Chapter VII: Glimpses of the Great Northwest, 447 (2)

Below Washington, the river passes the ancient city of Alexandria, a quaint old Virginian town, which was formerly of considerable commercial importance, but is now quiet and restful, and cherishing chiefly the memory of George Washington, who lived at Mount Vernon, a few miles below, and was its almost daily visitor to transact his business and go to church and entertainments. The tradition is that Madison, who was chairman of the Committee of Congress, selected Alexandria for the "Federal City," intending to erect the Capitol on Shooters' Hill, a mile out of town, as grand an elevation as the hill in Washington; but he was overruled by the President because the latter hesitated to thus favor his native State. Had Madison had his way, the town probably would not now be so sleepy. The modest little steeple of Christ Church, where Washington was a vestryman, rises back of the town, and his pew, No. 5, is still shown, for which, when the church was built and consecrated in 1773, the records show that he paid thirty-six pounds, ten shillings. To construct this church and another at the Falls, the vestry of Fairfax parish, in 1766, levied an assessment of 31,185 pounds of tobacco, and the rector's salary was also paid in tobacco. After the Revolution, to help support the church, Washington and seven others signed an agreement in the vestry-book to each pay five pounds annual rental for the pews they owned. Robert E. Lee was baptized and confirmed and attended Sunday-school in this old church, and tablets in memory of Washington and Lee were inserted in the church wall in 1870. At the Carey House, near the river, Washington, in 1755, received from General Braddock, who had come up there from Hampton Roads, his first commission as an aide to that commander, with the rank of Major, just before starting on the ill-starred expedition into Western Pennsylvania. Alexandria has probably fifteen thousand people, and on the outskirts is another mournful relic of the Civil War, a Soldiers' Cemetery, with four thousand graves. Below Alexandria, the Hunting Creek flows into the Potomac, this stream having given Washington's home its original name of the "Hunting Creek Estate."

WASHINGTON'S HOME AND TOMB.

Mount Vernon, the home and burial-place of George Washington, is seventeen miles below the city of Washington, the mansion-house, being in full view, standing among the trees on the top of a bluff, rising about two hundred feet above the river. As the steamboat approaches, its bell is tolled, this being the universal custom on nearing or passing Washington's tomb. It originated in the reverence of a British officer, Commodore Gordon, who, during the invasion of the Capital in August, 1814, sailed past Mount Vernon, and as a mark of respect for the dead had the bell of his ship, the "Sea Horse," tolled. The "Hunting Creek Estate" was originally a domain of about eight thousand acres; and Augustine Washington, dying in 1743, bequeathed it to Lawrence Washington, who, having served in the Spanish wars under Admiral Vernon, named it Mount Vernon in his honor. George Washington was born in 1732, in Westmoreland County, farther down the Potomac, and when a boy lived near Fredericksburg, on the Rappahannock River. In 1752 he inherited Mount Vernon from Lawrence, and after his death the estate passed to his nephew, Bushrod Washington, subsequently descending to other members of the family. Congress repeatedly endeavored to have Washington's remains removed to the crypt under the rotunda of the Capitol originally constructed for their reception, but the family always refused, knowing it was his desire to rest at Mount Vernon. The grounds and buildings being in danger of falling into dilapidation, and the estate passing under control of strangers, a patriotic movement began throughout the country for the purchase of the portion containing the tomb and mansion. The Virginia Legislature, in 1856, passed an act authorizing the sale, and under the auspices of a number of energetic ladies who formed the "Mount Vernon Association," assisted by the oratory of Edward Everett, who traversed the country making a special plea for help, a tract of two hundred acres was bought for $200,000, being enlarged by subsequent gifts to two hundred and thirty-five acres. These ladies and their successors have since taken charge, restoring and beautifying the estate, which is faithfully preserved as a patriotic heritage and place of pilgrimage for visitors from all parts of the world.

The steamboat lands at Washington's wharf at the foot of the bluff, where he formerly loaded his barges with flour ground at his own mill, shipping most of it from Alexandria to the West Indies. The road from the wharf leads up a ravine cut diagonally in the face of the bluff, directly to Washington's tomb, and alongside the ravine are several weeping willows that were brought from Napoleon's grave at St. Helena. Washington's will directed that his tomb "shall be built of brick," and it is a plain square brick structure, with a wide arched gateway in front and double iron gates. Above is the inscription on a marble slab, "Within this enclosure rests the remains of General George Washington." The vault is about twelve feet square, the interior being plainly seen through the gates. It has upon the floor two large stone coffins, that on the right hand containing Washington, and that on the left his widow Martha, who survived him over a year. In a closed vault at the rear are the remains of numerous relatives, and in front of the tomb monuments are erected to several of them. No monument marks the hero, but carved upon the coffin is the American coat-of-arms, with the single word "Washington."

The road, farther ascending the bluff, passes the original tomb, with the old tombstone antedating Washington and bearing the words "Washington Family." This was the tomb, then containing the remains, which Lafayette visited in 1824, escorted by a military guard from Alexandria to Mount Vernon, paying homage to the dead amid salvos of cannon reverberating across the broad Potomac. It is a round-topped and slightly elevated oven-shaped vault. The road at the top of the bluff reaches the mansion, standing in a commanding position, with a fine view over the river to the Maryland shore. It is a long wooden house, with an ample porch facing the river. It is built with simplicity, two stories high, and contains eighteen rooms, there being a small surmounting cupola for a lookout. The central portion is the original house built by Lawrence Washington, who called it his "villa," and afterwards George Washington extended it by a large square wing at each end, and when these were added he gave it the more dignified title of the "Mansion." The house is ninety-six feet long and thirty feet wide, the porch, extending along the whole front, fifteen feet wide, its top being even with the roof, thus covering the windows of both stories. Eight large square wooden columns support the roof of the porch. Behind the house, on either side, curved colonnades lead to the kitchens, with other outbuildings beyond. There are various farm buildings, and a brick barn and stable, the bricks of which it is built having been brought out from England about the time Washington was born, being readily carried in those days as ballast in the vessels coming out for Virginia tobacco. The front of the mansion faces east, and it has within a central hall with apartments on either hand. At the back, beyond the outbuildings and the barn, stretches the carriage road, which in Washington's time was the main entrance, off to the porter's lodge, on the high road, at the boundary of the present estate, about three-quarters of a mile away. Everything is quiet, and in the thorough repose befitting such a great man's tomb; and this is the modest mansion on the banks of the Potomac that was the home of one of the noblest Americans.

THE WASHINGTON RELICS.

As may be supposed, this interesting building is filled with relics. The most valuable of all of them hangs on the wall of the central hall, in a small glass case shaped like a lantern--the Key of the Bastille--which was sent to Washington, as a gift from Lafayette, shortly after the destruction of the noted prison in 1789. This is the key of the main entrance, the Porte St. Antoine, an old iron key with a large handle of peculiar form. This gift was always highly prized at Mount Vernon, and in sending it Lafayette wrote: "It is a tribute which I owe as a son to my adopted father; as an aide-de-camp to my general; as a missionary of liberty to its patriarch." The key was confided to Thomas Paine for transmission, and he sent it together with a model and drawing of the Bastille. In sending it to Washington Paine said: "That the principles of America opened the Bastille is not to be doubted, and therefore the key comes to the right place." The model, which was cut from the granite stones of the demolished prison, and the drawing, giving a plan of the interior and its approaches, are also carefully preserved in the house.

The Washington relics are profuse--portraits, busts, old furniture, swords, pistols and other weapons, camp equipage, uniforms, clothing, books, autographs and musical instruments, including the old harpsichord which President Washington bought for two hundred pounds in London, as a bridal present for his wife's daughter, Eleanor Parke Custis, whom he adopted. There is also an old armchair which the Pilgrims brought over in the "Mayflower" in 1620. Each apartment in the house is named for a State, and cared for by one of the Lady-Regents of the Association. In the banquet-hall, which is one of the wings Washington added, is an elaborately-carved Carrara marble mantel, which was sent him at the time of building by an English admirer, Samuel Vaughan. It was shipped from Italy, and the tale is told that on the voyage it fell into the hands of pirates, who, hearing it was to go to the great American Washington, sent it along without ransom and uninjured. Rembrandt Peale's equestrian portrait of Washington with his generals covers almost the entire end of this hall. Here also is hung the original proof-sheet of Washington's Farewell Address. Up stairs is the room where Washington died; the bed on which he expired and every article of furniture are preserved, including his secretary and writing-case, toilet-boxes and dressing-stand. Just above this chamber, under the peaked roof, is the room in which Mrs. Washington died. Not wishing to occupy the lower room, after his death, she selected this one, because its dormer window gave a view of his tomb. The ladies who have taken charge of the place deserve great credit for their complete restoration; they hold the annual meeting of the Association in the mansion every May.

As the visitor walks through the old house and about the grounds, solemn and impressive thoughts arise that are appropriate to this great American shrine. From the little wooden cupola there is seen the same view over the broad Potomac upon which Washington so often gazed. The noble river, two miles wide, seems almost to surround the estate with its majestic curve, flowing between the densely-wooded shores. Above Mount Vernon is a projecting bluff, which Fort Washington surmounts on the opposite shore--a stone work which he planned--hardly seeming four miles off, it is so closely visible across the water. In front are the Maryland hills, and the river then flows to the southward, its broad and winding reaches being seen afar off, as the southern shores slope upward into the forest-covered hills of the sacred soil of the proud State of Virginia. And then the constantly broadening estuary of the grand Potomac stretches for more than a hundred miles, far beyond the distant horizon, until it becomes a wide inland sea and unites its waters at Point Lookout with those of Chesapeake Bay.

MARY, THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON.

To the southward of the Potomac a short distance, and flowing almost parallel, is another noted river of Virginia, the Rappahannock, rising in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, and broadening into a wide estuary in its lower course. Its chief tributary is the stream which the colonists named after the "good Queen Anne," the Rapid Ann, since condensed into the Rapidan. The Indians recognized the tidal estuary of the Rappahannock, for the name means "the current has returned and flowed again," referring to the tidal ebb and flow. Upon this stream, southward from Washington, is the quaint old city of Fredericksburg, which has about five thousand inhabitants, and five times as many graves in the great National Cemetery on Marye's Heights and in the Confederate Cemetery, mournful relics of the sanguinary battles fought there in 1862-63. The town dates from 1727, when it was founded at the head of tidewater on the Rappahannock, where a considerable fall furnishes good water-power, about one hundred and ten miles from the Chesapeake. But its chief early memory is of Mary Ball, the mother of Washington, here having been his boyhood home. A monument has been erected to her, which it took the country more than a century to complete. She was born in 1706 on the lower Rappahannock, at Epping Forest, and Sparks and Irving speak of her as "the belle of the Northern Neck" and "the rose of Epping Forest." In early life she visited England, and the story is told that one day while at her brother's house in Berkshire a gentleman's coach was overturned nearby and its occupant seriously injured. He was brought into the house and carefully nursed by Mary Ball until he fully recovered. This gentleman was Colonel Augustine Washington, of Virginia, a widower with three sons, and it is recorded in the family Bible that "Augustine Washington and Mary Ball were married the 6th of March, 1730-31." He brought her to his home in Westmoreland County, where George was born the next year. His house there was accidentally burnt and they removed to Fredericksburg, where Augustine died in 1740; but she lived to a ripe old age, dying there in 1789. When her death was announced a national movement began to erect a monument, but it was permitted to lapse until the Washington Centenary in 1832, when it was revived, and in May, 1833, President Jackson laid the corner-stone with impressive ceremonies in the presence of a large assemblage of distinguished people. The monument was started and partially completed, only again to lapse into desuetude. In 1890 the project was revived, funds were collected by an association of ladies, and in May, 1894, a handsome white marble obelisk, fifty feet high, was created and dedicated. It bears the simple inscription, "Mary, the Mother of Washington."

WILLIAMSBURG AND YORKTOWN.

Again we cross over southward from the Rappahannock to another broad tidal estuary, an arm of Chesapeake Bay, the York River. This is formed by two comparatively small rivers, the Mattapony and the Pamunkey, the latter being the Indian name of York River. It is quite evident that the Indians who originally frequented and named these streams did not have as comfortable lives in that region as they could have wished, for the Mattapony means "no bread at all to be had," and the Pamunkey means "where we were all sweating." To the southward of York River, and between it and James River, is the famous "Peninsula," the locality of the first settlements in Virginia, the theatre of the closing scene of the War of the Revolution, and the route taken by General McClellan in his Peninsular campaign of 1862 against Richmond. Williamsburg, which stands on an elevated plateau about midway of the Peninsula, three or four miles from each river, was the ancient capital of Virginia, and it has as relics the old church and magazine of the seventeenth century, and the venerable College of William and Mary, chartered in 1693, though its present buildings are mainly modern. This city was named for King William III., and was fixed as the capital in 1699, the government removing from Jamestown the next year. In 1780 the capital was again removed to Richmond. This old city, which was besieged and captured by McClellan in his march up the Peninsula in May, 1862, now has about eighteen hundred inhabitants.

Down on the bank of York River, not far from Chesapeake Bay, with a few remains of the British entrenchments still visible, is Yorktown, the scene of Cornwallis's surrender, the last conflict of the American Revolution. Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander-in-chief in 1781, ordered Lord Cornwallis to occupy a strong defensible position in Virginia, and he established himself at Yorktown on August 1st, with his army of eight thousand men, supported by several warships in York River, and strongly fortified not only Yorktown, but also Gloucester Point, across the river. In September the American and French forces effected a junction at Williamsburg, marching to the investment of Yorktown on the 28th. Washington commanded the besieging forces, numbering about sixteen thousand men, of whom seven thousand were Frenchmen. Upon their approach the British abandoned the outworks, and the investment of the town was completed on the 30th. The first parallel of the siege was established October 9th, and heavy batteries opened with great effect, dismounting numerous British guns, and destroying on the night of the 10th a frigate and three large transports. The second parallel was opened on the 11th, and on the 14th, by a brilliant movement, two British redoubts were captured. The French fleet, under Count De Grasse, in Chesapeake Bay, prevented escape by sea, and Cornwallis's position became very critical. On the 16th he made a sortie, which failed, and on the 17th he proposed capitulation. The terms being arranged, he surrendered October 19th, this deciding the struggle for American independence. When the British troops marched out of the place, and passed between the French and American armies, it is recorded that their bands dolefully played "The World Turned Upside Down." Considering the momentous results following the capitulation, this may be regarded as prophetic. Yorktown was again besieged in 1862 by McClellan, and after several weeks was taken in May, the army then starting on its march up the Peninsula.

THE NATURAL BRIDGE.

The chief river of Virginia is the James, a noble stream, rising in the Alleghenies and flowing for four hundred and fifty miles from the western border of the Old Dominion until it falls into Chesapeake Bay at Hampton Roads. Its sources are in a region noted for mineral springs, and the union of Jackson and Cowpasture Rivers makes the James, which flows to the base of the Blue Ridge, and there receives a smaller tributary, not inappropriately named the Calfpasture River. The James breaks through the Blue Ridge by a magnificent gorge at Balcony Falls. Seven miles away, spanning the little stream known as Cedar Brook, is the famous Natural Bridge, the wonderful arch of blue limestone two hundred and fifteen feet high, ninety feet wide, and having a span of a hundred feet thrown across the chasm, which has given to the county the name of Rockbridge. Overlooking the river and the bridge and all the country roundabout are the two noble Peaks of Otter, rising about four thousand feet, the highest mountains in that part of the Alleghenies. This wonderful bridge is situated at the extremity of a deep chasm, through which the brook flows, across the top of which extends the rocky stratum in the form of a graceful arch. It looks as if the limestone rock had originally covered the entire stream bed, which then flowed through a subterranean tunnel, the rest of the limestone roof having fallen in and been gradually washed away. The bridge is finely situated in a grand amphitheatre surrounded by mountains. The crown of the arch is forty feet thick, the rocky walls are perpendicular, and over the top passes a public road, which, being on the same level as the immediately adjacent country, one may cross it in a coach without noticing the bridged chasm beneath. Various large forest trees grow beneath and under the arch, but are not tall enough to reach it. On the rocky abutments of the bridge are carved the names of many persons who had climbed as high as they dared on the steep face of the precipice. Highest of all, for about seventy years, was the name of Washington, who, in his youth, ascended about twenty-five feet to a point never before reached; but this feat was surpassed in 1818 by James Piper, a college student, who actually climbed from the foot to the top of the rock. In 1774 Thomas Jefferson obtained a grant of land from George III. which included the Natural Bridge, and he was long the owner, building the first house there, a log cabin with two rooms, one being for the reception of strangers. Jefferson called the bridge "a famous place that will draw the attention of the world;" Chief Justice Marshall described it as "God's greatest miracle in stone;" and Henry Clay said it was "The bridge not made with hands, that spans a river, carries a highway, and makes two mountains one."

THE JAMES RIVER AND POWHATAN.

Following down James River, constantly receiving accessions from mountain streams, we soon come to Lynchburg, most picturesquely built on the sloping foothills of the Blue Ridge, and having fine water-power for its factories, a centre of the great tobacco industry of Virginia, supporting a population of about twenty thousand people. Lynchburg was a chief source of supply for Lee's army in Eastern Virginia until, in February, 1865, Sheridan, by a bold raid, destroyed the canal and railroads giving it communication; and, after evacuating Richmond, Lee was endeavoring to reach Lynchburg when he surrendered at Appomattox, about twenty miles to the eastward, on April 9, 1865, thus ending the Civil War. The little village of Appomattox Court House is known in the neighborhood as Clover Hill. When Lee surrendered, casualties, captures and desertions had left him barely twenty-seven thousand men, with only ten thousand muskets, thirty cannon and three hundred and fifty wagons.

The James River, east of the Blue Ridge, drains a grand agricultural district, and its coffee-colored waters tell of the rich red soils through which it comes in the tobacco plantations all the way past Lynchburg to Richmond. In its earlier history this noted river was called the Powhatan, and it bears that name on the older maps. Powhatan, the original word, meant, in the Indian dialect, the "falls of the stream" or "the falling waters," thus named from the falls and rapids at Richmond, where the James, in the distance of nine miles, has a descent of one hundred and sixteen feet, furnishing the magnificent water-power which is the source of much of the wealth of Virginia's present capital. The old Indian sachem whose fame is so intertwined with that of Virginia took his name of Powhatan from the river. His original name was Wahunsonacock when the colonists first found him, and he then lived on York River; but it is related that he grew in power, raised himself to the command of no less than thirty tribes, and ruled all the country from southward of the James to the eastward of the Potomac as far as Chesapeake Bay. When he became great, for he was unquestionably the greatest Virginian of the seventeenth century, he changed his name and removed to the James River, just below the edge of Richmond, where, near the river bank, is now pointed out his home, still called Powhatan. It was here that the Princess Pocahontas is said to have interfered to save the life of Captain John Smith. Here still stands a precious relic in the shape of an old chimney, believed to have been originally built for the Indian king's cabin by his colonist friends. It is of solid masonry, and is said to have outlasted several successive cabins which had been built up against it in Southern style. A number of cedars growing alongside, tradition describes as shadowing the very stone on which Smith's head was laid. It may not be generally known that early in the history of the colony Powhatan was crowned as a king, there having been brought out from England, for the special purpose, a crown and "a scarlet cloke and apparrell." The writer recording the ceremony says quaintly: "Foule trouble there was to make him kneele to receive his crowne. At last, by leaning hard on his shoulders, he a little stooped, and three having the crowne in their hands, put it on his head. To congratulate their kindnesse, he gave his old shoes and his mantell to Captaine Newport, telling him take them as presents to King James in return for his gifts."

THE INDIAN PRINCESS POCAHONTAS.

The James River carries a heavy commerce below Richmond, and the channel depths of the wayward and very crooked stream are maintained by an elaborate system of jetties, constructed by the Government. Both shores show the earthworks that are relics of the war, and Drewry's Bluff, with Fort Darling, the citadel of the Confederate defence of the river, is projected across the stream. Below is Dutch Gap, where the winding river, flowing in a level plain, makes a double reverse curve, going around a considerable surface without making much actual progress. Here is the Dutch Gap Canal, which General Butler cut through the narrowest part of the long neck of land, thus avoiding Confederate batteries and saving a detour of five and a half miles; it is now used for navigation. Just below is the large plantation of Varina, where the Indian Princess Pocahontas lived after her marriage with the Englishman, John Rolfe. Its fine brick colonial mansion was the headquarters for the exchange of prisoners during the Civil War.

The brief career of Pocahontas is the great romance of the first settlement of Virginia. She was the daughter and favorite child of Powhatan, her name being taken from a running brook, and meaning the "bright streamlet between the hills." When the Indians captured Captain John Smith she was about twelve years of age. He made friends of the Indian children, and whittled playthings for them, so that Pocahontas became greatly interested in him, and the tale of her saving his life is so closely interwoven with the early history of the colony that those who declare it apocryphal have not yet been able to obliterate it from our school-books. Smith being afterwards liberated, Pocahontas always had a longing for him, was the medium of getting the colonists food, warned them of plots, and took an interest in them even after Smith returned to England. The tale was then told her that Smith was dead. In 1614 Pocahontas, about nineteen years old, was kidnapped and taken to Jamestown, in order to carry out a plan of the Governor by which Powhatan, to save his daughter, would make friendship with the colony, and it resulted as intended. Pocahontas remained several weeks in the colony, made the acquaintance of the younger people, and fell in love with Master John Rolfe. Pocahontas returned to her father, who consented to the marriage; she was baptized at Jamestown as Lady Rebecca, and her uncle and two brothers afterwards attended the wedding, the uncle giving the Indian bride away in the little church at Jamestown, April 5, 1614. A peace of several years' duration was the consequence of this union. Two years afterwards Pocahontas and her husband proceeded to England, where she was an object of the greatest interest to all classes of people, and was presented at Court, the Queen warmly receiving her. Captain Smith visited her in London, and after saluting him she turned away her face and hid it in her hands, thus continuing for over two hours. This was due to her surprise at seeing Smith, for there is no doubt her husband was a party to the deception, he probably thinking she would never marry him while Smith was living. The winter climate of England was too severe for her, and when about embarking to return to Virginia she suddenly died at Gravesend, in March, 1617, aged about twenty-two. She left one son, Thomas Rolfe, who was educated in London, and in after life went to Virginia, where he became a man of note and influence. From him are descended the famous children of Pocahontas--the "First Families of Virginia"--the Randolph, Bolling, Fleming and other families.

SHIRLEY, BERKELEY AND WESTOVER.

The winding James flows by Deep Bottom and Turkey Bend, and one elongated neck of land after another, passing the noted battlefield of Malvern Hill, which ended General McClellan's disastrous "Seven Days" of battles and retreat from the Chickahominy swamps in 1862. The great ridge of Malvern Hill stretches away from the river towards the northwest, and in that final battle which checked the Confederate pursuit it was a vast amphitheatre terraced with tier upon tier of artillery, the gunboats in the river joining in the Union defense. Below, on the other shore, are the spacious lowlands of Bermuda Hundred, where, in General Grant's significant phrase, General Butler was "bottled up." Here, on the eastern bank, is the plantation of Shirley, one of the famous Virginian settlements, still held by the descendants of its colonial owners--the Carters. The wide and attractive old brick colonial house, with its hipped and pointed roof, stands behind a fringe of trees along the shore, with numerous outbuildings constructed around a quadrangle behind. It is built of bricks brought out from England, is two stories high, with a capacious front porch, and around the roof are rows of dormer windows, above which the roof runs from all sides up into a point between the tall and ample chimneys. The southern view from Shirley is across the James to the mouth of Appomattox River and City Point.

The Appomattox originates in the Blue Ridge near Lynchburg, and flows one hundred and twenty miles eastward to the James, of which it is the chief tributary. It passes Petersburg twelve miles southwest of its point of union with the James, this union being at a high bluff thrust out between the rivers, with abrupt slopes and a plateau on the top, which is well shaded. Here is the house--the home of Dr. Epps--used by General Grant as his headquarters during the operations from the south side of the James against Petersburg and Lee's army in 1864-65. Grant occupied two little log cabins on top of the bluff, just east of the house; one his dwelling and the other his office. One is still there in dilapidation, and the other is preserved as a relic in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. A short distance away is the little town of City Point, with its ruined wharves, where an enormous business was then done in landing army supplies. To the eastward the James flows, a steadily broadening stream, past the sloping shores on the northern bank, where, at Harrison's Landing, McClellan rested his troops after the "Seven Days," having retreated there from the battle at Malvern Hill. His camps occupied the plantations of Berkeley and Westover, the former having been the birthplace of General William Henry Harrison, who was President of the United States for a few weeks in 1841, the first President who died in office. The Berkeley House is a spacious and comfortable mansion, but it lost its grand shade-trees during the war. A short distance farther down is the quaint old Queen Anne mansion of red brick, with one wing only, the other having been burnt during the war; with pointed roof and tall chimneys, standing at the top of a beautifully sloping bank--Westover House, the most famous of the old mansions on the James. It was the home of the Byrds--grandfather, father and son--noted in Virginian colonial history, whose arms are emblazoned on the iron gates, and who sleep in the little graveyard alongside. The most renowned of these was the second, the "Honourable William Byrd of Westover, Esquire," who was the founder of both Richmond and Petersburg.

William Byrd was a man of imposing personal appearance and the highest character, and his full-length portrait in flowing periwig and lace ruffles, after Van Dyck, is preserved at Lower Brandon, farther down the river. He inherited a large landed estate--over fifty thousand acres--and ample fortune, and was educated in England, where he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple, and made a Fellow of the Royal Society. The inscription on his Westover tomb tells that he was a friend of the learned Earl of Orrery. He held high offices in Virginia, and possessed the largest private library then in America. In connection with one Peter Jones, in 1733, he laid out both Richmond and Petersburg on lands he owned, at the head of navigation respectively on the James and the Appomattox. He left profuse journals, published since as the _Westover Manuscripts_, and they announce that Petersburg was gratefully named in honor of his companion-founder, Peter Jones, and that Richmond's name came from Byrd's vivid recollection of the outlook from Richmond Hill over the Thames in England, which he found strikingly reproduced in the soft hills and far-stretching meadows adjoining the rapids of the James, with the curving sweep of the river as it flowed away from view behind the glimmering woods. He died in 1744. Westover House was McClellan's headquarters in 1862. The estates have gone from Byrd's descendants, but the house has been completely restored, and is one of the loveliest spots on the James. Major Augustus Drewry, its recent owner, died in July, 1899, at an advanced age. Coggins Point projects opposite Westover, and noted plantations and mansions line the river banks, bearing, with the counties, well-known English names. Here is the ruined stone Fort Powhatan, a relic of the War of 1812, with the Unionist earthworks of 1864-65 on the bluff above it. Then we get among the lowland swamps, where the cypress trees elevate their conical knees and roots above the water. The James has become a wide estuary, and the broad Chickahominy flows in between low shores, draining the swamps east of Richmond and the James. This was the "lick at which turkeys were plenty," the Indians thus recognizing in the name of the river the favorite resort of the wild turkey.

THE COLONY OF JAMESTOWN.

We have now come to the region of earliest English settlement in America, where Newport and Smith, in 1607, planted their colony of Jamestown upon a low yellow bluff on the northern river bank. It is thirty-two miles from the mouth of the James River, and the bluff, by the action of the water, has been made an island. The location was probably selected because this furnished protection from attacks. The later encroachments of the river have swept away part of the site of the early settlement, and a portion of the old church tower and some tombstones are now the only relics of the ancient town. The ruins of the tower can be seen on top of the bluff, almost overgrown with moss and vines. Behind is the wall of the graveyard where the first settlers were buried. A couple of little cabins are the only present signs of settlement, the mansion of the Jamestown plantation being some distance down the river.

When the English colony first came to Jamestown in 1607, they were hunting for gold and for the "northwest passage" to the East Indies. In fact, most of the American colonizing began with these objects. They had an idea in Europe that America was profuse in gold and gems. In 1605 a play of "Eastward, Ho" was performed in London, in which one of the characters said: "I tell thee golde is more plentifull in Virginia than copper is with us, and for as much redde copper as I can bring, I will have thrice the weight in golde. All their pannes and pottes are pure gould, and all the chaines with which they chaine up their streetes are massie gould; all the prisoners they take are fettered in golde; and for rubies and diamonds they goe forth in holidays and gather them by the seashore to hang on their children's coates and sticke in their children's caps as commonally as our children wear saffron, gilt brooches, and groates with hoales in them." The whole party, on landing at Jamestown, started to hunt for gold. Smith wrote that among the English colonists there was "no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, loade gold." They found some shining pyrites that deceived them, and therefore the first ship returning to England carried away a cargo of shining dirt, found entirely worthless on arrival. The second ship, after a long debate, they more wisely sent back with a cargo of cedar. They hunted for the "northwest passage," first going up the James to the falls at the site of Richmond, but returning disappointed. It was this same hunt for a route to the Pacific which afterwards took Smith up the Chickahominy, where he got among the swamps and was captured by the Indians.

The Jamestown colonists met with great discouragements. Most of them were unfitted for pioneers, and the neighboring swamps gave them malaria in the hot summer, so that nearly half perished. Smith, by his courage and enterprise, however, kept the colony alive and took charge, being their leader until captured by the Indians, and also afterwards, until his return to England. Among the first constructions at Jamestown were a storehouse and a church. These, however, were soon burnt, and a second church and storehouse were erected in September, 1608. This church was like a barn in appearance, the base being supported by crotched stakes, and the walls and roof were made of rafts, sedge and earth, which soon decayed. When Smith left Jamestown for England in 1609 the place contained about sixty houses, and was surrounded by a stockade. Smith early saw the necessity of raising food, and determined to begin the growing of maize, or Indian corn. Consequently, early in 1608 he prevailed upon two Indians he had captured to teach the method of planting the corn. Under their direction a tract of about forty acres was planted in squares, with intervals of four feet between the holes which received the Indian corn for seed. This crop grew and was partly harvested, a good deal of it, however, being eaten green. Thus the Indian invented the method of corn-planting universally observed in the United States, and this crop of forty acres of 1608 was the first crop of the great American cereal grown by white men. Wheat brought out from England was first planted at Jamestown in 1618 on a field of about thirty acres, this being the first wheat crop grown in the United States.

Captain John Smith, before he left Jamestown, estimated that there were about fifty-five hundred Indians within a radius of sixty miles around the colony, and in his works he enumerates the various tribes. Describing their mode of life, he wrote that they grew fat or lean according to the season. When food was abundant, he said, they stuffed themselves night and day; and, unless unforeseen emergencies compelled them to arouse, they dropped asleep as soon as their stomachs were filled. So ravenous were their appetites that a colonist employing an Indian was compelled to allow him a quantity of food double that given an English laborer. In a period of want or hardship, when no food was to be had, the warrior simply drew his belt more tightly about his waist to try and appease the pangs of hunger. The Indians, when the colonists arrived, were found to divide the year into five seasons, according to its varying character. These were, first, Cattapeuk, the season of blossoms; second, Cohattayough, the season when the sun rode highest in the heavens; third, Nepenough, the season when the ears of maize were large enough to be roasted; fourth, Taquetock, the season of the falling leaves, when the maize was gathered; and fifth, Cohonk, the season when long lines of wild geese appeared, flying from the north, uttering the cry suggesting the name, thus heralding the winter.

The colony was very unfortunate, and in 1617 was reduced to only five or six buildings. The church had then decayed and fallen to the ground, and a third church, fifty by twenty feet, was afterwards built. Additional settlers were sent out from England in the next two years, and the Virginians were granted a government of their own, the new Governor, Sir George Yeardley, arriving in the spring of 1619. The Company in London also sent them a communication "that those cruell laws, by which the ancient planters had soe long been governed, were now abrogated in favor of those free laws which his majesties subjects lived under in Englande." It continued by stating "That the planters might have a hande in the governing of themselves yt was granted that a generall assemblie should be held yearly once, whereat to be present the governor and counsell with two burgesses from each plantation, freely to be elected by the inhabitants thereof, this assemblie to have power to make and ordaine whatsoever laws and orders should by them be thought good and profitable for their subsistence." The Governor consequently summoned the first "House of Burgesses" in Virginia, which met at Jamestown, July 30, 1619, the first legislative body in America. Twenty-two members took their seats in the new church at Jamestown. They are described as wearing bright-colored silk and velvet coats, with starched ruffs, and as having kept their hats on as in the English House of Commons. The Governor sat in the choir, and with him were several leading men who had been appointed by the Company on the Governor's Council. They passed various laws, chiefly about tobacco and taxes, and sent them to England, where the Company confirmed them, and afterwards, in 1621, granted the "Great Charter," which was the first Constitution of Virginia.

The colonists got into trouble with the Indians in 1622, and having killed an Indian who murdered a white man, Jamestown was attacked and the inhabitants massacred, three hundred and forty-five being killed. Governor Butler, who visited the place not long after the massacre, wrote that the houses were the "worst in the world," and that the most wretched cottages in England were equal, if not superior, in appearance and comfort to the finest dwellings in the colony. The first houses were mostly of bark, imitating those of the Indian; and, there being neither sawmills to prepare planks nor nails to fasten them, the later constructions were usually of logs plastered with mud, with thatched roofs. The more pretentious of these were built double--"two pens and a passage," as they have been described. As late as 1675 Jamestown had only a few families, with not more than seventy-five population. Labor was always in demand there, and at first the laborers were brought out from England. There was no money, and having early learnt to raise tobacco from the Indians, this became the chief crop, and, being sure of sale in England, became the standard of value. Tobacco was the great export, twenty thousand pounds being exported in 1619, forty thousand in 1620 and sixty thousand in 1622. Everything was valued in tobacco, and this continued the practical currency for the first century. They imported a lot of copper, however, with which to make small coins for circulation. As the tobacco fluctuated in price in England, it made a very unstable standard of value. Gradually, afterwards, large amounts of gold and silver coin came into Virginia in payment for produce, thus supplanting the tobacco as a standard.

THE VIRGINIAN PLANTERS.

Land was cheap in Virginia in the early days. In 1662 the King of Mattapony sold his village and five thousand acres to the colonists for fifty match-coats. During the seventeenth century the value of land reckoned in tobacco, as sold in England, averaged for cleared ground about four shillings per acre, the shilling then having a purchasing power equal to a dollar now. It was at this time that most of the great Virginian estates along James River were formed, the colonists securing in some cases large grants. Thus, John Carter of Lancaster took up 18,570 acres, John Page 5000 acres, Richard Lee 12,000 acres, William Byrd 15,000 acres, afterwards largely increased; Robert Beverley 37,000 acres and William Fitzhugh over 50,000 acres. These were the founders of some of the most famous Virginian families. The demand for labor naturally brought Virginia within the market of the slave trader, but very few negroes were there in the earlier period. The first negroes who arrived in Virginia were disembarked at Jamestown from a Dutch privateer in 1619--twenty Africans. In 1622 there were twenty-two there, two more having landed; but it is noted that no negro was killed in the Jamestown massacre. In 1649 there were only three hundred negroes in Virginia, and in 1671 there were about two thousand. In the latter part of the seventeenth century the arrivals of negro slaves became more frequent--labor being in demand. The records show that the planters had great difficulty in supplying them with names, everything being ransacked for the purpose--mythology, history and geography--and hence the peculiar names they have conferred in some cases on their descendants. In 1640 a robust African man when sold commanded 2700 pounds of tobacco, and a female 2500 pounds, averaging, at the then price of tobacco, about seventeen pounds sterling for the men. Prices afterwards advanced to forty pounds sterling for the men. In 1699 all newly arrived slaves were taxed twenty shillings per head, paid by the master of the vessel.

As the colony developed, the typical dwelling became a framed log building of moderate size, with a big chimney at each end, there being no cellar and the house resting on the ground. The upper and lower floors were each divided into two rooms. Such a house, built in 1679, measuring forty by twenty feet, cost twelve hundred pounds of tobacco. Finally, when more prosperity came in the eighteenth century, the houses were developed and enlarged into more pretentious edifices, built of bricks brought out from England. These were the great colonial houses of the wealthy planters, so many of which exist until the present day. The most prosperous time in colonial Virginia was the period from 1710 until 1770. The exports of tobacco to England and flour and other produce to the West Indies made the fortunes of the planters, so that their vast estates and large retinues of slaves made them the lordly barons whose fame spread throughout Europe, while their wealth enabled them to gather all the luxuries of furniture and ornament for their houses then attainable. It was in these noble colonial mansions, surrounded by regiments of negro servants, that the courtly Virginians of the olden time dispensed a princely hospitality, limited only by their ability to secure whatever the world produced. The stranger was always welcome at the bountiful board, and the slave children grew up amid plenty, hardly knowing what work was. This went on with more or less variation until the Civil War made its tremendous upheaval, which scattered both whites and blacks. But the typical Virginian is unchanged, continuing as open-hearted and hospitable, though his means now are much less. To all he has, the guest is welcome; but it is usually with a tinge of regret that he recalls the good old time when he might have done more.

HAMPTON ROADS AND FORTRESS MONROE.

The constantly broadening estuary of the James assumes almost the proportions of an inland sea, and in the bays encircled by the low shores are planted the seed oysters, which are gathered by fleets of small vessels for transplanting into salt-water beds. In front, near the mouth of the river, is thrust out the long point of Newport News, with its grain elevators and shipyards, dry-docks and iron-works, the great port of the James River, which is the busy terminal of railways coming from the West. Here is a town of thirty thousand people. It was almost opposite, that in the spring of 1862 the Confederate ram "Merrimac" (then called the "Virginia"), armored with railroad rails, came suddenly out from Norfolk, and sank or disabled the American wooden naval vessels in Hampton Roads; the next day, however, being unexpectedly encountered by the novel little turret iron-clad "Monitor," which had most opportunely arrived from the upper Hudson River, where Ericsson had built her. The "Merrimac" was herself soon disabled and compelled to retire. This timely and dramatic appearance of "the little Yankee cheese-box on a raft" made a sudden and unforeseen revolution in all the naval methods and architecture of the world. Around the point of Newport News the James River debouches into one of the finest harbors of the Atlantic Coast, Hampton Roads, named from the town of Hampton on the northern shore. This is the location of a Veteran Soldiers' Home, with two thousand inmates, an extensive Soldiers' Cemetery, and of the spacious buildings of the Normal and Agricultural Institute for Negroes and Indians, where there are eight to nine hundred scholars, this being a foundation originally established by the Freedmen's Bureau, the chief object being the training of teachers for colored and Indian schools.

The little peninsula of Old Point Comfort, which makes the northern side of the mouth of the James and juts out into Chesapeake Bay, has upon it the largest and most elaborate fortification in the United States--Fortress Monroe. It is related that when Newport and Smith first entered the bay in 1607, and were desirous of ascending the James, they coasted along the southern shore and found only shallow water. Starting out in a boat to hunt for a channel up which their ships could pass, they rowed over to the northern shore and discovered deeper water entering the James, close to this little peninsula, there being twelve fathoms depth, which so encouraged Smith that it confirmed him in naming the place Point Comfort. This channel, close inshore, could be readily defended, as it was the only passage for vessels of any draft, and consequently when the colony got established at Jamestown they built Fort Algernon at Point Comfort to protect the entrance to the James. In 1611 this fort was described as consisting of stockades and posts, without stone or brick, and containing seven small iron guns, with a garrison of forty men.

After the British invasion of Chesapeake Bay, in 1814, when they burnt the Capitol and White House at Washington, it was quickly decided that no foreign foe should be again permitted to do such a thing, and that an elaborate work should be built to defend the entrance to the bay. General Simon Bernard, one of Napoleon's noted engineers, offered his services to the United States after the downfall of the Emperor, and he was placed in charge, with the duty of constructing, at the mouth of James River, a fortification which would command the channel into that river and to the Norfolk Navy Yard, and at the same time be a base of operations against any fleet attempting to enter the bay and menace the roadstead. Bernard built in 1819, and several following years, an elaborate fortress, with a broad moat and outlying water-battery, enclosing eighty acres, the ramparts being over two miles in circumference. It was called Fortress Monroe, after the then President James Monroe, of Virginia. Out upon an artificial island, known as the Rip-raps, built upon a shoal some two miles off-shore, and in the harbor entrance, the smaller works of Fort Wool were subsequently constructed, and the two make a complete defense for the Chesapeake Bay entrance. During all the years this fortress has existed it has never had occasion to fire a gun at an enemy, but its location and strength were invaluable to the North, who held it during the Civil War. It is the seat of the Artillery School of the army. To the southward, at the waterside, are the hotels of Old Point Comfort, which is one of the favorite seaside watering-places of the South. In front is the great Hampton roadstead, usually containing fleets of wind-bound vessels and some men-of-war.

NORFOLK AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.