History 1

The Middlebrook hunt country, a rolling and hilly region of mixed woods, cropland, and grazing pastures, furrowed by the valleys of the north & south running Otts and Moffats Creeks, lies in the southernmost portion of scenic Augusta County, Virginia, close by the Rockbridge County line. This is the beautiful Riverheads District, an elevated dividing line between the headwaters of the Shenandoah River to the north and the James River tributaries to the south. The quaint and historic villages of Middlebrook, Spottswood, McKinley, and Newport are found in the heart of the hunt country. Time and traffic passed them by when, in the mid-nineteenth century, the old coaching route from Staunton to Lexington via Middlebrook was shifted east to the line, successively, of the famed Valley Turnpike (U.S. Route 11), a railroad spur (long since abandoned), and the present-day Interstate 81. In the absence of development pressure, large farms and estates predominate in the area to this day, and the owners of these properties have never lost the sporting instincts of Old Virginia.

The first pursuit of foxes, mounted and with horn & pack, is lost in the mists of antiquity, if so the period following the War Between the States might be termed. There is a shadowy Stuart Hunt, in operation at the turn of the twentieth century and connected with the prominent Staunton family, recorded sixty years ago by that meticulous researcher, J. Blan van Urk. Its connection with subsequent, organized fox-hunting in the area remains, at present, elusive. Also, in a recent history of the old coaching route, the Middlebrook-Brownsburg corridor, the Valley Conservation Council has printed an interesting, vintage photograph of mounted fox-hunters near the village of McKinley in about 1910. They appear to be the old sort of Southern fox-hunters, out for a day's sport with a few trencher-fed hounds and perhaps not above having a go at Reynard with a bird gun! Not all the persons shown, nor even the precise location, can now be identified. One prominent figure, however, is a Mr. Sensabaugh, bearing the good Valley name of a well-known, local family, and it is interesting to note that several Sensabaughs hunt actively with the Middlebrook Hounds in 2002.