Mary Baldwin College - Bluestocking Yearbook (Staunton, VA)

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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

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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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Thr Mary Baldzvin Seminary. 11 and if they did not wcijj h liim down, he owed it to his manner of life, which though It brought duties, l rouglit freedom and healtliful pleasures in greater proportion. His directing eye was over all and the master was loved as well as feared. His lady was atrue help-mate and he in turn, like Gov- ernor Spotswood. thought that whoev ' er brings a poor gentle- woman into .so solitary a place from all her friends and acquaint- ances would be ungrateful not to use her with all possible ten- derness. The house was her kingdom, is the plantation was her husband ' s, and well she ruled it, though with no un- kind hand. From early morn till the riv er mists began to ri.se. she was up and about. Each day brought a round of duties never burdensome to one of her active temperament, but re- quiring constant care. The plate waste be cleaned, the house- hold linen carefully looked over and mended, and fragrant lay- ers of lavender and orris root laid between the folds. The pre- serves and comfits, on which she prided henself, must be made; and when the September roses had burst into their full glory of blossom and sweetness, they must be gathered and carried to the still-room. Here, while the sunshine flickered in, she and her maidens picked them over and dropped each perfect leaf into the potpourri jars. All the medicines for her large household must be prepared and the herbs sorted in different packages. From an old time stained note book written in 1776, we cull the following item. ' ' For making eye water $6.00. With her own hands she cared for the sick and aged slaves on the plantation, knit woolen stockings for the old rheumatic ' ' uncles and aunties and carried them dainties from her own table. She kept open house and from her hospitable door, no one was ever turned away unless unworthy. Her kitchen with all the secrets of the culinary art, she entrusted to the sable cook, se- cure that meal time would find her hoard supplied with every dainty the plantation could afford. Fish, fowl, venison, oysters, turtles, loaded the table, with here a mast-fed ham or there an olive-garnished chine, and vegetables in profusion and twenty different kind of sweets to tempt a fastidious appetite. On her fell the caie of training her numerous servants and making the household wheels run smoothly. At her belt, hung a silver