USA > Virginia > A history of Bristol Parish, Va. : with genealogies of families connected therewith, and historical illustrations > Part 8
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And many a weary heart around, Is still forever more.
Ilow doth ambition's hope take wing ! Ilow droops the spirit now !
We hear the distant city's din ; The dead are mute below.
The sun that shone upon their paths Now gilds their lowly graves,
The zephyrs which once fanned their brows, The grass above them waves.
Oh! could we call the many back, Who've gathered here in vain, --
Who've careless roved where we do now, Who'll never meet again ; Ilow would our very hearts be stirred, To meet the earnest gaze, Of the lovely and the beautiful -- The lights of other days!
A STRANGER.
BLANDFORD CEMETERY IN SPRING.
"The holy ground, in which the dead of our city slumber, has nothing dreary at this season in the solemnity which speaks from every marble shait and lovely mound of its domain. The grass and foliage of spring are starting afresh, green from the graves of its inmates, as hope in bosoms, where lie hid past sor- rows. The ivy, round the venerable walls of its en- closure, is losing its dismal winter hue, and the roof of the old church, imbedded in emerald vines, is once again the home of tuneful birds.
"How many sleepers are here deaf to the songs of God's songsters, and the peals of bells which once rang out their christenings and weddings, blind to the bud-
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ding glories of awakened nature, steeped in a slum- berous stillness, which no carthly thunder can disturb. How still they lie-no wave of trouble strong enough to beat against their peaceful breasts-no war of life, though its clanging swords be joined above their rest- ing place, so loud as to give even dreaming to their slumbers. Scarce a stone's throw from the sleepers frown the battlements, whence, not long since, came hurling, in angry speed, the missiles of God's wrath. Unmoved, the lightless eyes reposed 'neath fringed lashes-unstirred, slept on the hearts once warm with love and high with pride as ours. Did they hear the battle as it raged around their tombs, or know a greet- ing as the heavy sods fell down on new-made coffins of new comers to their city? And now when the wail of grief above them, or the prattle of careless children bearing flowers, or the solemn tones of holy men re- citing above the newly dead, 'I am the resurrection and the life.' Now when the hush of awe reigns once again through our God's acre, do its people know the change?
"Oh! how to be among the dead sets the living soul to wandering! How soon must we be there so long to rest? And the busy world will go on its ceaseless round, and the iron gates swing back and forth, admit- ting funeral cars with nodding plumes, and the old pines will bend their waving tops and murmur their wordless song, while we will be cold and still as any there, and the yet unborn will stand above our sepul- chre and ask these questions to his soul, till he too, shall fall asleep to the eternal wakening."
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TYRONE POWER'S IMPRESSIONS.
Tyrone Power, the Irish comedian, was very much fascinated by the old church, and whether he was the author of the poem on it or not, he has recorded his impression of it in his Book of Travels, in pictorial prose, which shows that there was a rich vein of poetry in him. In the 2nd vol. of his travels, page 56th, he says :
"Upon a steep hill situated about half a mile from my hotel, and bearing from it about southeast, stands the ruins of a well built Church, surrounded by a large graveyard, thickly tenanted by the once citizens of Pe- tersburg, numerous tombs of a respectable and indeed venerable appearance, contribute to invest the spot with quite an old country character; and viewed from the wall which surrounds it, the setting sun is glorious. To this place, my first visit was one of mere chance, but each evening after, saw me at the same calm hour, taking my walk among the tombs. I discovered that by far the greatest numbers of these decent dwellings of the dead were inscribed to Europeans, chiefly from Ireland and Scotland; very few were dated past the middle ages of life-the majority indeed, were young men-enterprising adventurers, who had wandercd hither to seek fortune and who had found a grave, the consummation of all wants and desires. Upon many of these gravestones were displayed evidences of the lingering pride of gentle birth, recollections, which suppressed or forgotten in the land of equality during life, seemed to have survived the grave stronger than death. Here were set forth, in goodly cutting,
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the coat-armour, crest and motto of an old Scotch or Irish house, from which the junior branches had prob- ably received no other heritance save this claim to gentillesse, with liberty to bear it to a distant soil. How favoured was the French gentleman of whom we read, who resigning his sword, sailed in search of gain and was permitted to return and reclaim it before Time had rusted its bright blade. How many young hearts that, quitting home, have beat high with the prospect of an equally happy return, have been doomed to waste and wither in all the misery of hope deferred, which maketh the heart sick indeed, until care and cli- mate closed the weary protracted struggle, and the fortune-secker was laid to moulder in some strange grave. I trust that amidst the changes each day brings forth here, this ruined Church will be left un- profaned, and that the tenants who sleep within its en- closure, may be left undisturbed.
"And I would further counsel any gentle traveller, who rests for a sunset in Petersburg, to walk to this Church, and contemplate its going-down from off the lofty stile leading over the western wall of the grave- yard, and when he shall behold the forest vale below, changed-as I have more than once beheld it-into a lake of living gold, and over this shall watch the shadows of evening steal, until the last bright fringe is withdrawn, and the brown forest is seen again to cover all the land-when I say, this has been witnessed the stranger (if a woman, certainly) will hardly fail to thank me for this discovery ; for such I verily consider it to be."
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BLANDFORD CHURCH.
BY COL. F. H. ARCHER.
Come, let us wend our way to yon old church, Around whose crumbling walls the last remains Of dead, unnumbered through a century's years, Commingling lie. Nor stop to look upon The monuments, upreared by gilded wealth, Nor yet to read the modest record which Is there inscribed by humble poverty Upon the lowly stone that marks the spot Where wrapt within the cold embrace of death Some loved companion lies. "Tis not for this That we should thence repair; for should we scan, As others oft have done with careless eye, The solemn verse or apothegm engraved By skilful hand upon the polished shaft, Forgetful of the truth, that underneath Corruption and decay their revels hold, All sober thought supplanted, we should view With calm indifference the sculptured stone, And turn unprofited to brighter scenes. Nor from the humbler grave the moral draw, That he who lies within lies on a breast As tender and as kind as that which shields The pampered sons of luxury and ease.
But let us pass into the inner courts Of the old house, where once our fathers trod In solemn mood, and meekly bowed the knee In supplication to the King of Kings: Where from the lips of worshipers went forth, In swelling tones, the song of ardent praise, And softly stealing o'er the melting heart, Enwrapt it in a flame of burning zeal : Where once to listening crowds, by holy men, Were taught the words of life, eternal life, And sinners warned to flee eternal wrath.
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And haply where before the altar stood In blushing consciousness the trembling bride, Whose shrinking form in sweet abandon claimed Assistance and support from him, who, through The rolling tide of years, should be to her A part integral of her dual life : Whilst he, the willing groom, proud of his trust, Responsive to the Priest's demand, engaged To "have her to his wedded wife;" to love And comfort her, to honor and to keep, In sickness and in health, and to her cleave, And her alone, as long as both should live.
Where, too, unmindful of the pious deed, The beauteous babe from parent's arms transferred, With blessings on its tender head, received The emblem, bright, of spotless purity.
Not that we now those scenes again shall view, Nor that our ears those songs again shall hear; For, buried deep in Time's oblivious sea, They come no more to greet the eyes or ears Of those who enter there. But as we look With saddened gaze upon the woful change Which time hath wrought upon the ancient fane, Or catch the muffled echoes as they rise From sound of footfall on the crumbling earth, Or list unto the melancholy wail Of hollow winds that through the crannied walls Incessant creep, or shiver in the blast That coldly blows with unobstructed force Through yawning rents, where doors and windows once In years long gone, their offices fulfilled, We thence may learn that permanence is writ On naught beneath the skies, and earthly good, E'en in its fairest forms, must pass away.
The author might not have presumed to add the fol-
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lowing lines to the graceful offerings laid upon the altar of Blandford Church, had they not been deemed worthy a place in the Southern Literary Messenger. with complimentary comments by John R. Thompson, to whom they were commended by the late Wm. Murray Robinson in these words, "I admire the lines exceedingly, from beginning to end-there is no affec- tation, no mannerism in them; the pathos is natural, the simplicity dignified and solemn, and the imagery is beautiful and worthy of the subject. The simile in the 2nd verse suggested by the splintered column is strik- ingly fine. It has the stamp of originality."
LINES
On the ola Blandford Church, by Rev. P. SLAUGHTER, Rector, Bristol Parish, Petersburg, 1846.
Lone relic of the past! with awe profound,
And unshod feet, I tread thy holy ground.
I tremble! By the carol of a bird, The falling of a leaf, my soul is stirred; A dreadful grandeur seems to shroud this place, As though I heard God's voice or saw His face!
Church of my sires! shrine of the sainted dead ! My heart doth bleed to see thee bow thy head ! One splendid column holding thee in air, Like Jacob leaning on his staff in prayer, And uttering blessings with his parting breath Ere he sank down into the dust of death.
And must thou fall, thou consecrated Fane ? And shall no voice of prayer be heard again Within thy courts, where oft, in by-gone days, Our fathers worshipped God in hymns of praise, Breathing into the Majesty on High The burning words of our old Liturgy ?
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Standing between the living and the dead, Who sleep beneath the sod on which I tread, In my fond fancy thou dost seem to be The very type of fabled Niobe, Who ancient story tells us, long ago, Did weep herself to stone in voiceless woe.
More costly temples may around thee rise, To pierce, with taper pinnacles, the skies ; Gorgeous with glittering dome and sculptured towers, As if the stone had bloomed in giant flowers ; And yet not one of them has charms for me, Like thy mossed roof and green embroidery.
As these are the only verses the author has ever published, perhaps the public will pardon him for put- ting on record the opinions of Mr. Thompson and Mr. Robinson, as pleas in justification of what might other- wise be considered a want of delicacy in him.
LINES
Suggested by a visit to the ruins of old Blandford Church, near . Petersburg, by Rev. J. C. MCCABE, D. D.
Lone relique of the past, old mouldering pile, Where twines the ivy 'round thy ruins gray ; Where the lone toad sits brooding in the aisle, Once trod by " ladye fayre," and gallant gay !
How visions rise before the mental eyc, As memory holds communion with the past, And as the night-winds 'mid your ruins sigh, Dim shadows 'round my weed-grown path are cast.
Before my gaze altar and chancel rise- The surpliced priest, the mourner bowed in prayer,- Fair worshippers, with heaven-directed eyes, And manhood's piety and pride are there !
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Knights of the olden time perchance are kneeling, And choristers pour forth the hallowed hymn : And, hark! the organ's solemn strains are pealing, Like songs of seraphs, or rapt cherubim.
But, no! 'tis but my fancy ! and I gaze On ruined walls where creeps the lizard, cold; Or dusky bats, beneath the pale moon's rays, Their solemn, lonely midnight vigils hold.
Yet they are here ! the learned and the proud ! Genius and worth, and beauty-they are here! I feel rebuked-amid the slumbering crowd ; Voices of the past break on the spirit's ear.
And humbled man looks on, and feels the truth, That these sad ruins shadow forth his doom- All things must fade: age follows buoyant youth, And life is but a pathway to the tomb. Petersburg, March 2, 1841.
SONNET,
BY WILLIAM SKINNER SIMPSON, SENR.
"Forlorn Pile! gray in years, standing sentinel over the gruves of the dead- yet thou thysolf momentarily dropping to decay among theni."
Veiled by the shade of dark green ivy boughs, Hallowed by Time, behold the sacred pile, Remnant of Olden days, best, lowliest style ! Around its hoary walls the evening throws A holy light; its lengthening shadow grows Amid the waving lines and rising heaps Of green sepulchral grass that waves and weeps Not for the dead, but for the living's woes. How quiet stands it 'mid the thickening gloom Among the tombs around-itself a tomb Of worldly thoughts and worldly adorations, While pride bows down to earth her haughtiest plume, And strives to rise with loftier aspirations- There where peace dwells and flowers forever bloom.
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The following lines were written upon the death of a son, named George Levick, who was born on xviii April 1826-Died Thursday, xii July 1827, and lies buried to the right of entrance into the Colquhoun family enclosure, immediately east of the Old Church -four other young children lost to us in infancy and likewise deposited in the same spot, and one within the said Colquhoun enclosure.
"While the child was yet alive, I fasted and wept, for I said, who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the child may live ?
"But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." II Sam. Chap. xii: 22 and 23.
" It was an infant dying! and I stood Watching beside its bed, to mark how Death, His hour being come, would steal away the breath Of one so young, so innocent and good. Friends also waited near-and now the blood Gan leave the tender cheek, and his dark eye To lose its wonted lustre. Suddenly !
Slight tremblings o'er him came; anon, subdued To perfect passiveness, the sufferer lay, Far, far more beautiful in his decay Than e'er methought before. I held his hand Fast locked in mir e, and felt more feebly flow The pulse, already faint and fluttering-lo! It ceased. I turn'd and bowed to God's command." SIMPSON.
- Lovely being, searee formed or moulded, A rose, with all its sweetest leaves yet folded."
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HISTORICAL PLACES IN BRISTOL PARISII.
When one speaks of historical places in this Paris !! the mind naturally turns to the places so made by the late war-to its battles, sieges, the breach of awful in .- terest (the fatal crater), the vicissitudes through whic. we have passed, &c. But these things are not within the scope of a Parish history. Peace has "her victo- ries" as well as war. As to our heroes, who fought and bled nobly,
" We give in charge
Their names to the sweet lyre; the Historic Muse Proud of her treasure, marches with it down To latest times, and Sculpture, in her turn, Gives bonds in stone and ever-enduring brass, To guard them and immortalize her trust."
In the olden time, the heights of the Appomattox were crowned with country seats, where rich planters dispensed a "hospitality without grudging" to all com- ers. There were few or no inns in those days. Every one kept open house. In the phrase of the day, the string of the latch hung on the outside of the front door; and the wayfaring man, though a stranger, wh , lifted the latch, was sure of welcome and good cheer; and compensation for their entertainment was resented as an insult and an in.peachment of hospitality.
The domains of some of the old planters were princely. For example, John Bolling, who died at Cobbs, Sept'r 6, 1757, devised to his son Thomas Lick- ing-Hole (Bolling Hall ) Bolling's Island in James river. of which five hundred acres, according to Jolin Ran- dolph of Roanoke, were as rich as any land on earth; to his son John, Moulin in Goochland, Varina in Henrico.
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and a tract of land in Chesterfield ; to Robert, a plan- tation near Willis' mountain, another near Seven Isl- ands and Toleres; to Edward, Falling river, a farm on - Hatcher's run, one on the Roanoke, the mansion at Cobbs, a tract on Swift creek, the tobacco warehouses in Pocahontas, the old town tract, and 6,000 acres in Amherst; to Archibald, Buffalo Lick traet in Bedford and Rock Island (40,000 acres in all).
Another old vestryman of this Parish, Buller Her- bert, said to be a grandson of one of the lords Herbert, married a Miss Stith of Brunswick (cousin of Buckner Stith), by whom he got 200 slaves, 15,000 acres of land south side of Appomattox, 3,000 acres on Monkassa- neck creck, the Puddledock estate, a valuable tract on the north side of the Appomattox, including Matoax, and lots and houses at Bolling's Point. They had an only child, Mary, who married Col. Augustine Clai- borne, descendant of Col. William Claiborne, surveyor general, and first of the name in Virginia. She also inherited, or was given by Mrs. Grammer in England, a block of houses in London, which her husband sold for eighty thousand pounds sterling. (Authority for these statements is a document now before me, drawn up by one of the family, viz: the father of the late ven- erable and well known Col. John Augustine Peterson of Petersburg.)
We have only space to mention a few of these old country seats, whose history is not familiar to the pre- sent generation; and first of Cawson's, of whose out- ward physiognomy Mr. Garland, biographer of John Randolph, has drawn a graphic picture, which we transfer to our pages, and to which we shall add some new features.
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CAWSON'S, THE BIRTH-PLACE OF JOHN RANDOLPH OF ROANOKE.
"Cawson's, on a commanding promontory near the mouth of the Appomattox river, was the family seat of Colonel Theodoric Bland, Sr., of Prince George. After winding amidst its woody islands, around the base of the hill, the river spreads out into a wide bay, and together with the James, into which it empties, makes towards the north and east a beautiful water prospect, embracing in one view Shirley, the seat of Carters, Bermuda Hundred, with its harbor and ships, City Point, and other places of less note. In the midst of this commanding scene the old mansion house reared its ample proportions, and with its offices and extended wings was not an unworthy representative of the baronical days in which it was built, when Virginia cavaliers, with the title of gentlemen, with their broad domain of virgin soil, and long retinue of servants, lived in a style of elegance and profusion not inferior to the barons of England, and dispensed a hospitality, which more than a half century of sub-division and decay has not entirely effaced from the memory of their impoverished descendants.
"At Cawson's scarcely a vestige remains of former grandeur. The old mansion was burned many years ago. Here and there a solitary outhouse, which escaped the confiagration, like the old servants of a decayed family, seem to speak in melancholy pride of those days, when it was their glory to stand in the shadow of loftier walls and reflect their loud revelry.
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The misletoe hung in the castle-hall, The holly-branch shone on the old oak-wall, The Baron's retainers were blithe and gay, And keeping their Christmas holiday.
"The serpentine paths, the broad avenues and smooth gravel, the mounds, the green turf, and the shrubbery of the pleasure grounds, are all mingled with the vul- gar sod. The noble outlines of Nature are still there, but the handicraft of man has disappeared."
In a letter to his friend, Frank Key (author of the "Star Spangled Banner"), John Randolph of Roanoke says : " A few days ago I returned from a visit to my birth-place, the seat of my ancestors on one side, the spot where my dear mother was given in marriage, and where I was ushered into the world of woe. The sight of the broad waters seemed to renovate me. I was tossed in a boat during a row of three miles across James river, and sprinkled with the spray that dashed over her. The days of my boyhood seemed to be e- newed; but at the end of my journey I found desola- tion and stillness as of death, the fires of hospitality long since quenched; the Parish church, associated with my earliest and tenderest recollections, trembling to pieces, not more from natural decay than from sacri- ligious violence. What a spectacle does our lower country present! Deserted and dismantled country houses, once the seats of cheerfulness and plenty, and · the Temple of the Most High frowning in portentous silence on the land. The very mansions of the dead have not escaped violation. Shattered fragments of armorial bearings, and epitaphs on scattered stone, attest the piety of the past, and the brutality of the present age."
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Cobbs, one of the old seats of the Bollings, and the site of the first institution for teaching deaf mutes in America.
John Bolling, son of the first Robert, lived, grew im- mensely rich, and died, and was buried at Cobbs, April 20th, 1729. The place descended through his son John, who died September 6, 1757. He was succeeded by Thomas Bolling. Col. Robert B. Bolling, of Peters- burg, and the author lately visited this place, which is on an eminence, on the north side of the Appomattox, nine miles below Petersburg. The site is beautiful, commanding long reaches up and down the river, with the steeples and other prominent features of Peters- burg shining in the distance. Not a trace of the old mansion or of the old tombs is to be seen upon the ground, nor is there a trace of its history on the minds of the people. The tourist, who seeks it, will probably be told by some blissful descendant of Ham, that he "never hearn of Mr. Cobbs." The most conspicuous features in its present physiognomy are the military carthworks, and a mill solemnly grinding ochre, with which perhaps the Indians, who used to trade with the first proprietor, stained their yellow faces.
It seems not to be known, that Cobbs was the seat of the first institution for the education of deaf mutes established in America. Thomas Bolling, of Cobbs, had several children who were deaf and dumb. He sent his oldest, John, to Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1771, . and put him under the care of Thomas Braidwood, the famous preceptor of that art. His children, Thomas and Mary, followed in 1775, and they all remained at Braidwood's institute during the American revolution, returning to Cobbs in 1783. John died soon after his
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return. Thomas was a miracle of accomplishments. His articulation became so good, that his family and friends understood him in conversation and in reading aloud. He died in the 67th year of his;age at Gay- mount in Caroline county. The late Judge John Rob- ertson (his relation) in an obituary printed in the Richmond Enquirer, February 18, 1836, said of him, "He composed and wrote in a peculiar, clear and graphic style; and attained an artificial faculty of speech almost equal to natural. His giace of manner, vivacity, power of imitation, made him the wonder and admiration of strangers, and the deliglit of friends and relatives." In 1812 Mr. Bolling heard, through the Hon. James Pleasants, that a grandson of Braidwood's was in Washington; Mr. Bolling sent for him, and he established at Cobbs the institute, and issued a pros- pectus, of which I have been so fortunate as to find a copy, as follows: "An institution for the education of the deaf and dumb, and for removing impediments of speech has been established at Cobbs, near Petersburg, Va., and is conducted by Mr. J. Braidwood, a descend- ant of the late Thomas and John Braidwood, of Edin- burgh and London. Children born deaf, or who have lost their hearing, are taught to speak and read dis- tinctly, to write and understand accurately the prin- ciples of language; they are also taught every branch of education necessary to qualify them for every situ- ation in life. The above institution was begun at Cobbs in March last, the home of Major Thomas Boll- ing, Chesterfield county. Several pupils have been received under the tuition of the Professor, and the most satisfactory testimony of the students may be had of the Hon. James Pleasants, M. C., Washington,
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