SNIPPET: The Virginia, Co. Cavan estate was eventually sold around the year 1750 by the absentee PLUNKETTs to pay off mounting debts, setting the way for a new landlord Thomas TAYLOR, Lord Headfort to continue in building the town where others had failed. It is recorded that TAYLOR's grandfather, also a Thomas TAYLOR, was a cartographer who assisted Sir William PETTY with the Down Survey during the previous century. The TAYLORs (later TAYLOUR) had built a substantial mansion (now the Headfort school) beside Kells in County Meath and turned their attention to making the unproductive lands around Virginia into profitable farms through land drainage and afforestation of low lying areas. The results of which brought employment and quickly led to the setting up of local markets and fairs in Virginia where produce was traded on the streets. Virginia's population grew to double from 467 inhabitants between the census years of 1821 to 1841, as did the rapid construction of the town with the Main street as we know it today. Successive Lords Headfort, later became Earl of Bective and Marquess of Headfort, created their own private demesne and a hunting lodge (now Park Hotel) overlooking Lough Ramor. The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-49 caused by successive failures in the potato crop brought with it extreme hardship for the poorer classes, death was widespread caused by diseases like typhus and cholera, the result of poor sanitation and deplorable living conditions. Starvation which ravished many parts of the country was averted in Virginia due to the efforts of the local Famine Relief Committee, who made extra rations of Indian meal available in return for hard labour, this included women and children breaking stones for making roads and the building of the local Catholic church which took place during 1845 on lands donated by the landlord. In subsequent years Virginia prospered with the introduction of a Butter market in 1856, followed by the building of a railway line between Kells and Oldcastle by around 1865. Cattle and livestock could then be moved for export, however this also meant that produce such as coal and beer could be transported from the larger towns into rural areas which led to the closure of the local malt brewery and several bakeries in the town. Until relatively recently emigration was a feature of rural Irish life down through the centuries and Virginia was no exception to this. Perhaps the most famous Virginia emigrant was Philip H. SHERIDAN, whose parents came from nearby Killinkere, left Ireland around 1830 and settled in America. SHERIDAN achieved success through a military career, particularly during the American Civil War. PRESIDENT LINCOLN stated, "this SHERIDAN is a little Irishman, but a big fighter", eventually became commanding General of the US Army and had many honours bestowed upon him. Other famous people who have associations to Virginia are Dean Jonathan SWIFT who penned his well known novel Gullivers Travels while staying nearby at Quilca, the home of his cleric friend Thomas SHERIDAN who also kept a classics school and later became headmaster of Cavan's Royal School. Playwright Richard Brinsley SHERIDAN was also descended from this family, while anothor reputable Virginian from the nineteenth century was Thomas FITZPATRICK a noted London physician. Admiral Sir Josias ROWLEY had links here through his brother Rev. John ROWLEY whom was an Anglican clergyman and incumbent at Virginia during the period that the First Fruits church was built. Admiral ROWLEY also helped to finance the rebuilding of the church after a major fire destroyed the roof on Christmas night 1830. The Township of Cavan-Monaghan is located in central-eastern Ontario, Canada in Peterborough county, Ontario, Canada about twenty kilometres southwest of the city of Peterborough. The original township of Cavan and Millbrook was surveyed by John DEYELL in 1817, and was named after County Cavan in Ireland, from which many of its settlers had emigrated. By 1819 there were 244 settlers, and by 1861 the population had risen to 4901, many of whom were descendants of United Empire Loyalists, veterans of the War of 1812 who had been granted land there, or the original and later settlers from Ireland. After Confederation in 1867, the population began to drop as many families left for Western Canada. The original Irish settlers were Protestants, and many of them were associated with the Orange Order. In the mid-19th century the "Cavan Blazers" were established as a fiercely Protestant vigilante group, who often burned down the farms of Catholic settlers. -- Excerpts, article "Wikipedia," the free on-line encyclopedia.