from the area around Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, to a concentration in the valleys around Winchester, Virginia, and what is now the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia.

Among those who received land from this grant was George Hobson, who was deeded 937 acres on Middle Creek, including the ground on which "Ar-Qua Springs" is located. In 1750 Thomas Thornbrough received a grant of 862 acres from Thomas, Lord Fairfax, land which was part of the former grant to Hobson. As with so much of the area, it appears that this acreage was in conflict between the Ross-Bryan grant and the claims of Fairfax to the Northern Neck. Whatever the problems involved, though, the situation seems to have been amicably settled; Thornbrough survey in October 1751, and he either built all or part of the house that now bears his name.

Thomas Thornbrough must have come to the area in 1740, at least ten years before the land deal with Hobson was completed, for records of the Sadsbury Monthly Meeting of Friends in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, indicate a certificate of removal for him and his family to Hopewell Monthly Meeting (which included the section around "Ar-Qua Springs") on March 5, 1740.

Thornbrough's house apparently began as a one-story, limestone dwelling which soon was increased to about three times its original size by the addition of a fine log unit. Tradition holds that the small stone section had at times been used as a meeting place for Quakers, but records do not show it as an established meetinghouse. There is a good possibility, however, that meetings were held here, for it was not unusual that private homes were used, especially during winter months when travel was difficult and many were allowed the privilege of meeting away from Hopewell Meetinghouse.

As members of the Middle Creek Meeting, the Thornbroughs became quite prominent in Quaker affairs. Benjamin, Thomas' son and owner of "Ar-Qua Springs" from 1762 to 1787, was a representative from Hopewell to the Western Quarterly Meeting in November 1758, an official visit to Friends on Smith Creek who desired to join Hopewell in 1760, an appointee to a meeting at Pipe Creek, Maryland, to consider a quarterly meeting in 1771, a committee member of Hopewell during part or all of the period 1759-1776, and a clerk of that meeting during some part of his association. The strict rules of the sect were apparently too much for Benjamin, though, and he was "disowned" in 1782 for "not attending the meeting." At least two other owners of "Ar-Qua Springs" were also Quakers, these being Solomon Miller, who held the property from 1787 to 1795, and Samuel Chenowith, who continued in ownership from 1795 to 1843.

For most of its existence, the house has been associated with the land and farming. It was a small residence, no doubt, when first constructed, for the stone section contains only one room on the first floor and probably had small living space in what would have been the attic. The log addition provided at least two additional rooms on the first level, each with a large fireplace, and a loft area approached by nicely curving, but narrow steps. The building underwent a major change about 1820; it was then that the gambrel roof and dormers are believed to have been placed, increasing the effective floor space and providing an above the second level.

"Ar-Qua Springs" is a comfortable structure in a picturesque setting. Its past association with Quakers who entered the area with the intention of settling into constructive lives as farmers, craftsmen and merchants are important, for the Eastern Panhandle is the only section in present West Virginia where that sect played an appreciable role in opening up new territory.