VIRGINIA: THE OLD DOMINION
As seen from its Colonial waterway, the Historic River James, whose
every succeeding turn reveals country replete with monuments and
scenes recalling the march of history and its figures from the days
of Captain John Smith to the present time.
By
FRANK AND CORTELLE HUTCHINS
With a map, and fifty-four plates, of which six are in full color,
from photographs by the authors.
1910
[Illustration: The Portico of Brandon, from the Garden.
(See page 119)]
TO
THE HONOURABLE FRANCIS E. HUTCHINS, THE FATHER OF ONE AUTHOR,
THE MORE THAN FATHER-IN-LAW OF THE OTHER, AND THE EVER-STAUNCH
FRIEND OF GADABOUT, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.
This volume was formerly published under the title, "Houseboating on a
Colonial Waterway"; but its appropriateness for inclusion in the "See
America First Series" to represent the State of Virginia is so obvious
that the publishers have, in this new edition, changed the title to
"Virginia: The Old Dominion," and reissued the book in a new dress,
generally uniform with the other volumes in the series.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. ALL ABOUT GADABOUT
II. OUR FIRST RUN AND A COZY HARBOUR
III. LAND, HO! OUR COUNTRY'S BIRTHPLACE
IV. A RUN AROUND JAMESTOWN ISLAND
V. FANCIES AFLOAT AND RUINS ASHORE
VI. IN THE OLD CHURCHYARD
VII. SEEING WHERE THINGS HAPPENED
VIII. PIONEER VILLAGE LIFE
IX. GOOD-BYE TO OLD JAMES TOWNE
X. A SHORT SAIL AND AN OLD ROMANCE
XI. AT THE PIER MARKED "BRANDON"
XII. HARBOUR DAYS AND A FOGGY NIGHT
XIII. OLD SILVER, OLD PAPERS, AND AN OLD COURT GOWN
XIV. A ONE-ENGINE RUN AND A FOREST TOMB
XV. NAVIGATING AN UNNAVIGABLE STREAM
XVI. IN WHICH WE GET TO WEYANOKE
XVII. ACROSS RIVER TO FLEUR DE HUNDRED
XVIII. GADABOUT GOES TO CHURCH
XIX. WESTOVER, THE HOME OF A COLONIAL BELLE
XX. AN OLD COURTYARD AND A SUN-DIAL
XXI. AN UNDERGROUND MYSTERY AND A DUCKING-STOOL
XXII. A BAD START AND A VIEW OF BERKELEY
XXIII. THE RIGHT WAY TO GO TO SHIRLEY
XXIV. FROM CREEK HARBOUR TO COLONIAL RECEPTION
XXV. AN INCONGRUOUS BIT OF HOUSEBOATING.
XXVI. THE END OF THE VOYAGE
INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE PORTICO OF BRANDON, FROM THE GARDEN (In full color)
(See page 119) Frontispiece
MAP OF THE JAMES RIVER FROM RICHMOND TO ITS MOUTH
THE HOUSEBOAT GADABOUT
IN THE FORWARD CABIN.--LOOKING AFT FROM THE FORWARD CABIN
ALONG THE SHORE OF CHUCKATUCK CREEK (In full color)
"JUST THE WILD BEAUTY OF THE SHORES, THE NOBLE EXPANSE OF THE
STREAM, ... AND GADABOUT"
JAMESTOWN ISLAND FROM THE RIVER (In full color)
IN BACK RIVER.--THE BEACH AT JAMESTOWN ISLAND
WHARF SIGN AT JAMESTOWN ISLAND.--THE "LONE CYPRESS"
THE BRIDGE ACROSS BACK RIVER.--THE ROAD ACROSS THE ISLAND
THE RUINED TOWER OF THE OLD VILLAGE CHURCH
A CORNER IN THE OLD GRAVEYARD (In full color)
VIEW FROM THE CONFEDERATE FORT.--LOOKING TOWARD THE FIRST LANDING-PLACE
LOCATING WHAT IS LEFT OF THE SITE OF THE FIRST SETTLEMENT
AN EXCURSION DAY AT JAMESTOWN ISLAND
GADABOUT LOOKING FOR THE LOST ISTHMUS.--A VISIT TO THE "LONE CYPRESS"
ONE OF THE EARLIEST EXCAVATIONS.--HUNTING FOR THE FIRST STATE HOUSE
ENTRANCE TO CHIPPOAK CREEK.--COVE IN CHIPPOAK CREEK
RIVERWARD FRONT OF BRANDON (In full color)
A SIDE PATH TO THE MANOR-HOUSE.--THE WOODSWAY TO BRANDON
IN THE DRAWING-ROOM
"VENERABLE FOUR-POSTERS, RICHLY CARVED AND DARK"
A CORNER IN THE DINING-ROOM.--THE DRAWING-ROOM FIREPLACE
TREASURED PARCHMENTS, INCLUDING THE ORIGINAL GRANT OF 1616
THE ANCIENT GARRISON HOUSE
MISS HARRISON IN THE COURT GOWN OF HER COLONIAL AUNT, EVELYN BYRD
STURGEON POINT LANDING.--AT THE MOUTH OF KITTEWAN CREEK
THE FOREST TOMB.--THE OLD KITTEWAN HOUSE
HUNTING FOR THE CHANNEL.--APPROACHING A NARROW PLACE
LOWER WEYANOKE
AN ANCESTRESS OF WEYANOKE.--CHIEF-JUSTICE JOHN MARSHALL
UPPER WEYANOKE.--AT ANCHOR OFF WEYANOKE
PRESENT-DAY FLEUR DE HUNDRED
A FISHING HAMLET.--A RIVER LANDING
"LITTLE BOATS WERE NOSING INTO THE BANK HERE AND THERE"
RIVERWARD FRONT OF WESTOVER
THE HALL, WITH ITS CARVED MAHOGANY STAIRCASE
THE HEPPLEWHITE SIDEBOARD WITH BUTLER'S DESK.--"FOUR-POSTERS AND THE
THINGS OF FOUR-POSTER DAYS"
THE ROMANTIC CENTRE OF WESTOVER; EVELYN BYRD'S OLD ROOM
THE COLONIAL COURTYARD GATES.--TOMB OF COLONEL WILLIAM BYRD
THE DRAWING-ROOM MANTELPIECE AT WESTOVER
TOMBS IN THE OLD WESTOVER CHURCHYARD
(In the foreground is the tomb of Evelyn Byrd)
A TRAPPER'S HOME BY THE RIVER BANK.--"OFTEN ... THE WANDERING HOUSEBOAT
COMES ALONG TO FIND ONLY AN EMPTY PIER"
BERKELEY; THE ANCESTRAL HOME OF A SIGNER OF THE DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE AND OF TWO PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES
THE FIELD ROAD AND THE QUARTERS
RIVERWARD FRONT OF SHIRLEY (In full color)
THE OLD "GREAT HALL"
THE DRAWING-ROOM
THE KITCHEN BUILDING, FIFTY YARDS FROM THE MANOR-HOUSE
A BRICK OVEN IN THE BAKE-ROOM
SOME NOTEWORTHY PIECES OF OLD SHIRLEY PLATE
PEALE'S PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON
VARINA
DUTCH GAP CANAL.--FALLING CREEK
THE VOYAGE ENDED, GADABOUT IN WINTER QUARTERS
CHAPTER I
ALL ABOUT GADABOUT
It was dark and still and four o'clock on a summer morning. The few
cottages clustering about a landing upon a Virginia river were, for the
most part, sleeping soundly, though here and there a flickering light
told of some awakening home. Down close by the landing was one little
house wide awake. Its windows were aglow; lights moved about; and busy
figures passed from room to room and out upon the porch in front.
Suddenly, with a series of quick, muffled explosions, the whole cottage
seemed carried from its foundations. It slipped sidewise, turned almost
end for end, then drifted slowly away from its neighbours, out into the
darkness and the river. Its occupants seemed unconscious of danger.
There was one of them standing on the porch quite unconcernedly turning
a wheel, while two or three others were watching, with rather amused
expressions, two little engines chugging away near the kitchen stove.
And thus it was that the houseboat Gadabout left her moorings in the
outskirts of old Norfolk, and went spluttering down the Elizabeth to
find Hampton Roads and to start upon her cruise up the historic James
River.
But to tell the story we must begin before that summer morning. It was
this way. We were three: the daughter-wife (who happened to see the
magazine article that led to it all), her mother, and her husband. The
head of the family, true to the spirit of the age, had achieved a
nervous breakdown and was under instructions from his physician to
betake himself upon a long, a very long, vacation.
It was while we were in perplexed consideration as to where to go and
what to do, that the magazine article appeared--devoted to
houseboating. It was a most fetching production with a picture that
appealed to every overwrought nerve. There was a charming bit of water
with trees hanging over; a sky all soft and blue (you knew it was soft
and blue just as you knew that the air was soft and cool; just as you
knew that a drowsy peace and quiet was brooding over all); and there,
in the midst, idly floated a houseboat with a woman idly swinging in a
hammock and a man idly fishing from the back porch.
That article opened a new field for our consideration. Landlubbers of
the landlubbers though we were, its water-gypsy charm yet sank deep. We
thirsted for more. We haunted the libraries until we had exhausted the
literature of houseboating.
And what a dangerously attractive literature we found! How the cares
and responsibilities of life fell away when people went a-houseboating!
What peace unutterable fell upon the worn and weary soul as it drifted
lazily on, far from the noise and the toil and the reek of the world!
All times were calm; all waters kind. The days rolled on in
ever-changing scenes of beauty; the nights, star-gemmed and mystic,
were filled with music and the witchery of the sea.
It made good reading. It made altogether too good reading. We did not
see that then. We did not know that most of the literature of
houseboating is the work of people with plenty of imagination and no
houseboats.
We resolved to build a houseboat. There was excitement in the mere
decision; there was more when our friends came to hear of it. Their
marked disapproval made our new departure seem almost indecorous. It
was too late; the tide had us; and disapproval only gave zest to the
project.
As a first step, we proceeded to rechristen ourselves from a nautical
standpoint. The little mother was so hopelessly what the boatmen call a
fair-weather sailor that her weakness named her, and she became Lady
Fairweather. The daughter-wife, after immuring herself for half a day
with nautical dictionaries and chocolate creams, could not tell whether
she was Rudderina or Maratima; she finally concluded that she was
Nautica. It required neither time nor confectionery to enable these two
members of the family to rename the third. They viewed the strut of
plain Mr. So-and-So at the prospect of commanding a vessel, and
promptly dubbed him Commodore.
An earnest quest was next made for anybody and everybody who had ever
used, seen, or heard of a houseboat; and the Commodore made journeys to
various waters where specimens of this queer craft were to be found.
All the time, three lead pencils were kept busy, and plans and
specifications became as autumn leaves. We soon learned that there was
little room for the artistic. Once Nautica had a charming creation, all
verandas and overhanging roofs and things; but an old waterman came
along and talked about wind and waves, and most of the overhanging art
on that little houseboat disappeared under the eraser.
"That's all good enough for one of those things you just tie to a bank
and hang Chinese lanterns on," he said. "But it would never do for a
boat that's going to get out in wide water and take what's coming to
it."
When we concluded that we had the plans to our satisfaction (or rather
that we never should have, which amounted to the same thing), we turned
over to a builder the task of making them into something that would
float and hold people and go. The resulting craft, after passing
through a wrecking and some rebuilding, we called Gadabout. She was
about fifty feet long and twelve feet wide over all, as the watermen
say; and was propelled by twin screws, driven by two small gasoline
engines. Though not a thing of beauty, yet, as she swung lazily at her
moorings with her wide, low windows and the little hooded cockpit that
we tried hard not to call a porch, she looked cozy and comfortable. Her
colouring was colonial yellow and white, with a contrast of dark olive
on the side runways and the decks.
Inside, Gadabout was arranged as house-like and, we thought, as homelike
as boating requirements would permit. There were two cabins, one at
either end of the craft. Between these, and at one side of the
passageway connecting them, was what we always thought of as the
kitchen, but always took care to speak of as the galley.
At first glance, each of the cabins would be taken as a general
living-room. Each was that; but also a little of everything else. At
customary intervals, one compartment or the other would become a
dining-cabin. Again, innocent looking bits of wall would give way, and
there would appear beds, presses, lavatories, and a lamentable lack of
room.
Both cabins were finished in old oak, dark and dead; there is a
superabundance of brightness on the water. The ceilings showed the
uncovered, dark carlines or rafters. The walls had, along the top, a
row of niches for books; and along the bottom, a deceptive sort of
wainscoting, each panel of which was a locker door. Between book niches
above and wainscoting below, the walls were paneled in green burlap
with brown rope for molding. The furnishing was plain.
[Illustration: THE HOUSEBOAT GADABOUT.]
The kitchen or galley was rather small as kitchens go, and rather large
as galleys go. It would not do to tell all the things that were in it;
for anybody would see that they could not all be there. Perhaps it
would be well to mention merely the gasoline stove, the refrigerator,
the pump and sink, the wall-table, the cupboards for supplies, the
closet for the man's serving coats and aprons, the racks of blue willow
ware dishes, and the big sliding door.
One has to mention the big sliding door; for it made such a difference.
It worked up and down like a window-sash, and always suggested the
conundrum, When is a galley not a galley? For when it was down, it
disclosed nothing and the galley was a galley; but when it was up, it
disclosed a recess in which two little gasoline motors sat side by
side, and the galley was an engine-room.
It was a very ingenious and inconvenient arrangement. Operating the
stove and the engines at the same time was scarcely practicable; and we
were often forced to the hard choice of lying still on a full stomach
or travelling on an empty one.
There yet remains to be described the crew's quarters. The crew
consisted of two hands, both strong and sturdy, and both belonging to
the same coloured man. Though our trusty tar, Henry, had doubtless
never heard "The Yarn of the 'Nancy Bell'" and had never eaten a
shipmate in his life, yet he had a whole crew within himself as truly
as the "elderly naval man" who had eaten one. There was therefore no
occasion for extensive quarters. Fortunately, an available space at the
stern was ample for the crew's cabin and all appointments.
All these interior arrangements were without the makeshifts so often
found in houseboats. There were no curtains for partition walls nor
crude bunks for beds. People aboard a houseboat must at best be living
in close quarters. But, upon even the moderate priced craft, much of
the comfort, privacy, and refinement of home life may be enjoyed by
heading off an outlay that tends toward gilt and grill work and turning
it into substantial partitions, real beds, baths, and lavatories.
Gadabout was square at both ends; so that the uninitiated were not
always sure which way she was going to go. Indeed, for a while, her
closest associates were conservative in forecasting on that point. But
that was for another reason. The boat was of extremely light draft.
While such a feature enables the houseboater to navigate very shallow
waters (where often he finds his most charming retreats), yet it also
enables the houseboat, under certain conditions of wind and tide, to go
sidewise with all the blundering facility of a crab.
[Illustration: IN THE FORWARD CABIN.]
[Illustration: LOOKING AFT FROM THE FORWARD CABIN.]
At first, in making landings we were forced to leave it pretty much to
Gadabout as to which side of the pier she was to come up on, and which
end first, and with how much of a bump. But all such troubles soon
disappeared; and, as there seemed no change in the craft herself, we
were forced to believe that our own inexperience had had something to
do with our difficulties.
To Gadabout and her crew, add anchors, chains and ropes, small boats,
poles and sweeps, parallel rulers, dividers and charts, anchor-lights,
lanterns and side-lights, compasses, barometers and megaphones,
fenders, grapnels and boathooks--until the landlubberly owners are
almost frightened back to solid land; and then all is ready for a
houseboat cruise.