USA > Virginia > Virginia, a history of the people > Part 23
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The new century was now at hand, and Virginia, like the other colonies, was steadily advancing in population and importance. In the absence of an official census it is impossible to ascertain the population of a country ; but in the year 1700 there were probably about 300,- 000 people in the American colonies. By conjecture these were thus distributed : in New England 115,000; in New York 30,000 ; in the Jerseys 15,000 ; in Penn- sylvania and Delaware 20,000; in Maryland 35,000;
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THE LAST YEARS OF THE CENTURY.
in Virginia 70,000 ; in the Carolinas and Georgia 15,- 000. Of these about 50,000 were probably African slaves, the North holding about 10,000 and the South about 40,000. Of the proportion of freemen, indented servants, and slaves in Virginia, there remains no relia- ble record.
The society continues to be English throughout, loyal to the King, respecting law, and believing in social de- grees and the Established Church. The vestries choose their ministers and are ardent churchmen, but will liave no bishop ; it was at one time the project of Dean Swift to come as bishop to Virginia, and he wrote his friend Addison, asking liis assistance, or they would " persuade him to go to Ireland ;" but the planters would have made his time unpleasant. Other prominent persons had also narrowly escaped residing in Virginia, - Oli- ver Cromwell in 1638, Queen Henrietta Maria in 1651, and Charles II. in 1658. What was better for the coun- try was the arrival in 1699 of the good Claude Philippe de Richebourg with his colony of Huguenots, who set- tled at Mannakin on the upper James River, and in- fused a stream of pure and rich blood into Virginia society.
With the beginning of the new century a new reign begins. Anne succeeds William,1 and the Burgesses, having assembled at " Her Majesty's royal college of William and Mary in this her Majesty Queen Anne her royal capital," the Governor announces that " her sacred Majesty has been pleased to renew his commission to be her Majesty's Lieutenant and Governor-General of this
1 Anne is a popular name in Virginia. The counties of Princess Anne, and Fluvanna (Fleuve Anna), and the rivers Rivanna, North and South Anna, and Rapidan (Rapid Ann), are named after her.
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her Majesty's most ancient and great colony and domin- ion of Virginia ;" after which his Honor makes an ad- dress. He informs his listeners that her sacred Maj- esty has sent them her royal portrait, and adds with deep feeling : -
"Honorable gentlemen, I don't in the least doubt that you will join with me in paying our most humble and dutiful, etc., etc., for this great honor, etc., and that she may have a long, prosperous, successful, and victo- rious reign ; as also that she may in all respects, not only equal, but even out-do her royal predecessor, Queen Elizabethi, of ever glorious memory, in the latter end of whose reign this country was discovered, and in honor of her called Virginia." This is indeed the proudest moment of his Honor's life, and he designs celebrating a centennial " jubilee " in Virginia if " God Almighty and her Majesty shall be so pleased." . .. So these foolish old King's or Queen's Governors round their periods and finish with their twaddle; and the Burgesses go back to their room, and attend to matters more important than royal portraits and centennial jubilees, enacting among other things that no English convict, or " negro, mulatto, or Indian," shall hold any office in Virginia, on penalty of prompt ejectment therefrom and a heavy fine for " suclı his offence."
So the century begins in the loyal colony of Virginia, where the people welcome with "extraordinary joy " and expressions of distinguished consideration every new reign, but obstinately persist in managing their own affairs. Lord Orkney is made Governor, but as usual sends his deputy, and in the year 1710 appears the stalwart soldier and ruler, Sir Alexander Spotswood.
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THE TUBAL CAIN OF VIRGINIA.
XXII.
THE TUBAL CAIN OF VIRGINIA.
ALEXANDER SPOTSWOOD, or Spottiswoode as his family were called in Scotland, rises like a landmark above the first years of the century.
When he came to Virginia he was only thirty-four and in the bloom of his manhood. But he had already fought hard, and his faculties as a soldier and ruler were fully developed. He was born in 1676, the year of the Virginia rebellion, at Tangier, in Morocco, then an Eng- lish colony, where his father - a son, it is said, of Sir Alexander Spotswood, Secretary of Scotland - was a surgeon. The boy was left alone in the world at the age of twelve, by the death of his father; entered the army ; served under Marlborough, and was wounded in the breast at the battle of Blenheim. He kept the ball, a four-pound cannon shot, and used to exhibit it long afterwards to his friends ; and in the background of a portrait of him, still preserved at " Chelsea," in King William, is a picture of Blenheim Castle, in memory of this incident. The portrait represents a large and mar- tial man with a curiously wrinkled face and an air of decision, - the chief trait of the soldier ruler.
The Virginians received Spotswood with open arms. He was a man after their own heart, and brought with him when he came (June 1710), the great writ of habeas corpus. The Virginia people had long claimed that this right was guaranteed to them by Magna Charta, since they were equally free Englishmen with the people of England. Now it was conceded, and the great writ
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VIRGINIA: A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.
came, - Spotswood's letter of introduction. It was plain that he was not a new Berkeley looking to the King's good pleasure as his law, or a new Nicholson ready to imprison people or put halters around their necks ; but a respecter of human freedom and defender of the right. So the Burgesses passed him a vote of thanks ; appro- priated £2,000 to build him a " Palace ; " and the new Governor wrote home to England : "This government is in perfect peace and tranquillity, under a due obedi- ence to the royal authority, and a gentlemanly conform- ity to the Church of England."
A year afterwards came a tiff between the obstinate Burgesses and his equally obstinate Excellency. They were all hard-headed people and fought for their re- spective views. There was danger of a French invasion, and Spotswood, the soldier, advocated military organiza- tion. The Burgesses, ever jealous of the sword and purse, would not appropriate money ; and the Governor in high dudgeon dissolved them and appealed for supplies to England. But the Virginians saw plainly that Spots- wood's views were unselfish. He labored to develop the resources of the colony, and especially directed his energies to the production of iron. The first furnaces in America were built by his orders, and his ardor in the work procured him the name of the " Tubal Cain of Virginia." Wine-making was another of his projects, and he colonized German " vignerons," for that purpose, on the Rapidan at the lost town Germanna, near the present Germanna Ford.
Still another favorite scheme was to Christianize the Indians ; though the Virginians themselves seemed also to require religious instruction. Just before Spots- wood's arrival the worshipful Justice Shallows of Prin-
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THE TUBAL CAIN OF VIRGINIA.
cess Anne county, had directed the proper tests to be ap- plied to a certain Grace Sherwood, to ascertain whether she were not a witch. So the tests were duly applied by a jury of old women, and these hags having found the ambiguous verdict that she was "not like them," poor Grace Sherwood was " put into water " to drown, when she disappointed them by swimming. Thereat their worships, shaking their wise heads, ordered her to be secured in jail "by irons or otherwise ; " and the poor witch went away, weeping no doubt, to endure her punishment. This grotesque scene occurred in 1705; and the spot where the only Virginia witch was put into water is still known as the " Witch Duck."
In the spring of 1716 we find Spotswood going on a visit to his Indian school-mission on the Meherrin River. The place was called Fort Christanna, and was an old palisade mounted with cannon, where were " seventy- seven Indian children at school at a time at the Gov- ernor's sole expense, I think." They were taught to write, and read the Bible and Prayer-book. When the soldier ruler visits them the Indian elders gravely bow to him, laying presents of furs at his feet, and the young men and women make him their obeisances. The scene was picturesque. Sixty youths were present, with feathers in their hair and ears ; their faces painted with blue and vermilion ; and with blue and red blankets around their shoulders. The young women came next with " black hair reaching down to the waist, with a blanket tied around them and hanging down like a petti- coat ; most of them had nothing to cover them from the waist upward." They were " very modest and faithful to their husbands, straight and well-limbed, of good shape and extraordinary good features. They look wild
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and are mighty shy of an Englishman, and will not let you touch them." Snch is one of the last glimpses that we catch of these poor Indian people of tidewater Vir- ginia ; and it is good to have this picture of the "modest and faithful " descendants of the race of Pocahontas.
In this same year (1716), Governor Alexander Spots- wood set out on an expedition which much delighted the Virginians. There was a very great longing to visit the country beyond the Blue Ridge. That beautiful un- known land held out arms of welcome, and the Gov- ernor, who had in his character much of the spirit of the hunter and adventurer, resolved to go and explore it. Having assembled a party of good companions he set out in the month of August, and the gay company be- gan their march toward the Blue Ridge Mountains. The chronicler of the expedition describes the pictu- resque cavalcade followed by the pack-horses and ser- vants, - " rangers, pioneers, and Indians ;" how they stopped to hunt game ; bivouacked " under the canopy ; " laughed, jested, and regaled themselves with " Virginia wine, white and red, Irish usquebaugh, brandy, shrub, two kinds of rum, champagne, canary, cherry-punch, and cider." In due time they reached the Blue Ridge, probably near the present Swift Run Gap, and saw be- yond, the wild valley of the Shenandoah. On the sum- mit of the mountain they drank the health of the King, and named two neighboring peaks "Mt. George " and " Mt. Alexander," after his Majesty and the Governor; after which they descended into the valley and gave the Shenandoah the name of the " Euphrates." Here a bottle was buried - there were, no doubt, a number of empty ones, - containing a paper to testify that the valley of the Euphrates was taken possession of in the
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THE TUBAL CAIN OF VIRGINIA.
name of his Majesty George I. Then the adventurers reascended the mountain, crossed to the lowland, and returned to Williamsburg.
This picturesque incident of the time gave rise to the order of the " Knights of the Golden Horseshoe." The horses had been shod with iron, which was unu- sual, as a protection against the mountain roads ; and Spotswood sent to London and had made for his com- panions small golden horseshoes set with garnets and other jewels, and inscribed "Sic juvat transcendere montes." As the King declined to pay for them, Spotswood did so out of his own pocket, and one of them is still preserved, perpetuating the Virginia order of the "Knights of the Golden Horseshoe."
Spotswood was a man of force. Wherever he moved all eyes followed him, and men " came to order," as soldiers fall into line, at the word of command. He meant well and would be ruler. If there was a public sore anywhere he would probe it without mercy. He fought wrong-doers wherever he found them, and his heavy hand fell even on the worshipful House of Bur- gesses. They declined to make an appropriation to aid the Carolinians against the savages, alleging the public poverty ; when Spotswood burst into a rage against the obstructionists : -
" When you speak of poverty and engagements," he exclaimed, "you argue as if you knew the state of your own country no better than you do that of others ! If yourselves sincerely believe that it is reduced to the last degree of poverty, I wonder, the more, that you should reject propositions for lessening the charges of assemblies ; and that while each day of your sitting is so costly to your country, you should spend time so fruit.
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lessly ; for now, after a session of twenty-five days, three bills only have come from your House !"
Then, as the struggle goes on, the soldier-governor grows haughtier and haughtier. The worshipful Bur- gesses act upon him as the rowel acts on the flank of a restive horse. At last the moment comes when his Excellency will no longer tolerate these triflers. He fires a last shot at them before he charges and disperses them.
"To be plain with you" (ominous beginning !) " the true interest of your country is not what you have troubled your heads about. All your proceedings have been cal- culated to answer the notions of the ignorant populace ; and if you can excuse yourselves to them, you matter not how you stand before God, or any others to whom you think you owe not your elections. In fine, I cannot but attribute these miscarriages to the people's mis- taken choice of a set of representatives, whom Heaven has not generally endowed with the ordinary qualifica- tions requisite to legislators ; and therefore I dissolve · you!" With which few stinging remarks his Excellency turns his back ; and the legislators without ordinary qual- ifications, who trifle away their time, go back home - to be followed in due time by their noble descendants.
Spotswood's arm was as heavy as his pen and tongue were sharp. He was notified that the famous pirate, John Theach, nicknamed " Blackbeard," was cruising in the waters of Virginia and the Carolinas ; and he promptly sent two ships to attack and capture him. 'They found him in Pamlico Bay (November 21, 1718), and Lieutenant Maynard, commanding the Virginians, boarded the pirate, and a hand-to-hand fight followed. Black beard, who is drawn in old pictures with a belt
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THE TUBAL CAIN OF VIRGINIA.
studded with pistols, made a hard fight, since he knew what his defeat meant. He ordered one of his men to stand with a lighted match by the magazine, and blow ap friends and enemies at his signal. There was no explosion, but Blackbeard's career ended. He was shot and fell dead, when his crew surrendered ; and the Vir- ginians returned with the ghastly head of the bucca- neer stuck on a bowsprit. Thirteen of the pirates were hung at Williamsburg; and Blackbeard's skull, fash- ioned into a drinking-cup and rimmed with silver, is still preserved in Virginia.
The name of an afterwards celebrated person is con- nected with the capture of the pirates. A printer's apprentice in Boston wrote a ballad on Blackbeard's fate, which was sung about the streets ; and many years afterwards this apprentice, whose name was Benjamin Franklin, was appointed postmaster of Pennsylvania by Governor Spotswood, who had himself been ap- pointed Deputy Postmaster-General of the American Colonies.
The establishment in Virginia of this great engine of the modern world, the postal system, is a much more important event than the destruction of Blackbeard. Nearly up to the end of the seventeenth century letters were sent by private hands ; but in 1693 the Burgesses stirred in the matter. It was then enacted, that, since their Majesties by letters-patent had authorized Thomas Neale, Esquire, to "erect, settle, and establish within the chief ports of their several islands, colonies, and plantations in America, an office or offices for the re- ceiving and despatching away of letters and pacquets," if such offices were established in each county of Vir- ginia, Mr. Neale should receive " for the post of every
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letter not exceeding one sheet, or to or from any place not exceeding four-score English miles distance, three pence," and in proportion for additional weight and dis- tance. But this law was not to restrain merchants, masters, or others from sending letters by private hand to or from the colony.
Of the operation of the system there are no details for many years afterwards; but in 1738 it was fully established. In that year it was ordered by Postmaster General Spotswood that post-riders should be "at Sus- quehannah River" on Saturday nights to receive the Philadelphia mail; back at Annapolis on Monday ; on Tuesday night at the Potomac River ; on Wednesday at " New Post," a distributing office near Fredericks- burg ; and by Saturday night at Williamsburg, from which a post-rider carried the mails once a month to Edenton in North Carolina. Thus the time between the Susquehannah, where the northern mail was re- ceived, and Williamsburg, was just one week. It was not exactly a lightning express, but it was better than nothing. If Philadelphia had been destroyed by fire, the people of Williamsburg might have heard of it eight or ten days afterwards, though it was nearly three hun- dred miles distant ; which was something, and due to the energy of his Honor Postmaster- General Spots- wood.
Among the innumerable contests which marked the administration of the doughty ruler was his struggle with the vestries on the question of appointing minis- ters to the parishes. These old matters have lost their interest, but occasioned an uproar in their time. The obstinate Virginians would not yield their immemorial right of choosing and discarding their ministers ; de.
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THE TUBAL CAIN OF VIRGINIA.
clared resolutely against a Virginia bishop ; and made the conflict so hot that even the opinionated Spotswood adjourned the subject. The details relating to this dis- cussion and many more in which Spotswood engaged must be souglit in the old records. His willful spirit made liim few enemies ; he was seen to be a man of large views ; and the Virginians, though incessantly wrangling with him, still greatly respected him.
But it is the " Tubal Cain of Virginia " in his own home that most interests us. History lives in the men who make it, and the individuals are thus the first study, not only as they appear in public, but much more as they are in private and when taken unawares. We have this means of knowing the stern and haughty Spotswood ; and we find that he was the kindest of men, and so much in love with his wife that his friends laughed at him. Colonel William Byrd, of Westover, tells us all about him. That distinguished wit and ele- gant Cavalier of the eighteenth century, went to Ger- manna, and draws Spotswood's picture for us, laugh- ing at and admiring him. Let us go with the good " Master of Westover," who is excellent company. He sets out in his coach with wife and child, but soon gets to horse, and at last, in this September of 1732, threads the Spotsylvania " wilderness " and comes to Ger- manna on the Rapidan. It is the spot where the mar- tial Governor has colonized his " Germans of Pala- tines," sent over by her Majesty Queen Anne, to make wine and help in the iron business. The village is al- ready ancient and dismantled, for the Palatine people have moved further up the river. It is a " baker's dozen of ruinous tenements," with the remains of a chapel at the end of an avenue of cherry trees,
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which chapel " some pious people had lately burnt down with intent to get another built nearer to their own homes."
These words strike the key-note of the gay travel- er's memoir. He is nothing without his jest, which sparkles without regard to accuracy. For these Ger- mans of Palatines were excellent people, and remark- able for their true piety. Like the Huguenots, they infused an admirable element into Virginia society, - a brave and sturdy element which lingers still in their de- scendants ; among whom is a hardy soldier and ex-Gov- ernor of Virginia, - General Kemper. In this year, 1732, the Palatines have recently come over to the Rapidan, and the name " Germanna " points to the home land. Above the hamlet rise the walls of " Colonel Spotswood's enchanted castle;" and in the absence of that worthy, who is riding out, Lady Spotswood wel- comes the master of Westover in a room "elegantly set off with pier glasses," one of which comes to a quick end. A tame deer sees his reflection in it, darts at the sup- posed adversary, smashes the glass, and falls back on a table laden with china bric-a-brac, to the great fright of Lady Spotswood. She bears this disaster, however, with " moderation and good humor," and the Governor re- turns from his ride and warmly welcomes his guest. They sup at nine in the evening, and then " talk over a legion of old stories," Spotswood telling, it may be, of his wars under Marlborough. The ex-soldier is not a stern or martial man, however, in the bosom of his family. He smiles and relaxes, here in the woods of the Rapidan, forgetful of pirates and Burgesses. The wrinkles on the war-worn face are smoothed, and he is so "very uxorious and fond of his children," that hia
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THE TUBAL CAIN OF VIRGINIA.
old friend of Westover laughs at him; since his present matrimonial raptures are in direct conflict with the max- ims " he used to preach up before he was married." The Westover wit cannot "forbear from rubbing up the memory " of those former views ; but Spotswood " gave a very good-natured turn to his change of senti- ments by alleging that whoever brings a poor gentle- woman into so solitary a place from all lier friends and acquaintances, would be ungrateful not to use her with all possible tenderness."
Such is a glimpse of the two worthies, Byrd and Spotswood, at the " enchanted castle." A chance page draws their portraits, and we hear all the talk borne away long ago on the winds of the Rapidan. The worthy Governor had another residence on the banks of the Chesapeake, "Temple Farm," the former name of the Moore House, where, in October, 1781, the Revo- lution came to an end with the capitulation of Lord Cornwallis. Here he spent his last days after retir- ing from his post of Governor, enjoying the society of his dear family, riding out in " one of the handsomest and easiest chariots made in London ; " and respected by everybody. In 1740 he was commissioned Major- General and assigned to command the expedition to the West Indies, but he died suddenly (June 7, 1740), when he was about to embark. He was buried at Tem- ple Farm, where his grave was recently discovered with a fragment of the inscription on his tomb.
The name of Spotswood is greatly honored in Virginia, where his descendants still reside. He was an admira- ble type of the soldier and statesman combined, a ruler born, with the resolute will and strong brain which give
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the right to govern ; and, first and last, all his exertions were for the good of Virginia.
XXIII.
THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY.
VIRGINIA in these years was reaching out steadily past the mountains. The smiling valley of the Shenan- doah was becoming the home of brave settlers who car- ried civilization into this wild region, long the battle- ground, tradition said, of the Northern and Southern tribes of the continent. We have seen the first at- tempts to explore the country, the expedition of Batte in 1670, and the march of Spotswood in 1716. The impetus was thus given, and adventurous explorers fol- lowed the Knights of the Horse-shoe. The Virginians began to hold out longing arms toward the sweet fields along the Shenandoah ; and the wave of population, like a steadily rising tide, advanced up the lowland rivers, reached the mountains at last, and flowed over into the Valley of Virginia.
Cotemporary with or a few years before this lowland immigration, the region toward the Potomac had been settled by Scotch-Irish and Germans, who had come to Pennsylvania, and thence, attracted by the rumor of its fertility, passed on to the Shenandoah Valley. The exodus thither began about the year 1732. The Scotch- Irish, who were good Presbyterians, were the pioneers, and established their homesteads along the Opequon, from the Potomac to above what is now Winchester. As soon as they had built their houses they proceeded to build their churches ; and the "Tuscarora Meeting
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THE VIRGINIANS OF THE VALLEY.
House," near Martinsburg, and the "Opequon Church," a little south of Winchester, are, it is said, the oldest churches in the Valley of Virginia, - they are still standing.
The Germans followed closely. Joist Hite obtained forty thousand acres of land in the vicinity of Winches- ter ; and his thrifty Teutons built Strasburg and other towns along the Massinutton Mountain. To this day the Germans constitute an important element of the population, and in some places the language is spoken. It was an excellent class of immigrants. Everywhere was the appearance and the reality of thrift : well-kept fields, fat cattle, and huge red barns. " The Dutchman's barn," says Kercheval, the old historian, " was usually the best building on his farm. He was sure to erect a fine large barn before he built any other dwelling-house than his rude log cabin." They were an honest, merry people in their good Fatherland manner, keeping fes- tivals and enjoying themselves at weddings and other ceremonies. The groomsmen waited in "white aprons beautifully embroidered ; " and their duty was to protect the bride from having her slipper stolen from her foot ; and if any one succeeded in capturing it, the groomsmen must pay a bottle of wine for it, since the bride's dan- cing depended on it. These kindly Germans, says their historian, were generally of three religious sects, Lu- therans, Mennonists, and Calvinists, with a few Tunk- ers, or Dippers, who believed that immersion was the true forni of baptism. But they were not stern people. " Among the Lutherans and Calvinists, dancing, with other amusements, were common, and were sometimes kept up for weeks together." The "Irish Presby- terians " were no less merry, and celebrated their wed-
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