C. Malcolm Watkins

“ THE DEATH OF MARLBOROUGH AS A TOWN
Could this poor village have survived had the courthouse not burned? It was an unhappy contrast to the vision of a town governed by “benchers of the guild hall,” bustling with mercantile activity, swarming on busy market days with ordinaries filled with people. This fantasy may have pulsated briefly through the minds of a few. But, after the abrogation of the Port Act in 1710, there was little left to justify the town’s existence other than the courthouse. ”

“ There remained only level acres of grass, clover, and grain where once a poor village had been erected and where John Mercer’s splendid estate had risen with its Palladian mansion, its gardens, warehouses, and tobacco fields. Even in the early 19th century the tobacco plantation, especially in northern Virginia, had become largely a thing of the past. Within the memory of men still alive, the one structure still standing from Mercer’s time was the windmill. Except for the present-day fringe of modern houses, Marlborough must look today much as it did after its abandonment and disintegration. ”

“ In so becoming, it was typical of the consolidation of wealth, property, and power in Virginia as the mid-century approached. Land had become both a substitute for tobacco in lean years and the means for paying off debts. The same land in better years yielded crops to its new owners, so that a relatively few dynamic men were able to amass great wealth and form a ruling aristocracy. The varieties of talents in men like Mercer—who, besides being a planter, was an accomplished lawyer and able administrator—placed them in the ascendancy over their less able fellows. ”

“ Mercer’s Consolidation of Marlborough, 1730-1740 MERCER THE YOUNG LAWYER
The 1730’s opened a golden age in the Virginia colony. There was an interval of peace in which trade might flourish; there were new laws which favored the tobacco planter and led to the building of resplendent mansions along Virginia’s shores. John Mercer wasted no time in grasping the opportunities that lay about him. With shrewd foresight he made law his major objective, thus raising himself above most of his contemporaries. ”

“ That they included no lawbooks at a time when Mercer was preparing for the law is an indication of his broad taste for literature and learning.
Marlborough, we can see, was occupied by a young man of talent, energy, and creativity. He alone, of the many men who had envisioned a center of enterprise on Potomac Neck, was possessed of the drive and the simple directness to make it succeed. For George Mason and the Waughs, Mercer was the ideal solution for their Marlborough difficulties. ”

“ In this seeming anomaly Marlborough is a true illustration of its age, when men like Mercer were strong individuals but at the same time typifying and expressing the milieu in which they lived.
Mercer’s rise to wealth and leadership occurred at a time when favorable laws held out the promise of prosperity, while boundless lands offered unparalleled opportunities for investment. ”

“ Mercer was designated co-guardian of 10-year-old George Mason IV, who came to live at Marlborough. Young George later grew up to be the master of Gunston Hall and, as the author of the Virginia Bill of Rights, to stand among the intellectuals whose ideas influenced the Revolution and the framing of the Constitution. In these formative years, young George Mason surely must have been affected by the strong legal mind and cultivated tastes of his uncle. ”

“ The 17th-century wisdom of William Fitzhugh and Robert Beverley in seeking to lead the colony away from complete dependence upon tobacco was apparent to those who would remember. Marlborough, although still technically a town, was now in reality a tobacco plantation, and Mercer, despite his status as a lawyer, was as irretrievably committed to the success or failure of tobacco as was Fitzhugh 70 years earlier. ”

“ But with neither courthouse nor port activity nor manufacture, the town became a paradox in an economy and society of planters.
Remote and inaccessible, uninhabited by individuals whose skills could have given it vigor, Marlborough no longer had any reason for being. It lingered on for a short time, but when John Mercer came to transform the abandoned village into a flourishing plantation, “Most of the other Buildings were suffered to go to Ruin, so that in the year 1726, when your Petitioner [i.e., Mercer] went to live there, but one House twenty-feet square was standing.” ”

“ Indeed, he explained his feeling that those who possessed architectural skills “were more beneficial members of society, and more likely to make a fortune, with credit, than the young Gentlemen of those times, who wore laced jackets attended for improvement at ordinaries, horse races, cock matches, and gaming tables.” Motivated by this honest sense of values, forged in the experience of a self-made man, Mercer proceeded to bind James “apprentice to Mr. Waite, a master carpenter and undertaker (of Alexandria) , who covenanted to instruct him in all the different branches of that business. ”

“ The ceramics and glass are the most readily datable artifacts, and these coincide almost altogether with the period of John Mercer’s lifetime. Common earthenwares are predominantly Tidewater and Buckley types, with a scattering of others, most of which are recurrent among other Virginia and Maryland historic-site artifacts. No distinct type emerges to suggest that there may have been a local Stafford potter. Common stonewares occur in such a variety of types that no source or date can be attributed, although there is some evidence of the work of William Rogers’ shop in Yorktown. ”

“ Origins of Marlborough ESTABLISHING THE PORT TOWNS
The dependence of 17th-century Virginia upon the single crop—tobacco—was a chronic problem. A bad crop year or a depressed English market could plunge the whole colony into debt, creating a chain reaction of overextended credits and failures to meet obligations. Tobacco exhausted the soil, and soil exhaustion led to an ever-widening search for new land. This in turn brought about population dispersal and extreme decentralization. ”

“ His talent was noticed by William Bromley, the master joiner on the mansion house, who told Mercer that James “had a most extraordinary turn to mechanicks.” On the strength of this, Mercer decided that James should become a master carpenter or joiner, then synonymous with “architect.” In America in 1753 professional architects, as we know them, did not exist; gentlemen, some very talented, designed and drafted, while skilled joiners or carpenters followed general directions, executing, engineering, and inventing as they went along. ”

“ The 1771 inventory is in some ways a more significant summary of 18th-century plantation equipment than are the artifacts found at Marlborough, since its list of tools is longer than the list of tool artifacts and is pin-pointed in time. However, artifacts define themselves concretely and imply far more of such matters as workmanship, suitability to purpose, source of origin, or design and form, than do mere names. ”

“ In Mercer’s concern with the Ohio Company and westward expansion they reflect a colony-wide trend as population increased and the need grew for more arable land and areas in which to invest and escape from economic limitations. They show that the war with the French inevitably ensued, with its demands on income and manpower, while following this came the enforcement of trade laws and the immediate irritants which led to rebellion. So Marlborough gives a sharp reflection of Virginia’s history prior to the Revolution. ”

“ Within the garden was the summerhouse built by Mercer in 1765. From the east windows and steps of the house and from the garden could be seen the Potomac, curving towards the bay, and the flailing “drivers” of the windmill near the Potomac shore.
The excavated and written records of Marlborough are a microcosm of Virginia colonial history. They depict the emergence of central authority in the 17th [Pg 179] century in the establishment of the port town as a device to diversify the economy and control the collecting of duties. ”

“ SAILING, FISHING, HUNTING
Water transportation was essential to all the planters, most of whom owned sloops. We have seen that Mercer used a sloop for his earliest trading activities before he settled at Marlborough, and it is apparent that in the 1740’s either this same sloop or another which may have replaced it still was operated by him. Hauling tobacco to Cave’s warehouse, picking up a barrel of rum in Norfolk or a load of lumber on the Eastern Shore were vital to the success of the plantation. ”

“ Marlborough’s beginnings as a town in 1691 cast the shape that has endured in a few vestiges even until today. The original survey of Bland and Buckner remains as evidence, and by it we are led to believe that the courthouse was located near the “Gutt” to the west of the town, near a change of course that affected the western boundary and all the north-south streets west of George Andrews’ lots. Archeological excavation in the area disclosed Structure B, which subsequent evidence proved to be the foundation of Mercer’s mansion, built at the pinnacle of his career between 1746 and 1750. ”

“ The Virginia colonists’ dream of corporate communities was not to be realized.
Most of the towns either died entirely or struggled on as crossroads villages. A meager few have survived to the present, notably Norfolk, Hampton, Yorktown, and Tappahannock. Marlborough lasted as a town until about 1720, but in about 1718 the courthouse and several dwellings were destroyed by fire and “A new Court House being built at another Place, all or most of the Houses that had been built in the said Town, were either burnt or suffered to go to ruin.” ”

“ In the failure of the town, they demonstrate also the failure of colonial government to overcome the tyranny of tobacco and the restrictive policies of the mother country. They go on to show in great detail the emergence in the 18th century of a familiar American theme—the self-directed rise of an individual from obscure beginnings to high professional rank, social leadership, personal wealth, and cultural influence. They demonstrate in Mercer’s career the inherent defects of the tobacco economy as indebtedness mounted and economic strains stiffened. ”

“ The physical relationship of the kitchen to the main house in Virginia plantations was dictated in part by convenience and in part by the Palladian plans that governed the architecture of colonial mansions. Structure E’s relationship to Structure B is representative of that existing between most kitchens and their main buildings. Mount Vernon, Stratford, Blandfield, Nomini Hall, Rosewell, and many other plantations have, or had, kitchens located at points diagonal to the house and on axes at right angles to them. ”

“ Some 200 feet west of the turn in the highway around the clump of trees, is a deep gully (or “gutt” in 17th-century terminology) that extends northward from Potomac Creek almost as far as the intersecting road that passes the site of the Indian village. This gully is overgrown with trees and brush, and it forms a natural barrier that divides the lower portion of the point into two parts. A few well-spaced modern houses fringe the shores of the point, while the flat land behind the houses is given over almost entirely to cultivation. ”

“ Subsequent construction against the sandstone slabs had covered their surfaces with a rubble of brick and mortar that appeared to be the foundation for masonry steps (fig. 35) . Projecting out from the southwest corner of the foundation was a rectangular red-sandstone block which appeared to be the corner of these superimposed steps. Although situated under the driveway, it was apparent by projection that Wall B-I joined the southwest corner of Wall C. It will be demonstrated from surviving records that Wall C, with its connecting sections, was the foundation of a full-length veranda. ”

“ Aside from being elongated, Marlborough derives from the ubiquitous informal brick cottage of Virginia. So indigenous is this vernacular form that it is often found in houses of considerable pretension, even in the 18th century. Such are the Abingdon glebe house in Gloucester County, Gunston Hall in Fairfax, and the Chiswell Plantation, known as “Scotchtown,” in Hanover. Robert Beverley noted the Virginians’ fondness for this style, commenting that they built many rooms on a floor because frequent high winds would “incommode a towering Fabrick”—an explanation as delightful as it is absurd. ”

“ James Mercer died on May 23, 1791. In 1799 the Potomac Neck properties were advertised for sale or rent by John Francis Mercer in The Examiner for September 6. We learn from it that there were overseer’s houses, Negro quarters and cornhouses, and that “the fertility of the soil is equal to any in the United States, besides which the fields all lay convenient to banks (apparently inexhaustible) of the richest marle, which by repeated experiments made there, is found to be superiour to any other manure whatever.” ”