Greene County Record

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Much later, Native American Indians of the Monacan nation moved into the area, living in villages and farming as well as hunting. When white settlers came to Tidewater Virginia, hunters and trappers made the first contacts, but it was not until 1716 that Governor Alexander Spotswood's exploratory trip over the mountains opened the area to settlement. Leading 63 horseman, he traversed the Piedmont (literally, 'the foot of the mountains') and crossed into the Shenandoah Valley at what is now Swift Run Gap, where a pyramidal monument commemorates the journey. Within a decade or so, most of the best land in what is now Greene County had been taken up in grants from King George I of England. The first remaining evidence of these white settlers is known as the Octonia Stone; it is a huge boulder scored with a figure eight (for eight grantees) below a cross, and it marks the corner of the original 1722 grant. William Stanard, the grandson of one of the original grantees and the great-nephew of another, established the town of Stanardsville in 1794, along what was then known as 'the Richmond Road.' The two oldest buildings in the town, houses on the east side of Stanardsville Run, date from that period. Stanardsville soon became the largest town in western Orange County, but it was not until 1838 that Greene County, named after Revolutionary War hero Nathanael Greene, split off from Orange County. Another early immigrant to the County was William Monroe. Mr. Monroe, who died in...

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