This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/gAC.2ACE/1561.1579.1740.1744.1749.1768.1 Message Board Post: I goofed Rob, I had Mary In a differernt file. THE JOHN WILSON - MAGILL - MADAGAN HOUSE LOCATION: East of the Middle road (Route 628) about 1.5 miles southwest of Kernstown. Writing in 1855 in his Sketches of Virginia - Second Series (page 20), the Rev. William Henry Foote, D.D. describing settlers on the Opequon Creek downstream from the village of Opequon, says: "David Glass took his residence a little below his father (Samuel), on the Opequon at Cherry Mead, now owned by Madison Campbell; his son (that is Samuel's son) was placed a little further down at Long Meadows, now in the possession of his grandson, Robert … Next down the creek was Joseph Colvin and family … then came JOHN WILSON AND THE MARQUIS FAMILY, with whom he was connected; the grave of his wife is marked in this yard ( the old Opequon Church Cemetery) by the oldest monumental stone in the Valley". Continuing Dr. Foote says: "Now let us go with this stone enclosure , and among the remains of the ancient settlers, and meditate upon the past. Let us enter through the narrow gateway on the southern side, through which the congregation sleeping here entered, never to return. Let us pause a few moments at this rough, low, time-worn stone, in the very center of the graves; the first with an inscription, reared in the Valley of Virginia to mark the resting place of an emigrant -- you can scarcely read the inscription on one side or decipher the letters and figures on the other. The stone crumbled under the unskillful hands of the husband, who brought it from that eminence yonder on the west, and , in the absence of a proper artist, inscribed the letters himself, to be a memorial to his young and lovely wife. Tradition says he was the schoolmaster. On the side on which Ireland is chiseled, the pebbles in the stone, or his unsteady hand, made large indentures, and rendered the inscription almost illegible. Here the stone has stood, a monument of affection, and marked the grave of the early departed, while the days of more than a century have passed away". Dr. Foote was a prominent Presbyterian minister, whose wife was Eliza Glass, daughter of the Rev. Joseph Glass. Her grave is in the old Opequon Cemetery not far removed from the Wilson tombstone about which her husband wrote. He was thoroughly qualified to write of the history of the old church and of the farms on which these early Presbyterian immigrants lived. We believe that the well-built old stone dwelling, which we are considering here, now the Madagan home, was the house of John Wilson, about whom Dr. Foote, writes. Although we have not be able to document it, it is reasonable certain that the land on which the old house stands was granted to Wilson by Yost Hite. The Orange county records contain grants by Hite to Robert Wilson on May 5, 1740 (O.D.B. 4 - Page 14) and on February 17, 1736, to Thomas Wilson (O.D.B. 1 -Page 442), both of which grants were in the Kernstown area; and it is our belief that John Wilson acquired a part of this land. In his will, proved April 7, 1762, John Wilson devised all of his land to JAMES MARQUIS AND WILLIAM MARQUIS. He further provided that James Marquis should dig for water and share what was found with William Marquis; that James Marquis should CHANGE HIS NAME TO WILSON MARQUIS; and that his heirs should collect from William Vance a sum due him "for last year's school keeping." (F.W.B. 3 - page 40). From this will and from the tombstone inscription in the Opequon Church Cemetery we can, we believe, ascertain the following facts or reasonable assumptions about John Wilson: 1. That he was a native of county Armagh in Northern Ireland or Ulster and that he came to Frederick County (or what was to be Frederick County) in 1737. 2. That his wife's name was really Mary Marquis and that James and William Marquis were her bothers. 3. That he never remarried after his wife's death in 1742 and that he had no children. 4. That by documentation as well as by "tradition", to use Dr. Foote's words, he was indeed the community schoolmaster. 5. That the land upon which he lived had no spring, which is also true of the present-day Madagan place. On January 28, 1820, the heirs of WILLIAM MARQUIS conveyed to Charles Magill a tract of 200 acres on the drains of the Opequon joining Magill's other lands, which was devised to William Marquis by the last will and testament of John Wilson. (F.D.B. 44 - Page 494).