Chapter X: Part II: Eighteenth Century (3)

For three weeks Harry's scouting expedition had been watching the enemy, moving among the ravines, hills and marshes, always in close touch with the British. In this detachment of Lee's was Captain John Marshall.

Lee laid his plans before General Washington, who approved, and made sure that there were lines of retreat.

On a hot day in August Light-Horse Harry and his men started on the adventure. It was rough going--a long march through marsh land that was doubtless swarming with mosquitoes. They had to make bridges in some places and at other places they waded or swam. They sank deep into the marshes.

On the night of August the eighteenth they crept among the hills and passed the main body of the British army, who were sleeping. At three o'clock in the morning they crossed the ditch. From then on it was a fast movement resulting in the capture of one hundred and fifty-nine prisoners, which was all except a few men in the blockhouse.

After the enemy's stores and supplies had been destroyed Light-Horse Harry and his men returned to Headquarters with their captives.

For this daring feat Lee received compliments from both Washington and Lafayette. But his glory was not to last long. Some of the older officers preferred charges against him for his conduct of the campaign. He was court-martialed, but exonerated from the charges, and Congress soon gave him a gold medal.

But the happiness of it all had fled from the heart of Henry Lee. He had fought four years with Washington in the North. Now he went South and joined General Greene for the remainder of the war. His fame continued to increase. Tradition says that he planned the final strategy at Yorktown.

At the surrender Light-Horse Harry stood in the line of officers as the British army marched out and Cornwallis surrendered his sword to General Washington. Lee was dressed in his usual brilliant perfection with his hair powdered and queued in the back, but in his heart he felt old and sad. At twenty-six he felt so old that he wanted to withdraw from the world and sink into obscurity.

After the war was over Light-Horse Harry turned his horse toward home. That was where he wanted to go--home to Leesylvania on the Potomac.

_A BAND OF BROTHERS_

King Carter once wrote: "Pray God send in the next generation ... a set of better-polished patriots."

An example of the kind of "polished patriots" that King Carter probably had in mind were the Lee brothers of Stratford: Thomas Ludwell, Richard Henry, Francis Lightfoot, William and Arthur. They were the sons of Thomas and Hannah Lee, and they were all born in the same southeast bedroom at Stratford.

Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot were signers of the Declaration of Independence. All five brothers worked in various ways to win freedom from Great Britain for the colonies in America and to shape a government that would stand.

President John Adams described the Lee sons of Stratford as "that band of brothers, intrepid and unchangeable, who, like the Greeks at Thermopylae, stood in the gap, in defense of their country, from the first glimmering of the Revolution in the horizon, through all its rising light, to its perfect day."

_THE DIVINE MATILDA_

Light-horse Harry Lee soon tired of his isolation and decided one day to ride down to Stratford and call on the family of his cousin. It was a long ride, but Virginians of that day thought nothing of traveling long distances on horseback.

Thomas Lee had left Stratford to his oldest son, Philip Ludwell, who had lived there in great style. In his stables were a score or more of blooded horses, including the imported stallion Dotterel, which was said to be the "swiftest horse in all England (Eclipse excepted)." His imported coaches were the finest that could be had.

Philip had kept an open house, as Harry Lee well remembered, and he had entertained on a lavish scale. A whole ox could be roasted for guests in the kitchen fireplace. He had kept a band of musicians to whose airs his daughters, Matilda and Flora, with their companions danced in the Great Hall. But Philip Ludwell was now dead, Harry had heard, and Stratford had passed on to his oldest child, Matilda.

As Harry came up the oak and poplar lined road to Stratford, Matilda and Flora recognized him "as he rode past the grove of maples" and they "welcomed him with joy."

Flora was described by a contemporary as being haughty in manner, "very genteel and wears monstrous bustles." In describing Matilda the only word used by her contemporaries was "divine."

Harry was not prepared for this new Matilda. When he had last seen her she was at the awkward age of thirteen. Now she was nineteen and his first sight of her took his breath away.

There was tea-drinking in the garden with laughter and talk of the good old times before the war. Perhaps Matilda and Harry walked in the garden and "sat under a butiful shade tree" or climbed to one of the summer-houses on the roof from which they could see "Potomac's sea-like billows."

In less than a month Matilda was married to her cousin, Light-Horse Harry Lee. And what was Matilda like? There are no portraits or miniatures to tell us how she looked, no letters to unlock her personality. Only the word "divine" bequeathed by her contempories.

Matilda was expensive. Inventories tell us that her side-saddle cost 1,200 pounds of tobacco, and music lessons on the harpsichord cost 3,043 pounds of tobacco. "1 pc. fine Chintz in Pocket Money for Mis Matilda," whatever that meant, was 1,500 pounds, and another ninety pounds of tobacco went for dental care. Listed among her belongings were a cap, a pair of silk shoes and stays for her slender waist.

Matilda could afford to have expensive tastes. She had inherited Stratford and its six thousand acres of rich tobacco soil, with enough slaves to tend it, and other lands scattered all over northern Virginia.

Harry took Matilda to New York where for three years he represented Virginia in Congress. They were gay and happy years, but it was over all too soon.

When Matilda died, Harry wrote: "Something always happens to mar my happiness."

At the foot of the garden at Stratford, Harry built a vault for Thomas Lee's granddaughter, Matilda, who was called "divine."

Matilda was twenty-six years old when she died. She left three children, Philip Ludwell, Lucy Grymes and Henry.

_MADAM WASHINGTON_

Augustine Washington had left his wife, Mary: "the current crops on three plantations and the right of working Bridges Creek Quarter for five years, during which time she could establish a quarter on Deep Run."

Mary stayed on at Ferry Farm for twenty-nine years after her husband's death. It is possible that she spent part of this time on some of her adjoining property. Meanwhile her children had married--Betty Washington Lewis was living in Fredericksburg, and George was established at Mount Vernon, which he had inherited after Lawrence's death.

By 1772 George had persuaded his mother to move to a house which he owned in Fredericksburg where she would be close to Betty, at Kenmore.

When Mary Ball Washington moved to Fredericksburg, her property in the Northern Neck included: "43 Hoggs, Shoats and Pigs, 16 sheep, 24 head of cattle, 2 horses; and at the Quarters (her dower land of 400 acres, some miles down the river), 4 horses, 6 oxen, 8 cows and calves, 39 hogs." On the two farms there were ten slaves. The "Quarters" was bringing her an income of 30 pounds per year.

After Mary was installed in Fredericksburg, she had her coachman, Stephen, drive her almost every day to Ferry Farm. Mary's favorite carriage in her old age was a light open phaeton. She was respectfully greeted by everyone she passed on the streets of Fredericksburg.

In her later years Mary is said to have worn a mobcap and kerchief. A mobcap was a frilly white cap introduced from France. In summer she probably waved a fan made from the bronze feathers of wild turkeys.

During these years George Washington frequently visited his mother, and other relatives in the Northern Neck. In August, 1768, he "hauled the Sein for sheepsheads" off Hollis Marsh in Westmoreland County. In 1771, he dined at the Glebe in Cople Parish, and "returned to my brother's in the evening." George enjoyed the social life in Fredericksburg. He liked to play cards, and he liked to dance--the minuet and cotillions and country-dances. It was said that he liked beautiful women, punch, horses and hunting, and that he could be gay or dignified, whenever the occasion demanded. During Revolutionary days Washington and the Northern Neck patriots often gathered at the Rising Sun Tavern in Fredericksburg.

In 1784, while visiting Mount Vernon, Marquis de Lafayette rode to Fredericksburg to pay a visit to Madam Washington before he returned to France. When he returned to Mount Vernon after calling upon Mary Ball Washington he made this comment about her: "I have seen the only Roman Matron living at this day."

George Washington traveled to Fredericksburg in March, 1789, to tell his mother good-bye before leaving Mount Vernon to go to New York for his first inauguration. She did not live to see him again.

Mary Washington was buried in Fredericksburg, near Meditation Rock, a spot near her home where she often went to read her Bible, pray and meditate. It was her request that she be buried there. Many years later a monument to her was erected there.

The modest house where she spent her last years became a national shrine in 1890. A college in Fredericksburg was later named for Mary Washington.

"All that I am I owe to my honored Mother," is the tribute that the great George Washington paid to Mary Ball Washington.

_AFTER THE REVOLUTION_

The Northern Neck, like the rest of Tidewater Virginia, changed after the Revolution. War had taken its toll of manpower and money.

The tobacco lands had become exhausted, therefore the culture of tobacco had been almost abandoned. Wheat and corn were now the main crops.

The once thriving tobacco river ports fell into decay. Foreign ships no longer tied up at the plantation landings. The tobacco rolling-roads were no longer needed for their original use.

After the war the English clergy was withdrawn and the churches were unused and deserted for years. Some fell into ruins or were used for other purposes. The glebes became "bones of contention" between the Episcopal Church and the "people." In 1802 the General Assembly passed an act by which the glebes were sold for the benefit of the public.

After the Revolution other religious denominations gained a foothold in the Northern Neck.

People now turned away from anything British, even in architecture and dress. Before the Revolution boys and girls dressed precisely like their parents in miniature. After the war they wore a special dress of their own.

In 1789, there were still few conveniences of life in the Neck, or elsewhere in the country. All cloth was woven by hand. Most of the farm implements were made of wood. Wheat was cut with a scythe, raked with a wooden rake and beaten out with sticks or "trodden out" by oxen.

There were as yet no matches with which to make a fire. Flint and tinder box were used instead and live coals were kept as a basis for the next day's fire. Wood was the chief fuel and candles were used for light.

Bananas and oranges were rarely seen in the Northern Neck then, for sailboats were too slow to bring these fruits any distance in good condition. Communication was slow. By 1790 there were fifteen post-offices in Virginia. The postal service was crude. Mails were carried by post-riders and stages.

People of the Northern Neck lived comfortably but the great prosperity was gone, and although eventually it was recovered in part, the pattern of living was never on such a grand scale again as it was before the Revolution. The large estates were broken up by division or sale. New families took the places of the old. Many of the old names passed into oblivion. The old order of social aristocracy declined, but the people still clung to their old customs, traditions and family life.

_MANTUA_

"Chicacony" was selected as a townsite by the Burgesses some time after John Mottrom and his friends had settled there. Mottrom had built a wharf and a warehouse at Coan and he had plans for a "Brew-House." If he had lived, the town might have matured. But Colonel Mottrom died and the plans for a town seem to have been abandoned. Plantation life did not encourage the growth of towns.

The Coan Hall property passed on to the descendants of John Mottrom. Coan Hall and the other early homes in the vicinity either burned or fell into ruins. Toward the close of the eighteenth century, when the Coan Hall property went out of the Mottrom family, there appears to have been few traces left of the once thriving settlement at Coan.

James Smith, a wealthy Baltimore merchant and shipowner, purchased a portion of the Coan Hall estate from a Mottrom heir and erected a brick mansion on a slope there, about 1785. He called his new home Mantua.

Mantua was built along the traditional lines of a Virginia house--a central hall, two rooms on each side and large end chimneys. From the outside it appeared to have three stories but there were really six floor levels. Later, identical wings were added on each side by Smith's sons. Still later, Smith's grandson added an imposing front portico. Before this addition coaches were driven, tradition says, right up to the front steps and ladies could step from coach to marble steps without soiling their dainty slippers. The conveyance could then continue around to the stables on the west side, or follow the driveway on to Coan Stage Road, which ran back of the plantation.

The marble steps, marble window-sills and paneled inside blinds were handsome details of Mantua which may have been the outcome of Smith's residence in Baltimore. Originally he was a native of County Derry, Ireland.

In the rear of the house there were five terraces, planted with flowers and, perhaps, vegetables and herbs. Brick slave quarters were ranged in a semi-circle beyond the terraces.

The second story front windows of Mantua overlooked both the Coan and the Potomac. Before government lighthouses and buoys marked the waterman's course in this section, he had only the stars, landmarks and a lighted window here and there to guide him. Mantua was a help to the watermen for they could always be sure of a lighted window there, a lamp purposely placed by members of the Smith family, and by day the towering poplar trees were familiar landmarks.