Chapter XIV: Society in the Old Dominion (2)

The country store was an important institution in Old Virginia. Under some conditions it would have formed a nucleus around which a town would have been developed, but in Virginia the store seems to have been regarded as a kind of rival against which the town could not compete.[187] It furnished a number of petty centres which did away with the need for larger centres. The store was apt to be an appendage to a plantation, unless its size became such as to reverse the relationship, after the manner of Dundreary’s dog. It might be a room in a planter’s house, or it might be a detached barn like building on the estate. Mr. Bruce tells us that to enumerate its contents would be to mention pretty much every article for which Virginians had any use. For example, the inventory of the Hubbard store in York County, taken in 1667, “contained lockram, canvas, dowlas, Scotch cloth, blue linen, oznaburg, cotton, holland, serge, kersey, and flannel in bales, full suits for adults and youths, bodices, bonnets, and laces for women, shoes, ... gloves, hose, cloaks, cravats, handkerchiefs, hats, and other articles of dress, ... hammers, hatchets, chisels, augers, locks, staples, nails, sickles, bellows, froes,[188] saws, axes, files, bed-cords, dishes, knives, flesh-forks, porringers, sauce-pans, frying-pans, gridirons, tongs, shovels, hoes, iron posts, tables, physic, wool-cards, gimlets, compasses, needles, stirrups, looking-glasses, candlesticks, candles, funnels, 25 pounds of raisins, 100 gallons of brandy, 20 gallons of wine, and 10 gallons of aqua vitæ. The contents of the Hubbard store were valued at £614 sterling, a sum which represented about $15,000 in our present currency.”[189] One can imagine how dazzling to youthful eyes must have been the miscellaneous variety of desirable things. Not only were the manufactured articles pretty sure to have come from England, but everything else, to be salable, must be labelled English, “insomuch that fanciers used to sell the songsters unknown to England, if they sang particularly well, as _English mocking-birds_.”[190]

[Sidenote: Roads]

We have seen how the rivers and creeks were used as highways of traffic; for a long time they were the only highways, and the sloop or the canoe was the only kind of vehicle, public or private, in which it was possible to get about with ease and safety.[191] Until after the middle of the eighteenth century there were but few roads save bridle-paths, and such as there were became impassable in rainy weather. There were also but few bridges, and these were very likely to be unsound, while the ferry-boats were apt to be leaky. It was often necessary for the traveller to swim across the stream, with a fair chance of getting drowned, and more than a fair chance of losing his horse. The course of the bridle-path often became so obscure that it was necessary to blaze the trees. It was not uncommon for people to lose their way and find themselves obliged to stay overnight in the woods, perhaps with the howls of the wolf and panther sounding in their ears. The highway robber was even a more uncomfortable customer to meet than such beasts of prey; and in those days, when banking was in its infancy and travellers used to carry gold coins sewed under the lining of their waistcoats, the highwayman enjoyed opportunities which in this age of railways and check-books are denied him. Nevertheless crime was far less common than in England or France, and travelling was much safer than one might suppose. This was true of the whole colonial period. In 1777 a young Rhode Island merchant, Elkanah Watson, armed with a sabre and pair of pistols, journeyed from Providence to Charleston in South Carolina, with several hundred pounds sterling in gold quilted into his coat. In seventy days he accomplished the distance of 1,243 miles, partly on horseback and partly in a sulky, without encountering any more serious mishaps than being arrested for a British spy in Pennsylvania, and meeting a large bear in North Carolina; and he has left us a narrative of his journey, which is as full of instruction as of interest.[192]

[Sidenote: Tobacco as currency.]

The traveller in Old Virginia, however, was not likely to carry large sums of money concealed on his person, for he dealt in a circulating medium too bulky for that. In the course of this book we have had frequent occasions to observe that the Virginian’s current money was tobacco. The prices of all articles of merchandise were quoted in pounds of tobacco. In tobacco taxes were assessed and all wages and salaries were paid. This use of tobacco as a circulating medium and as a standard of values was begun in the earliest days of the colony, when coin was scarce, and the structure of society was simple enough to permit a temporary return toward the primitive practice of barter. Under such circumstances tobacco was obviously the article most sure to be used as money. It was exchangeable for whatever anybody wanted in the shape of service or merchandise, and it was easily procured from the bountiful earth. But as time went on this ease of attainment made it an extremely vicious currency. In the course of our narrative we have encountered some of the disastrous financial and social results that flowed from the use of so cheap a substitute for money. Many reasons have been alleged for the scarcity of coin throughout the whole colonial period in Virginia;[193] but assuredly the chief reason was the fact that tobacco was currency. The bad money drove away the good money, as it always does. There are indications that there was always a small stock of coin in the colony, but it was hoarded or sent to other colonies or to England in the settlement of trade balances. Yet it was not easy to demonetize tobacco without a radical revolution in the industrial system and in the commercial relations of the colony.

[Sidenote: Effect upon crafts and trades.]

The nature of the currency evidently had much to do with the ill success of the attempts to encourage manufactures. The carpenter or shoemaker, after doing his work, must wait for his pay until the year’s crop of tobacco was gathered and cured. Meanwhile he had nothing to live on unless he raised it for himself; he might either plant grain and rear cattle, or else grow tobacco wherewith to buy things. But the time consumed in these agricultural operations was time taken from his handicraft. The evil was attacked by legislation. “In 1633 brickmakers, carpenters, joiners, sawyers, and turners were expressly forbidden to take part in any form of tillage.” In 1662 tradesmen and artisans were exempted from all taxes except church-rates, on condition that they should abstain from all interest, direct or indirect, in the growing of tobacco. But the evil was not cured.[194]

[Sidenote: Effect upon planters’ accounts.]

Further disaster came from the fact that tobacco was a highly speculative crop. The fluctuations in its value were liable to be great and sudden, and they affected the price of every article that was bought and sold throughout the colony. No one could estimate from one year to another, with any approach to accuracy, what the purchasing power of his income was going to be. The inevitable results of this were extravagance in living and chronic debt. The planter was drawn into a situation from which it was almost impossible to extricate himself. “The system of keeping open accounts in London was calculated to encourage extravagance; and these accounts were habitually overdrawn. Many of the merchants even made it a rule to encourage this indebtedness, so as to assure the continuance of their customers. It gave them a certain advantage in all their dealings with the planters.”[195] They charged nearly twice as much for their goods sent to Norfolk or Williamsburg as for the same goods sent to New York.[196] In all this they were aided by the Navigation Act.

[Sidenote: Hospitality.]

Extravagance in living was further stimulated by the regal hospitality for which the great planters early became famous. Although the life upon their estates was much more busy than some writers seem to suppose, yet the drudgery of business did not consume all their time; and in their rural isolation, with none of the diversions of town life, the entertainment of guests by the month together was regarded both as a duty and as a privilege; and the example set by the large plantations was followed by the smaller. Even the keeper of an inn, if he wished to make a charge for food and shelter, must notify the guest upon his arrival, for a statute of 1663 declared that in the absence of such preliminary understanding not a penny could be recovered from the guest, however long he might have staid in the house.[197] As a rule, no person whose company was at all desirable was allowed to stop at an inn, for the neighbours vied with one another in offering hospitality. Every planter kept open house, and provided for his visitors with unstinted hand.

[Sidenote: Visit to a plantation; the negro quarter.]

Let us put ourselves into the position of one of these visitors, and get some glimpses of life upon the old plantation. Our host we may suppose to be a vestryman, justice of the peace, and burgess, dwelling upon a plantation of five or six thousand acres, with his next neighbours at a distance of two or three miles.[198] The space is in great part cleared for the planting of vast fields of tobacco, but here and there are extensive stretches of woodland and coppice, with noble forest trees and luxuriant undergrowth, much rougher and wilder than an English park. The cabins for slaves present the appearance of a hamlet. These are wooden structures of the humblest sort, built of logs or undressed planks, and afflicted with chronic dilapidation. An inventory of 1697 shows us that the cabin might contain a bed and a few chairs, two or three pots and kettles, “a pair of pot-racks, a pot-hook, a frying-pan, and a beer barrel;” and advertisements for runaways describe Cuffy and Pompey as clad in red cotton, with canvas drawers, waistcoat, and wide-brimmed black hat. Their victuals, of “hog and hominy” with potatoes and green vegetables, were wholesome and palatable. If there were white servants on the estate, they were commonly but not necessarily somewhat better housed and clothed.

[Sidenote: Other appurtenances.]

[Sidenote: The Great House.]

Leaving the negro quarters, with their grinning mammies and swarms of 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.]