woolly pickaninnies, one would presently come upon other outbuildings;
the ample barns for tobacco and granaries for corn, the stable, the
cattle-pens, a hen-coop and a dove-cot, a dairy, and in some cases a
malt-house, or perhaps, as we have seen, a country store. There were
brick ovens for curing hams and bacon; and the kitchen likewise stood
apart from the mansion, which was thus free from kitchen odours and
from undue heating in summer time. There was a vegetable garden, with
“all the culinary plants that grow in England, and in far greater
perfection,” besides “roots, herbs, vine-fruits, and salad-flowers
peculiar to themselves,” and excellent for a relish with meat.[199]
Nearer to the house, among redolent flower-beds gay with varied
colours, some vine-clad arbour afforded shelter from the sun. A short
walk across the mown space shaded by large trees, called, as in New
England, the yard, would bring us to the mansion, very commonly known
as the Great House. From this epithet no sure inference can be drawn
as to the size of the building, for it simply served to contrast it
with its dependent cabins and outhouses. It was often called the Home
House. It was apt to stand upon a rising ground, and from its porch
you might look down at the blue river and the little wharf, known as
“the landing,” with pinnaces moored hard by and canoes lying lazily
on the bank or suddenly darting out upon the water. Turning away from
the river, the eye would rest upon an orchard bearing fruits in great
variety, and a pasture devoted to horses of some special breed.
[Sidenote: Brick and wooden houses.]
The planter’s mansion might be built of wood or brick, but was
comparatively seldom of stone. In tidewater Virginia, good stone for
building purposes was not readily found, but there was an abundance of
red clay from which excellent and durable brick could be made. A number
of brick houses were built in the seventeenth century, but wood was
much more commonly used, since the work of clearing away the forests
furnished great quantities of timber of the finest quality. Among
the many articles that were imported from England, bricks are not to
be reckoned.[200] Brickmaking went on from the earliest days of the
colony, and much of this work was done by white servants and freedmen.
In course of time there came to be many brick houses, and chimneys were
regularly of this material. For roofs the strong and durable cypress
shingle was the material most commonly used. Partition walls, covered
first with a tenacious clay and then white-washed, were very firm and
solid. The glass windows, for protection against storms of a violence
to which Englishmen had not been accustomed, had stout wooden shutters
outside, which gave the house somewhat the look of a stronghold.
[Sidenote: House architecture.]
During the seventeenth century not much architectural beauty was
attained. To any criticisms on this score the planters would have
replied, as the early settlers did to Captain Butler, that their houses
were for use and not for ornament.[201] During the eighteenth century
some progress was made in this respect, but for the architectural
effect of the mansions not much is to be said, though they were often
highly picturesque. The earliest type, the house of greater width than
depth, with an outside chimney at each end, is familiar to every one,
at least in pictures. It was as characteristic of Old Virginia as
the house of huge central chimney and small entryway with transverse
staircase was characteristic of early New England. Both are slightly
modified types of the smaller English manor houses of the Tudor
period. A more picturesque style, and somewhat more stately, is that of
Gunston Hall, the homestead of the Mason family; while scarcely less
attractive, and still more capacious, is that of Stratford Hall, the
home of the Lees. The well-known Mount Vernon shows a further departure
from English models; while in Monticello both the name and the house
present symptoms of the beginning of that so-called classical revival
when children were baptized Cyrus and Marcellus, and dwelt in the shade
of porticoes that simulated those of Greek temples.[202]
[Sidenote: The rooms.]
[Sidenote: Bedrooms and their furniture.]
The differentiation of rooms for specific uses had by no means
proceeded so far as in modern houses. One mediæval English feature
which was retained was the predominance of the Hall, or Great Room,
used for meals and for general purposes. Along with the hall, there
might be as few as five or six rooms, or as many as eighteen or twenty,
upstairs and down. Stratford Hall, built about 1725-30, contained
eighteen large rooms, exclusive of the central hall,[203] whereas
Governor Berkeley’s house at Green Spring, built three quarters of
a century earlier, had but six rooms altogether. Beside the central
hall, there might be a hall parlour, equivalent to reception room and
family sitting-room combined, and in this there might be chests and a
bed; the others were simply bedrooms. Beds were such as we are still
familiar with; their ticking might be stuffed with feathers or hair or
straw, but leathers were much more commonly used than now, as they are
now more commonly used in chilly England than in the fiery summers and
hot-house winters of America. With sheets, blankets, and counterpane,
pillows, curtains, and valances, the bed was dressed as at present,
save that curtains are now departing along with the brass warming-pans,
bequests from higher latitudes. Already the Virginia bed often had a
protection for which England could have no use, the mosquito net. For
such members of the household as were lazily inclined in the daytime
there was a couch, which might be plainly covered with calico, or more
expensively with russia leather or embroidered stuffs. The chairs might
be upholstered likewise, or be seated with cane, wicker, or rushwork.
In every bedroom was a chest for storing clothes not in immediate
use. There were also the ewer and basin, and the case of drawers with
looking-glass. If one of the big chimneys was accessible, there was a
fireplace for wooden logs, supported on andirons of iron or brass, and
guarded by iron or tin fenders; otherwise there was an open brazier,
such as we see to-day in Italy. Floors were usually ill-made in those
days, and woollen carpets faithfully accumulated dirt; so that the
sunbeam straggling through the dimity or printed calico window-curtains
would often gild long dusty rays.
[Sidenote: The dinner-table.]
[Sidenote: Napkins and forks.]
[Sidenote: Silver plate.]
[Sidenote: Wainscots and tapestry.]
In the Hall, or Great Room, the principal feature was the long
dining-table of walnut or oak or cedar, flanked either by benches or
by chairs. For daily use it was covered with a cloth of unbleached
linen, known as holland, while on extra occasions a damask cloth was
used. Napkins were abundant, and often of a fine fabric delicately
embroidered. Forks, on the other hand, were in the earlier days scarce.
Before the seventeenth century, forks were nowhere in general use, save
in Italy. Queen Elizabeth ate with her fingers. A satirical pamphlet,
aimed at certain luxurious favourites of Henry III. of France, derides
them for conveying bits of meat to their mouths on a little pronged
implement, rather than do it in the natural way.[204] Forks are nowhere
mentioned in Shakespeare. In 1608, while travelling in Italy, one
Thomas Coryat took a liking to them and introduced the fashion into
England, for which he was jocosely nicknamed _Furcifer_.[205] Naturally
the use of forks narrowed the functions of napkins.[206] Spoons were
in much more common use, and, in the New World as in the Old, were of
iron or pewter in the poor man’s house, and of silver in the rich
man’s. The dishes and plates were of earthenware or pewter, but in the
eighteenth century the use of chinaware increased. Pewter cups and
mugs were everywhere to be seen, and now and then a drinking-horn.
Well-to-do planters had silver tankards, sometimes marked with the
family arms, as well as silver salt-cellars, candlesticks, and
snuffers. A cupboard with glass doors, or light drapery, displayed the
store of cups and dishes; while about the walls sometimes hung family
portraits, and more rarely paintings of other sorts. This central hall
retained many marks of its mediæval miscellaneousness of use; capacious
linen-chests, guns and pistols, powder-horns, swords, saddles, bridles,
and riding-whips, in picturesque and cosy confusion. In the eighteenth
century a luxurious elegance was developed quite similar to that of
the “colonial mansions” at the North, such as the Philipse manor house
on the Hudson River, or Colonel Vassall’s house in Cambridge, where
Washington dwelt for a few months, and Longfellow for many years.
Panelled wainscots of oak and carved oaken chimney-pieces were common;
the walls were hung with tapestry; and artistic cabinets, screens, and
clocks adorned the spacious room. In the Lee homestead at Stratford the
hall added to its other functions that of library. The ceiling was very
high and vaulted, and parts of the panelled walls had bookshelves set
into them.[207] Such rooms were warmed by huge logs of hickory or oak,
burning in open fireplaces. They were lighted by candles, which might
be made of beef tallow or deer suet, but the favourite material was a
wax obtained by boiling the berries of a myrtle that grew profusely
in marshy land. It was extremely cheap and burned with a pleasant
fragrance, giving a brilliant light.
[Sidenote: The kitchen.]
The central object in the kitchen was, of course, the fireplace, which
was sometimes very large. At Stratford it was “twelve feet wide,
six high, and five deep, evidently capable of roasting a fair-sized
ox.”[208] In the days when pains were taken not to spoil good meat
with bad cooking, your haunch of venison, saddle of mutton, or stuffed
turkey was not baked to insipidity in an oven meant for better uses,
but was carefully turned about on an iron spit, catching rich aroma
from the caressing flame, while the basting was judiciously poured from
ladles, and dripping-pans caught the savoury juices. Then there was the
great copper boiler imbedded in brick and heated from underneath; there
were the kettles and sauce-pans, the swinging iron pot, the gridirons
and frying-pans, and the wooden trays for carrying the cooked dishes to
the dining-hall.
[Sidenote: Abundance of food.]
The settlers in the strange wilderness of the Powhatans had once had
their Starving Time, but it would be hard to point to any part of the
earth more bountifully supplied with wholesome and delicious food
than civilized Old Virginia. Venison, beef, and dairy products were
excellent and cheap. Mutton was less common, and was highly prized. The
pork in its various forms was pronounced equal to that of Yorkshire
or Westphalia. Succulent vegetables and toothsome fruits were grown
in bewildering variety. Good Henry of Navarre’s peasant, had he lived
in this favoured country, might have had every day a fowl in his pot;
while, as for game and fish, the fame of Chesapeake Bay is world-wide
for its canvas-backs, mallards, and red-heads, its terrapin, its soles,
bass, and shad, and, last not least, its oysters. The various cakes
which the cooks of the Old Dominion could make from their maize and
other grains have also won celebrity.
[Sidenote: Beverages, native and imported.]
To wash down these native viands the Virginian had divers drinks,
whereof all the best were imported. Englishmen could not in a
moment leave off beer-drinking, but the generous, full-bodied
and delicate-flavoured ale of the mother country has never been
successfully imitated on this side of the Atlantic, and indeed seems
hardly adapted to our sweltering summers. Concerning the beer brewed
in Old Virginia opinions varied; but since barley soon ceased to be
cultivated, and attempts were made to supply its place with maize or
pumpkins or persimmons, we need not greatly regret that we were not
there to be regaled with it. Cider, with its kindred beverages, was
abundant,[209] and doubtless of much better quality. Apple-jack and
peach brandy were distilled. Other beverages were imported, most
commonly sack, of which Falstaff was so fond; the name was applied to
such dry (Spanish _seco_) and strong wines as sherry and madeira. In
the cellars of wealthy planters were often found choice brands of red
wine from Bordeaux and white wine from the Rhineland. Cognacs were also
imported, and of rum we have already spoken. Evidently our friends, the
planters, had sturdy tipplers among them.[210] Fortunately for them,
the manufacture of coarse whiskey from maize and rye had not yet come
into vogue, while of the less harmful peaty “mountain dew” from Ireland
or Scotland we hear nothing.
[Sidenote: Smyth’s picture of a planter.]
Of the daily life of a rich planter we have a graphic account from John
Ferdinand Smyth, a British soldier who travelled through Virginia and
other colonies, and sojourned for some years in Maryland, about the
middle of the eighteenth century. I cite the description, because so
much has been made of it: “The gentleman of fortune rises about nine
o’clock; he may perhaps make an excursion to walk as far as his stable
to see his horses, which is seldom more than fifty yards from his
house; he returns to breakfast between nine and ten, which is generally
tea or coffee, bread-and-butter, and very thin slices of venison,
ham, or hung beef. He then lies down on a pallet on the floor, in the
coolest room in the house, in his shirt and trousers only, with a negro
at his head and another at his feet, to fan him and keep off the
flies; between twelve and one he takes a draught of bombo, or toddy, a
liquor composed of water, sugar, rum, and nutmeg, which is made weak
and kept cool; he dines between two and three, and at every table,
whatever else there may be, a ham and greens, or cabbage, is always a
standing dish. At dinner he drinks cider, toddy, punch, port, claret,
and madeira, which is generally excellent here; having drank [_sic_]
some few glasses of wine after dinner, he returns to his pallet, with
his two blacks to fan him, and continues to drink toddy, or sangaree,
all the afternoon; he does not always drink tea. Between nine and ten
in the evening he eats a light supper of milk and fruit, or wine,
sugar, and fruit, etc., and almost immediately retires to bed for the
night. This is his general way of living in his family, when he has no
company. No doubt many differ from it, some in one respect, some in
another; but more follow it than do not.”[211]
This extract seems to show that Rev. Samuel Peters was not the only
writer who liked to entertain his trustful British friends with queer
tales about their American cousins.[212] No doubt Mr. Smyth wrote it
with his tongue in his cheek; but if he meant what he said, we must
remember that the besetting sin of travellers is hasty generalization.
We will take Mr. Smyth’s word for it that one or more gentlemen were
in the habit of passing their days in the way he describes, and we may
freely admit that a good many gentlemen might thus make shift to keep
alive through some furious attack of the weather fiend in August; but
his concluding statement, that this way of living was customary, is not
to be taken seriously. An extract from the manuscript recollections
of General John Mason, son of the illustrious George Mason, gives a
different picture:--
[Sidenote: The mode of life at Gunston.]
“It was very much the practice with gentlemen of landed and slave
estates ... so to organize them as to have considerable resources
within themselves; to employ and pay but few tradesmen, and to buy
little or none of the coarse stuffs and materials used by them....
Thus my father had among his slaves carpenters, coopers, sawyers,
blacksmiths, tanners, curriers, shoemakers, spinners, weavers, and
knitters, and even a distiller. His woods furnished timber and plank
for the carpenters and coopers, and charcoal for the blacksmith; his
cattle killed for his own consumption and for sale supplied skins for
the tanners, curriers, and shoemakers; and his sheep gave wool and his
fields produced cotton and flax for the weavers and spinners, and his
orchards fruit for the distiller. His carpenters and sawyers built
and kept in repair all the dwelling-houses, barns, stables, ploughs,
harrows, gates, etc., on the plantations, and the outhouses at the
house. His coopers made the hogsheads the tobacco was prized in, and
the tight casks to hold the cider and other liquors. The tanners and
curriers, with the proper vats, etc., tanned and dressed the skins
as well for upper as for lower leather to the full amount of the
consumption of the estate, and the shoemakers made them into shoes
for the negroes. A professed shoemaker was hired for three or four
months in the year to come and make up the shoes for the white part
of the family. The blacksmiths did all the ironwork required by the
establishment, as making and repairing ploughs, harrows, teeth, chains,
bolts, etc. The spinners, weavers, and knitters made all the coarse
cloths and stockings used by the negroes, and some of finer texture
worn by the white family, nearly all worn by the children of it. The
distiller made every fall a good deal of apple, peach, and persimmon
brandy. The art of distilling from grain was not then among us, and
but few public distilleries. All these operations were carried on at
the home house, and their results distributed as occasion required
to the different plantations. Moreover, all the beeves and hogs for
consumption or sale were driven up and slaughtered there at the proper
seasons, and whatever was to be preserved was salted and packed away
for after distribution.
“My father kept no steward or clerk about him. He kept his own books
and superintended, with the assistance of a trusty slave or two, and
occasionally of some of his sons, all the operations at or about
the home house above described.... To carry on these operations to
the extent required, it will be seen that a considerable force was
necessary, besides the house servants, who for such a household,
a large family and entertaining a great deal of company, must be
numerous; and such a force was constantly kept there, independently
of any of the plantations, and besides occasional drafts from them of
labour for particular occasions. As I had during my youth constant
intercourse with all these people, I remember them all, and their
several employments as if it was yesterday.”[213]
Now when we consider that Colonel Mason had some 500 persons on his
estate, and was known to have sent from his private wharf as many as
23,000 bushels of wheat in a single shipment, it is clear that no
gentleman who spent the day lolling on a couch and sipping toddy could
have superintended the details of business which his son describes.
George Mason was, no doubt, a fair specimen of his class, and their
existence was clearly not an idle one. With the public interests of
parish, county, and commonwealth to look after besides, they surely
earned the leisure hours that were spent in social entertainments or in
field sports.
[Sidenote: A glimpse of Mount Vernon.]
A glimpse of the life of a planter’s wife, which Bishop Meade declares
to be typical, is given in a letter from Mrs. Edward Carrington to her
sister, about 1798. Colonel Carrington and his wife were visiting
at Mount Vernon. After telling how Washington and the Colonel sat
up together until midnight, absorbed in reminiscences of bivouac
and hard-fought field, she comes to Mrs. Washington, who alluded
to her days of public pomp and fashion as “her lost days.” Then
Mrs. Carrington continues: “Let us repair to the old lady’s [Mrs.
Washington’s] room, which is precisely in the style of our good old
aunt’s,--that is to say, nicely fixed for all sorts of work. On one
side sits the chambermaid, with her knitting; on the other, a little
coloured pet, learning to sew. An old, decent woman is there, with
her table and shears, cutting out the negroes’ winter clothes, while
the good old lady directs them all, incessantly knitting herself. She
points out to me several pairs of nice coloured stockings and gloves
she had just finished, and presents me with a pair half done, which she
begs I will finish and wear for her sake.” At this domestic picture
Bishop Meade exclaims: “If the wife of General Washington, having her
own and his wealth at command, should thus choose to live, how much
more the wives and mothers of Virginia with moderate fortunes and
numerous children! How often have I seen, added to the above-mentioned
scenes of the chamber, the instruction of several sons and daughters
going on, the churn, the reel, and other domestic operations all
in progress at the same time, and the mistress, too, lying on a
sick-bed!”[214]
[Sidenote: Dress of planters and their wives.]
Although Mrs. Carrington may have finished and worn the pair of knit
gloves, yet most articles of dress for well-to-do men and women were
imported. London fashions were strictly followed. In the time of
Bacon’s rebellion, your host would have appeared, perhaps, in a coat
and breeches of olive plush or dark red broadcloth, with embroidered
waistcoat, shirt of blue holland, long silk stockings, silver buttons
and shoe-buckles, lace ruffles about neck and wrists, and his head
encumbered with a flowing wig; while the lady of the house might have
worn a crimson satin bodice trimmed with point lace, a black tabby[215]
petticoat and silk hose, with shoes of fine leather gallooned; her lace
headdress would be secured with a gold bodkin, and she would be apt
to wear earrings, a pearl necklace, and finger-rings with rubies or
diamonds, and to carry a fan.[216]
[Sidenote: Weddings and funerals.]
[Sidenote: Horse-racing.]
The ordinary chances for the ladies to exhibit their garments of
flowered tabby, and beaux their new plush suits, were furnished by the
Sunday services at the parish church, and by the frequent gatherings
of friends at home. Weddings, of course, were high times, as everywhere
and always; and the gloom of funerals was relieved by feasting the
guests, who were likely to have come long distances over which they
must return.[217] These journeys, like the journeys to church and to
the court-house, might be made in boats; on land they were made on
horseback. Carriages were very rare in the seventeenth century, but
became much more common before the Revolution. In their fondness for
horses the Virginians were true children of England. In the stables of
wealthy planters were to be found specimens of the finest breeds, and
the interest in racing was universal. Common folk, however, were not
allowed to take part in the sport, except as lookers-on. One of the
earliest references to horse-racing is an order of the county court
of York in 1674: “James Bullocke, a Taylor, haveing made a race for
his mare to runn w’th a horse belonging to Mr. Mathew Slader for twoe
thousand pounds of tobacco and caske, it being contrary to Law for a
Labourer to make a race, being a sport only for Gentlemen, is fined
for the same one hundred pounds of tobacco and caske.”[218] Half a
century later, Hugh Jones tells us that the Virginians “are such lovers
of riding that almost every ordinary person keeps a horse; and I have
known some spend the morning in ranging several miles in the woods to
find and catch their horses only to ride two or three miles to church,
to the court-house, or to a horse-race.”[219] After 1740 there was a
systematic breeding from imported English thoroughbreds.[220] Thirty
years later, we are told that “there are races at Williamsburg twice a
year; that is, every spring and fall, or autumn. Adjoining to the town
is a very excellent course for either two, three, or four mile heats.
Their purses are generally raised by subscription, and are gained by
the horse that wins two four-mile heats out of three; they amount to
an hundred pounds each for the first day’s running, and fifty pounds
each every day after, the races commonly continuing for a week. There
are also matches and sweepstakes very often for considerable sums.
Besides ... there are races established annually almost at every town
and considerable place in Virginia; and frequent matches on which large
sums of money depend.... Very capital horses are started here, such
as would make no despicable figure at Newmarket; nor is their speed,
bottom, or blood inferior to their appearance.... Indeed, nothing can
be more elegant and beautiful than the horses here, either for the
turf, the field, the road, or the coach; ... but their carriage horses
seldom are possessed of that weight and power which distinguish those
of the same kind in England.”[221]
[Sidenote: Fox-hunting.]
[Sidenote: Gambling.]
Since the Virginians were excellent horsemen, it was but natural that
they should enjoy hunting. No sport was more dear than chasing the fox.
Washington’s extreme delight in riding to the hounds is well known;
he kept it up until his sixty-third year, when a slight injury to his
back made such exercise uncomfortable. Washington was a true Virginian
in his love for his dogs, to whom he gave such pretty names as Mopsey,
Truelove, Jupiter, Juno, Rover, Music, Sweetlips, Countess, Lady, and
Singer. Shooting and fishing were favourite diversions with Washington;
when he was President of the United States, the newspapers used to tell
of his great catches of blackfish and sea-bass.[222] In these tastes
his neighbours were like him. Less wholesome sports were cock-fighting,
and gambling with cards. The passion for gambling was far too strong
among the Virginians. Laws were enacted against it; gambling debts were
not recoverable; innkeepers who permitted any game of cards or dice,
except backgammon, were subject to a heavy fine besides forfeiting
their licenses.[223]
[Sidenote: A rural entertainment.]
An interesting newspaper notice, in the year 1737, shows that some of
the innocent open-air sports of mediæval England still survived: “We
have advice from Hanover County, that on St. Andrew’s Day there are
to be Horse Races and several other Diversions, for the entertainment
of the Gentlemen and Ladies, at the Old Field, near Captain John
Bickerton’s, in that county (if permitted by the Hon. Wm. Byrd,
Esquire, Proprietor of said land), the substance of which is as
follows, viz.: It is proposed that 20 Horses or Mares do run round a
three miles’ course for a prize of five pounds.
“That a Hat of the value of 20s be cudgelled for, and that after the
first challenge made the Drums are to beat every Quarter of an hour for
three challenges round the Ring, and none to play with their Left hand.
“That a violin be played for by 20 Fiddlers; no person to have the
liberty of playing unless he bring a fiddle with him. After the prize
is won they are all to play together, and each a different tune, and to
be treated by the company.
“That 12 Boys of 12 years of age do run 112 yards for a Hat of the cost
of 12 shillings.
“That a Flag be flying on said Day 30 feet high.
“That a handsome entertainment be provided for the subscribers and
their wives; and such of them as are not so happy as to have wives may
treat any other lady.
“That Drums, Trumpets, Hautboys, &c., be provided to play at said
entertainment.
“That after dinner the Royal Health, His Honour the Governor’s, &c.,
are to be drunk.
“That a Quire of ballads be sung for by a number of Songsters, all of
them to have liquor sufficient to clear their Wind Pipes.
“That a pair of Silver Buckles be wrestled for by a number of brisk
young men.
“That a pair of handsome Shoes be danced for.
“That a pair of handsome silk Stockings of one Pistole[224] value be
given to the handsomest young country maid that appears in the Field.
With many other Whimsical and Comical Diversions too numerous to
mention.
“And as this mirth is designed to be purely innocent and void of
offence, all persons resorting there are desired to behave themselves
with decency and sobriety; the subscribers being resolved to
discountenance all immorality with the utmost rigour.”[225]
[Sidenote: Music.]
The part played by violins in this quaint programme reminds us that
fiddling was an accomplishment highly esteemed in the Old Dominion. As
an accompaniment for dancing it was very useful in the home parties on
the plantations. The philosophic Thomas Jefferson, as a dead shot with
the rifle, a skilful horseman, and a clever violinist, was a typical
son of Virginia. As boys learned to play the violin, and sometimes
the violoncello, girls were taught to play the virginal, which was an
ancestral form of the piano. Virginals, and afterward harpsichords,
were commonly to be found in the houses of the gentry, and not
unfrequently hautboys, flutes, and recorders.[226] The music most
often played with these instruments was probably some form of dance or
the setting of a popular ballad; but what is called “classical music”
was not unknown. Among the effects of Cuthbert Ogle, a musician at
Williamsburg, who died in 1755, we find Handel’s “Acis and Galatea” and
“Apollo’s Feast,” four books of instrumental scores of his oratorios,
and ten books of his songs; also a manuscript score of Corelli’s
sonatas, and concertos by the English composers, William Felton and
Charles Avison, now wellnigh forgotten.[227]
[Sidenote: Other recreations.]
After 1716 there was a theatre at Williamsburg, and during the sessions
of the assembly, when planters with their families came from far and
wide, there was much gayety. At other seasons the monotony of rural
life was varied by the recreations above described, with an occasional
picnic in the woods, or a grand barbecue in honour of some English
victory or the accession of a new king.
[Sidenote: Wormeley’s library.]
Some time was found for reading. The inventories of personal estates
almost always include books, in some instances few and of little
worth, in others numerous and valuable. The library of Ralph Wormeley,
of Rosegill, contained about four hundred titles. Wormeley, who had
been educated at Oriel College, Oxford, was president of the council,
secretary of state, and a trustee of William and Mary College; he died
in 1701. Among his books were Burnet’s “History of the Reformation,” a
folio history of Spain, an ecclesiastical history in Latin, Camden’s
“Britannia,” Lord Bacon’s “History of Henry VII.,” and his “Natural
History,” histories of Scotland, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, and
the West Indies, biographies of Richard III., Charles I., and George
Castriot, Plutarch’s Lives, Burnet’s “Theory of the Earth,” Willis’s
“Practice of Physick,” Heylin’s “Cosmography,” “a chirurgical old
book,” “the Chyrurgans mate,” Galen’s “Art of Physick,” treatises on
gout, pancreatic juice, pharmacy, scurvy, and many other medical works,
Coke’s Reports and his “Institutes,” collections of Virginia and New
England laws, a history of tithes, “The Office of Justice of the
Peace,” a Latin treatise on maritime law, and many other law books,
Usher’s “Body of Divinity,” Hooker’s “Ecclesiastical Polity,” Poole’s
“Annotations to the Bible,” “A Reply to the Jesuits,” Fuller’s “Holy
State” and his “Worthies,” a concordance to the Bible, Jeremy Taylor’s
“Holy Living and Dying,” “The Whole Duty of Man,” a biography of St.
Augustine, Baxter’s “Confession of Faith,” and many books of divinity,
a liberal assortment of dictionaries and grammars of English, French,
Spanish, Latin, and Greek, the essays of Montaigne and other French
books, Cæsar, Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Thucydides, Josephus, Quintus
Curtius, Seneca, Terence, “Æsop’s Fables,” “Don Quixote,” “Hudibras,”
Quarles’s poems, George Herbert’s poems, Howell’s “Familiar Letters,”
Waller’s poems, the plays of Sir William Davenant, “ffifty Comodys
& tragedies in folio,” “The Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft,” “An
Embersee from y^e East India Comp^a to y^e Grand Tartar,” “The Negro’s
and Indian’s Advocate,” “A Looking Glass for the Times,” and so
on.[228] Though not the library of a scholar, it indicates that its
owner was a thoughtful man and fairly well informed.
[Sidenote: Libraries of Byrd and Lee.]
A more remarkable library was that of William Byrd, of Westover. It
contained 3,625 volumes, classified nearly as follows: History, 700;
Classics, etc., 650; French, 550; Law, 350; Divinity, 300; Medicine,
200; Scientific, 225; Entertaining, etc., 650.[229] This must have
been one of the largest collections of books made in the colonial
period. That of the second Richard Lee, who died in 1715, contained
about 300 titles, among which we notice many more Greek and Latin
writers than in Wormeley’s, especially such names as Epictetus,
Aristotle de Anima, Diogenes Laertius, Lucian, Heliodorus, Claudian,
Arrian, and Orosius, besides such mediæval authors as Albertus Magnus
and Laurentius Valla.[230]
[Sidenote: Schools and printing.]
Such libraries were of course exceptional. In most planters’ houses
you would probably have found a few English classics, with perhaps
“Don Quixote” and “Gil Blas,” and an assortment of books on divinity,
manuals for magistrates, and helps in farming. Virginia was not
eminent as a literary or bookish community. There was no newspaper
until the establishment of the “Virginia Gazette” in 1736. As for
schools, the Lords Commissioners of Plantations sent over a series
of interrogatories to Sir William Berkeley in 1671, and asked him,
among other things, what provision was made for public instruction.
His reply was characteristic: “I thank God there are no free schools
nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hundred years; for
learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world,
and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government.
God keep us from both!”[231] Lord Culpeper seems to have been much
of Berkeley’s way of thinking, for we read that, “February 21, 1682,
John Buckner [was] called before the Lord Culpeper and his council
for printing the laws of 1680 without his excellency’s license, and
he and the printer [were] ordered to enter into bond in £100 _not to
print anything_ thereafter until his majesty’s pleasure should be
known.”[232] The pleasure of Charles II. was, that nobody should use
a printing-press in Virginia, and so he instructed the next governor,
Lord Howard, in 1684.
[Sidenote: Private free schools.]
[Sidenote: Academies and tutors.]
The establishment of a system of schools such as flourished in New
England was prevented by the absence of town life and the long
distances between plantations. When Berkeley said there were no free
schools in Virginia, he may have had in mind the contrast with New
England. No such schools were founded in Virginia by the assembly,
but there were instances of free schools founded by individuals; as,
for example, the Symms school in 1636, Captain Moon’s school in 1655,
Richard Russell’s in 1667, Mr. King’s in 1669, the Eaton school some
time before 1689, and Edward Moseley’s in 1721.[233] Indeed, there was
after 1646[234] a considerable amount of compulsory primary education
in Virginia, much more than has been generally supposed, since the
records of it have been buried in the parish vestry-books. In the
eighteenth century we find evidences that pains were taken to educate
coloured people.[235] It was not unusual for the plantation to have
among its numerous outbuildings a school conducted by some rustic
dignitary of the neighbourhood. In the “old field schools” little more
was taught than “the three Rs,” but these humble institutions are not
to be despised; for it was in one of them, kept by “Hobby, the sexton,”
that George Washington learned to read, write, and cipher. His father
and his elder brother Lawrence had been educated at Appleby School,
in England; George himself, after an interval with a Mr. Williams,
near Wakefield, finished his school-days at an excellent academy in
Fredericksburg, of which Rev. James Marye was master. The sons of
George Mason studied two years at an academy in Stafford County kept
by a Scotch parson named Buchan, “a pious man and profound classical
scholar.” Afterwards John Mason was sent to study mathematics with
an expert named Hunter, “a Scotchman also and quite a recluse, who
kept a small school in a retired place in Calvert County, Maryland.”
Much teaching was also done by private tutors. In the Mason household
these were three Scotchmen in succession, of whom “the two last were
especially engaged [in Scotland] to come to America (as was the
practice in those times with families who had means) by my father
to live in his house and educate the children.... The tutoress of
my sisters was a Mrs. Newman. She remained in the family for some
time.”[236]
[Sidenote: Convicts as tutors.]
Sometimes the schoolmaster or private tutor was an indented white
servant who had come out as a redemptioner, or even as a convict.
Among the criminals there might be persons of rank, as Sir Charles
Burton, a Lincolnshire baronet, who was transported to America in
1722 for “stealing a cornelian ring set in gold;” or scholars, like
Henry Justice, Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barrister, who in 1736 was
convicted of stealing from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge,
“a Field’s Bible with cuts, and Common-prayer, value £25, Newcastle’s
Horsemanship, value £10, several other books of great value, several
Tracts cut out of books, etc.” For this larceny, although Mr.
Justice begged hard to be allowed to stay in England for the sake of
his clients, “with several of whom he had great concerns,” he was
nevertheless sent to America for seven years, under penalty of death
if he were to return within that time.[237] From such examples we
see that, while the convict ships may not have brought many Eugene
Arams, they certainly brought men more likely to find employment in
teaching than in manual labour. Jonathan Boucher, rector at Annapolis
in 1768, declares that “not a ship arrives with either redemptioners
or convicts, in which schoolmasters are not as regularly advertised
for sale as weavers, tailors, or any other trade; with little other
difference that I can hear of, except perhaps that the former do not
usually fetch so good a price as the latter.”[238]
[Sidenote: Virginians at Oxford.]
Sometimes, as we have seen in the case of Augustine Washington
and his son Lawrence, the young Virginians were sent to school in
England. Oftener, perhaps, the education begun at the country school
or with private tutors was “finished” (as the phrase goes) at one of
the English universities. Oxford seems to have been the favourite
Alma Mater, doubtless for the same reason that caused Cambridge to
be chiefly represented among the founders of New England; Oxford
was ultra-royalist in sentiment, while Cambridge was deeply tinged
with Puritanism. This difference would readily establish habits and
associations among the early Virginians which would be followed.[239]
[Sidenote: James Madison.]
It was not in all cases necessary to go to England to obtain a thorough
education. James Madison’s tutors were the parish minister and an
excellent Scotch schoolmaster; he was graduated at Princeton College
in 1772, and never crossed the Atlantic; yet for the range, depth,
and minuteness of his knowledge of ancient and modern history and of
constitutional law, he has been rivalled by no other English-speaking
statesman save Edmund Burke. Such an instance, however, chiefly shows
how much more depends upon the individual than upon any institutions.
There are no rules by which you can explain the occurrence of a
heaven-sent genius.
[Sidenote: Contrast with New England in respect of educational
advantages.]
On the whole, the facilities for education, whether primary or
advanced, were very imperfect in the Old Dominion. This becomes
especially noticeable from the contrast with New England, which
inevitably suggests itself. It is no doubt customary with historical
writers to make too much of this contrast. The people of colonial New
England were not all well-educated, nor were all their country schools
better than old field schools. The farmer’s boy, who was taught for two
winter months by a man and two summer months by a woman, seldom learned
more in the district school than how to read, write, and cipher. For
Greek and Latin, if he would go to college, he had usually to obtain
the services of the minister or some other college-bred man in the
village. There was often a disposition on the part of the town meetings
to shirk the appropriation of a sum of money for school purposes, and
many Massachusetts towns were fined for such remissness.[240] This was
especially true of the early part of the eighteenth century, when the
isolated and sequestered life of two generations had lowered the high
level of education which the grandfathers had brought across the ocean.
In those dark days of New England, there might now and then be found
in rural communities men of substance who signed deeds and contracts
with their mark.
[Sidenote: Causes of the difference.]
After making all allowances, however, the contrast between the New
England colonies and the Old Dominion remains undeniable, and it is
full of interest. The contrast is primarily based upon the fact that
New England was settled by a migration of organized congregations,
analogous to that of the ancient Greek city-communities; whereas the
settlement of Virginia was effected by a migration of individuals and
families. These circumstances were closely connected with the Puritan
doctrine of the relations between church and state, and furthermore,
as I have elsewhere shown,[241] the Puritan theory of life made it
imperatively necessary, in New England as in Scotland, to set a high
value upon education. The compactness of New England life, which was
favoured by the agricultural system of small farms owned by independent
yeomen, made it easy to maintain efficient schools. In Virginia, on
the other hand, the agricultural conditions interposed grave obstacles
to such a result. There was no such pervasive organization as in New
England, where the different grades of school, from lowest to highest,
coöperated in sustaining each other. There were heroic friends of
education in Virginia. James Blair and the faithful scholars who
worked with him conferred a priceless boon upon the commonwealth; but
the vitality of William and Mary College often languished for lack
of sustenance that should have been afforded by lower schools, and it
was impossible for it to exercise such a widespread seminal influence
as Yale and Harvard, sending their graduates into every town and
village as ministers, lawyers, and doctors, schoolmasters and editors,
merchants and country squires.
[Sidenote: Illustrations from history of American intellect.]
Among the founders of New England were an extraordinary number of
clergymen noted for their learning, such as Hooker and Shepard, Cotton
and Williams, Eliot and the Mathers; together with such cultivated
laymen as Winthrop and Bradford, familiar with much of the best that
was written in the world, and to whom the pen was an easy and natural
instrument for expressing their thoughts. The character originally
impressed upon New England by such men was maintained by the powerful
influence of the colleges and schools, so that there was always more
attention devoted to scholarship and to writing than in any of the
other colonies. Communities of Europeans, thrust into a wilderness and
severed from Europe by the ocean, were naturally in danger of losing
their higher culture and lapsing into the crudeness of frontier life.
All the American colonies were deeply affected by this situation. While
there were many and great advantages in the freedom from sundry Old
World trammels, yet in some respects the influence of the wilderness
was barbarizing. It was due to the circumstances above mentioned that
the New England colonies were more successful than the others in
resisting this influence, and avoiding a breach of continuity in the
higher spiritual life of the community. This is strikingly illustrated
by the history of American literature. Among men of letters and science
born and educated in America before the Revolution, there were three
whose fame is more than national, whose names belong among the great
of all times and countries. Of these, Jonathan Edwards was a native
of Connecticut, Benjamin Franklin and Count Rumford were natives of
Massachusetts. In such men we can trace the continuity between the
intellectual life of England in the seventeenth century and that
of America in the nineteenth. In Virginia, if we except political
writers, we find no names so high as these. But there is one political
book which must not be excepted, because it is a book for all time.
“The Federalist” is one of the world’s philosophical and literary
masterpieces, and of its three authors James Madison took by far the
deepest and most important part in creating it.[242]
[Sidenote: Virginia’s historians; Robert Beverley.]
Among books of a second order,--books which do not rank among
classics,--there are some which deserve and have won a reputation
that is more than local. Of such books, Hutchinson’s “History of
Massachusetts Bay” is a good example. In the colonial times historical
literature was of better quality than other kinds of writing; and
Virginia produced three historical writers of decided merit. With
Robert Beverley the reader has already made some acquaintance through
the extracts cited in these pages. His “History of Virginia,” published
in London in 1705, is a little book full of interesting details
concerning the country and the life of its red and white inhabitants.
The author’s love of nature is charming, and his style so simple,
direct, and sprightly that there is not a dull page in the book. It was
written during a visit to London, where Beverley happened to see the
proof-sheets of Oldmixon’s forthcoming “British Empire in America,”
and was disgusted with the silly blunders that swarmed on every page.
He wrote his little book as an antidote, and did it so well that many
coming generations will read it with pleasure.
[Sidenote: William Stith.]
A book of more pretension and of decided merit is the “History of
Virginia” by Rev. William Stith, who was president of William and Mary
College from 1752 to his death in 1755. The book, which was published
at Williamsburg in 1747, was but the first volume of a work which,
had it been completed on a similar scale, would have filled six or
eight. It covers only the earliest period, ending with the downfall
of the Virginia Company in 1624; and among its merits is the good use
to which the author put the minutes of the Company’s proceedings made
at the instance of Nicholas Ferrar.[243] Stith’s work is accurate
and scholarly, and his narrative is dignified and often graphic.
His account of James I. is pithy: “He had, in truth, all the forms
of wisdom,--forever erring very learnedly, with a wise saw or Latin
sentence in his mouth; for he had been bred up under Buchanan, one of
the brightest geniuses and most accomplished scholars of that age, who
had given him Greek and Latin in great waste and profusion, but it was
not in his power to give him good sense. That is the gift of God and
nature alone, and is not to be taught; and Greek and Latin without it
only cumber and overload a a weak head, and often render the fool more
abundantly foolish. I must, therefore, confess that I have ever had
... a most contemptible opinion of this monarch; which has, perhaps,
been much heightened and increased by my long studying and conning
over the materials of this history. For he appears in his dealings
with the Company to have acted with such mean arts and fraud ... as
highly misbecome majesty.”[244] From the refined simplicity of this
straightforward style it was a sad descent to the cumbrous and stilted
Johnsonese of the next generation, which too many Americans even now
mistake for fine writing.
[Sidenote: William Byrd.]
Contemporary with Beverley and Stith was William Byrd, one of the most
eminent men of affairs in Old Virginia, and eminent also--probably
without knowing it--as a man of letters. His father came to Virginia
a few years before Bacon’s rebellion, and bought the famous estate
of Westover, on the James River and in Charles City County, with the
mansion, which is still in the possession of his family, and is
considered one of the finest old houses in Virginia. From his uncle
Colonel Byrd inherited a vast estate which included the present site of
Richmond. He sympathized strongly with his neighbour, Nathaniel Bacon,
and held a command under him; but after the collapse of the rebellion
he succeeded in making his peace with the raging Berkeley. He became
one of the most important men in the colony, and was commissioned
receiver-general of the royal revenues. On his death, in 1704, his son
succeeded him in this office. The son had studied law in the Middle
Temple, and for proficiency in science was made a fellow of the Royal
Society. He was for many years a member of the colonial council, and
at length its president. He lived in much splendour on his estate of
Westover, and we have seen what a library he accumulated there. A
professional man of letters he was not, and perhaps his strong literary
tastes might never have led to literary production but for sundry
interesting personal experiences which he deemed it worth while to put
on record. In 1727 he was one of the commissioners for determining the
boundary between Virginia and North Carolina. In the journeys connected
with that work he selected the sites where the towns of Richmond and
Petersburg were afterwards built; and he wrote a narrative of his
proceedings so full of keen observations on the people and times as to
make it an extremely valuable contribution to history.[245] Among early
American writers Byrd is exceptional for animation of style. There is
a quaintness of phrase about him that is quite irrepressible. After a
dry season he visits a couple of mills, and “had the grief to find them
both stand as still for the want of water as a dead woman’s tongue for
want of breath. It had rained so little for many weeks above the falls
that the Naiads had hardly water enough left to wash their faces.”
He suggests, of course with a twinkle in his eye, that the early
settlers of Virginia ought to have formed matrimonial alliances with
the Indians: “Morals and all considered, I can’t think the Indians were
much greater heathens than the first adventurers, who, had they been
good Christians, would have had the charity to take this only method of
converting the natives to Christianity. For after all that can be said,
a sprightly lover is the most prevailing missionary that can be sent
among these, or any other infidels. Besides, the poor Indians would
have had less reason to complain that the English took away their land,
if they had received it by way of portion with their daughters.... Nor
would the shade of the skin have been any reproach at this day; for if
a Moor may be washed white in three generations, surely an Indian might
have been blanched in two.”[246] With such moralizing was this amiable
writer wont to relieve the tedium of historical discourse. We shall
again have occasion to quote him in the course of our narrative.
[Sidenote: Science; John Clayton.]
Among other works by writers reared before the Revolution, the
well-known “Notes on Virginia,” by Thomas Jefferson, deserves high
praise as an essay in descriptive sociology. Of American poetry before
the nineteenth century, scarcely a line worth preserving came from
any quarter. In 1777 James McClurg, an eminent physician, afterward a
member of the Federal Convention, wrote his “Belles of Williamsburg,”
a specimen of pleasant society verse; but it had not such vogue as its
author’s “Essay on the Human Bile,” which was translated into several
European languages. Science throve better than poetry, and was well
represented in Virginia by John Clayton, who came thither from England
in 1705, being then in his twentieth year, and dwelt there until his
death in 1773, on the eve of the famous day which saw the mixing of
tea with ice-water in Boston harbour. Clayton was attorney-general of
Virginia, and for fifty years clerk of Gloucester County. His name has
an honourable place in the history of botany; he was member of learned
societies in nearly all the countries of Europe; and in 1739 his “Flora
of Virginia” was edited and published by Linnæus and Gronovius.
[Sidenote: Physicians.]
[Sidenote: Washington’s last illness.]
In Old Virginia, as in all the other colonies, the scientific study
and practice of medicine had scarcely made a beginning. Those were
everywhere the days of “kill or cure” treatment, when there was small
hope for patients who had not enough vitality to withstand both
drugs and disease. In the light of the progress achieved since the
mighty work of Bichat (1798-1801), the two preceding centuries seem a
period of stagnation. Strong plasters, jalap, and bleeding were the
universal remedies. Mr. Bruce gives us the items of a bill rendered
by Dr. Haddon, of York, about 1660, for performing an amputation.
“They included one highly flavoured and two ordinary cordials, three
ointments for the wound, an ointment precipitate, the operation of
letting blood, a purge _per diem_, two purges electuaries, external
applications, a cordial and two astringent powders, phlebotomy, a
defensive and a large cloth.” On another occasion the same doctor
prescribed “a purging glister, a caphalick and a cordial electuary,
oil of spirits and sweet almonds, a purging and a cordial bolus,
purging pills, ursecatory, and oxymell. His charge for six visits
after dark was a hogshead of tobacco weighing 400 pounds.”[247] Of the
many thousand victims of these heroic methods, the most illustrious
was George Washington, who, but for medical treatment, might probably
have lived a dozen or fifteen years into the nineteenth century. When
Washington in full vigour found that he had caught a very bad cold he
sent for the doctors, and meanwhile had half a pint of blood taken from
him by one of his overseers. Of the three physicians in attendance, one
was his dear friend, the good Scotchman, Dr. James Craik, “who from
forty years’ experience,” said Washington, “is better qualified than
a dozen of them put together.” His colleague, Dr. Elisha Dick, said,
“Do not bleed the General; he needs all his strength.” But tradition
prevailed over common sense, and three copious bleedings followed, in
the last of which a quart of blood was taken. The third attendant,
Dr. Gustavus Brown, afterward expressed bitter regret that Dr. Dick’s
advice was not followed. Besides this wholesale bleeding, the patient
was dosed with calomel and tartar emetic and scarified with blisters
and poultices; or, as honest Tobias Lear said, in a letter written the
next day announcing the fatal result, “every medical assistance was
offered, but without the desired effect.”[248]
[Sidenote: Virginia parsons.]
The physician in Old Virginia was very much the same as elsewhere, but
the parson was a very different character from the grave ministers
and dominies of Boston and New York. He belonged to the class of
wine-bibbing, card-playing, fox-hunting parsons, of which there were
so many examples in the mother country after the reaction against
Puritanism had set in. The religious tone of the English church
during the first half of the eighteenth century was very low, and
it was customary to send out to Virginia and Maryland the poorest
specimens of clergymen that the mother country afforded. Men unfit for
any appointment at home were thought good enough for the colonies.
The royal governor, as vicegerent of the sovereign, was head of the
colonial church, while ecclesiastical affairs were superintended by a
commissary appointed by the Bishop of London. The first commissary,
Dr. Blair, as we have seen, was president of the college, and in his
successors those two offices were usually united. Several attempts
were made to substitute a bishop for the commissary, but the only
result of the attempts was to alienate people’s sympathies from the
church, while the conduct of the clergy was such as to destroy their
respect for it. Bishop Meade has queer stories to tell of some of
these parsons. One of them was for years the president of a jockey
club. Another fought a duel within sight of his own church. A third,
who was evidently a muscular Christian, got into a rough-and-tumble
fight with his vestrymen and floored them; and then justified himself
to his congregation next Sunday in a sermon from a text of Nehemiah,
“And I contended with them, and cursed them, and smote certain of them,
and plucked off their hair.” In 1711 a bequest of £100 was made to
the vestry of Christ Church parish in Middlesex, providing that the
interest should be paid to the minister for preaching four sermons each
year against “the four reigning vices,--viz.: atheism and irreligion,
swearing and cursing, fornication and adultery, and drunkenness.”
Later in the century the living was held for eighteen years, and the
sermons were preached, by a minister who was notoriously guilty of all
the vices mentioned. He used to be seen in the tavern porch, reeling
to and fro with a bowl of toddy in his hand, while he called to some
passer-by to come in and have a drink. When this exemplary man of God
was dying in delirium, his last words were halloos to the hounds. In
1726 a thoughtful and worthy minister named Lang wrote to the Bishop of
London about the scandalous behaviour of the clergy, of whom the sober
part were “slothful and negligent,” while the rest were debauched and
“bent on all manner of vices.”[249] This testimony against the clergy,
it will be observed, comes from clergymen. Yet it seems clear that the
cases cited must have been extreme ones,--cases of the sort that make
a deep impression and are long remembered. A few such instances would
suffice to bring down condemnation upon the whole establishment; and
not unjustly, for a church in which such things could for a moment be
tolerated must needs have been in a degraded condition. This state
of things afforded an excellent field for the labours of Baptist and
Presbyterian revivalist preachers, and to such good purpose did they
work that by the time of the Revolution it was found that more than
half of the people in Virginia were Dissenters. At that time the
Episcopal clergy were not unnaturally inclined to the Tory side, and
this last ounce was all that was needed to break down the establishment
and cast upon it irredeemable discredit. The downfall of the Episcopal
church in Virginia and its resurrection under more wholesome conditions
make an interesting chapter of history.
[Sidenote: Freethinking.]
In imputing to his tipsy parson the “vice” of atheism, Bishop Meade
warns us that he does not mean a denial of the existence of God, but
merely irreligion, or “living without God in the world.” In 1724 the
Bishop of London was officially informed that there were no “infidels”
in Virginia, negroes and Indians excepted. A few years later, “when the
first infidel book was imported, ... it produced such an excitement
that the governor and commissary communicated on the subject with the
authorities in England.” In those days freethinkers, if prudent, kept
their thoughts to themselves. All over Christendom the atmosphere was
still murky with intolerance, and men’s conceptions of the universe
were only beginning to emerge from the barbaric stage. Virginia was no
exception to the general rule.
[Sidenote: Superstition and crime.]
In respect also of superstition and crime the Old Dominion seems to
have differed but little from other parts of English America. Belief
in witchcraft lasted into the eighteenth century, and the statute-book
reveals an abiding dread of what rebellious slaves might do; but there
were no epidemics of savage terror, as at Salem in 1692, or in the
negro panic of 1741 in New York. Of violent crime there was surely
much less than in the England of Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild, but
probably more than in the colonies north of Delaware Bay; and its
perpetrators seem to have been chiefly white freedmen and “outlying
negroes.”[250] Duelling seems to have been infrequent before the
Revolution.[251] Murder, rape, arson, and violent robbery were punished
with death; while pillory, stocks, whipping-post, and ducking-stool
were kept in readiness for minor offenders. The infliction of the
death penalty in a cruel or shocking manner was not common. Negroes
were occasionally burned at the stake, as in other colonies, north
and south; and an instance is on record in which negro murderers were
beheaded and quartered after hanging.[252] No white persons were ever
burned at the stake by any of the colonies.[253]
[Sidenote: Lawyers.]
In the early days of Virginia there was not much practice of law except
by the county magistrates in their work of maintaining the king’s
peace. The legal profession was at first held in somewhat low repute,
being sometimes recruited by white freedmen whose careers of rascality
as attorneys in England had suddenly ended in penal servitude. But
after the middle of the seventeenth century the profession grew rapidly
in importance and improved in character. During the eighteenth century
the development in legal learning and acumen, and in weight of judicial
authority, was remarkable. The profession was graced by such eminent
names as Pendleton, Wythe, and Henry, until in John Marshall the Old
Dominion gave to the world a name second to none among the great judges
of English race and speech.
[Sidenote: A government of laws.]
One cause of this splendid development of legal talent was doubtless
the necessarily close connection between legal and political activity.
The Virginia planter meant that his government should be one of
laws. With his extensive estates to superintend and country interests
to look after, his position was in many respects like that of the
country squire in England. In his House of Burgesses the planter
had a parliament; and in the royal governor, who was liable to
subordinate local to imperial interests, there was an abiding source
of antagonism and distrust, requiring him to keep his faculties
perpetually alert to remember all the legal maxims by which the
liberties of England had been guarded since the days of Glanvil and
Bracton. On the whole, it was a noble type of rural gentry that the
Old Dominion had to show. Manly simplicity, love of home and family,
breezy activity, disinterested public spirit, thorough wholesomeness
and integrity,--such were the features of the society whose consummate
flower was George Washington.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Some characteristics of Maryland.]
This chapter must not close without a brief mention of the social
features of Maryland, but a brief mention is all that is needed for
my purpose, since the portraiture just given of Leah will answer in
most respects for her younger sister Rachel. The English colonists in
Maryland were of the same excellent class as the Cavaliers who were
the strength of Virginia. Though tidewater Virginia at the beginning
of the eighteenth century contained but few people who did not belong
to the Church of England, on the other hand, in Maryland, not more
than one sixth of the white population belonged to that church, while
one twelfth were Roman Catholics, and three fourths were Puritans. But
these differences in religion did not run parallel with differences in
birth, refinement, or wealth. Naturally, from the circumstances under
which the colony was founded, some of the best human material was
always to be found among the Catholics; and they wielded an influence
disproportionately greater than their numbers.
For the first three generations tobacco played as important a part in
Maryland as in Virginia. Nearly all the people became planters. Cheap
labour was supplied at first by indented white servants and afterwards
by negro slaves, who never came, however, to number more than from
one fourth to one third of the whole population. There was the same
isolation, the same absence of towns, the same rudeness of roads and
preference for water-ways, as in Virginia. The facilities for education
were somewhat poorer; there was no university or college, no public
schools until 1728, no newspaper until 1745.
But early in the eighteenth century there came about an important
modification of industries, which was in large part due to the rapid
growth of Maryland’s neighbour, Pennsylvania. In the latter colony a
great deal of wheat was raised, and the export of flour became very
profitable. This wheat culture extended into Maryland, where wheat soon
became a vigorous rival of tobacco. In 1729 the town of Baltimore was
founded, and at once rose to importance as a point for exporting flour.
Moreover, as Pennsylvania exported various kinds of farm produce,
besides large quantities of valuable furs, and as she had no seacoast
and no convenient maritime outlet save Philadelphia, her export trade
soon came to exceed the capacities of that outlet, and a considerable
part of it went through Baltimore, which thus had a large and active
rural district dependent upon it, and grew so fast that by 1770 it
had become the fourth city in English America, with a population of
nearly 20,000. The growth of Annapolis was further stimulated by these
circumstances; and this development of town life, with the introduction
of a wealthy class of merchants and the continual intercommunication
with Pennsylvania, went far toward assimilating Maryland with the
middle colonies while it diminished to some extent her points of
resemblance to the Old Dominion.