Matthew Mackay-Smith has documented colonial-era roads near Millwood and will present his findings Sunday at the annual meeting and service at Old Bethel in the southeastern corner of Clarke County. (Photo by Scott Mason)

     Millwood --"You can read the language of roads, just like a book," said Matthew Mackay-Smith.

     He will offer an introduction to that language as the speaker for the annual meeting and service at Old Bethel in the southeastern corner of Clarke County at 11 a.m. Sunday.

     The Rev. Anne Manson of Cunningham Chapel Parish will lead the service, with James Laster as organist.

     Noted dulcimer player Madeline MacNeil will also offer musical selections.

     Mackay-Smith has been working with the Clarke County Historical Association and the county government to locate early roads from the colonial era that can still be seen in the county.

     "Early roads are historical documents, in a sense," he said.

     The early tracks give evidence of the views and vision of the founders of our nation, he added -- such as the Washingtons and the Randolphs, along with early landholders such as Thomas Lord Fairfax, and frontiersmen including the Ashbys.

     Mackay-Smith, a retired veterinarian, has spotted the remnants of many colonial roads while riding horseback across the Clarke countryside.

     "We've located about 40 miles" of them, he said.

     He will have handouts, including a map, and photos of several of the early roadways "in various guises."

     Once the first explorers found their way into the Shenandoah Valley, up a "grassy carpet to Ashby Gap and down a series of buffalo grazing grounds on the mountain side," they paved the way for the Tidewater gentry to move in.

     "The gentry had to ride," Mackay-Smith said. "They couldn't go anywhere on foot. It was a denial of their standing."

     The Valley then was about 30 percent prairie and the rest mature hardwood forest.

     "Roads evolve and move," Mackay-Smith said, and that is why some pieces of colonial roads haven't been buried under modern macadam.

     Once property began to be surveyed, roads either skirted property lines, or became them.

     Mackay-Smith noted that Woodley, a property touching U.S. 340 south of Berryville, was originally built on a colonial highway. Now it is a house on a knoll, seen in the distance from passing cars.

     Its neighbor Llewellyn was "built directly on the road," he added, but the road then was abandoned for a different track to the west.

     In fact, he said, Old Bethel itself, a former Quaker meeting house and Baptist church, was constructed over the first road built in the Valley.

     "If people want to get closer to the colonial road project, they can sit on the floor," he noted.

     The old meeting house, now a trust for the people of Clarke County, is cared for by a board of trustees.

     President Ian Williams said several restoration projects continue at the site, where the board holds two events each year -- the annual meeting and service and a traditional Christmas candlelight service, scheduled for Dec. 21 this year.

     Sunday's meeting closes with a covered-dish picnic under the old oak trees on the grounds. Visitors should bring a dish to share and a lawn chair.

     Tax-deductible donations will be accepted for the renovations at Old Bethel.

--Contact Val Van Meter at
vvanmeter@winchesterstar.com