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By THERESA REYNOLDS
Rappahannock New* Staff Writer Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Borkowski, who have been researching Rappahannock County history for the past few years, have come across an edition of the old Washington Herald with a two-page spread devoted entirely to Rappahannock County. The Rappahannock feature, appearing in the February 7, 1926, issue of the Herald, was written by a Mr. R. F. Morrison who used the flowery journalistic style of the 1920s to introduce to his more urban readers the location of the little-known county. Morrison begins, with much alliteration:
“Enclosing within its boundaries some of the most picturesque and most productive,land in the State of Virginia. .Rappahannock County; believ$$ today that Its pleasant past, the forerunner of a prosperous present, is the prophet of a more profitable future." Morrison went on to say that he believed that the completion of the Lee Highway and the creation of the proposed Shenandoah National Park along the Northwest boundaries of the county would enable the county to “have no fear of the future.”
He bemoaned the fact that the county had virtually no written history. His time spent in Rappahannock gathering the information for his article is especially helpful because of the lack of written history.
Morrison talked to prominent families throughout the county whose ancestors had taken part in the formation of the county in 1833 and had played a part in county history both before and since then.
His article, written almost 60 years ago, preserves some of the events that would otherwise have been lost
Morrison was especially intrigued by the Thornton family, who had such an impact on the settling of this part of the Blue Ridge in the 18th century and then lost many members in the wave of pioneers moving westward into Kentucky in the early part of the 19th century.
According to Morrison, the F. T. Valley’took its name from Francis Thornton, one of the pioneers who bought huge holdings of land here. Morrison did uncover writings of 1752 that called the area “F. T. Valley” so we know that Thornton's arrival here predates that year.
Morrison also credits Francis Thornton with the name Thornton’s Gap, the pass in the mountains
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