
DATE: Sunday, October 5, 1997               TAG: 9710030103

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Travel 

SOURCE: BY STEPHEN HARRIMAN, TRAVEL EDITOR 

DATELINE: NEAR SPERRYVILLE, VA.             LENGTH:  235 lines

SHADES OF AUTUMN: FALL FOLIAGE IS AT ITS FINEST IN RAPPAHANNOCK COUNTY

EVER PASSED through a place time and time again on the way to somewhere else, thought you really knew it, and then, when you finally really spent some time there, you said . . . wow, where have I been all my life? Why hasn't it been here?

That's the way it is with me and Rappahannock County.

After spending a few days here, I'm convinced that if you want to see Virginia's fall foliage at its finest, you won't find any better, more comfortable, relaxing place than here, hard up against the morning side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Mother Nature lives here. Well, summers here anyway, from blossom time - when life springs anew from this red earth - until the glorious dying days of autumn.

The late Charles Kuralt described that particular time of year - it happens about mid-October in these parts - as well as anyone ever has: ``It is death that causes this blinding show of color, but it is a fierce and flaming death.''

A couple of weeks ago, the first real ``cold'' front moved through here, shoving a cleansing line of showers ahead of it, blowing off the humid haze and pollution that had hung heavy over these ancient mountains, and revealing Mother Nature's majestic abode - shadowy shapes silhouetted against the setting sun, a great swatch of rumpled blue-gray velvet tossed casually across the landscape.

Now, she's begun to dress up the place for her annual fall open-house party.

Each day she goes to her palette of yellows, reds, oranges and browns and makes subtle changes. ``There . . . I think they'll like that,'' she says as she dabs her impressionist canvas with tiny dots of rich color. Sometimes when the mood strikes her - a long, dry summer will have that effect - the hues are more like rusted iron than burnished gold . . . but then we all have our off days.

Before long it will look as if the entire landscape has been cloaked in magnificent Belgian tapestry or Oriental rugs.

Rappahannock County is a great place to . . .

Go for a horseback ride. Sandra Cartwright-Brown, a member of the Rappahannock Hunt, takes guests at her Conyers House Country Inn and Stable for rides through the lower part of the county.

Take a hike, and breathe in the earthy smells of the forest and watch for chipmunks, squirrels and deer. One of my favorites is the trail to Little Devil's Stairs, a series of watery cascades in Shenandoah National Park. It's not difficult, because I've done it. To get there, you take Virginia Route 622 (Gid Brown Hollow Road) west off U.S. 522 and 211 a couple of miles north of Sperryville and then Route 614. It's about 5 miles to the trailhead. There's an honor-system entry fee of $5 for ages 17 and over or $10 for a family. Dogs must be kept on a leash at all times.

Explore the country back roads. Turn off almost anywhere into these leafy tunnels of color, aglow in the bright, slanting sunlight. Don't worry about getting lost. You'll come out somewhere. Think of yourself as an explorer. Stop at a country store and pick up picnic supplies.

Visit an apple orchard. Heavily laden limbs sag with the summer's bounty, and the orchard floors are carpeted with windfalls. Don't pick unless you ask first; growing apples is the way these people make a living. Another way to take some apples home is to stop at one of the many roadside stands.

Just kick back and relax. I'm told there are 94 bed-and-breakfast or country-inn rooms available in Rappahannock. But be forewarned: October and early November is what they call ``the season,'' and rooms fill up fast, particularly on weekends, when two-night bookings are usually required.

So, where is this place? I'd venture to say that not one person in 10 could find it on a map without a considerable search. Here's how. If you find the Rappahannock River, the one south of the Potomac, and follow it northwest to its headwaters, you come to the county in Northern Virginia.

The fact is, nothing much ever happened in Rappahannock County to make it well-known. Nothing in the Revolutionary War, nothing in the Civil War. Nobody really famous was born here.

But if you visit, you might want to know these things:

The then-wilderness area was explored by Anglo-Americans as early as 1670 and again in 1682. They were curious about what lay beyond the mountains. I know that mostly because ancestors of mine were on both expeditions. But it wasn't considered safe enough to settle - the indigenous Native Americans were not especially receptive to new neighbors - until well into the 18th century.

In 1740, Francis Thornton settled a large tract of land in the southern part of the county below present-day Sperryville in an area still called the F.T. Valley.

Exactly who owned what in these parts was a matter of contention for a long period during Colonial times. King Charles II had given to some of his cronies the area known as the Northern Neck, between the Potomac and Rappahannock. Questions eventually arose as to what was the true main branch of the Rappahannock: the northern fork, now called the Rappahannock, or the southern fork, now called the Rapidan.

Thomas, sixth Lord Fairfax, Baron of Cameron, eventually inherited the whole deal, whatever it was. In 1747, he came to Virginia to establish the validity of his claim and to see just what it included.

He hired some surveyors, including a Fredericksburg teen-ager named George Washington, whom he had met through a kinsman, Col. William Fairfax. The colonel's daughter, Anne, was married to George's older half-brother Lawrence Washington, and the colonel's son, George William, had taught the younger Washington surveying.

The Fairfax family lived at Belvior Plantation (now site of Fort Belvior) south of Alexandria near Mount Vernon. Lawrence Washington had inherited the plantation which George often visited.

In the summer of 1749 the 17-year-old Washington, official surveyor of Culpeper County, did a lot of work in the northwestern part of the county, which would eventually become Rappahannock. On the July 24, he noted in his journal: ``. . . in the Blue Ridge Mountains . . . I laid off a town'' where he had found ``six goodly log homes along the road.''

It was two streets wide (Main and Gay) and five streets deep (Wheeler, Calvert, Middle, Jett and Porter). The names, except for Main and Middle, were those of local residents. And Gay. Gay was Gay Fairfax. Young George had taken a fancy to her.

It would eventually be called Washington. Everyone except Rappahannockers calls it ``Little'' Washington. They don't like the diminutive, insisting that it was ``the first Washington of them all.'' They say Lord Fairfax named the place after Washington from the beginning.

However, maps of the area made during the Revolutionary War era don't show the name. It was simply the crossroads at Kennerly's Mill or the crossroads at Garwood Meeting House. And by that time, towns in New Hampshire (1776), Massachusetts (1777) and Kentucky (1780) had been named in honor of the hero general.

Actually, it wasn't until 1796, when it had acquired the requisite 200 inhabitants, that it was officially established as a town by the General Assembly.

By the 1830s, there were enough people in this part of what was still Culpeper County to complain about the long trip to the courthouse. They wanted a county of their own, and in 1833 they got it. It took the name Rappahannock, and Washington became the county seat. The court house, a handsome red brick structure, was put up by one of Thomas Jefferson's builders.

The population peaked at 9,782 in 1850, and except for a brief spurt between 1880 and 1890, the population has declined in every census since then. In the 1970s, after the figure had dipped to 5,199, some consultants figured that it would be down an additional 2 percent to 5,100 by 1990. The front-page story in the Rappahannock News was headlined ``Favorable Population Trend Seen.''

Alas, the consultants were wrong. The 1990 census said there were 6,622 - only 192 of them living in the two-by-five block grid that Washington laid out. Little Washington is the county's largest settlement. Rappahannockers like that. They don't want it to get too crowded, but they don't mind particularly if you come for a visit.

Little Washington today is hardly much more than the two-by-five-block town it started out to be. It has acquired a patina of charm with its age. Some of those ``goodly log homes'' are still around, for instance, standing stronger (plaster chinking having replaced mud and horsehair) than ever before. There are antique and gift shops, artists and craftsmen at work in studios, even a theater.

And, of course, there is the Inn at Little Washington, the nation's premier country inn. It's development may be the biggest thing that has happened to Rappahannock County in this century.

While Little Washington shuns the diminutive, nearby Sperryville, gateway to the central section of Shenandoah National Park, proudly proclaims itself as the Little Apple, carefully distinguishing itself from the Big Apple, New York City.

There's even a district west of town, in the way to the Skyline Drive, that locals call Soho (just like New York) which is home to many of the artists who have been attracted to this delightful rural lifestyle. In the village, there are a number of shops and eateries and also the Sperryville Antique Market (open Thursday-Monday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.), with booths filling 20,000 square feet of space in an old apple packing barn.

Getting here can be as pleasurable as being here. This is the route I recommend:

From South Hampton Roads, head west on Interstate 64 and take Exit 129 (just east of Charlottesville) to Keswick and Boyd's Tavern. Follow Virginia Route 616 a couple of miles, then turn right on Virginia 22. A short distance later, at Cismont, this becomes Virginia 231.

Stay on it for the next 50 miles or so. Most of the way it is called the old Blue Ridge Turnpike.

This is horse country. Rich people live here. All the farms - estates - have fancy names. The beautiful brownstone Grace Church at Cismont is the site of the annual Blessing of the Hounds, an ancient custom begun in England. Nearby is Castle Hill (1745), home of Dr. Thomas Walker, an early explorer of western Virginia and Thomas Jefferson's guardian.

At Gordonsville look in at the mid-19th century Exchange Hotel. The restored Greek Revival structure was commandeered as a hospital during the Civil War, and now it is a museum, open Tuesday-Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Info: (540) 832-2944.

The stretch of Virginia 231 from Gordonsville to Somerset is very winding. Take your time and enjoy; it's very scenic. You'll get your first good views of the mountains around Pratts and Rochelle. At Somerset you may notice some old steam-driven tractors and a sawmill. This little crossroads was once a significant railhead for logging operations in the mountains 20 or more miles to the west.

From here on, the farms are smaller and the few large ones unpretentious. They raise things to eat, not to ride.

Traffic thins out. The ribbon road winds and undulates over the countryside. The dark Blue Ridge Mountains lie silhouetted against pale blue sky.

North of Madison, you enter what is known locally at the F.T. Valley. Here begin the best views of the morning side of the mountains. Lutherans may want to take a short detour a mile north of Madison to Hebron Church, the oldest (1740) Lutheran church in the South.

Virginia 670 just beyond Banco leads up the Robinson River to Criglersville and Syria. Syria is the home of the Graves Mountain Lodge enterprises. There is, foremost, the lodge itself, known for its delicious and abundant home-style meals. (And you shouldn't count on getting one without reservations. The phone number is 540- 923-4231.)

There's also the cannery producing the jellies, preserves, apple butter and vegetable products marketed under the Graves Mountain label.

Virginia 643 at Etlan leads to White Oak Canyon trail and falls. It's time-consuming but worth it. The Etlan Post Office and General Store Too is a folksy attraction. They'll make you a ``designer'' sandwich for a picnic. Talk to the locals hanging out here. You'll find them as interesting, and probably amusing, as they'll find you.

Farther on, Virginia 601 takes you up the Hughes River to Nethers and the Old Rag Mountain (3,291 feet elevation) trailhead in Shenandoah National Park.

About 2 million people visit the park every year, park officials say, and 100,000 of them hike Old Rag. The 7.2-mile circuit, which takes four to five hours, has a rock scramble at its top that hikers find an enticing challenge.

Parking also is a problem.

By charging a $5 fee for each hiker over 16, the park hopes to recoup some of the cost of maintaining Old Rag and attendant problems with sanitation, littering, illegal camping and trail erosion.

At the Old Rag trailhead, the trail to the right, an interesting alternative, leads up Nicholson Hollow, sometimes knows as Free State Hollow. You're in the real backwoods here. This was once the realm of Old Man Aaron Nicholson, a giant of a man, it is said - King of Free State Hollow - where ``nary a revenooer'' ventured. Here, for 35 years, he ``lived off'n the bark.''

``It's all my land,'' he used to roar, with a sweep of his huge arm. ``I surveyed - chopped 'round it myself - from peak to peak as fur as I kin see.''

Next stop: Sperryville, another apple-buying center. There are a number of roadside stands about. Turn west on U.S. 211 and you're 15 minutes from Shenandoah's Thornton Gap entrance. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo courtesy of PHIL IRWIN

Caledonia Farm B&B...near Flint Hill...

Color photos

STEPHEN HARRIMAN/ The Virginian-Pilot

Emma Swindle, 88, operattes the Sperryville Fruit Stand beside the

road to Shenandoah National Park

Guests at Conyers House Country Inn and Stable can take horseback

rides through the fields and forests of rappahannock County.

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