Williamsburg, Virginia

“ Small gold and silver bodkins were used by the wives of the planters for the purpose of keeping the headdress in place.
Plantation life towards the end of the century, as at an earlier date, gave few opportunities even for the most moderate display. There were no towns where, as at Williamsburg in the following century, the families of the leading citizens of the Colony might gather at certain seasons and show off in considerable state the contemporaneous fashions. ”

“ The fact that the "Surgeon of the Colony" had moved to Middle Plantation was a convincing argument in favor of its healthfulness. Surveys were quickly made and new homes erected so that there grew up around "Harop" a village which was later given the name of Williamsburg, where in 1693 the College of William and Mary was founded under royal patronage.
Williamsburg, first the habitation of Dr. Pott, became the capital of Virginia in 1698, and here her lawmakers assembled until the exigencies of the Revolution made it advisable to transfer the seat of government to Richmond, in 1779. ”

“ Since Williamsburg was the capital of the colony of Virginia, during legislative sessions the playhouse was particularly crowded with important personages of the government and their friends. George Washington enjoyed dramatic presentations very much and on numerous occasions visited the Williamsburg Playhouse. Just before the American Revolution, however, as political, economic and social relationships between the Americans and the British were being severely strained, most forms of entertainment including the playhouse were prohibited. ”

“ In crossing a river, Washington fell from the raft into deep water, amid the floating ice, but fought his way out, and he and his companion passed the night on an island, with their clothes frozen upon them. So through peril and privation, and various dangers, stopping in the midst of it all to win another savage potentate, they reached the edge of the settlements and thence went on to Williamsburg, where great praise and glory were awarded to the youthful envoy, the hero of the hour in the little Virginia capital. ”

“ There was planned and builded Williamsburg, which was to be for nearly a hundred years the capital of Virginia. It was named for King William, and there was in the minds of some loyal colonists the notion, eventually abandoned, of running the streets in the lines of a huge W and M. The long main street was called Duke of Gloucester Street, for the short-lived son of that Anne who was soon to become Queen. At one end of this thoroughfare stood a fair brick capitol. ”

“ They live, he says, “in the same neat manner, dress after the same modes, and behave themselves exactly as the gentry of London; most families of any note having their coach, chariot, Berlin or chaise, and dwelling,” as he finally says, “comfortably, genteelly, pleasantly, and plentifully in this delightful, healthful, and (I hope) thriving city of Williamsburg.”
Cooke, in his “History of the People of Virginia,” describes Williamsburg at about the middle of the last century in the winter as the scene of much that was [Pg 29] brilliant and attractive in Virginia society. ”

“ The inhabitants have not yet recovered from the disturbances of war, and many houses are still in ruins or half repaired. The spars of the ships sunk in the river to block the passage are yet to be seen. We returned the same day to Williamsburg, to set out the next morning for the South. Seven miles from Williamsburg, on the Southern road, we came to James River, and after much delay were obliged to turn back to Williamsburg because of an unfavorable wind at the ferry. ”

“ Yet, even though there was such rout and revel at Williamsburg and kindred towns, it was in the houses of the great planters that one saw the true Virginia social existence, that one found the Virginia woman of the time in her truest apparition. Under the influences of the coming of the Cavaliers and the Huguenots--for the descendants of the latter perpetuated the restless gaiety of their forsaken land rather than the austerities of the faith which had been the cause of their exile--there had arisen in Virginia something of a cult of the social function. ”

“ On the 15th of May 1776, the Virginia Convention in session here passed resolutions urging the Continental Congress to declare for Independence. In 1779 Richmond became the seat of the state government, and in 1832 fire destroyed the last of the old capitol at Williamsburg with the exception of the foundations, which since 1897 have been cared for by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities. In the Peninsula campaign of the Civil War the Battle of Williamsburg was fought on the 5th of May 1862 on the south-eastern outskirts of the city. ”

“ Eleven advertisements placed in Williamsburg’s weekly newspaper, the Virginia Gazette, from 1768 to 1783, remain the sole evidence of the business venture of Robert Gilbert, boot and shoemaker. The story they tell reveals the hazards faced by most craftsmen in eighteenth-century Williamsburg: debts piling up, excess stock on hand, shortage of capable and reliable help, and a market that dried up when the capital moved to Richmond in 1780. ”

“ On the morning of the 21st, the people of Williamsburg learned what the Governor had done during the night and were vastly excited. An incredible wave of fury spread through the Colony and everywhere men took up arms. All the pent up passion of the past months was turned against the unfortunate Governor.
April 28, 1775. At the height of the excitement over the powder magazine affair, news came from the northward that colonials had engaged British regulars at Concord and Lexington. ”

“ The works were repaired, and the fort was now named Fort Pitt. An important city, called after the same illustrious statesman, has been reared near the spot. General Forbes, whose health had been declining during the campaign, died shortly afterwards at Philadelphia. He was a native of Scotland, and was educated as a physician; was an estimable and brave man, and of fine military talents.
Burnaby, who visited Virginia about this time, in describing Williamsburg, mentions the governor's palace as the only tolerably good public building. The streets being unpaved are dusty, the soil being sandy. ”

“ This trade employed two hundred ships, and yielded his majesty's treasury a revenue of upwards of £300,000, in time of peace. Jamestown at this time contained several brick houses, with sundry taverns and eating-houses,—sixty or seventy houses in all. Williamsburg or Williamstadt contained twenty or thirty houses. There was a fort or battery erected there mounting ten or twelve guns. Governor Nicholson caused several streets to be laid out in the form of a W, in honor of King William the Third, but a V or one angle of it was not as yet completed, and the plan appears to have been given up. ”

“ Williamsburg, 20th August, 1716.—In the morning got my horses ready, and what baggage was necessary, and I waited on the [Pg 28] Governor who was in readiness for an expedition over the Appalachian mountains. We breakfasted and about ten got on horseback, and, at four came to the Brickhouse, upon York River, where we crossed the ferry and at six came to Mr. Austin Moore’s house [13] on Mattapony River, in King William County; here we lay all night and were well entertained. ”

“ There was great excitement in Williamsburg when the delegates arrived to take their seats in the Hall of Burgesses for the opening of the convention. The crowds which filled the gallery must have pointed out each distinguished member as he entered—the aged Richard Bland; George Mason, his black hair now showing a touch of gray; Patrick Henry, in the plain garb he always wore; Richard Henry Lee, who had been called from Congress by the illness of his wife; James Madison, a small delicate young man, widely known as a scholar and political thinker ”

“ In the seventeenth century, the English rural homestead was usually placed along the great Bay, the Chesapeake, or upon one of its tidewater tributaries. Back of such a seat, or on either side of it, there stretched the outhouses, generally arranged in rows or around courtyards. The water served as the principal highway, and the plantation depended upon it. Certain Indian paths, it is true, were turned into narrow lanes for carts, in order to reach the interior, like the oldest "road" in Virginia, which, as we have seen, extended from Jamestown to Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg. ”

“ Whereas we are apprehensive, and this we think upon good grounds, that violent measures may produce effects which God only knows the consequence of." [609:A]
Upon this reply being reported to the volunteers at Fredericksburg, styled "The friends of constitutional liberty in America," they declared that it was dictated by fear, and resolved to march at all events to Williamsburg, under command of Captain Hugh Mercer, who was eager to redress the indignity which Virginia had suffered at the hands of the governor. ”

“ Williamsburg and Norfolk. By 1800, only six additional towns were incorporated: Alexandria, Winchester, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Petersburg and York (Yorktown) . Yorktown is the only town incorporated before 1800 which has not become a city.
A unique characteristic about cities in Virginia is the fact that an incorporated city is politically separate from the county in which it is geographically located. ”

“ The assembly appointed a committee to revise the laws of Virginia; it consisted of Peyton Randolph, Philip Ludwell, Beverley Whiting, Carter Burwell, and Benjamin Waller. During this year the vestries were authorized to make presentation to benefices, an act which Bishop Sherlock complained of as a serious encroachment on the rights of the crown.
Dissent from the established church began to develope itself in Virginia. In 1740 the celebrated Whitefield, then about twenty-six years of age, preached at Williamsburg, by the invitation of Commissary Blair. ”

“ In this connection, the oldest "road" in Virginia, called by the English "the Greate Road," which ran from James City to Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg, was at first—at least in the Jamestown-Pasbyhayes section of it—an Indian pathway. In the beginning the English called it a "bridle" path.
The open-air ceremonial centers, to which the English gave the name of "Dancing Grounds," played an important part in Indian life. To the native the art of dancing was essential to his religion. ”

“ The population, in proportion to its numbers, was very widely distributed. It was not collected in groups, after the fashion with which we are now familiar, for then there were no cities or towns in Virginia. The only place which could pretend to either name was Norfolk, the solitary seaport, which, with its six or seven thousand inhabitants, formed the most glaring exception that any rule solicitous of proof could possibly desire. Williamsburg, the capital, was a straggling village, somewhat overweighted with the public buildings and those of the college. ”

“ As you are aware my sister reached Washington to meet me at Williamsburg October 12th, but her heart made her realize the effort would be more than she could endure, and that home was her safety. She, however, attended the next meeting of the order November 15th, where she died with her friends, presiding over a society that honored her with its highest gift, "Daughters of the Founders and Patriots of the State of New York," could bestow. ”

“ It kept Washington young and strong, both mentally and physically. When he was forty he flung the iron bar, at some village sports, to a point which no competitor could approach. There was no man in all Virginia who could ride a horse with such a powerful and assured seat. There was no one who could journey farther on foot, and no man at Williamsburg who showed at the governor's receptions such a commanding presence, or who walked with such a strong and elastic step. ”

“ Spotswood was one of the ablest Governors sent to America to represent the British Crown. He did much to open the West to Virginia, encouraged settlement in the Piedmont, and erected forts in the passes of the Blue Ridge. He wiped out a nest of pirates under the notorious Blackbeard and strung several of them up at Williamsburg. A man of artistic interests, he was responsible for the beautiful Palace gardens, with their wealth of boxwood, walks, walls, lake, ornate gates, flower beds; and designed charming Bruton Parish Church. ”

“ Despite their revolutionary activities, the members of the Assembly maintained cordial relations with the Governor. When Lady Dunmore joined her husband earlier in the spring, she was greeted with cheers by the people of Williamsburg. On May 26, the Burgesses gave a ball and entertainment in the Capitol in her honor. My lady seems to have been a most graceful dancer. When she and the Governor visited Norfolk where a ball was given them, the city authorities sent to Princess Anne [Pg 240] County for Colonel Moseley to come "with his famous wig and shining buckles" to dance the minuet with her. ”

“ Williamsburg, begun in 1706.
2. All the styles of architecture, both American Indian and English, which flourished in the seventeenth century carried over—hung over—into the eighteenth century, and even into the nineteenth century.
The Georgian Style, of course, was actually English Georgian—Georgian of England—and in Virginia it prevailed from the 1710s to the 1780s—a span of some seventy years. It ushered into the Old Dominion a rage for ballrooms, such as that in the "Governor's Palace," theatres, tea tables, and china. ”