Even when title to properties was not in dispute,

Even when title to properties was not in dispute, the vastness of many of the holdings resulted in a great deal of absentee ownership. Some of the local settlers who had ‘boots on the ground’ in the area became adept at using the resources of the absentee owners lands and in some instances squatted on these lands and built homes. The selling off of the original royal land grants, creative consumption of resources, especially the dominant chestnut trees, and occasional squatting went on for a long time on the Blue Ridge and its environs. By the time of the Civil War, some thousands of people inhabited the nearby mountains. The combined effects of the War, depletion of natural resources, further increases in population (to perhaps 10,000 by 1900), and competition from modem industrial processes, led to a precipitous decline in inhabitants as mountain living conditions became increasingly unsustainable.

Then came the knockout blow: the chestnut blight of the early 1900s. The single largest natural and economic resource of the mountains was eliminated in a few short years and by the mid 1920s mountain population had dwindled to about 2200. In the wake of the blight’s devastation came the events that really distinguish Rappahannock and nearby counties over the last 80 years, the establishment of the Shenandoah National Park. Creation of the Park brought to the surface many unresolved issues from the past 400 years and introduced some new issues that resonate even now. Land title disputes, squatters rights (or lack thereof), and