THE VIRGINIAS AND THE WASHINGTONS
In colonial times, and long thereafter, the present State of West
Virginia was a part of Virginia. Virginia, in the old days, used to have
no western borders to her most westerly counties, which, in theory, ran
out to infinity. As the western part of the State became settled, county
lines were drawn, and new counties were started farther back from the
coast. For this reason, towns which are now in Jefferson County, West
Virginia, used to be in that county of Virginia which lies to the east
of Jefferson County, and some towns have been in several different
counties in the course of their history.
The people in the eastern part of West Virginia are, so far as I am
capable of judging, precisely like Virginians. The old houses, when
built, were in Virginia, the names of the people are Virginian names,
and customs and points of view are Virginian. Until I went there I was
not aware how very much this means.
I do not know who wrote the school history I studied as a boy, but I do
know now that it was written by a lopsided historian, and that his
"lop," like that of many another of his kind, led him to enlarge upon
American naval and military victories, to minimize American defeats, to
give an impression that the all-important early colonies were those of
New England, and that the all-important one of them was Massachusetts.
From this bias I judge that the historian was a Boston man. It takes a
Bostonian to think in that way. They do it still.
From my school history I gathered the idea that although Sir Walter
Raleigh and Captain John Smith were so foolish as to dally more or less
in the remote fastnesses of Virginia, and although there was a little
ineffectual settlement at Jamestown, all the important colonizing of
this country occurred in New England. I read about Peregrine White, but
not about Virginia Dare; I read much of Miles Standish, but nothing of
Christopher Newport; I read a great deal of the _Mayflower_, but not a
word of the _Susan Constant_.
Yet Virginia Dare, if she lived, must have been nearing young ladyhood
when Peregrine White was born; Captain Christopher Newport passed the
Virginia capes when Miles Standish was hardly more than a youth, in
Lancashire; and the _Susan Constant_ landed the Jamestown settlers more
than a dozen years before the _Mayflower_ landed her shipload of eminent
furniture owners at Plymouth. Even Plymouth itself had been visited
years before by John Smith, and it was he, not the Pilgrims, who named
the place.
I find that some boys, to-day, know these things. But though that fact
is encouraging, I am not writing for boys, but for their comparatively
ignorant parents.
Not only did the first English colony establish itself in Virginia, and
the first known tobacco come from there--a point the importance of which
cannot be overstated--but the history of the Old Dominion is in every
way more romantic and heroic than that of any other State. The first
popular government existed there long before the Revolution, and at the
time of the break with the mother country Virginia was the most wealthy
and populous of the Colonies. Some historians say that slavery was first
introduced there when some Dutchmen sold to the colonists a shipload of
negroes, but I believe this point is disputed. The Declaration of
Independence was, of course, written by a Virginian, and made good by
the sword of one. The first President of the United States was a
Virginian, and so is the present Chief Executive. The whole of New
England has produced but four presidents; Ohio has produced six; but
Virginia has given us eight. The first British army to land on this
continent (Braddock's) landed in Virginia, and in that State our two
greatest wars were terminated by the surrenders of Cornwallis and of
Lee. And, last, the gallant Lee himself was a Virginian of the
Virginians--a son of the distinguished Henry Lee who said of Washington
that he was "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of
his countrymen."
* * * * *
On the pleasant drive of perhaps a dozen miles, from Harper's Ferry to
Charles Town, I noticed here and there, at the roadside, pyramidal
stones, suggesting monuments, but bearing no inscription save that each
had a number. On inquiry I learned that these were indeed Confederate
monuments, but that to find out what they marked it was necessary to go
to the county courthouse at Charles Town and look up the numbers in a
book, of which there is but one copy. These monuments were set out three
or four years ago. They appeared suddenly, almost as though they had
grown overnight, and many people wondered, as I had, what they meant.
"Eloise," one Charles Town young lady asked another, "what's that
monument out in front of your house with the number twenty-one on it?"
"Oh," replied Eloise, "that's where all my suitors are buried."
* * * * *
One of the things which gives Jefferson County, West Virginia, its
Virginian flavor is the collection of fine old houses which adorn it.
Many of these houses are the homes of families bearing the name of
Washington, or having in their veins the blood of the Washingtons. It is
said that there is more Washington blood in Charles Town (which, by the
way, should not be confused with Charleston, capital of the same State),
than in any other place, if not in all the rest of the world together.
The nearest competitors to Charles Town in this respect are Westmoreland
County, Virginia, and the town of Kankakee, Illinois, where resides the
Spottswood Augustine Washington family, said to be the only Washington
group to have taken the Union side in the Civil War. It is rumored also
that all the Washingtons are Democrats, although that fact is hard to
reconcile, at the present time, with the statement that, among the five
thousand of them, there is but a single Federal officeholder.
The settling of the Washingtons in Jefferson County, West Virginia, came
about through the fact that George Washington, when a youth of sixteen
or seventeen, became acquainted with that part of what was then
Virginia, through having gone to survey for Lord Fairfax, who had
acquired an enormous tract of land in the neighboring county of Clarke,
which is still in the mother State. To this estate, called Greenaway
Court, his lordship, it is recorded, came from England to isolate
himself because a woman with whom he was in love refused to marry him.
In this general neighborhood George Washington lived for three years,
and local enthusiasts affirm that to his having drunk the
lime-impregnated waters of this valley was due his great stature. The
man who informed me of this theory had lived there aways. He was about
five feet three inches tall, and had drunk the waters all his
life--plain and otherwise.
Washington's accounts of the region so interested his brothers that they
finally moved there, acquired large tracts of land, and built homes.
Charles Town, indeed, was laid out on the land of Charles Washington,
and was named for him, and there is evidence that George Washington,
who certainly gave the lines for the roads about the place, also laid
out the town.
Another brother, John Augustine, left a large family, while Samuel, the
oldest, described as "a rollicking country squire," was several years
short of fifty when he died, but for all that had managed to marry five
times and to find, nevertheless, spare moments in which to lay out the
historic estate of Harewood, not far from Charles Town. It is said that
George Washington was his brother's partner in this enterprise, but
excepting in its interior, which is very beautiful, there is no sign,
about the building, of his graceful architectural touch.
George Washington spent much time at Harewood, Lafayette and his son
visited there, and there the sprightly widow, Dolly Todd, married James
Madison. This wedding was attended by President Washington and his wife
and by many other national figures; the bride made the journey to
Harewood in Jefferson's coach, escorted by Madison and a group of his
friends on horseback, and history makes mention of a very large and very
gay company.
This is all very well until you see Harewood; for, substantial though
the house is, with its two-foot stone walls, it has but five rooms: two
downstairs and three up.
Where did they all sleep?
The question was put by the practical young lady whom I accompanied to
Harewood, but the wife of the farmer to whom the place is rented could
only smile and shake her head.
The bedroom now occupied by this farmer and his wife has doubtless been
occupied also by the first President of the United States and his wife,
the fourth President and his wife, by Lafayette, and by a King of
France--for Louis-Philippe, and his brothers, the Duc de Montpensier and
the Comte de Beaujolais, spent some time at Harewood during their period
of exile.
Having read in an extract from the Baltimore "Sun" that Harewood, which
is still owned in the Washington family, was a place in which all
Washingtons took great and proper pride, that it was "the lodestone
which draws the wandering Washingtons back to the old haunts," I was
greatly shocked on visiting the house to see the shameful state of
dilapidation into which it has been allowed to pass. The porches and
steps have fallen down, the garden is a disreputable tangle, and the
graves in the yard are heaped with tumble-down stones about which the
cattle graze. The only parts of the building in good repair are those
parts which time has not yet succeeded in destroying. The drawing-room,
containing a mantelpiece given to Washington by Lafayette, and the
finest wood paneling I have seen in any American house, has held its own
fairly well, as has also the old stairway, imported by Washington from
England. But that these things are not in ruins, like the porches, is no
credit to the Washingtons who own the property to-day, and who, having
rented the place, actually leave family portraits hanging on the walls
to crack and rot through the cold winter.
If there are indeed five thousand Washingtons, and if they are proud of
their descent, a good way for them to show it would be to contribute
twenty-five cents each to be expended on putting Harewood in respectable
condition.
The last member of the Washington family to own Mount Vernon was John
Augustine Washington, of Charles Town, who sold the former home of his
distinguished collateral ancestor. This Mr. Washington was a Confederate
officer in the Civil War. He had a son named George, whose widow, if I
mistake not, is the Mrs. George Washington of Charles Town, of whom I
heard an amusing story.
With another Charles Town lady this Mrs. Washington went to the
Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and the two attended the Fair together
on Washington Day. On this occasion Mrs. Washington made a purchase in
one of the buildings, and ordered it sent to her home in Charles Town.
"What name?" asked the clerk.
"Mrs. George Washington."
The clerk concluded that she was joking.
"I want your _real_ name," he insisted with a smile.
"But," plaintively protested the gentle Mrs. Washington, "that is the
only name I _have_!"
* * * * *
One of the most charming of the old houses in the neighborhood of
Charles Town, and one of the few which is still occupied by the
descendants of its builder, is Piedmont, the residence of the Briscoe
family. It is a brick house, nearly a century and a half old, with a
lovely old portico, and it contains two of the most interesting relics I
saw on my entire journey in the South. The first of these is the wall
paper of the drawing-room, upon which is depicted, not in pattern, but
in a series of pictures with landscape backgrounds, various scenes
representing the adventures of Telemachus on his search for his father.
I remember having seen on the walls of the parlor of an old hotel at
South Berwick, Maine, some early wall paper of this character, but the
pictures on that paper were done in various shades of gray, whereas the
Piedmont wall paper is in many colors. The other relic is a letter which
Mrs. Briscoe drew from her desk quite as though it had been a note
received that morning from a friend. It was written on tough
buff-colored paper, and, though the ink was brown with age, the
handwriting was clear and legible and the paper was not broken at the
folds. It was dated "Odiham, Sept. 1st, 1633," and ran as follows:
To Dr. John Briscoe, _Greetings_.
Dear Sir: As the Privy Council have decided that I shall not be
disturbed or dispossessed of the charter granted by his
Majesty--the _Ark_ and Pinnace _Dove_ will sail from Gravesend
about the 1st of October, and if you are of the same mind as when I
conversed with you, I would be glad to have you join the colony.
With high esteem, Your most obedient servant,
Cecilius Baltimore.
This letter from the second Lord Baltimore refers to the historic voyage
which resulted in the first settlement of Maryland, thirteen years after
the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. As for Dr. Briscoe, to whom the
letter was written, he was one of the three hundred original colonists,
but after settling in St. Mary's, near the mouth of the Potomac, removed
to the place where his descendants still reside.
Farther out in Jefferson County the motorist may pass through two
curious hamlets which, though not many miles from Charles Town, have the
air of being completely removed from the world. One of these was known,
many years ago, as Middleway, and later as Smithfield, but is now called
Clip--and for a curious reason.
When the stagecoaches were running, the town was quite a place, as its
several good old houses indicate; but the railroads, when they were
built, ignored the town, but killed the stage lines, with the result
that the little settlement dried up. Even before this an old
plaster-covered house, still standing, became haunted. The witches who
resided in it developed the unpleasant custom of flying out at night and
cutting pieces from the clothing of passers-by. And that is how the town
came to be called Clip.
A century or so ago, when the rudeness of the witches had long annoyed
the inhabitants of Clip, and had proved very detrimental to their
clothing, a Roman Catholic priest came along and told them that if they
would give him a certain field, he would rid them of the evil spirits.
This struck the worthy citizens of Clip as a good bargain; they gave the
priest his field (it is still known as the Priest's Field, and is now
used as a place for basket picnics) and forthwith the operations of the
witches ceased. So, at least, the story goes.
Not far beyond Clip lies the hamlet of Leetown, taking its name from
that General Charles Lee who commanded an American army in the
Revolutionary War, but who was suspected by Washington of being a
traitor, and was finally court-martialed and cashiered from the army.
The old stone house which Lee built at Leetown, and in which he lived
after his disgrace, still remains. Instead of having partitions in his
house the old general lived in one large room, upon the floor of which
he made chalk marks to indicate different chambers. Here he dwelt
surrounded by innumerable dogs, and here he was frequently visited by
Generals Horatio Gates and Adam Stephen, who were neighbors and cronies
of his, and met at his house to drink wine and exchange stories.
It is said that upon one of these occasions Lee got up and declared:
"The county of Berkeley is to be congratulated upon having as citizens
three noted generals of the Revolution, each of whom was ignominiously
cashiered. You, Stephen, for getting drunk when you should have been
sober; you, Gates, for advancing when you should have retreated; and
your humble servant for retreating when he should have advanced."
Lee was a turbulent, insubordinate, hard-drinking rascal, and nothing
could be more characteristic than the will, written in his own
handwriting, filed by the old reprobate with the clerk of the Berkeley
County Court, and expressing the following sentiments:
I desire most earnestly that I may not be buried in any church or
churchyard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian or Anabaptist
meeting house, for since I have resided in this county I have kept
so much bad company when living that I do not desire to continue it
when dead.
During Lee's life there, Leetown was probably a livelier place than it
is to-day. Something of its present state may be gathered from the fact
that when a lady of my acquaintance stopped her motor there recently,
and asked some men what time it was, they stared blankly at her for a
moment, after which one of them said seriously:
"We don't know. We don't have time here."