History of the Blue Ridge Hunt

Today’s followers of the Blue Ridge hounds ride over the same hills and fields and along the same twists and turns of the Shenandoah River as did George Washington nearly three hundred years ago when he followed the hounds of his employer and friend, Thomas, sixth lord Fairfax.  Since that time, this gently rolling grassland in the Valley of the Shenandoah on the west side of the Blue Ridge has continued to echo to the music of hounds, the huntsman’s horn, and the rhythm of galloping horses.

Washington, at age sixteen, had come to Fairfax’s Greenway Court (situated in what is now the village of White Post, in Clarke County, Virginia) to help survey Fairfax’s holdings.  The two pursued the native gray fox behind hounds that Fairfax had sent over from England even prior to his arrival.

For one hundred years after the death, in 1782, of Lord Fairfax, foxhunting in Virginia flourished privately.  Many landowners maintained a few hounds for sport and met when they wished, each bringing his own hounds.  However, by the time the War Between the States had run its tragic course, the southern economy was crippled, its social fabric asunder, and its citizens poverty stricken.  Those changes set the stage for the formation of organized hunts and subscription packs.

The period following the war saw a number of Englishmen moving to Virginia.  Although there were probably as many reasons as there were Englishmen who came, one can draw some obvious conclusions.  A substantial part of an entire generation of young Virginian men did not return home from that unfortunate conflict, and large properties in that beautiful countryside were, and would continue to be, inherited by women.  There must have been a vacuum for men, and it would certainly not be filled at that time by American men from the north.

Many of the Englishmen who came here were fox hunters in their native England and were no doubt anxious to organize their sport along traditional lines.  One such English emigré, Archibald Bevan, helped to organize the Blue Ridge Hunt in 1888, and he served as its first Master.

William Bell Watkins, Alexander Mackay-Smith, and Mrs. George (Judy) Greenhalgh, Jr. were among the Hunt’s most influential Masters of the twentieth century.  The current Masters — Mrs. Harry (Doris) Stimpson, III, Mrs. Wayne (Linda) Armbrust, and Mrs. William (Anne) McIntosh — have built upon the dedication and know-how of their predecessors and today field a pack of English and Crossbred foxhounds that are equal to the beautiful and hallowed country across which they hunt.

-- Norm Fine