Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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The Miuy Baldwin Seiiiinarv. From various old histories, we learn that the society of the tide water was a mixed one. First along the river we find the long- shore men, a merry, roistering race, who lived by the fruits of their nets and seines ; then the merchants and small land-holders ; the planters who were lords of the land, and the church of England clergy. Rude log cabins had given place to mansions of baronial splendor and where once trackless forests stretched in wide expanse, smooth and luxuriant lawns sloped gently to the river, while here and there, the sward was dotted with some monumental oak or ancient forest king. Westover, Brandon, Rosewell, Shirley, Carter ' s Grove and others are not strange to us and ring many changes on the chords of memory. Their owners were men whom generations of gentle ancestry had not enfeebled, nor years of intercourse with refining influences, rendered effeminate. They ruled their estates like the pa- triarchs of old, were not forgetful to entertain strangers and were inclined to look on life with very optimistic views, when they gazed on their broad possessions and caught the glisten- ing of the sun on the white-sailed barges passing up and down the river. Each plantation was a feudal estate and en- tailed on the eldest son. In reality it was a little kingdom in itself, with its verdant meadows and luxuriant woodlands ; hosts of servants, both indented and slaves, obeyed the wills of their masters and shone with reflected glory. The Virginia planter has had many a gibe cast at his prejudices and pecu- liarities, but certain it is, that he managed to keep wrinkled care from his brow and old age crept upon him so slowly and and reluctantly that it came as a friend, not dimming the brightness of the eyes nor bending the uprightness of the form. Food was plentiful and everything was manufactured on the estate from the shoes which the slaves wore to their clothing and hats. Luxuries came from Europe, and rare and costly were the silks and jewels worn by the fair dames of colonial times, while their lords stored the larders with wines which had imprisoned in their depths the sparkle of Falernian sunshine or drunk in their sweetness on the slopes of southern France. The great iron gates were a fitting entrance to the manor-house with its tall, white pillars and wide, sunnj '

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8 The Annual of Lord Delaware appeared at the very moment when the fleet with the few surviving colonists, was preparing to sail away. But now Jamestown colony had come to stay and in and out between the threads of history we find a tender, graceful romance woven. We furget the deeds of the noble Delaware and care not for the grim old soldier, Thomas Dale, while our hearts are beating truly to the old, old story , told by an Englishman to Powhatan ' s dearest daughter in the shad- ow of the forest trees. Many changes and reverses passed over the colony and cloudy days would come ; but year by year its borders spread ; the red-skinned savage moved their hunting grounds back toward the Blue Ridge mountains and other towns and settle- ments sprang up. It is to Jamestown, that old historic city, on whose sandy shores the river encroaches year by year and where the sea- breezes blow over the ruined church tower, that our affections turn, and to the narrow streets of Williamsburg and the old plantation homes that stand on the banks of the James and the York. Here it was that the good old times held high carnival and Virginia reached the period called the ' ' Golden. Cooke in his Virginia, states that probably the most fruitful cause of the sudden development of the first adven- turers into lords of society, was the Cavalier invasion after the execution of Charles I. This element was much modified by its blending with the staunch adherents of the Commonwealth, while Huguenot refugees infused a stream of rich, pure blood into Virginia society; as the result of this we have the Colonial character, combining the courtly grace and courtesy of the one with the courage, love of liberty, and determination of the other. Down on the tide-water, mirth ran high and on the old plantations, as well as in the royal capital, there were fes- tivities of every description. Toward the mountains and be- yond, the currents of Colonial life ran stiller and deeper and Scotch-Irish, born of Cavenanter blood, rose with the dawn, to hew down forests, build churches and school houses, while German-Lutherans toiled and struggled with many a homesick longing for the Faderland.

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10 The Annual of porches. It was approached by a drive bordered with fantas- tically cut box-wood trees, while here and there a bed of sweet, old-fashioned flowers lent their fragrance to the breeze. One not accustomed to the harmonious intermingling of sim- plicity and elegance which was a distinguishing characteristic of colonial homesteads, might have smiled, perhaps, to see upon the porch, a brass-bound bucket of water with the gourd hanging beside it ; but he would have found the water cool and have crossed the hospitable threshold much refreshed. These gentry of the old school did not build for fashion nor for show, but for comfort and posterity and considered their to- bacco well exchanged if by it they gained the delights of home without the unwholesome glamour and emulation of city life. From the wainscotted hall with hand-carved cornices to the stair-case with its shallow steps and ornamented railing, we see the evidence of the same taste. From Europe the well-to-do planter, brought richly carved furniture, with ar- morial crestings, pier-glasses, fragil china and rare old folios, while, as if to welcome more warmly to the hearthstone of the new home the Lares and the Penates of the old, the proud, calm faces of courtly dames and gallant cavaliers smiled down from the walls upon the worthy representatives of their race. Liveried slaves obeyed his commands and ran his errands and from his broad-silled windows his eyes travelled over royal grants of land of which, as far as eye could reach, he was sole patentee. His stables were filled with horses of the finest breed and his poultry -yards abounded in cocks of the best fighting stock. From an old Virginia Gazette with its ingenuous motto, Open to All Parties, but Influenced by none, we take the following notice : If the Gentlemen on the South Side of James River will meet those on the North at any Place that may be centrical, they can be accommodated for their sum and any number of cocks they think proper. The planter was a worshipful member of the ' ' House of Burgesses and had laid aside the rough buckskins of the earlier settlers for the ruffled shirts, powdered hair and knick- er-bockers of the cocked hat gentry. Yet think not that he lived in idleness. Large possessions brought large cares