Fairport

“ I, John Forgie, Plumber, of Fairport, being of sound mind and sober, doth hereby promise, in the presence of Joseph Redhorn, Painter, Paperhanger and Decorator, also of Fairport, to solemnly abstain now and for evermore from all self-indulgence in all manner and species of intoxicating beverages, including Whisky, Brandy, Beer, Rum, Port, Sherry, &c., &c., &c. Given at Fairport on the 3rd day of March, 1913, A.D. Witness my hand and seal. God save the King. ”

“ Fairport is an excellent harbor, and affords a safe moorage for shipping.—Government has expended a considerable amount in extending its Piers several rods into the Lake, at the end of which a small Light House is now being finished to render the ingress of vessels more easy during the dark gales to which this Lake is subject. ”

“ He seems, in manner and rank, above the class of young men who take that turn; but I remember hearing them say, that the little theatre at Fairport was to open with the performance of a young gentleman, being his first appearance on any stage.—If this should be thee, Lovel!—Lovel? yes, Lovel or Belville are just the names which youngsters are apt to assume on such occasions—on my life, I am sorry for the lad." ”

“ His stay in Bayport was practically ended. Give him a little time and luck enough to find a competent manager for the Fair Harbor, one with whom he believed Judge Knowles would have been satisfied, and he was through for good. He must play fair with the judge and then—then for the shipping offices of Boston or New York 365 and a berth at sea. His health was almost normal; his battered limbs were nearly as sound as ever. He could handle a ship and he could handle men. His fights and sacrifices for others were finished, over and done with. Now he would fight for himself. ”

“ Farrell had spoken was certainly an ideal work-shop, the tennis-courts made those at the Newport Casino look like a ploughed field, and the swimming-pool, guarded by white pillars and overhung with grape-vines, was a cool and refreshing picture. As, hot and perspiring, I trudged back through Fairharbor, the memory of these haunted me. That they also tempted me, it is impossible to deny. But not for long. For, after passing through the elm-shaded streets to that side of the village that faced the harbor, I came upon the cottages I had seen from the New Bedford shore. ”

“ Antony asked himself the question whether this new country would be friendly to him, what would its spirit be toward him, [Pg 2] he asked this question of the cold winter air the city suddenly took reality and formed for him out of his dreams. Would it be kind or cruel? The coming days would answer: meanwhile he could wait. Some places, like some people whom we meet, at once extend to us a hand; there are some that even seem to offer an embrace. Through the car blew a sudden icy blast and New York's welcome to Fairfax was keen as a blow. ”

“ The boss was a Massachusetts man and new to Nut Street, and Fairfax, when he took the paper with his orders from Rainsford's hand, saw for the first time in months a man of his own class, sitting in the revolving chair before the desk where his papers and schedules and ledgers were filed. The man's clothes were too thin for the season, his linen was old and his appearance meagre, and in his face with its sunken cheeks, the drooping of the eyes and the thinness of the brow, were the marks of the sea of life and its waste, and the scars of the storm. ”

“ It is rather ironic that neither Lord Culpeper nor Lord Fairfax, who inherited his estate and for whom the County and Town were named, cared particularly for Virginia. Lord Culpeper came under duress and returned as soon as possible to England. Lord Fairfax came, according to tradition, only after he had been disappointed in love in England and because his holdings demanded his attention. The people struggled on, however, and gradually the wealthy land owners began to move northward to occupy the tracts of land upon which their grandfathers had speculated. ”

“ There are two black churches. There are three schools for elementary students, one junior high school, and one senior high school, and construction will begin soon for a college. There are three shopping centers, several apartment buildings, a medical center, two large telephone buildings, a library, and a bank. Extensive additions have been made to the original court house and an eight acre tract of land has been purchased on South Payne Street for the future Town Hall.
Fairfax is just one small example of the results of colonization. ”

“ As for Lord Fairfax, he was in high glee to learn what a valuable property he had across the hills, and especially how fine a country it was for hunting. He soon left Belvoir and made his home at Greenway Court, where he spent the remainder of his life. It was a very different life from that of112 his early days in the bustle of fashionable life in London, but it seemed to suit him as well or better.
One thing more we have to say about him. He was still living at Greenway Court when the Revolutionary War came on. A loyalist in grain, he bitterly opposed the rebellion of the colonists. ”

“ The Earl by this time had put on his clothes and had joined Lance and George.
"I think the door is giving way, sir," said George, quietly, to Lord Fairfax, as the sound of breaking timbers mingled with the screech of the savages.
"I know it, sir," added Lance, grimly. "We can keep the scoundrels out of the front door by stationing men in the half-story above, but there is no way of defending the kitchen door from the inside."
"How many Indians do you think you saw, George?" asked Lord Fairfax, as coolly as if he were asking the number of cabbages in a garden. ”

“ Lord Fairfax had taken up his residence at Greenway Court, thirteen miles southeast of the site of Winchester. A graduate of Oxford, accustomed to that society in England to which his rank entitled him, fond of literature, and having contributed some numbers to the Spectator, this nobleman, owing to a disappointment in love, had come to superintend his vast landed possessions, embracing twenty-one large counties, and live in the secluded Valley of the Shenandoah. Here Washington, the youthful surveyor, was a frequent inmate ”

“ On the way out to Versailles from the top of the tram, lifted high above Paris and the river, alongside of the vulgar head, alongside of the strange little English girl, Fairfax listened to the outpouring of her heart. She took his interest for granted. With an appreciative understanding of human nature, and as though she had been bearing a burden for years which she had never let slip, she rested it now, and her blue eyes on his, her hands in the old woollen gloves, which she had slipped on before they started, clasped in her lap, she talked to Fairfax. ”

“ A great man in both England and America was Lord Fairfax; he owned many estates in both countries, but his favorite was this of Belvoir, not only because of its great natural beauty, but because he liked the company of the Virginia planters, who joined a certain frankness and simplicity of life with all the charms of European refinement. ”

“ Other shots followed the first one and soldiers and spectators alike were seized with panic. Horses ran away, carriages overturned, women screamed and fainted, soldiers and spectators ran for their lives. It was every man for himself. "The roar of their flight was like the rush of a great river". Many of these people made their escape back through the Town of Fairfax, much to the amusement of citizens who had viewed Hunter's parade a few days before. ”

“ The mysterious lodger enclosed, moreover, a week's board in advance, but no address; nor had the coloured man any information for Nut Street, and a decided antipathy existed between George Washington and Mary Kenny. She was pale when she packed up Fairfax's belongings and cried into his trunk, as she laid the drawing of Bella Carew next to the unopened packet of his mother's treasures. She was unconscious of what sacred thing she touched, but she was cut to the heart, as was poor Falutini. Peter Rainsford, who had not gone far in his friendship with the elusive Fairfax, was only disappointed. ”

“ In an iron-bound chest, carried up from the sloop, and placed in the room assigned to Fairfax for the night. He considers it perfectly safe under his bed. But before we attempt reaching this, we must attend to those men left below on the boat. They are the only dangerous ones, for there are none of the fighting sort up above. Only two servants sleep in the main house, the cook, and a maid, both women. The others are in the slave quarters, a half mile away. Fairfax is vigorous, and will put up a fight, if he has any chance. He must be taken care of, before he does have any. ”

“ Fairfax looked at me searchingly, “Where’ll I get my supper?”
“Why, they usually have the church suppers out on the church green unless it rains, and then they go down to the basement rooms.”
Fairfax said apathetically, “No’m, they don’t want me.”
I saw now what was in his mind, and said, to set him right, “Oh, yes, they do. You know the people around here haven’t any of those notions. Come on.” ”

“ I set Fairfax down and he gave himself a shake and trotted back to Aunt Myra and Elise, waving his tail in triumph. Fairfax never acknowledges defeat; he is very exasperating.
The porter took us out to our cab and the station returned to its normal condition. Aunt Myra had several things to say about Fairfax on the way across town and several things to say about me. The undignified, unladylike manner in which I had raced around a public railroad station was mortifying in the extreme.
“Well, someone had to do it,” I said. “Elise hasn't the first instinct of a sportsman. ”

“ Fairfield, had embarked on a New York steamer, and would be expected home within a short time. When Captain Fairfield heard the good news he made arrangements not to return with his vessel to Glasgow but await the arrival of his long lost wife. He telegraphed to the agents in New York, desiring them to deliver a telegram at once to Mrs. Fairfield on her arrival. The message read thus: “Mrs. Capt. Fairfield is wanted in Montreal immediately. Important business. Answer.” In two days we had an answer which read: “Will start at once, hope all well, Agnes Fairfield.” ”

“ The iron gates were closed; within stretched the shining rows of the houses and palaces of the dead, and on their snowy portals and their marble doors fell the first tender glimmer of the day. Holding the gate between his convulsive hands, staring in as though he begged an entrance as a lodger, Fairfax saw rise before him the angel with the benign uplifting hand, and the lettering, large and clear, seemed written that day for him as much as for any man—
"Why seek ye the living among the dead?" ”

“ William Fairfax, father-in-law of Lawrence Washington—a gentleman who had attained social, political and military prominence in England, and in the East and West Indies. He had come to Virginia to take charge of the enormous 63estate of his cousin, Lord Fairfax, which, according to the original grant from the crown, was “for all the lands between the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers.” This grant had been very liberally construed to include a large part of the land drained by affluents of these streams, embracing a considerable portion of the Shenandoah valley. ”

“ But with the females—ah, there it was different.
"He was one of them kind, they tell me," said Judah. "One of them smooth, slick, buttery kind of fellers that draws womenfolks same as molasses draws flies. Hailed from Philadelphy he did. I used to know a good many Philadelphy folks myself once. Why, one time——"
The captain broke in to head off the Philadelphia reminiscence. Brought back to Bayport and Egbert and Lobelia, Judah went on to tell what more he knew of the Fair Harbor beginnings. ”

“ George and Sally Fairfax settled in Bath in a red-brown sandstone house at 11 Lansdown Crescent, where they became a part of the gay parties taking the waters at the Pump Room and attending assembly balls in the fashion of Jane Austen's most aristocratic characters. Friendly letters went back and forth between Bath and Mount Vernon. After the Revolution, Fairfax wrote to Washington: "I glory in being called an American," regretted his inability to contribute to the "glorious cause of Liberty" and offered his "best thanks for all your exertions ... ”

“ The ringing of the bells, the crying note of the whistles, had become musical to Fairfax.
There was no reason why he should not marry the Irish girl who doled out coffee to railroad hands.... Was there none? The figure of his mother rose before him, beautiful, proud, ambitious Mrs. Fairfax. She was waiting for his brilliant success, she was waiting to crown [Pg 118] him when he should bring his triumphs home. The ugly yards blurred before his eyes, he almost fancied that a spray of jasmine blew across the pane. ”

“ The great annual resort to Fairlop Fair is so well known for twenty miles around, that it is needless to say more on the subject than that in point of the number of persons who go to it, and in accomodations and articles for sale, it is not inferior to any fair near the metropolis, excepting that it is only of one day’s duration. Seven and twenty years have now elapsed since the famous Fairlop Oak ceased to attract the attention of the holiday-makers, but the mirth and festivity, gypsying, archery, donkey-riding, swinging, &c. are still to be witnessed to a great extent. ”

“ His models were, a mannequin, his studies of Molly Fairfax, and once the daughter of the man who rented him the workshop stood before him draped in the long garment; but he sent her away: she was too living for his use. He ate in little cheap restaurants down by the riverside, or cooked himself coffee and eggs over his lamp, and wondered who would be the first to break the silence and isolation, for it was six weeks before he saw a single human being save those he passed in the street. ”