Sweet Briar College - Briar Patch Yearbook (Sweet Briar, VA)

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nm To Virginia from Vermont m the early years of the eighteenth century, came EHjah Fletcher. He married Marie Anlomette Crawford, of the Plantation of Tusculum, and through the years ac- quired of the rolling red Amherst County land more than eight thousand acres. Sweet Briar Plan- tation. Elijah had a daughter who married James Henry Williams and they in turn had a daughter, Daisy. A clever, affectionate, practical girl was Daisy, observant, sensitive to the beauty of her home. She was interested in everything and everyone on the plantation. We know from her diary, some of the things that caught her attention through the days. Martha and I set out twenty-one little evergreens today. . . . Blossom has a calf. ... I began my lessons today, French, Italian, Literature, Rhetoric, Astronomy and good many other things. . . . There is a man at the Courthouse sick with the smallpox. ... I rode with Logan to look at the little calfs and up in the mountain. . . . Last night a mink killed four sitting hens. . . . The most beautiful day I most ever saw, the mountains are clear and deep blue and the air is so sweet with the mock orange. Daisy died when she was sixteen. Mr. and Mrs. Williams, that she might be remem- bered, planned that Sweet Briar should become a college. This is Sweet Briar College, founded in 1901 in memory of Daisy Williams. To the girls who come here through the years. Sweet Briar gives much, but nothing of greater value than two things it gave also to Daisy Williams: the experience of being a member of a simple friendly community, and the remembrance of days spent among scenes of gracious, natural beauty.