The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia
by C. Malcolm Watkins · English · Gutenberg #40255 · 629,345 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia
Author: C. Malcolm Watkins
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SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM
[Illustration]
BULLETIN 253
WASHINGTON, D.C.
1968
The Cultural History
of Marlborough, Virginia
An Archeological and Historical Investigation
of the
Port Town for Stafford County and the
Plantation of John Mercer, Including Data
Supplied by Frank M. Setzler and Oscar H. Darter
C. MALCOLM WATKINS
CURATOR OR CULTURAL HISTORY
MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION PRESS
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION · WASHINGTON, D.C. · 1968
_Publications of the United States National Museum_
The scholarly and scientific publications of the United States National
Museum include two series, _Proceedings of the United States National
Museum_ and _United States National Museum Bulletin_.
In these series, the Museum publishes original articles and monographs
dealing with the collections and work of its constituent museums--The
Museum of Natural History and the Museum of History and
Technology--setting forth newly acquired facts in the fields of
anthropology, biology, history, geology, and technology. Copies of each
publication are distributed to libraries, to cultural and scientific
organizations, and to specialists and others interested in the different
subjects.
The _Proceedings_, begun in 1878, are intended for the publication, in
separate form, of shorter papers from the Museum of Natural History.
These are gathered in volumes, octavo in size, with the publication date
of each paper recorded in the table of contents of the volume.
In the _Bulletin_ series, the first of which was issued in 1875, appear
longer, separate publications consisting of monographs (occasionally in
several parts) and volumes in which are collected works on related
subjects. _Bulletins_ are either octavo or quarto in size, depending on
the needs of the presentation. Since 1902 papers relating to the
botanical collections of the Museum of Natural History have been
published in the _Bulletin_ series under the heading _Contributions from
the United States National Herbarium_, and since 1959, in _Bulletins_
titled "Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology," have
been gathered shorter papers relating to the collections and research of
that Museum.
This work forms volume 253 of the _Bulletin_ series.
FRANK A. TAYLOR
_Director, United States National Museum_
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing
Office
Washington, D.C. 20402--Price $3.75
Contents
_Page_
Preface vii
HISTORY 3
I. Official port towns in Virginia and origins of
Marlborough 5
II. John Mercer's occupation of Marlborough, 1726-1730 15
III. Mercer's consolidation of Marlborough, 1730-1740 21
IV. Marlborough at its ascendancy, 1741-1750 27
V. Mercer and Marlborough, from zenith to decline,
1751-1768 49
VI. Dissolution of Marlborough 61
ARCHEOLOGY AND ARCHITECTURE 65
VII. The site, its problem, and preliminary tests 67
VIII. Archeological techniques 70
IX. Wall system 71
X. Mansion foundation (Structure B) 85
XI. Kitchen foundation (Structure E) 101
XII. Supposed smokehouse foundation (Structure F) 107
XIII. Pits and other structures 111
XIV. Stafford courthouse south of Potomac Creek 115
ARTIFACTS 123
XV. Ceramics 125
XVI. Glass 145
XVII. Objects of personal use 155
XVIII. Metalwork 159
XIX. Conclusion 173
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 175
XX. Summary of findings 177
Appendixes 181
A. Inventory of George Andrews, Ordinary Keeper 183
B. Inventory of Peter Beach 184
C. Charges to account of Mosley Battaley 185
D. "Domestick Expenses," 1725 186
E. John Mercer's reading, 1726-1732 191
F. Credit side of John Mercer's account with Nathaniel
Chapman 193
G. Overwharton Parish account 194
H. Colonists identified by John Mercer according to
occupation 195
I. Materials listed in accounts with Hunter and Dick,
Fredericksburg 196
J. George Mercer's expenses while attending college 197
K. John Mercer's library 198
L. Botanical record and prevailing temperatures, 17 209
M. Inventory of Marlborough, 1771 211
Index 213
List of Illustrations
Figure
John Mercer's Bookplate 1
Survey plates of Marlborough 2
Portrait of John Mercer 3
The Neighborhood of John Mercer 4
King William Courthouse 5
Mother-of-pearl counters 6
John Mercer's Tobacco-cask symbols 7
Wine-bottle seal 8
French horn 9
Hornbook 10
Fireplace mantels 11
Doorways 12
Table-desk 13
Archeological survey plan 14
Portrait of Ann Roy Mercer 15
Advertisement of the services of Mercer's stallion Ranter 16
Page from Maria Sibylla Merian's _Metamorphosis Insectorum
Surinamensium efte Veranderung Surinaamsche Insecten_ 17
Aerial Photograph of Marlborough 18
Highway 621 19
Excavation plan of Marlborough 20
Excavation plan of wall system 21
Looking north 22
Outcropping of stone wall 23
Junction of stone Wall A 24
Looking north in line with Walls A and A-II 25
Wall A-II 26
Junction of Wall A-I 27
Wall E 28
Detail of Gateway in Wall E 29
Wall B-II 30
Wall D 31
Excavation plan of Structure B 32
Site of Structure B 33
Southwest corner of Structure B 34
Southwest corner of Structure B 35
South wall of Structure B 36
Cellar of Structure B 37
Section of red-sandstone arch 38
Helically contoured red-sandstone 39
Cast-concrete block 40
Dressed red-sandstone block 41
Fossil-embedded black sedimentary stone 42
Foundation of porch at north end of Structure B 43
Plan of mansion house 44
The Villa of "the magnificent Lord Leonardo Emo" 45
Excavation plan of Structure E 46
Foundation of Structure E 47
Paved floor of Room X, Structure E 48
North wall of Structure E 49
Wrought-iron slab 50
Excavation plan of structures north of Wall D 51
Structure F 52
Virginia brick from Structure B 53
Structure D 54
Refuse found at exterior corner of Wall A-II and Wall D 55
Excavation plan of Structure H 56
Structure H 57
1743 drawing showing location of Stafford courthouse 58
Enlarged detail from figure 58 59
Excavation plan of Stafford courthouse foundation 60
Hanover courthouse 61
Plan of King William courthouse 62
Tidewater-type pottery 63
Miscellaneous common earthenware types 64
Buckley-type high-fired ware 65
Westerwald stoneware 66
Fine English stoneware 67
English Delftware 68
Delft plate 69
Delft plate 70
Whieldon-type tortoiseshell ware 71
Queensware 72
Fragment of Queensware 73
English white earthenwares 74
Polychrome Chinese porcelain 75
Blue-and-white Chinese porcelain 76
Blue-and-white Chinese porcelain 77
Wine bottle 78
Bottle seals 79
Octagonal spirits bottle 80
Snuff bottle 81
Glassware 82
Small metalwork 83
Personal miscellany 84
Cutlery 85
Metalwork 86
Ironware 87
Iron door and chest hardware 88
Tools 89
Scythe 90
Farm gear 91
Illustration
Front and back cast-concrete block 1 and 2
Iron tie bar 3
Cross section of plaster cornice molding from
Structure B 4
Reconstructed wine bottle 5
Fragment of molded white salt-glazed platter 6
Iron bolt 7
Stone scraping tool 8
Indian celt 9
Milk pan 10
Milk pan 11
Ale mug 12
Cover of jar 13
Base of bowl 14
Handle of pot lid or oven door 15
Buff-earthenware cup 16
High-fired earthenware pan rim 17
High-fired earthenware jar rim 18
Rim and base profiles of high-fired earthenware jars 19
Base sherd from unglazed red-earthenware water cooler 20
Rim of an earthenware flowerpot 21
Base of gray-brown, salt-glazed-stoneware ale mug 22
Stoneware jug fragment 23
Gray-salt-glazed-stoneware jar profile 24
Drab-stoneware mug fragment 25
Wheel-turned cover of white, salt-glazed teapot 26
Body sherds of molded, white salt-glaze-ware pitcher 27
English delftware washbowl sherd 28
English delftware plate 29
English delftware plate 30
Delftware ointment pot 31
Sherds of black basaltes ware 32
Blue-and-white Chinese porcelain saucer 33
Blue-and-white Chinese porcelain plate 34
Beverage bottle 35
Beverage-bottle seal 36
Complete beverage bottle 37
Cylindrical beverage bottle 38
Cylindrical beverage bottle 39
Octagonal, pint-size beverage bottle 40
Square gin bottle 41
Square snuff bottle 42
Wineglass, reconstructed 43
Cordial glass 44
Sherds of engraved-glass wine and cordial glasses 45
Clear-glass tumbler 46
Octagonal cut-glass trencher salt 47
Brass buckle 48
Brass knee buckle 49
Brass thimble 50
Chalk bullet mold 51
Fragments of tobacco-pipe bowl 52
White-kaolin tobacco pipe 53
Slate pencil 54
Fragment of long-tined fork 55
Fragment of long-tined fork 56
Fork with two-part handle 57
Trifid-handle pewter spoon 58
Wavy-end pewter spoon 59
Pewter teapot lid 60
Steel scissors 61
Iron candle snuffers 62
Iron butt hinge 63
End of strap hinge 64
Catch for door latch 65
Wrought-iron hasp 66
Brass drop handle 67
Wrought-iron catch or striker 68
Iron slide bolt 69
Series of wrought-iron nails 70
Series of wrought-iron flooring nails and brads 71
Fragment of clouting nail 72
Hand-forged spike 73
Blacksmith's hammer 74
Iron wrench 75
Iron scraping tool 76
Bit or gouge chisel 77
Jeweler's hammer 78
Wrought-iron colter from plow 79
Hook used with wagon 80
Bolt with wingnut 81
Lashing hook from cart 82
Hilling hoe 83
Iron reinforcement strip from back of shovel handle 84
Half of sheep shears 85
Animal trap 86
Iron bridle bit 87
Fishhook 88
Brass strap handle 89
Preface
A number of people participated in the preparation of this study. The
inspiration for the archeological and historical investigations came
from Professor Oscar H. Darter, who until 1960 was chairman of the
Department of Historical and Social Sciences at Mary Washington College,
the women's branch of the University of Virginia. The actual excavations
were made under the direction of Frank M. Setzler, formerly the head
curator of anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution. None of the
investigation would have been possible had not the owners of the
property permitted the excavations to be made, sometimes at considerable
inconvenience to themselves. I am indebted to W. Biscoe, Ralph
Whitticar, Jr., and Thomas Ashby, all of whom owned the excavated areas
at Marlborough; and T. Ben Williams, whose cornfield includes the site
of the 18th-century Stafford County courthouse, south of Potomac Creek.
For many years Dr. Darter has been a resident of Fredericksburg and, in
the summers, of Marlborough Point on the Potomac River. During these
years, he has devoted himself to the history of the Stafford County area
which lies between these two locations in northeastern Virginia.
Marlborough Point has interested Dr. Darter especially since it is the
site of one of the Virginia colonial port towns designated by Act of
Assembly in 1691. During the town's brief existence, it was the location
of the Stafford County courthouse and the place where the colonial
planter and lawyer John Mercer established his home in 1726. Tangible
evidence of colonial activities at Marlborough Point--in the form of
brickbats and potsherds still can be seen after each plowing, while John
Mercer's "Land Book," examined anew by Dr. Darter, has revealed the
original survey plats of the port town.
In this same period and as early as 1938, Dr. T. Dale Stewart (then
curator of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution) had
commenced excavations at the Indian village site of Patawomecke, a few
hundred yards west of the Marlborough Town site. The aboriginal
backgrounds of the area including Marlborough Point already had been
investigated. As the result of his historical research connected with
this project, Dr. Stewart has contributed fundamentally to the present
undertaking by foreseeing the excavations of Marlborough Town as a
logical step beyond his own investigation.
Motivated by this combination of interests, circumstances, and
historical clues, Dr. Darter invited the Smithsonian Institution to
participate in an archeological investigation of Marlborough.
Preliminary tests made in August 1954 were sufficiently rewarding to
justify such a project. Consequently, an application for funds was
prepared jointly and was submitted by Dr. Darter through the University
of Virginia to the American Philosophical Society. In January 1956 grant
number 159, Johnson Fund (1955), for $1500 was assigned to the program.
In addition, the Smithsonian Institution contributed the professional
services necessary for field research and directed the purchase of
microfilms and photostats, the drawing of maps and illustrations, and
the preparation and publication of this report. Dr. Darter hospitably
provided the use of his Marlborough Point cottage during the period of
excavation, and Mary Washington College administered the grant. Frank
Setzler directed the excavations during a six-week period in April and
May 1956, while interpretation of cultural material and the searches of
historical data related to it were carried out by C. Malcolm Watkins.
At the commencement of archeological work it was expected that traces of
the 17th- and early 18th-century town would be found, including,
perhaps, the foundations of the courthouse. This expectation was not
realized, although what was found from the Mercer period proved to be
of greater importance. After completion, a report was made in the 1956
_Year Book_ of the American Philosophical Society (pp. 304-308).
After the 1956 excavations, the question remained whether the principal
foundation (Structure B) might not have been that of the courthouse.
Therefore, in August 1957 a week-long effort was made to find
comparative evidence by digging the site of the succeeding 18th-century
Stafford County courthouse at the head of Potomac Creek. This disclosed
a foundation sufficiently different from Structure B to rule out any
analogy between the two.
It should be made clear that--because of the limited size of the
grant--the archeological phase of the investigation was necessarily a
limited survey. Only the more obvious features could be examined within
the means at the project's disposal. No final conclusions relative to
Structure B, for example, are warranted until the section of foundation
beneath the highway which crosses it can be excavated. Further
excavations need to be made south and southeast of Structure B and
elsewhere in search of outbuildings and evidence of 17th-century
occupancy.
Despite such limitations, this study is a detailed examination of a
segment of colonial Virginia's plantation culture. It has been prepared
with the hope that it will provide Dr. Darter with essential material
for his area studies and, also, with the wider objective of increasing
the knowledge of the material culture of colonial America. Appropriate
to the function of a museum such as the Smithsonian, this study is
concerned principally with what is concrete--objects and artifacts and
the meanings that are to be derived from them. It has relied upon the
mutually dependent techniques of archeologist and cultural historian and
will serve, it is hoped, as a guide to further investigations of this
sort by historical museums and organizations.
Among the many individuals contributing to this study, I am especially
indebted to Dr. Darter; to the members of the American Philosophical
Society who made the excavations possible; to Dr. Stewart, who reviewed
the archeological sections at each step as they were written; to Mrs.
Sigrid Hull who drew the line-and-stipple illustrations which embellish
the report; Edward G. Schumacher of the Bureau of American Ethnology,
who made the archeological maps and drawings; Jack Scott of the
Smithsonian photographic laboratory, who photographed the artifacts; and
George Harrison Sanford King of Fredericksburg, from whom the necessary
documentation for the 18th-century courthouse site was obtained.
I am grateful also to Dr. Anthony N. B. Garvan, professor of American
civilization at the University of Pennsylvania and former head curator
of the Smithsonian Institution's department of civil history, for
invaluable encouragement and advice; and to Worth Bailey formerly with
the Historic American Buildings Survey, for many ideas, suggestions, and
important identifications of craftsmen listed in Mercer's ledgers.
I am equally indebted to Ivor Noël Hume, director of archeology at
Colonial Williamsburg and an honorary research associate of the
Smithsonian Institution, for his assistance in the identification of
artifacts; to Mrs. Mabel Niemeyer, librarian of the Bucks County
Historical Society, for her cooperation in making the Mercer ledgers
available for this report; to Donald E. Roy, librarian of the Darlington
Library, University of Pittsburgh, for providing the invaluable clue
that directed me to the ledgers; to the staffs of the Virginia State
Library and the Alexandria Library for repeated courtesies and
cooperation; and to Miss Rodris Roth, associate curator of cultural
history at the Smithsonian, for detecting Thomas Oliver's inventory of
Marlborough in a least suspected source.
I greatly appreciate receiving generous permissions from the University
of Pittsburgh Press to quote extensively from the _George Mercer Papers
Relating to the Ohio Company of Virginia_, and from Russell & Russell to
copy Thomas Oliver's inventory of Marlborough.
To all of these people and to the countless others who contributed in
one way or another to the completion of this study, I offer my grateful
thanks.
C. MALCOLM WATKINS
Washington, D.C.
1967
The Cultural History
of
Marlborough, Virginia
[Illustration: Figure 1.--JOHN MERCER'S BOOKPLATE.]
HISTORY
I
_Official Port Towns in Virginia and 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.
After the Restoration in 1660 the Virginia colonial government was faced
not only with these economic hazards but also with the resulting
administrative difficulties. It was awkward to govern a scattered
population and almost impossible to collect customs duties on imports
landed at the planters' own wharves along hundreds of miles of inland
waterways. The royal governors and responsible persons in the Assembly
reacted therefore with a succession of plans to establish towns that
would be the sole ports of entry for the areas they served, thus making
theoretically simple the task of securing customs revenues. The towns
also would be centers of business and manufacture, diversifying the
colony's economic supports and lessening its dependence on tobacco. To
men of English origin this establishment of port communities must have
seemed natural and logical.
The first such proposal became law in 1662, establishing a port town
for each of the major river valleys and for the Eastern Shore. But the
law's sponsors were doomed to disappointment, for the towns were not
built.[1] After a considerable lapse, a new act was passed in 1680, this
one better implemented and further reaching. It provided for a port town
in each county, where ships were to deliver their goods and pick up
tobacco and other exports from town warehouses for their return
voyages.[2] One of its most influential supporters was William Fitzhugh
of Stafford County, a wealthy planter and distinguished leader in the
colony.[3] "We have now resolved a cessation of making Tob^o next year,"
he wrote to his London agent, Captain Partis, in 1680. "We are also
going to make Towns, if you can meet with any tradesmen that will come
and live at the Town, they may have privileges and immunitys."[4]
[Illustration: Potomack River]
[Illustration: Figure 2.--Survey plats of Marlborough as copied in John
Mercer's Land Book showing at bottom, John Savage's, 1731; and top,
William Buckner's and Theodorick Bland's, 1691. (The courthouse probably
stood in the vicinity of lot 21.)]
Some of these towns actually were laid out, each on a 50-acre tract of
half-acre lots, but only 9 tracts were built upon. The Act soon lagged
and collapsed. It was unpopular with the colonists, who were obliged to
transport their tobacco to distant warehouses and to pay storage fees;
it was ignored by shipmasters, who were in the habit of dealing directly
with planters at their wharves and who were not interested in making it
any easier for His Majesty's customs collectors.[5]
Nevertheless, efforts to come up with a third act began in 1688.[6]
William Fitzhugh, especially, was articulate in his alarm over
Virginia's one-crop economy, the effects of which the towns were
supposed to mitigate. At this time he referred to tobacco as "our most
despicable commodity." A year later, he remarked, "it is more uncertain
for a Planter to get money by consigned Tob^o then to get a prize in a
lottery, there being twenty chances for one chance."[7]
In April 1691 the Act for Ports was passed, the House, significantly,
recording only one dissenting vote.[8] Unlike its predecessor, which
encouraged trades and crafts, this Act was justified purely on the basis
of overcoming the "great opportunity ... given to such as attempt to
import or export goods and merchandises, without entering or paying the
duties and customs due thereupon, much practised by greedy and covetous
persons." It provided that all exports and imports should be taken up or
set down at the specified ports and nowhere else, under penalty of
forfeiting ship, gear, and cargo, and that the law should become
effective October 1, 1692. The towns again were to be surveyed and laid
out in 50-acre tracts. Feoffees, to be appointed, would grant half-acre
lots on a pro rata first-cost basis. Grantees "shall within the space of
four months next ensueing such grant begin and without delay proceed to
build and finish on each half acre one good house, to containe twenty
foot square at the least, wherein if he fails to performe them such
grant to be void in law, and the lands therein granted lyable to the
choyce and purchase of any other person." Justices of the county courts
were to fill vacancies among the feoffees and to appoint customs
collectors.[9]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] WILLIAM WALLER HENING, _The Statutes at Large Being a
Collection of All the Laws of Virginia_ (New York, 1823),
vol. 2, pp. 172-176.
[2] Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 471-478.
[3] William Fitzhugh was founder of the renowned Virginia
family that bear his name. As chief justice of the Stafford
County court, burgess, merchant, and wealthy planter, he
epitomized the landed aristocrat in 17th-century Virginia.
See "Letters of William Fitzhugh," _Virginia Magazine of
History & Biography_ (Richmond, 1894), vol. 1, p. 17
(hereinafter designated _VHM_), and _William Fitzhugh and His
Chesapeake World_ (1676-1701), edit. Richard Beale Davis
(Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, for the
Virginia Historical Society, 1963).
[4] _VHM_, op. cit., p. 30.
[5] ROBERT BEVERLEY, _The History and Present State of
Virginia_, edit. Louis B. Wright (Chapel Hill: The University
of North Carolina Press, 1947), p. 88; PHILIP ALEXANDER
BRUCE, _Economic History of Virginia_, 2nd ed. (New York: P.
Smith, 1935), vol. 2, pp. 553-554.
[6] _Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia_
(hereinafter designated _JHB_) 1659/60-1693, edit. H. R.
McIlwaine (Richmond, Virginia: Virginia State Library, 1914),
pp. 303, 305, 308, 315.
[7] "Letters of William Fitzhugh," _VHM_ (Richmond, 1895),
vol. 2, pp. 374-375.
[8] _JHB 1659/60-1693_, op. cit. (footnote 6), p. 351.
[9] HENING, op. cit. (footnote 1), vol. 3, pp. 53-69.
THE PORT TOWN FOR STAFFORD COUNTY
The difficulties confronting the central and local governing bodies in
putting the Acts into effect are illustrated by the attempts to
establish a port town for Stafford County. Under the act of 1680 a town
was to be built at "Peace Point," where the Catholic refugee Giles Brent
had settled nearly forty years before, but there is no evidence that
even so much as a survey was made there. The 1691 Act for Ports located
the town at Potomac Neck, where Accokeek Creek and Potomac Creek
converge on the Potomac River. Situated about three miles below the
previously designated site, it was again on Brent property, lying within
a tract leased for life to Captain Malachi Peale, former high sheriff of
Stafford. On October 9, 1691, the Stafford Court "ordered that Mr.
William Buckner deputy Surveyor of this County shall on Thursday next
... repair to the Malachy Peale neck being the place allotted by act of
assembly for this Town and Port of this County and shall then and there
Survey and Lay Out the said Towne or Port ... to the Interest that all
the gentlemen of and all other of the Inhabitants may take up such Lot
and Lots as be and they desire...." On the same day John Withers and
Matthew Thompson, both justices of the peace, were appointed "Feoffees
in Trust." Young Giles Brent, "son and heir of Giles Brent Gent. late of
this county dec^{ed}" and not yet 21, selected Francis Hammersley as his
guardian.
Hammersley in this capacity became the administrator of Brent's
affairs, and accordingly it was agreed that 13,000 pounds of tobacco
should be paid to him in exchange for the 50 acres of town land owned by
Brent.[10]
Actually, 52 acres were surveyed, "two of the said acres being the Land
belonging to and laid out for the Court House according to a former Act
of Assembly and the other fifty acres pursuant to the late Act for
Ports." The "former Act of Assembly" which had been passed in 1667 had
stipulated the allotment of two-acre tracts for churches and court
houses, which in case the lots "be deserted y^e land shall revert to y^e
1st proprietor...."[11] For the extra two acres Hammersley was given 800
pounds of tobacco in addition. Of the total of 13,800 pounds, 3450 were
set aside to compensate Malachi Peale for the loss of his leasehold.
The order for the survey to be made was a formality, since the plat had
actually been drawn ahead of time by Buckner on August 16, nearly two
months before; clearly the Staffordians were eager to begin their town.
Buckner's plat was copied by his superior, Theodorick Bland, and entered
in the now-missing Stafford Survey Book. John Savage, a later surveyor,
in 1731 provided John Mercer with a duplicate of Bland's copy, which has
survived in John Mercer's Land Book (fig. 2).[12]
On February 11, 1692, the feoffees granted 27 lots to 15 applicants.
John Mercer's later review of the town's history in this period states
that "many" of the lots were "built on and improved."[13] Two ordinaries
were licensed, one in 1691 and one in 1693, but no business activity
other than the Potomac Creek ferry seems to have been conducted.[14] Any
future the town might have had was erased by the same adverse reactions
that had killed the previous port acts. The merchants and shippers used
their negative influence and on March 22, 1693, a "bill for suspension
of y^e act for Ports &c till their Maj^{ts} pleasure shall be known
therein or till y^e next assembly" passed the house. In due course the
act was reviewed and returned unsigned for further consideration.
William Fitzhugh, on October 17, 1693, dutifully read the
recommendation of the Committee of Grievances and Properties "That the
appointment of Ports & injoyneing the Landing and Shipping of all goods
imported or to be exported at & from the same will (considering the
present circumstances of the Country) be very injurious & burthensome to
the Inhabitants thereof and traders thereunto."[15] Doubtless dictated
by the Board of Trade in London, the recommendation was a defeat for
those who, like Fitzhugh, sought by the establishment of towns to break
tobacco's strangle-hold on Virginia.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694 (MS bound with
order book for 1664-1688, but paginated separately), pp. 175,
177, 180, 189.
[11] "Mills," _VHM_ (Richmond, 1903), vol. 10, pp. 147-148.
[12] John Mercer's Land Book (MS., Virginia State Library).
[13] _JHB, 1742-1747; 1748-1749_ (Richmond, 1909), pp.
285-286.
[14] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, pp. 184, 357.
[15] HENING, op. cit. (footnote 1), vol. 3, pp. 108-109.
THE ACT FOR PORTS OF 1705 AND THE NAMING OF MARLBOROUGH
Nevertheless, the town idea was hard to kill. In 1705 Stafford's port
town, along with those in the other counties, was given a new lease on
life when still another Act for Ports, introduced by Robert Beverley,
was passed. This Act repeated in substance the provisions of its
immediate forerunner, but provided in addition extravagant inducements
to settlement. Those who inhabited the towns were exempted from
three-quarters of the customs duties paid by others; they were freed of
poll taxes for 15 years; they were relieved from military mustering
outside the towns and from marching outside, excepting the "exigency" of
war (and then only for a distance of no more than 50 miles). Goods and
"dead provision" were not to be sold outside within a 5-mile radius, and
ordinaries (other than those within the towns) were not permitted closer
than 10 miles to the towns' boundaries, except at courthouses and ferry
landings. Each town was to be a free "burgh," and, when it had grown to
30 families "besides ordinary keepers," "eight principal inhabitants"
were to be chosen by vote of the "freeholders and inhabitants of the
town of twenty-one years of age and upwards, not being servants or
apprentices," to be called "benchers of the guild-hall." These eight
"benchers" would govern the town for life or until removal, selecting a
"director" from among themselves. When 60 families had settled,
"brethren assistants of the guild hall" were to be elected similarly to
serve as a common council. Each town was to have two market days a week
and an annual five-day fair. The towns listed under the Act were
virtually the same as before, but this time each was given an official
name, the hitherto anonymous town for Stafford being called Marlborough
in honor of the hero of the recent victory at Blenheim.[16]
The elaborate vision of the Act's sponsors never was realized in the
newly christened town, but there was in due course a slight resumption
of activity in it. George Mason and William Fitzhugh, Jr. (the son of
William Fitzhugh of Stafford County) were appointed feoffees in 1707,
and a new survey was made by Thomas Gregg. The following year seven more
lots were granted, and for an interval of two years Marlborough
functioned technically as an official port.[17]
Inevitably, perhaps, history repeated itself. In 1710 the Act for Ports,
like its predecessors, was rescinded. The reasons given in London were
brief and straightforward; the Act, it was explained, was "designed to
Encourage by great Priviledges the settling in Townships." These
settlements would encourage manufactures, which, in turn, would promote
"further Improvement of the said manufactures, And take them off from
the Planting of Tobacco, which would be of Very Ill consequence," thus
lessening the colony's dependence on the Kingdom, affecting the import
of tobacco, and prejudicing shipping.[18] Clearly, the Crown did not
want the towns to succeed, nor would it tolerate anything which might
stimulate colonial self-dependence. 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."[19]
The towns were artificial entities, created by acts of assembly, not by
economic or social necessity. In the few places where they filled a
need, notably in the populous areas of the lower James and York Rivers,
they flourished without regard to official status. In other places, by
contrast, no law or edict sufficed to make them live when conditions did
not warrant them. In sparsely settled Stafford especially there was
little to nurture a town. It was easier, and perhaps more exciting, to
grow tobacco and gamble on a successful crop, to go in debt when things
were bad or lend to the less fortunate when things were better. In the
latter case land became an acceptable medium for the payment of debts.
Land was wealth and power, its enlargement the means of greater
production of tobacco--tobacco again the great gamble by which one would
always hope to rise and not to fall. When one could own an empire, why
should one worry about a town?
FOOTNOTES:
[16] Ibid., pp. 404-419.
[17] "Petition of John Mercer" (1748), (Ludwell papers,
Virginia Historical Society), _VHM_ (Richmond, 1898), vol. 5,
pp. 137-138.
[18] _Calendar of Virginia State Papers and Other
Manuscdit. William P. Palmer, M.D.
(Richmond, 1875), vol. 1, pp. 137-138.
[19] _JHB, 1742-1747; 1748-1749_ (Richmond, 1909), pp.
285-286.
ESTABLISHING COURTHOUSES
The administrative problems that contributed to the establishment of the
port towns also called for the erection of courthouses. As early as 1624
lower courts had been authorized for Charles City and Elizabeth City in
recognition of the colony's expansion, and ten years later the colony
had been divided into eight counties, with a monthly court established
in each. By the Restoration the county courts possessed broadly expanded
powers and were the administrative as well as the judicial sources of
local government. In practice they were largely self-appointive and were
responsible for filling most local offices. Since the courts were the
vehicles of royal authority, it followed that the physical symbols of
this authority should be emphasized by building proper houses of
government. At Jamestown orders were given in 1663 to build a statehouse
in lieu of the alehouses and ordinaries where laws had been made
previously.[20]
In the same year, four courthouses annually were ordered for the
counties, the burgesses having been empowered to "make and Signe
agreements w^{th} any that will undertake them to build, who are to give
good Caution for the effecting thereof with good sufficient bricks,
Lime, and Timber, and that the same be well wrought and after they are
finished to be approved by an able surveyor, before order be given them
for their pay."[21] Such buildings were to take the place of private
dwellings and ordinaries in the same way as did the statehouse at
Jamestown. It was no accident that legislation for houses of government
coincided with that for establishing port towns. Each reflected the need
for administering the far-flung reaches of the colony and for
maintaining order and respect for the crown in remote places.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] HENING, op. cit. (footnote 1), vol. 2, pp. 204-205.
[21] _JHB, (1659/60-1693)_, op. cit. (footnote 6), p. 28.
THE COURTHOUSE IN THE PORT TOWN FOR STAFFORD COUNTY
Stafford County, which had been set off from Westmoreland in 1664, was
provided with a courthouse within a year of its establishment. Ralph
Happel in _Stafford and King George Courthouses and the Fate of
Marlborough, Port of Entry_, has given us a detailed chronicle of the
Stafford courthouses, showing that the first structure was situated
south of Potomac Creek until 1690, when it presumably burned.[22] The
court, in any event, began to meet in a private house on November 12,
1690, while on November 14 one Sampson Darrell was appointed chief
undertaker and Ambrose Bayley builder of a new courthouse. A contract
was signed between them and the justices of the court to finish the
building by June 10, 1692, at a cost of 40,000 pounds of tobacco and
cash, half to be paid in 1691 and the remainder upon completion.[23]
With William Fitzhugh the presiding magistrate of the Stafford County
court as well as cosponsor of the Act for Ports, it was foreordained
that the new courthouse should be tied in with plans for the port town.
The Act for Ports, however, was still in the making, and it was not
possible to begin the courthouse until after its passage in the spring.
On June 10, 1691, it was "Ordered by this Court that Capt. George Mason
and Mr. Blande the Surveyor shall immediately goe and run over the
ground where the Town is to Stand and that they shall then advise and
direct M^r Samson Darrell the Cheife undertaker of the Court house for
this County where he shall Erect and build the same."[24]
The court's order was followed by a hectic sequence that reflects, in
general, the irresponsibilities, the lack of respect for law and order,
and the frontier weaknesses which made it necessary to strengthen
authority. It begins with Sampson Darrell himself, whose moral
shortcomings seem to have been legion (hog-stealing, cheating a widow,
and refusing to give indentured servants their freedom after they had
earned it, to name a few). Darrell undoubtedly had the fastidious
Fitzhugh's confidence, for certainly without that he would not have been
appointed undertaker at all. In his position in the court, Fitzhugh
would have been instrumental in selecting both architect and
architecture for the courthouse, and Darrell seems to have met his
requirements. Fitzhugh, in fact, had sufficient confidence in Darrell to
entrust him with personal business in London in 1688.[25]
Although several months elapsed before a site was chosen, enough of the
new building was erected by October to shelter the court for its monthly
assembly. In the course of this session, there occurred a "most
mischievous and dangerous Riot,"[26] which rather violently inaugurated
the new building. During this disturbance, the pastor of Potomac Parish,
Parson John Waugh,[27] upbraided the court while it was "seated" and
took occasion to call Fitzhugh a Papist. The court, taking cognizance of
"disorders, misrules and Riots" and "the Fatal consequences of such
unhappy malignant and Tumultuous proceeding," thereupon restricted the
sale of liquor on court days (thus revealing what was at least accessory
to the disturbance).[28] Fitzhugh's letter to the court concerning this
episode mentions the "Court House" and the "Court house yard," adding to
Happel's ample documentation that the new building was by now in use.
During the November session, James Mussen was ordered into custody for
having "dangerously wounded M^r. Sampson Darrell."[29] This suggests
that the sequence of disturbances may have been associated with the
unfinished state of the courthouse, which, like the town, symbolized the
purposes of Fitzhugh and the property-owning aristocracy. Certain it is
that Darrell, publicly identified with Fitzhugh, was violently assaulted
and that "a complaint was made to this Court that Sampson Darrell the
chief undertaker of the building and Erecting of a Court house for this
county had not performed the same according to articles of agreement."
He and Bayley accordingly were put under bond to finish the building by
June 10, 1692. By February Bayley was complaining that he had not been
paid for his work, "notwithstanding your pet^r as is well known to the
whole County hath done all the carpenters work thereof and is ready to
perform what is yet wanting." On May 12, less than a month from the
deadline for completion, Darrell was ordered to pay Bayley the money
owing, and Bayley was instructed to go on with the work. Nearly six
months later, on November 10, Darrell again was directed to pay Bayley
the full balance of his wages, but only "after the said Ambrose Bayley
shall have finished and Compleatly ended the Court house."[30]
No description of the courthouse has been found. The Act of 1663 seems
to have required a brick building, although its wording is ambiguous.
Even if it did stipulate brick, the law was 28 years old in 1691, and
its requirements probably were ignored. Although Bayley, the builder,
was a carpenter, this would not preclude the possibility that he
supervised bricklayers and other artisans. Brick courthouses were not
unknown; one was standing in Warwick when the Act for Ports was passed
in 1691. Yet, the York courthouse, built in 1692, was a simple building,
probably of wood.[31] In any case, the Stafford courthouse was a
structure large enough to have required more than a year and a half to
build, but not so elaborate as to have cost more than 40,000 pounds of
tobacco.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] RALPH HAPPEL, "Stafford and King George Courthouses and
the Fate of Marlborough, Port of Entry," _VHM_ (Richmond,
1958), vol. 66, pp. 183-194.
[23] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 187.
[24] Ibid., p. 122.
[25] _William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World (1676-1701)_,
op. cit. (footnote 3), p. 241.
[26] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 194.
[27] Ibid., p. 182.
[28] In Virginia recurrent English fears of Catholic
domination were reflected at this time in hysterical rumors
that the Roman Catholics of Maryland were plotting to stir up
the Indians against Virginia. In Stafford County these
suspicions were inflamed by the harangues of Parson John
Waugh, minister of Stafford Parish church and Chotank church.
Waugh, who seems to have been a rabble rouser, appealed to
the same small landholders and malcontents as those who, a
generation earlier, had followed Nathaniel Bacon's
leadership. So seriously did the authorities at Jamestown
regard the disturbance at Stafford courthouse that they sent
three councillors to investigate. See "Notes," _William &
Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine_ (Richmond, 1907),
1st ser., vol. 15, pp. 189-190 (hereinafter designated _WMQ_)
[1]; and Richard Beale Davis' introduction to _William
Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World_, op. cit. (footnote 3),
pp. 35-39, and p. 251.
[29] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 167.
[30] Ibid., pp. 194, 267, 313.
[31] HENING, op. cit. (footnote 1), vol. 3, p. 60; EDWARD M.
RILEY, "The Colonial Courthouses of York County, Virginia,"
_William & Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine_
(Williamsburg, 1942), 2nd ser., vol. 22, pp. 399-404
(hereinafter designated _WMQ_ [2]).
LOCATION OF THE STAFFORD COURTHOUSE
The location of the building is indicated by a notation on Buckner's
plat of the port town: "The fourth course (runs) down along by the Gutt
between Geo: Andrew's & the Court house to Potomack Creek." A glance at
the plat (fig. 2) will disclose that the longitudinal boundaries of all
the lots south of a line between George Andrews' "Gutt" run parallel to
this fourth course. Plainly, the courthouse was situated near the head
of the gutt, where the westerly boundary course changed, near the end of
"The Broad Street Across the Town." It may be significant that the
foundation (Structure B) on which John Mercer's mansion was later built
is located in this vicinity.
In or about the year 1718 the courthouse "burnt Down,"[32] while it was
reported as "being become ruinous" in 1720, with its "Situation very
inconvenient for the greater part of the Inhabitants." It was then
agreed to build a new courthouse "at the head of Ocqua Creek."[33] Aquia
Creek was probably meant, but this must have been an error and the "head
of Potomac Creek" intended instead. Happel shows that it was built on
the south side of Potomac Creek. Thus, the burning of the Marlborough
courthouse in 1718 merely speeded up the forces that led to the end of
the town's career.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Petition of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17).
[33] _Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia_
(Richmond, 1930), vol. 2, p. 527.
MARLBOROUGH PROPERTY OWNERS
Not only was Marlborough foredoomed by external decrees and adverse
official decisions, but much of its failure was rooted in the local
elements by which it was constituted. The great majority of lot holders
were the "gentlemen" who were so carefully distinguished from "all other
of the Inhabitants" in the order to survey the town in 1691. Most were
leading personages in Stafford, and we may assume that their purchases
of lots were made in the interests of investment gains, not in
establishing homes or businesses. Only three or four yeomen and ordinary
keepers seem to have settled in the town.
Sampson Darrell, for example, held two lots, but he lived at Aquia
Creek.[34] Francis Hammersley was a planter who married Giles Brent's
widow and lived at "The Retirement," one of the Brent estates.[35]
George Brent, nephew of the original Giles Brent, was law partner of
William Fitzhugh, and had been appointed Receiver General of the
Northern Neck in 1690. His brother Robert also was a lot holder. Both
lived at Woodstock, and presumably they did not maintain residences at
the port town.[36] Other leading citizens were Robert Alexander, Samuel
Hayward, and Martin Scarlett, but again there is little likelihood that
they were ever residents of the town. John Waugh, the uproarious pastor
of Potomac Parish, also was a lot holder, but he lived on the south side
of Potomac Creek in a house which belonged to Mrs. Anne Meese of London.
His failure to pay for that house after 11 years' occupancy of it, which
led to a suit in which Fitzhugh was the prosecutor, does not suggest
that he ever arrived at building a house in the port town.[37]
Captain George Mason was a distinguished individual who lived at
"Accokeek," about a mile and a half from Marlborough. He certainly built
in the town, for in 1691 he petitioned for a license to "keep an
ordinary at the Town or Port for this county." The petition was granted
on condition that he "find a good and Sufficient maintenance and
reception both for man and horse." Captain Mason was grandfather of
George Mason of Gunston Hall, author of the Virginia Bill of Rights, and
was, at one time or another, sheriff, lieutenant colonel and commander
in chief of the Stafford Rangers, and a burgess. He participated in
putting down the uprising of Nanticoke Indians in 1692, bringing in
captives for trial at the unfinished courthouse in March of that
year.[38] Despite his interest in the town, however, it is unlikely that
he ever lived there.
Another lot owner was Captain Malachi Peale, whose lease of the town
land from the Brents had been purchased when the site was selected. He
also was an important figure, having been sheriff. He may well have
lived on one of his three lots, since he was a resident of the Neck to
begin with. John Withers, one of the first feoffees and a justice of the
peace, was a lot holder also. George Andrews and Peter Beach, somewhat
less distinguished, were perhaps the only full-time residents from among
the first grantees. After 1708 Thomas Ballard and possibly William
Barber were also householders.
Thus, few of the ingredients of an active community were to be found at
Marlborough, the skilled craftsmen or ship's chandlers or merchants who
might have provided the vitality of commerce and trade not having at any
time been present.
FOOTNOTES:
[34] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 251.
[35] John Mercer's Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12);
_William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World_, op. cit.
(footnote 3), p. 209.
[36] Ibid., pp. 76, 93, 162, 367.
[37] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 203; _William
Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World_, op. cit. (footnote 3),
pp. 209, 211.
[38] Ibid., pp. 184, 230; John Mercer's Land Book, op. cit.
(footnote 12); _William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World_,
op. cit. (footnote 3), p. 38.
HOUSING
It is likely that most of the houses in the town conformed to the
minimum requirements of 20 by 20 feet. They were probably all of wood, a
story and a half high with a chimney built against one end. Forman
describes a 20-foot-square house foundation at Jamestown, known as the
"House on Isaac Watson's Land." This had a brick floor and a fireplace
large enough to take an 8-foot log as well as a setting for a brew
copper. The ground floor consisted of one room, and there was probably a
loft overhead providing extra sleeping and storage space.[39] The
original portion of the Digges house at Yorktown, built following the
Port Act of 1705 and still standing, is a brick house, also 20 feet
square and a story and a half high. Yet, brick houses certainly were not
the rule. In remote Stafford County, shortly before the port town was
built, the houses of even well-placed individuals were sometimes
extremely primitive. William Fitzhugh wrote in 1687 to his lawyer and
merchant friend Nicholas Hayward in London, "Your brother Joseph's
building that Shell, of a house without Chimney or partition, & not one
tittle of workmanship about it more than a Tobacco house work, carry'd
him into those Arrears with your self & his other Employees, as you
found by his Accots. at his death."[40] Ancient English puncheon-type
construction, with studs and posts set three feet into the ground, was
still in use at Marlborough in 1691, as we know from the contract for
building a prison quoted by Happel.[41] No doubt the houses there
varied in quality, but we may be sure that most were crude, inexpertly
built, of frame or puncheon-type construction, and subject to
deterioration by rot and insects.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] HENRY CHANDLEE FORMAN, _Jamestown and St. Mary's_
(Baltimore, 1938), pp. 135-137.
[40] _William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World_, op. cit.
(footnote 3), p. 203.
[41] HAPPEL, op. cit. (footnote 22), p. 186; Stafford County
Order Book, 1689-1694, pp. 210-211.
FURNISHINGS OF TWO MARLBOROUGH HOUSES
Like George Mason, George Andrews ran an ordinary at the port town,
having been licensed in 1693, and he also kept the ferry across Potomac
Creek.[42] He died in 1698, leaving the property to his grandson John
Cave. From the inventory of his estate recorded in the Stafford County
records (Appendix A) we obtain a picture not only of the furnishings of
a house in the port town, but also of what constituted an ordinary.[43]
We are left with no doubt that as a hostelry Andrews' house left much to
be desired. There were no bedsteads, although six small feather beds
with bolsters and one old and small flock bed are listed. (Flock
consisted of tufted and fragmentary pieces of wool and cotton, while
"Bed" referred not to a bedframe or bedstead but to the tick or
mattress.) There were two pairs of curtains and valances. In the 17th
century a valance was "A border of drapery hanging around the canopy of
a bed."[44] Curtains customarily were suspended from within the valance
from bone or brass curtain rings on a rod or wire, and were drawn around
the bed for privacy or warmth. Where high post bedsteads were used, the
curtains and valances were supported on the rectangular frame of the
canopy or tester. Since George Andrews did not list any bedsteads, it is
possible that his curtains and valances were hung from bracketed frames
above low wooden frames that held the bedding. Six of his beds were
covered with "rugs," one of which was "Turkey work." There is no
indication of sheets or other refinements for sleeping.
Andrews' furniture was old, but apparently of good quality. Four "old"
cane chairs, which may have dated back as far as 1660, were probably
English, of carved walnut. The "old" table may have had a turned or a
joined frame, or possibly may have been a homemade trestle table. An
elegant touch was the "carpet," which undoubtedly covered it. Chests of
drawers were rare in the 17th century, so it is surprising to find one
described here as "old." A "cupboard" was probably a press or court
cupboard for the display of plates and dishes and perhaps the pair of
"Tankards" listed in the inventory. The latter may have been pewter or
German stoneware with pewter mounts. The "couch" was a combination bed
and settee. As in every house there were chests, but of what sort or
quality we can only surmise. A "great trunk" provided storage.
Andrews' hospitality as host is symbolized by his _lignum vitae_
punchbowl. Punch itself was something of an innovation and had first
made its appearance in England aboard ships arriving from India early in
the 1600's. It remained a sailor's drink throughout most of the century,
but had begun to gain in general popularity before 1700 in the colonies.
What is more remarkable here, however, is the container. Edward M. Pinto
states that such _lignum vitae_ "wassail" bowls were sometimes large
enough to hold five gallons of punch and were kept in one place on the
table, where all present took part in the mixing. They were lathe-turned
and usually stood on pedestals.[45] George Andrews' nutmeg graters,
silver spoons, and silver dram cup for tasting the spirits that were
poured into the punch were all elegant accessories.
Another resident whose estate was inventoried was Peter Beach.[46] One
of his executors was Daniel Beach, who was paid 300 pounds of tobacco
annually from 1700 to 1703 for "sweeping" and "cleaning" the courthouse
(Appendix B). Beach's furnishings were scarcely more elaborate than
Andrews'. Unlike Andrews, he owned four bedsteads, which with their
curtains and fittings (here called "furniture") varied in worth from 100
to 1500 pounds of tobacco. Here again was a cupboard, while there were
nine chairs with "flag" seats and "boarded" backs (rush-seated chairs,
probably of the "slat-back" or "ladder-back" variety). Eight more chairs
and five stools were not described. A "parcel of old tables" was listed,
but only one table appears to have been in use. There were pewter and
earthenware, but a relatively few cooking utensils. An "old" pewter
tankard was probably the most elegant drinking vessel, while one
candlestick was a grudging concession to the need for artificial light.
The only books were two Bibles; the list mentions a single indentured
servant.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 195.
[43] Stafford County Will Book, Liber Z, pp. 168-169.
[44] _A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles_
(Oxford, 1928), vol. 10, pt. 2, p. 18.
[45] EDWARD H. PINTO, _Treen, or Small Woodware Throughout
the Ages_ (London, 1949), p. 20.
[46] Stafford County Will Book, Liber Z, pp. 158-159.
THE GREGG SURVEY
In 1707, after the revival of the Port Act, the new county surveyor,
Thomas Gregg, made another survey of the town. This was done apparently
without regard to Buckner's original survey. Since Gregg adopted an
entirely new system of numbering, and since his survey was lost at an
early date, it is impossible to locate by their description the sites of
the lots granted in 1708 and after.
Forty years later John Mercer wrote:
It is certain that Thomas Gregg (being the Surveyor of Stafford
County) did Sep 2^d 1707 make a new Survey of the Town.... it is as
certain that Gregg had no regard either to the bounds or numbers of
the former Survey since he begins his Numbers the reverse way
making his number 1 in the corner at Buckner's 19 & as his Survey
is not to be found its impossible to tell how he continued his
Numbers. No scheme I have tried will answer, & the Records differ
as much, the streets according to Buckner's Survey running thro the
House I lived in built by Ballard tho his whole lot was ditched in
according to the Bounds made by Gregg.[47]
Whatever the intent may have been in laying out formal street and lot
plans, Marlborough was essentially a rustic village. If Gregg's plat ran
streets through the positions of houses on the Buckner survey, and vice
versa, it is clear that not much attention was paid to theoretical
property lines or streets. Ballard apparently dug a boundary ditch
around his lot, according to Virginia practice in the 17th century, but
the fact that this must have encroached on property assigned to somebody
else on the basis of the Buckner survey seems not to have been noted at
the time. Rude houses placed informally and connected by lanes and
footpaths, the courthouse attempting to dominate them like a village
schoolmaster in a class of country bumpkins, a few outbuildings, a boat
landing or two, some cultivated land, and a road leading away from the
courthouse to the north with another running in the opposite direction
to the creek--this is the way Marlborough must have looked even in its
best days in 1708.
FOOTNOTES:
[47] John Mercer's Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12).
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. So long as court kept, there was
need for ordinaries and ferries and for independent jacks-of-all-trades
like Andrews. 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."[48]
FOOTNOTES:
[48] Petition of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17).
II
_John Mercer's Occupation of Marlborough, 1726-1730_
MERCER'S ARRIVAL IN STAFFORD COUNTY
By 1723 Marlborough lay abandoned. George Mason (III), son of the late
sheriff and ordinary keeper in the port town, held the now-empty title
of feoffee, together with Rice Hooe. In that year Mason and Hooe
petitioned the General Court "that Leave may be given to bring in a Bill
to enable them to sell the said Land [of the town] the same not being
built upon or Inhabited." The petition was put aside for consideration,"
but within a week--on May 21, 1723--it was "ordered That Rice Hooe &
George Mason be at liberty to withdraw their petition ... and that the
Committee to whom it was referred be discharged from proceeding
thereon."[49]
This curious sequence remains unexplained. Had the committee informally
advised the feoffees that their cause would be rejected, suggesting,
therefore, that they withdraw their petition? Or had something
unexpected occurred to provide an alternative solution to the problem of
Marlborough?
Possibly it was the latter, and the unexpected occurrence may have been
the arrival in Stafford County of young John Mercer. There is no direct
evidence that Mercer was in the vicinity as early as 1723; but we know
that he appeared before 1725, that he had by then become well acquainted
with George Mason, and that he settled in Marlborough in 1726.
Mercer's remarkable career began with his arrival in Virginia at the
age of 16. Born in Dublin in 1704, the son of a Church Street merchant
of English descent--also named John Mercer--and of Grace Fenton Mercer,
John was educated at Trinity College, and then sailed for the New World
in 1720.[50] How Mercer arrived in Virginia or what means he brought
with him are lost to the record. From his own words written toward the
end of his life we know that he was not overburdened with wealth:
"Except my education I never got a shilling of my fathers or
any other relations estate, every penny I ever got has been
by my own industry & with as much fatigue as most people have
undergone."[51]
From his second ledger (the first, covering the years 1720-1724, having
been lost) we learn that he was engaged in miscellaneous trading,
sailing up and down the rivers in his sloop and exchanging goods along
the way. Where his home was in these early years we do not know, but it
would appear that he had been active in the Stafford County region for
some time, judging from the fact that by 1725 he had accumulated £322
4s. 5-1/2d. worth of tobacco in a warehouse at the falls of the
Rappahannock.[52] He certainly had encountered George Mason before then,
and probably Mason's uncles, John, David, and James Waugh, the sons of
Parson John Waugh, all of whom owned idle Marlborough properties.
Mercer's friendship with the Masons was sufficiently well established by
1725 that on June 10 of that year he married George's sister Catherine.
This marriage, most advantageous to an aspiring young man, was
celebrated at Mrs. Ann Fitzhugh's in King George County with the
Reverend Alexander Scott of Overwharton Parish in Stafford County
officiating.[53] Thus, allied to an established family that was "old" by
standards of the time and sponsored socially by a representative of the
Fitzhughs, Mercer was admitted at the age of 21 to Virginia's growing
aristocracy.
In this animated and energetic youth, the Masons and Waughs probably saw
the means of bringing Marlborough back to life. Mercer, for his part, no
doubt recognized the advantages that Marlborough offered, with its
sheltered harbor and landing, its fertile, flat fields, and airy
situation. That it could be acquired piecemeal at a minimum of
investment through the provisions of the Act for Ports was an added
inducement.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] _JHB, 1712-1726_ (Richmond, 1912), pp. 336, 373.
[50] "Journals of the Council of Virginia in Executive
Session 1737-1763," _VHM_ (Richmond, 1907), vol. 14, pp.
232-235.
[51] _George Mercer Papers Relating to the Ohio Company of
Virginia_, comp. and edit. by Lois Mulkearn (Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1954), p. 204.
[52] John Mercer's Ledger B is the principal source of
information for this chapter. It was begun in 1725 and ended
in 1732. The original copy is in the library of the Bucks
County Historical Society, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, a
photostatic copy being in the Virginia State Library. Further
footnoted references to the ledger are omitted, since the
source in each case is recognizable.
[53] JAMES MERCER GARNET, "James Mercer," _WMQ_ [1]
(Richmond, 1909), vol. 17, pp. 85-98. Mrs. Ann Fitzhugh was
the widow of William Fitzhugh III, who died in 1713/14. She
was the daughter of Richard Lee and lived at "Eagle's Nest"
in King George County (see "The Fitzhugh Family," VHM
[Richmond, 1900], vol. 7, pp. 317-318).
JOHN MERCER AS A TRADER
During 1725 Mercer pressed ahead with his trading enterprises. From his
ledger we learn that he sold Richard Ambler of Yorktown 710 pounds of
"raw Deerskins" for £35 10s. and bought £200 worth of "sundry goods"
from him. Between October 1725 and February 1726 he sold a variety of
furnishings and equipment to Richard Johnson, ranging from a "horsewhip"
and a "silk Rugg" to "1/2 doz. Shoemaker's knives" and an "Ivory Comb."
In return he received two hogsheads of tobacco, "a Gallon of syder
Laceground," and raw and dressed deerskins. He maintained a similar
long account with Mosley Battaley (Battaille) (Appendix C). From William
Rogers of Yorktown[54] he bought £12 3s. 6d. worth of earthenware,
presumably for resale. The tobacco which he had accumulated at the falls
of the Rappahannock he sold for cash to the Gloucester firm of Whiting &
Montague, paying Peter Kemp two pounds "for the extraordinary trouble of
y^r coming up so far for it."
[Illustration: Figure 3.--PORTRAIT OF JOHN MERCER, artist unknown. About
1750. (_Courtesy of Mrs. Thomas B. Payne._)]
His sloop was the principal means by which Mercer conducted his
business. Occasionally he rented it for hire, once sharing the proceeds
of a load of oystershells with George Mason and one Edgeley, who had
sailed the sloop to obtain the shells. Only one item shows that Mercer
extended his mercantile activities to slaves: on February 18, 1726, he
sold a mulatto woman named Sarah to Philemon Cavanaugh "to be paid in
heavy tobacco each hhd to weigh 300 Neat."
That Mercer was turning in the direction of a legal career is revealed
in his first account of "Domestick Expenses" for the fall of 1725
(Appendix D). We find that he was attending court sessions far and wide:
"Cash for Exp^s at Stafford & Spotsylvania," "Cash for Exp^s Urbanna,"
the same for "Court Ferrage at Keys." He already was reading in the law,
and lent "March's Actions of Slander," "Washington's Abridgm^t of y^e
Statutes," and "an Exposition of the Law Terms" to Mosley Battaley.
FOOTNOTES:
[54] William Rogers, who died in 1739, made earthenware and
stoneware at Yorktown after 1711. See C. MALCOLM WATKINS and
IVOR NOËL HUME, "The 'Poor Potter' of Yorktown" (paper 54 in
_Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology_,
U.S. National Museum Bulletin 249, by various authors;
Washington: Smithsonian Institution), 1967.
SETTING UP HOUSEKEEPING
Mercer's domestic-expense account is full of evidence that he was
preparing to set up housekeeping. He bought "1 China punch bowl," 10s.;
"6 glasses," 3s.; "1 box Iron & heaters," 2s. 6d.; "1 p^r fine
blankets," 1s. 13d.; "Earthen ware," 10s.; "5 Candlesticks," 17s. 6d.;
"1 Bed Cord," 2s.; "3 maple knives & forks," 2s.; "1 yew haft knife &
fork & 1 p^r Stilds [steelyards?]," 1s. 10-1/2d.; "1 p^r Salisbury
Scissors," 2s. 6d.; and "1 speckled knife & fork," 5d.
In addition, he accepted as payment for various cloth and materials sold
to Mrs. Elizabeth Russell the following furniture and furnishings:
Ster. £ s. d.
By a writing desk D^o 5
By a glass & Cover D^o 7 6
By 18^l Pewter at 1/4 D^o 1 4
By 6 tea Cups & Sawcers 2/ D^o 12
By 2 Chocolate Cups 1/ D^o 2
By 2 Custard Cups 9^d D^o 1 6
By 1 Tea Table painted with fruit D^o 14
By 6 leather Chairs @ 7/ 2 2
By a small walnut eating table 8
By 1/2 doz. Candlemoulds 10
By a Tea table 18
By a brass Chafing dish 5
By 6 copper tart pans 6
At the time of this purchase, the only house standing at Marlborough was
that built by Thomas Ballard in 1708. It was inherited by his godson
David Waugh,[55] who now apparently offered to let his niece Catherine
and her new husband occupy it. Mercer later referred to it as "the
House I lived in built by Ballard."[56] From his own records we know
that he moved to Marlborough in 1726. He did so probably in the summer,
since on June 11 he settled with Charles McClelland for "cleaning out
y^e house." Unoccupied for years and small in size, it was a humble
place in which to set up housekeeping, and indeed must have needed
"cleaning out." It also must have needed extensive repairs, since Mercer
purchased 1500 tenpenny nails "used about it."
Throughout 1726 Mercer acquired household furnishings, made repairs and
improvements, and obtained the necessities of a plantation. On February
1 he acquired "3 Ironbacks" (cast-iron firebacks for fireplaces) for £8
4s. 2d., as well as "2 p^r hand Irons" for 15s. 5d., from Edmund Bagge.
From George Rust he bought "3 Cows & Calves" for £7 10s., a featherbed
for £3 10s., and an "Iron pot" for 5s.
His reckoning with John Dogge opens with a poignant note, "By a Child's
Coffin": Mercer's first-born child had died. On the same account was "an
Oven," bought for 17 shillings. Dogge also was credited with "bringing
over 10 sheep from Sumners" (a plantation at Passapatanzy, south of
Potomac Creek). Rawleigh Chinn was paid for "plowing up & fencing in my
yard" and for "fetching 3 horses over the Creek." Also credited to Chinn
was an item revealing Mercer's sporting enthusiasm: "went on y^e main
race ... 15/."
From Alexander Buncle, Mercer acquired one dozen table knives, three
chamber-door locks, two pairs of candle snuffers, and two broad axes.
His account with Alexander McFarlane in 1726, the credit side of which
is quoted here in part, is a further illustration of the variety of
hardware and consumable goods that he required:
£ s. d.
2 p^r men's Shooes 9
1 Razor & penknife 2 6
2-1/4 gall Rum 6 9
9 gals. molasses 13
12^1 brown Sugar 6
6-1/4 double refined D^o 20^d 10 5
1 felt hat 2 4
1 q^t Limejuice 1
2 doz. Claret 1 10
2 lanthorns 6
1 funnell 7-1/2
1 quart & 1 pint tin pot 1 10-1/2
* * *
By 2 doz & 8 bottles Claret 2 8
By a woman's horsewhip 3
By 1^{oz} Gunpowder
By 10^l Shot
By 1 wom^s bound felt [hat]
Mercer's comments, added three years later to this record, signify the
complexities of credit accounting in the plantation economy: "In July
1729 I settled Accounts w^{th} M^r M^cFarlane & paid him off & at the
same time having Ed Barry's note on him for 1412^l Tob^o (his goods
being extravagantly dear) I paid him 1450^l Tob^o to M^r Thos Smith to
ball^{ns} accts."
Another of Mercer's accounts was with Edward Simm. From Simm, Mercer
acquired the following in 1726:
£ s. d.
1 horsewhip 4
1 fine hat 12
9 y^{ds} bedtick 3/4 1 10
1 p^r Spurs 8
1 Curry Comb & brush 2 9
2 p^r mens Shooes 5/ 10
1 p^r Chelloes 1 10
2 p^r wom^s gloves 2/ 4
2 p^r D^o thread hose 9
2 p^r mens worsted d^o 8
2 p^r ch^{kr} yarn 3 4
1 Sifter 2
1 frying pan 4 6
7 quire of paper 1-1/4 9 8
6 silk Laces 4^d 2
FOOTNOTES:
[55] John Mercer's Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12).
[56] Petition of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17).
ACQUIRING LAND AND BUILDING A NEW HOUSE
Mercer's first actual ownership of property came as a result of his
marriage. In 1725 he purchased from his wife Catherine 885 acres of land
near Potomac Church for £221 5s. and another tract of 1610 acres on
Potomac Run for £322.[57] His occupancy of the Ballard house, meanwhile,
was arranged on a most informal basis, three years having been allowed
to pass before he paid his first and only rent--a total of 12
shillings--to his uncle-in-law David Waugh.
In January 1730 the following appears under "Domestick Expenses": "To
bringing the frame of my house from Jervers to Marlbro ... 40/."
Associated with this are items for 2000 tenpenny nails, 2000 eightpenny
nails, and 1000 sixpenny nails, together with "To Chandler Fowke for
plank," "To J^{no} Chambers &c bring board from Landing," and "To John
Chambers & Robt Collins for bringing Bricks & Oyster Shells."
In the same month the account of Anthony Linton and Henry Suddath
includes the following:
By building a house at Marlborough when finished
by agreement £10.0.0
By covering my house & building a Chimney 3.0.0
Clearly, the Mercers had outgrown the temporary shelter which the little
Ballard house had given them. Now a new house was under construction,
with the steps plainly indicated. To obtain timber of sufficient size to
frame the house it was necessary to go where the trees grew. The nearest
thickly forested area was north of Potomac Creek and Potomac Run. The
appropriate timbers apparently grew on property owned by Mercer but
occupied by the widow of James Jervis (or "Jervers"). Not only did the
trees grow there, but we may be sure that there they were also felled,
hewn, and cut, and the finished members fitted together on the ground to
form the frame of the new house. It was a time-honored English building
practice to prepare the timbers where they were felled, shaping them,
drilling holes for "trunnels" (wooden pegs or "tree nails"), inscribing
coded numbers with lumber markers, and then knocking the prefabricated
members apart and transporting them to the building site.[58]
Oystershells and bricks for the chimney were brought from Cedar Point
and Boyd's Hole, south of Marlborough, by Chambers and Collins. Shells
were probably burned at the house site to make lime for mortar. Chambers
was paid 12 pence a day for 32-1/2 days' work spread over a period from
October 1730 to February 1731. Hugh French had been paid for 1000 bricks
on August 24, 1730, while James Jones, on October 3, 1730, was
recompensed three shillings for "9 days of work your Man plaistering my
House & making 2 brick backs."
[Illustration: Figure 4.--THE NEIGHBORHOOD OF JOHN MERCER. Detail from
J. Dalrymple's revision (1755) of the map of Virginia by Joseph Fry and
Peter Jefferson. Marlborough is incorrectly designated "New Marleboro."
(_Courtesy of the Library of Congress._)]
The new house was thus brought to completion early in 1731. That it was
a plain and simple house is apparent from the small amount of labor and
the relatively few quantities of material. It appears to have had two
fireplaces only and one chimney. Although the house was wooden, there is
no evidence that it had any paint whatsoever, inside or out.
FOOTNOTES:
[57] John Mercer's Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12).
[58] CHARLES F. INNOCENT, _The Development of English
Building Construction_ (Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1916), pp. 23-61.
FURNISHING THE HOUSE
Other than a child's chair and a bedstead costing 10 shillings,
purchased from Enoch Innes in 1729, little furniture was acquired before
1730. Listed in "Domestick Expenses" for 1729-1730 are minor accessories
for the new house, such as HL hinges, closet locks, a "scimmer," a pair
of brass candlesticks, milk pans, pestle and mortar, "1/2 doz plates," a
"Cullender," a candlebox, earthenware, and a pepperbox, together with
several handtools.
MERCER'S VARIED ACTIVITIES AND INTERESTS
The agricultural aspects of a plantation were increasingly in evidence.
In 1729 Rawleigh Chinn was paid for "helping to kill the Hogs,"
"pasturage of my cattle," and "making a gate." Edward Floyd was credited
with £4 6s. 7-1/2d. for "Wintering Cattle, taking care of my horse &
Sheep to Aug. 1729." John Chinn seems to have been Mercer's jockey, for
as early as 1729 he was entering the races which abounded in Virginia,
and "went on y^e race w^{th} Colt 1729."
In this early period we find considerable evidence of a typical young
Virginian's fondness for gaming and sport. One finds scattered through
Mercer's account with Robert Spotswood such items as "To won at the Race
... 8.9" and "To won at Liew at Col^o Mason's ... 7.3." (Loo was an
elegant 18th-century game played with Chinese-carved mother-of-pearl
counters.) Mercer participated in several sporting events at Stafford
courthouse, for court sessions continued, as in the previous century,
to be social as well as legal and political occasions. This is
illustrated in a credit to Joseph Waugh: "By won at a horse race at
Stafford Court and Attorney's fee ... £1."; on the debit side of Enoch
Innes's account: "To won at Quoits & running with you ... 1/3"; and in
Thomas Hudson's account, where four shillings were marked up "To won
pitching at Stafford Court."
Mercer's diversions were few enough, nevertheless, and it is apparent
that he devoted more time to reading than to gaming. In 1726 he borrowed
from John Graham (or Graeme) a library of 56 volumes belonging to the
"Hon^{ble} Col^o Spotswood"[59] (Appendix E). Ranging from the Greek
classics to English history, and including Milton, Congreve, Dryden,
Cole's Dictionary, "Williams' Mathematical Works," and "Present State of
Russia," they were the basis for a solid education. 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] Col. Alexander Spotswood, Governor of Virginia and a
resident of Spotsylvania County, was at this time living in
London. He authorized John Graham (or Graeme) of St. James,
Clerkenwell, Middlesex, to "take possession of his iron works
in Virginia, with plantations, negroes, stocks, and manage
the same." By 1732 Spotswood regretted that he had "committed
his affairs to the care of a mathematician, whose thoughts
were always among the stars." In 1737 Graham became professor
of natural philosophy and mathematics in the College of
William and Mary. See "Historical & Genealogical Notes," WMQ
[1] (Richmond, 1909), vol. 17, p. 301 (quoting Basset,
_Writings of William Byrd_, p. 378).
III
_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. At the same time he began an extensive purchasing of
property, so that within a decade he was to become one of the major
landed proprietors in the colony. Planting and legal practice each
augmented the other in Mercer's prosperity, which was assured by a
classic combination of energy, ability, and outgoing personality. As
with many successful men, Mercer had an eye for meticulous detail; the
documents he left behind were a treasury of methodically kept records.
His Ledger B reveals that as early as 1730 his legal career was becoming
firmly established. It records fee accounts, charges for drawing deeds,
writing bonds, and representing clients in various courts. In that year
he "subscribed to Laws of Virginia" through William Parks, the
Williamsburg printer and stationer, and began to build up a substantial
law library, which was augmented by the purchase of 40 lawbooks from
Robert Beverley.
DIFFICULTIES IN ACQUIRING MARLBOROUGH
On October 13, 1730, Mercer obtained title from David Waugh to the
Ballard house and lots on the basis of the "Statute for transforming
uses into possessions." At the same time he acquired the three lots
originally granted to John Waugh, while nine months later he was given
the release of the three lots inherited by George Mason from his
father.[60] Mercer's foothold in Marlborough was now secure.
Following these developments, he "employed the County Surveyor to lay
off the several Lots he had purchased," which led to the discovery of
the previously mentioned disparities and conflicts between the Buckner
survey of 1691 and the missing Gregg survey of 1707. For some reason the
town now lacked feoffees, so Mercer "applied to the County Court of
Stafford on the tenth day of June one thousand seven hundred and
thirty-one and the said Court then appointed Henry Fitzhugh Esquire and
James Markham Gent. Feofees of the said Town." Mercer stated that he
"proposed making great Improvements ... and wanted to take up several
other Lots to build on." The court thereupon ordered John Savage, the
county surveyor, to make a new survey, "having regard to the Buildings
and Improvements then standing"--a significant instruction, intended no
doubt to permit the reconciling of conflicting titles with respect to
what actually was built.[61]
The new survey was laid out July 23, 1731, "in the presence of the said
Feoffees," and drawn with the same plan and numbering as Buckner's,
except that an additional row of lots was applied along the western
border of the town, compressing slightly the former lots as planned by
Buckner and pushing them eastward (fig. 2). This extra row, we have
reason to believe, was added with "regard to the Buildings and
Improvements then standing."
At the time of the survey, the feoffees told Mercer "that he might
proceed in his Buildings and Improvements on any the said Lots not
before granted," promising that they would at any time make him "any
Title they could lawfully pass." A proposal by Fitzhugh to give title to
any lots already purchased or any which Mercer might take up under terms
of the Port Act of 1705 was discouraged by Mercer's lawyer, Mr. Hopkins,
who took the view that, since the three surveys conflicted, the deeds
would not be good. Accordingly, Fitzhugh and Mercer applied for an
"amicable Bill," or suit in chancery, in the General Court, in order "to
have Savage's or any particular Survey established." The request was
shelved, however, and still was unanswered in 1748.
The extra row of lots and the court's instructions to Savage to make his
survey with "Regard to the Buildings and Improvements then Standing"
seem to be correlated. Savage made a significant notation on his survey
plat: "The lots marked 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, & 21 joining to the Creek are
in possession of Mr. John Mercer who claims them under Robinson,
Berryman, Pope & Parry, & under Ballard & under John Waugh dec^{ed}, all
w^{ch} he says have been built on and saved." On the Buckner plat the
lots bearing these numbers comprise a block of six in the southwest
corner of the town, extending up from the creek in two 3-tiered rows
(fig. 2). The plat included the lots near the head of the "gutt" where
the courthouse appears to have stood, as well as the land on which
Structure B (the foundation of Mercer's mansion) was excavated. The lots
appear in the same relationship on Savage's survey, except that the new
row bounds them on the west.
We know that the Robinson-Berryman-Pope-Parry lot was the same lot
originally granted to Robert Alexander in 1691, numbered 19 on
Buckner's plat. It was granted to its later owners according to the
Gregg survey in 1707, and was then described as "being the first Lott
known in the Survey Platt by number 1." From Mercer we have learned
already that Gregg made "his number 1 in the corner at Buckner's 19."
The other five lots were claimed under Ballard and John Waugh. Waugh was
granted one lot in 1691--Buckner's number 20--and acquired two more in
1707. All three appear to have been in the corner block of six lots. In
any case, these six lots equal the number of lots known to have been
granted the above-listed lot holders. Both of Ballard's lots were
granted in 1707. His lot number 19 (Gregg survey), where Mercer first
lived, is described as "bounding Easterly with a lott surveyed for Mr.
John Waugh Westerly with a Narrow street Northerly with a lott not yet
surveyed, Southerly with the first main Street which is parallel with
Potomac Creek." We do not know which of Waugh's lots is meant, nor do we
know Gregg's street plan, except that it was at odds with Buckner's. But
it is probable that Ballard's lot (Gregg's number 19) was the same as
Buckner's number 21, that the crosstown street on Gregg's plat lay to
the south of the lot rather than to the north of it, as on Buckner's
plat, and that one of Waugh's lots lay to the east of it.[62]
Assuming that the two acres for the courthouse were located near the
head of the "gutt" and that Ballard's lot 19 was approximately the same
as Buckner's 21, it is apparent that Ballard's lot must have overlapped
the courthouse lots in the confusion between the two surveys. Since
Mercer was living on Ballard's lot, he probably infringed on the
courthouse property. Even though the courthouse had been burned and
abandoned, the two acres assigned to it were required to revert to the
original owner, as provided in the Act of 1667, concerning church and
courthouse lands. In this case, the courthouse land, having been
"deserted," had reverted to the heir of Giles Brent.
Mercer's embarrassment at this state of affairs must have been great.
However, the addition by Savage of a whole new row of lots along the
westerly border of the town created new acreage, sufficient both to
reconcile the conflict and to provide compensatory land to satisfy the
Brents. Unfortunately, the Savage survey, as we have noted, was not made
official, and Mercer was forced to continue his questionable occupancy
of properties whose titles were in doubt.
[Illustration: Figure 5.--KING WILLIAM COURTHOUSE, about 1725. Mercer
often pleaded cases here. (From a Civil War period negative.) (_Courtesy
of Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress._)]
What is most significant to us in all this is the inference that the
courthouse, the Ballard house which Mercer occupied, and the Structure B
foundation were all in close proximity.
FOOTNOTES:
[60] John Mercer's Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12).
[61] Petition of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17).
[62] Stafford County Will Book, Liber Z, pp. 407, 431, 497.
LARGE PROPERTY ACQUISITIONS
Mercer's next purchase of Marlborough property was on July 28, 1737,
when he bought the three lots granted in 1691 to George Andrews from
Andrews' grandson, John Cave. Meanwhile, he began large-scale
acquisitions of lands elsewhere. By 1733 he had acquired an aggregate of
8096 acres in Prince William County. In addition, he obtained a "Lease
for three Lives" on three large tracts belonging to William Brent,
adjoining Marlborough, so that he controlled virtually all of Potomac
Neck.[63]
Thus, after 1730 we find Mercer's fortune already well established and
increasing. No longer a youthful trader plying the Potomac in his sloop,
he was now a gentleman planter and influential lawyer. He lived in a new
house, owned some parts of Marlborough, and was building "improvements"
on others. Almost overnight he had become a landed proprietor.
FOOTNOTES:
[63] John Mercer's Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12).
SUCCESS AT LAW AND CONFLICTS WITH LAWYERS
The source of Mercer's newly made wealth is easily discovered. His
ledger shows an income from legal fees in 1730 amounting to £291 10s.
10-1/2d. In 1731 the figure climbed to £643 18s. 2d., then leveled off
to £639 11s. 2-1/2d. the following year. For a young man still in his
twenties and self-trained in the law, this was a remarkable achievement.
His success perhaps is attributable to a single event that stemmed from
youthful brashness and vigorous outspokenness. Early in 1730, in a
daring gesture on behalf of property owners and taxpayers, he protested
against privileges granted in an act passed by the Assembly the previous
year "for encouraging Adventurers in Iron Works." Presented in the form
of a proposition, the protest was read before the Stafford court by
Peter Hedgman. The reaction to it in Williamsburg, once it had reached
the ears of the Assembly, was immediate and angry. The House of
Burgesses
_Resolv'd_ That the Proposition from _Stafford_ County in relation
to the Act past in the last Session of this Assembly for
encouraging Adventurers in Iron Works is a scandalous and Seditious
Libel Containing false and scandalous Reflections upon the
Legislature and the Justices of the General Court and other Courts
of this Colony.
_Resolv'd_ That _John Mercer_ the Author and Writer of that paper
and _Peter Hedgman_ one of the Subscribers who presented the same
to the Court of Stafford County to be certified to the General
Assembly are guilty of a high Misdemeanour.
_Order'd_ That the said _John Mercer_ and _Peter Hedgman_ be sent
for in Custody of the Serjeant at Arms attending this House to
answer their said Offence at the Bar of this House.[64]
Mercer and Hedgman made their apologies to the House, received their
reprimands, and paid their fines. But this protest, so offensive to the
dignity of the lawmakers, had its effect in forcing amendments to the
act, particularly in removing the requirement for building public roads
leading from the ironworks to the ore supplies and shipping points. To
those living in Stafford, particularly in the neighborhood of the
proposed Accokeek Ironworks, near Marlborough, this concession must have
elevated Mercer to the level of a hero.[65]
Mercer's frank disposition led him into other difficulties during the
first years of his practice. His insistence on the prompt payment of
debts and his opposition to stays of execution following suits had won
him enemies at Prince William court. Charges of improper legal
activities were brought against him; these were investigated at
Williamsburg, with the result that on June 13, 1734, he was suspended
from practicing law in Virginia for a period of six months.[66]
FOOTNOTES:
[64] _JHB, 1727-1734; 1736-1740_ (Richmond, 1910), p. 66.
[65] Ibid., p. xxi.
[66] _Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia_
(Richmond, Virginia: D. Bottom, superintendent of public
printing, 1925), vol. 4, p. 328.
TEMPORARY RETIREMENT, THE ABRIDGMENT, AND GUARDIANSHIP OF GEORGE MASON
Deprived temporarily of his principal livelihood, Mercer set out to
write an _Abridgment of the Laws of Virginia_. The task completed, he
petitioned the General Court on April 23, 1735, for "leave to Print an
Abridgment compil'd by him of all the Laws of this Colony & to have the
benefit of the Sale thereof." On the same day he petitioned for a
renewal of his license, which was granted with the exception of the
right to practice in Prince William, where he was to remain _persona non
grata_ generally thereafter.[67]
Soon after these events his brother-in-law and old acquaintance, George
Mason, drowned. 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.[68]
On October 14, 1737, the _Virginia Gazette_ carried the following
advertisement:
_This Day is Published_
An Exact Abridgment of the Laws of VIRGINIA, in Force and Use, to
this present time. By
John Mercer.
At long last, after innumerable delays, the _Abridgment_ was in print.
From a financial point of view it was a conspicuous failure. Too few
Virginians, apparently, were sufficiently interested to buy it.
FOOTNOTES:
[67] Ibid., p. 348.
[68] KATE MASON ROWLAND, _The Life of George Mason_ (New York
and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1892), vol. 1, p. 49.
DOMESTIC FURNISHINGS AND SERVANTS
During this eventful decade of the 1730's Mercer acquired the things
needed for the proper maintenance of his house and properties. One
requisite was Negro servants. From Pat Reyant he bought "a Girl named
Margaret" for 43 pounds of tobacco in 1730. In 1731 he bought Deborah,
Phillis, Peter, Nan, and Bob. The following year he obtained Lucy, Will,
and George, and, in 1733, Nero. His purchases increased as his
landholdings increased. In 1736 he bought five slaves, three of whom he
aptly named Dublin, Marlborough, and Stafford.
To help feed his slaves during this early period, Mercer apparently
depended in part upon Stafford's wealth of natural resources. At least
we find a record of wild game entered on the same page and under the
same heading as his "Negroes" account in the ledger. There it is noted
that he purchased 42 ducks from Natt Hedgman on November 19, 1730, and
20 ducks from Rawleigh Chinn the same day, paying for them in powder and
shot. Two swans and a goose, as well as venison, appear on the list.
Payment for these was made in powder, shot, and wool.
He continued, meanwhile, to equip his house. From John Foward (or
Foard), a London merchant, he bought a "frying pan" and "2 doz.
bottles," "1 tomahawk," "2 stock-locks," "1 padlock," "2 best padlocks,"
"1 drawingknife," "9 p^r hinges," "3 clasp knives," and "1 gall.
Maderas." In April 1731, he bought from Captain Foward:
£ s. d.
1 bellmettle skillet 4-1/2^{oz} at 2/ 9
1 copper Sausepan 7
1 Small D^o 5 4
1 hunting whip 5
1 halfcheck bridle 7
1 fine hat 12
1 wig Comb 6
Also in 1731 he bought "6 rush bottom Chairs" for 17 shillings and a
spinning wheel for 10 shillings from William Hamitt. The "writing desk"
which he had bought in 1725 apparently needed extensive and expensive
repairs, for in March 1731 there appears an item under "Domestick
Expenses," "To W^m Walker for mending Scoutore £1." (_Scoutore_ was one
of many corrupt spellings of _escritoire_, a slant-top desk.) William
Walker was a Stafford County cabinetmaker and builder, about whom we
shall hear much more.
One of the most active accounts was that of Nathaniel Chapman,[69] who
directed the newly established Accokeek Ironworks. In 1731 he sold
Mercer several hundred nails of different descriptions, a variety of
hoes, ploughs, wedges, door latches, and heaters for smoothing irons.
One item is "By putting a leg in an old Iron Pott"; another is "By Col
Mason p^d for mending a snuff box. 2.6" (Appendix F).
In 1732 he paid Thomas Staines £1 for "a Cradle," "two Bedsteads," and
"a weekes work." From John Blane, during the same year, he purchased
2500 tenpenny nails and the same quantity of eightpenny nails. He also
bought from Blane 4 "basons," a porringer, 100 needles, 2 penknives, a
gross of "thread buttons," and a pair of large "Scissars." Again, in
1732 he obtained from William Nisbett a quantity of miscellaneous goods,
including 10 parcels of earthenware and a pewter dish weighing 4 to 5
ounces. He also settled with Samuel Stevens for "your share in making a
Canoe."
FOOTNOTES:
[69] Nathaniel Chapman headed the Accokeek Ironworks,
referred to by Mercer in Ledger G as "Chapman's Works at Head
of Bay." Although Mercer had opposed the act, which gave
privileges to the ironworks, he was a lifelong friend of
Chapman, who testified in his behalf in 1734 and served with
him on the Ohio Company Committee in the 1750's and 1760's.
Chapman was executor for the estates of Lawrence and
Augustine Washington.
TOBACCO WAREHOUSES
The Tobacco Act of 1730 provided for the erection of public tobacco
warehouses, and Marlborough was selected as one of the sites.[70] In
1731 Mercer's account with John Waugh included "Timber for 2500 boards
@25/.£3.2.6" and "Posts & Ceils for two Warehouses, 12 shillings." In
April 1732 he settled accounts with Captain Henry Fitzhugh for "building
a Warehouse & Wharf & 6 prizes" at 3000 pounds of tobacco, or £15. The
prizes probably were "incentive awards" for the workmen. Included in
Fitzhugh's account were "3 days work of Caesar & Will," ten shillings,
and "4319 very bad Clapboards at 1/2^d y^e board." On March 25 he paid
Anthony Linton for 1820 clapboards, allowing him eight shillings for
"sawing of Boards." The warehouses were in operation in 1732, as we
learn from Mercer's "Account of Inspectors," but they suffered the fate
of all official enterprises at Marlborough, for in 1734 "the same were
put down, as being found very inconvenient."[71] The actual date of
their termination was November 16, 1735, when a new warehouse was
scheduled for completion at the mouth of Aquia Creek.[72] The expression
"put down" does not seem to mean that the warehouses were torn down, but
that they were officially discontinued. He apparently, however,
continued to use them for his own purposes.
FOOTNOTES:
[70] HENING, op. cit. (footnote 1), vol. 4, p. 268.
[71] Petition of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17).
[72] _JHB, 1727-1734; 1736-1740_, op. cit. (footnote 6), p.
202.
PERSONAL ACTIVITIES
During the 1730's Mercer recorded a minimum of recreational activities.
Those that he did list are representative of the society of which he was
a part. Making wagers was a favorite amusement. For example, he was owed
£7 16s. by "Col^o George Braxton To a Wager you laid me at Cap^t Rob^t
Brooke's house before M^r James Reid, Will^m Brooke &c Six Guineas to
one that Col^o Spotswood would not during the Reign of K. George that
now is, procure a Commission as Chief or Lieu^t Gov^r of Virginia." In
1731 he paid William Brent "By a pistole won of me about Hedgman's
wrestling with and throwing Fra^s Dade. £1.1.12." He also paid £2 10s.
to James Markham "By [my] part on the Race on Stotham's horse." There
are other scattered references to wagers on horseraces.
Mercer had become a vestryman in Overwharton Parish as early as 1730,
and appears to have been made responsible for all legal matters
pertaining to that church. His account, shown in detail in Appendix G,
is of interest in showing that violations of moral law were held
accountable to the church and that fines for convictions were paid to
the church. Mercer, representing the parish, collected a portion of each
fine as his fee.
Most of his energies now seem to have been divided between the law and
the substantial responsibilities for managing his plantations. The
increasing extent of tobacco cultivation is revealed in the tobacco
account with "M^r Jonathan Foward, Merchant in London" (presumably John
Foward, mentioned earlier), extending from 1733 to 1743. This account
lists shipments of 129 hogsheads of tobacco, totaling £643 1s. 11d. (if
we include a few extraneous items, such as "To an over charge in Lemons"
and "To a Still charg'd never sent"). Several similar accounts involve
proceeds from tobacco. In 1734 and 1738, for example, he shipped 54
hogsheads to William Stevenson, another London merchant, for £207 7d. on
the ships _Triton_, _Snake_, _Brooks_, and _Elizabeth_.
[Illustration: Figure 6.--MOTHER-OF-PEARL COUNTERS, or "fish," used in
playing 18th-century games, including Loo, at which Mercer once won 7s.
3d. from Col. George Mason (III). These examples, collected in
Massachusetts, are probably late 18th century. (USNM 61.399.)]
Marlborough's full transition to a seat of tobacco-planting empire is
now clearly discernible. 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. The vigor and ability with
which such men were endowed fostered the remarkable class of leaders of
the succeeding generation, who had so much to do with founding the
nation.
IV
_Marlborough at its Ascendancy, 1741-1750_
TRAVEL
On April 12, 1741, Mercer was admitted to practice at the General Court
in Williamsburg.[73] His trip there on that occasion was typical of the
journeys which took him at least twice yearly to the capital. On the
first day of this Williamsburg trip he rode "To Col^o Taliaferro's," a
distance of 19 miles. The following day "To Caroline Court" (18 miles),
the next "To M^r Hubbard's" (30 miles), then as far as "M^r J^{no}
Powers" (24 miles), and finally "To Furneas & Williamsburg" (30 miles).
The route was usually to West Point, or Brick House on the opposite
shore in New Kent County, and thence either directly to Williamsburg, or
by way of New Kent courthouse. Stopovers were made either at ordinaries
or at the houses of friends.[74]
Mercer's travels, summarized in the journal that he kept in the back of
Ledger B from 1730 until his death in 1768, were prodigious. In 1735,
for example, he journeyed a total of 4202 miles and was home only 119
days. This pace had slackened considerably in the period we are now
considering, but, nevertheless, he was not at home more than 218 days
out of any one year of the decade 1741-1750. This energetic and restless
moving about was common among the leading planters, but in Mercer's case
it seems to have reached its ultimate. Practicing law, playing politics,
acquiring property, and becoming acquainted with people led him all over
Virginia.
A representative sample from the journal covers the period of September
and October 1745. It will be noted that the days of the week are
indicated alphabetically, a through g, as in the calendar of the Book of
Common Prayer. The mileage traveled each day is entered at the right.
1 F to Potomack Church & home 10
2 g at home
3 a to Tylers & Spotsylvania Court 14
4 b to M^r Daniels[75] & home 14
5 c to M^r Moncure's,[76] my Survey & home 20
6 d to King George Court & W^m Walkers'[77] 24
7 e to M^{rs}. Spoore's[78] my Survey & home 20
8 F at home
9 g M^r Moncure's my Survey & home 20
10 a to Stafford Court & home 20
11 b at home
12 c to M^{rs} Mason's[79] Survey 18
13 d at D^o 10
14 e at D^o 15
15 F to Potomack Church & M^r Moncure's 18
16 g home 6
17 a at home
18 b D^o
19 c to M^{rs} Spoore & M^{rs} Taliaferro's 17
20 d at M^r Taliaferro's 14
21 e To Fredericksburg & M^{rs} Taliaferro's
22 F To Doctor Potter's[80] & M^{rs} Taliaferro's.
Lost my horses 2
23 g To M^r Moncure's 9
24 a home 10
25 b at home
26 c D^o
27 d D^o
28 e to M^r Moncure's, Vestry & home 16
29 F at home
30 g D^o
October
1 a at home
2 b to M^r Moncure's & Fredericksburg Fair 15
3 c at the Fair
4 d to M^r Moncure's & home 15
5 e at home
6 F to M^{rs} Taliaferro's 17
7 g to Caroline Court h^o & George Hoomes's[81] 20
8 a to Newcastle 50
9 b to M^r Anderson's & M^r Gray's [82] 14
10 c to New Kent Courth^s & M^r Gray's 14
11 d to Furnau's & Williamsburg 17
12 e at Williamsburg
[He remained at Williamsburg until November 6.]
Such itineraries were punctuated by periods of staying at Marlborough,
but even then there were day-long journeys to Stafford courthouse, to
church, or to a survey. The courthouse, which succeeded that at
Marlborough, was situated on the south side of Potomac Creek, about
three miles upstream from the old site. Mercer almost invariably took
the 10-mile-long land route through the site of the present village of
Brook, along the Fredericksburg road past Potomac Church, then along the
headwaters of Potomac Run on a now-disused road leading to Belle Plains.
Just before reaching the courthouse, which stood on a rise of land some
distance back from the creek, he passed "Salvington," the mansion of
Joseph Selden.[83] Near the water, and in sight of the courthouse, stood
the house of John Cave, whose grandfather in 1707 had bought his land
from Sampson Darrell, undertaker of the Marlborough courthouse.[84] Near
it, on a foundation still visible, Cave built the warehouse that bore
his name, and through him passed much of the tobacco that Mercer raised
locally. Occasionally, when he had business to do at Cave's, Mercer
would return home by water, as he did on August 14, 1746:
to Stafford Court & M^r Cave's 11
home by water 5
FOOTNOTES:
[73] John Mercer's journal, kept in the back of Ledger B.
[74] Col. John Taliaferro was a justice of Spotsylvania
County court and one of the original trustees of
Fredericksburg. He lived at the "Manor Plantation," Snow
Creek, Spotsylvania County, and died in 1744 ("Virginia
Council Journals, 1726-1753," _VHM_ [Richmond, 1927], vol.
35, p. 415). Benjamin Hubbard lived in Caroline County ("The
Lovelace Family and its Connections," _VHM_ [Richmond, 1921],
vol. 29, p. 367); John Powers was apparently a resident of
King William County (Ida J. Lee, "Abstracts from King William
County Records," WMQ [2] [Williamsburg, 1926], vol. 6, p.
72); "Furnea's" seems to have been an ordinary between
Williamsburg and New Kent.
[75] Peter Daniel was a burgess and leading citizen of
Stafford County, who, as vestryman, signed the advertisement
for bids to build a new Aquia Church in 1751. _Virginia
Gazette_, June 6, 1751.
[76] The Reverend Mr. John Moncure was minister of
Overwharton Parish.
[77] See pp. 25, 35-36, 46-47 and footnote 95 for further
references to William Walker. Mercer's visit on this occasion
probably relates to Walker's tentative appointment to rebuild
Aquia Church.
[78] Mrs. Ann Spoore of Stafford County.
[79] Probably Mercer's sister-in-law, Mrs. Ann Mason, mother
of George Mason of Gunston Hall.
[80] Dr. Henry Potter lived in Spotsylvania County. His
estate was advertised for sale the following April 17 in the
_Virginia Gazette_.
[81] George Hoomes was a justice of Caroline County court. He
was appointed in 1735, the same year in which John Mercer
qualified to practice law at the same court. "Extracts from
the Records of Caroline County," _VHM_ (Richmond, 1912), vol.
20, p. 203.
[82] Probably Thomas Anderson (see p. 35 and footnote 93);
William Gray was justice of New Kent County.
[83] Joseph Selden's estate passed to his son Samuel, who
married Mercer's eldest daughter, Sarah Ann Mason Mercer. See
John Melville Jennings, ed., "Letters of James Mercer to John
Francis Mercer," _VHM_ (Richmond, 1951), vol. 59, pp. 89-91.
[84] Fredericksburg district-court papers, file 571, bundle
F, nos. 36-43 (through George F. S. King, Fredericksburg);
Stafford County Will Book, Liber Z, p. 383 (August 5, 1707).
VEHICLES
During the 1740's Mercer's travels were often by chaise or chariot. We
learn from Ledger G that he bought "a fourwheel Chaise" from Charles
Carter[85] in September 1744, a significant step in emulating the
manners and ways of Virginia's established aristocrats. Three years
later he purchased "a Sett of Chaisewheels" from Francis Hogans, a
Caroline County wheelwright, and in June 1748 he discounted as an
overcharge the cost of "a Chaise worth nothing" in his account with the
English mercantile firm of Sydenham & Hodgson.[86] A "chaise" could have
been one of several types of vehicles, but it was probably "a carriage
for traveling, having a closed body and seated for one to three
persons," according to Murray's _A New Oxford Dictionary_.
[Illustration: Figure 7.--JOHN MERCER'S TOBACCO-CASK SYMBOLS, drawn in
his Ledger G. The "home plantation" (Marlborough) is symbolized by the
initial C, probably in honor of his wife Catherine. Sumner's quarters at
Passapatanzy is indicated by S, and Bull Run quarters by B. (_Courtesy
of Bucks County Historical Society._)]
In 1749 Mercer bought a "chariot" from James Mills of Tappahannock for
£80. Doubtless an elegant piece of equipage, this was, we learn from
Murray, "a light four-wheeled carriage with only back seats, and
differing from the post-chaise in having a coach-box." In November 1750
he paid John Simpson, a Fredericksburg wheelwright, 10 shillings for
"wedging & hooping the Chariotwheels" and 9 shillings for "mending 3
fillys & 3 Spokes in D^o."[87]
At the same time he bought a "p^r Cartwheels" for £2 and a "Tumbling
Cart" for £1 6s. from Simpson. Murray tells us that a "tumble cart" or a
"tumbril cart" was a dung cart, designed to dump the load.
FOOTNOTES:
[85] Ledger G (original at Bucks County Historical Society)
covers the period 1744-1750, with some entries in 1751 and a
few summary accounts covering Mercer's career. Further
footnoted references to this ledger will be omitted. Charles
Carter lived at "Cleve" in King George County, near Port
Royal, fronting on the Rappahannock. See FAIRFAX HARRISON,
"The Will of Charles Carter of Cleve," _VHM_ (Richmond,
1923), vol. 31, pp. 42-43.
[86] Sydenham & Hodgson was a London mercantile firm,
represented in Virginia by Jonathan Sydenham. Mercer
identified the firm in Ledger G as "Merchants King George"
and noted in his journal on January 20, 1745, that he visited
at "Mr. Sydenham's." In 1757 the two men were referred to
elsewhere as "Messrs. Sydenham & Hodgson of London." See
"Proceedings of the Virginia Committee of Correspondence,
1759-67," _VHM_ (Richmond, 1905), vol. 12, pp. 2-4.
[87] Extensive research has been conducted by Colonial
Williamsburg, Inc., on the forms of vehicles used by such
Virginians as Mercer and his contemporaries.
TOBACCO CASK BRANDS
Hogsheads and casks of tobacco were branded with the symbols or initials
of the original owners. Many of the brands are recorded explicitly in
the ledger. Mercer, at the beginning of his career, used a symbol M. As
his plantations multiplied, however, three symbols were adopted, based
on his own two initials. Tobacco casks from Bull Run were marked
I^[B.]M. Those from Sumner's Quarters bore the brand I^[S.]M, while the
"Home Plantation" at Marlborough had casks marked I^[C.]M (fig. 8).
The interpretation of these symbols warrants some digression. In the
17th century, and indeed in the 18th century also, the triangular cipher
to indicate the initials of man and wife was commonly used to mark
silver, pewter, china, delftware, linens, and other objects needing
owners' identifications. The common surname initial was placed at the
top, the husband's first-name initial at the lower left, and the wife's
at the lower right. This arrangement was used consistently in the 17th
century. In the 18th century, however, variations began to appear in the
colonies, although not, apparently, in England. Silver made in New York
and Philadelphia during the 1700's presents the initials reading from
left to right, with the husband's at the lower left, the wife's at top
center, and the surname initial at the lower right. The large keystone
of the Carlyle house in Alexandria, built in 1751, bears a triangular
arrangement of John and Sarah Carlyle's initials: J^[S.]C.[88]
Like Carlyle, Mercer used initials in this fashion, but also, as we have
seen, in two other combinations in which "J. M." remains constant, the
upper center initial having a subordinate significance. "S" signifies
Sumner's Quarters, and "B," Bull Run Quarters. "C" on seals and brands
having to do with Marlborough apparently refers to Catherine, honoring
her as Mercer's wife and mistress of the home plantation. The
possibility that "C" stands for Cave's warehouse may be dismissed as
being inconsistent with the other two marks, the tobacco from Sumner's
Quarters having also been shipped through Cave's, and that from Bull Run
Quarters having been stored at the Occaquan warehouse.[89]
John Withers also used the left-to-right arrangement, I^[H.]W, although
Henry Tyler, a planter whose account is mentioned in Mercer's Ledger,
used the conventional three-letter cipher, H^[T.]M. These marks occurred
on casks transmitted to Mercer as payments, and are recorded in Ledger G
(fig. 7).
FOOTNOTES:
[88] GAY MONTAGUE MOORE, _Seaport in Virginia_ (Richmond,
1949), p. 62.
[89] C. MALCOLM WATKINS, "The Three-initial Cipher:
Exceptions to the Rule," _Antiques_ (June 1958), vol. 73, no.
6, pp. 564-565.
TOBACCO EXCHANGE
Tobacco, before being transferred to another owner, was examined by
official inspectors. Mercer kept a special "Inspector's Notes" account
where he kept track of fees due the inspectors. Direct payments of
tobacco were made in transactions with William Hunter and Charles Dick,
the Fredericksburg merchants from whom Mercer bought most of his goods
and supplies. To others, however, payments were made in a complexity of
tobacco notes, legal-fee payments, and plain barter. Tobacco shipped
overseas was usually handled by Sydenham & Hodgson. Also involved with
tobacco transactions in England were two Virginia merchants, Major John
Champe, a distinguished resident of King George County who lived at
Lamb's Creek plantation, and William Jordan, of Richmond County, both of
whom arranged for purchases of books, furniture, and other English
imports for Mercer.
The following are excerpts from Sydenham & Hodgson's account in Ledger
G:
1745 £ s. d.
June To 8 hhds. tob^o consigned 63 5 5
you by the
Pri[n]ce of Denmark
November To 6 hhds by the 29 15 9
Harrington
1746
May To 5 hhds by Cap^n
Lee LOST
Feb To 10 hhds by Cap^t 51 14 8
Perry
1747
Septemb^r To 10 hhds by Cap^t 35 9 8
Perryman
1748
June To 10 hhds by Cap^n
Donaldson LOST
1749
Septemb^r To 24 hhds tob^o sold 162 17 14
Mr. Jordan
Revealed in this account are the hazards of shipping goods overseas in
the 18th century. A partnership apparently figured in the second loss at
sea, however, as the following entry in Ledger G shows:
June 1747 By Profit & Loss for the half £75.15.3-3/4
of 20 hhds by Donaldson
in the Cumberland & Lost
By William Jordan for the
other half.
Between 1747 and 1750 Mercer lost a total of 107 hogsheads of tobacco.
Over and above this, however, he shipped overseas tobacco to the amount
of £385 11s. 7d., during the same period.
CLIENTS
Mercer's success was gained despite the failures of a great many persons
to pay the fees they owed him. In 1745 he listed 303 "Insolvents, bad &
doubtful debts." That matters were no worse may be attributed to a high
average of responsible clients. Among them were such well-known
Virginians as Daniel Dulaney, William and Henry Fitzhugh, William
Randolph, Augustine, John, and Lawrence Washington, Gerard Fowke,
Richard Taliaferro, John and Daniel Parke Custis, Andrew and Thomas
Monroe, George Tayloe, George Lee, George Wythe, and William Ramsay.
[Illustration: Figure 8.--WINE-BOTTLE SEAL on bottle excavated at
Marlborough, with same arrangement of initials used in the Marlborough
tobacco seal.]
CLOTHING
By the early 1740's Mercer was in a position to surround himself with
symbols of wealth and prestige. Clothes, a traditional measure of
affluence, were now a growing concern for himself and his family.
Between 1741 and 1744, the ledger reveals, he purchased from William
Hunter a greatcoat, women's stockings, women's calf shoes, morocco
pumps, a "fine hat," three felt hats, two dozen "plaid hose," two pairs
of men's shoes, one pair of "Women's Spanish Shoes," and "2 p^r Calf
D^o." In 1744 and 1745 he bought from Charles Dick two pairs of "women's
coll'^d lamb gloves," two pairs of silk stockings, "1 velvet laced
hood," a "laced hat," a "Castor" (i.e., beaver) hat, "fine thread
stockings," silk handkerchiefs, a "flower'd pettycoat," worsted
stockings, and buckskin gloves. From Hugh MacLane, a Stafford tailor, he
obtained a suit in 1745.
The rise in Mercer's wealth and prestige is reflected in his
patronizing Williamsburg tailors, beginning in 1745 when he settled with
George Charleston for a tailor's bill of £6 10s. In 1748 he paid
Charleston four shillings for "Collar lining a Velvet Waistcoat." In
1749 he purchased a "full trimm'd velvet Suit" from Charles Jones, the
work and materials totaling £7 7s. 4-1/4d., while in 1750 he spent £11
2s. 1-1/2d. on unitemized purchases from the same tailor. In that year
he bought also from Robert Crichton, a Williamsburg merchant, "a
flower'd Velvet Waistcoat, £5." As the decade advanced, Mercer played
with increasing consciousness the role of wealthy gentleman, as his
choice of tailors shows.
MATERIALS
Textile materials, as seen under "General Expenses" and in the accounts
of Hunter and Dick, ran the gamut of the usual imported fabrics, as well
as rare, expensive elegancies. An alphabetical list of the materials
mentioned in these accounts, with definitions, is given in Appendix I.
From this list we gain an impression of great diversity and refinement
in the materials used for clothing and interior decoration, as well as
of a tremendous amount of sewing, embroidering, and making of clothes at
home, probably typical of most of the great plantations in the middle of
the century.
WEAVING
In addition to fine imported materials, there were needed blankets, work
clothes for slaves, and fabrics for other practical purposes. To these
ends Mercer employed several weavers in various parts of Virginia. In
1747 William Threlkeld wove 109 yards of woolen cloth at fourpence a
yard. During that year and the next, John Booth of King George County
wove an indeterminate amount for a total of £2 4d. In 1748 John
Fitzpatrick wove 480 yards of cotton at fourpence a yard, and William
Mills wove 30 yards of "cloath." Much of the work appears to have been
done in payment for legal services.
Weaving and spinning evidently were done at Marlborough, as they were at
most plantations. In 1744 Mercer recorded under "General Charges" that
he had sold a loom to Joseph Foxhall. In 1746 he bought a spinning wheel
from Captain Wilson of Whitehaven, England, purchasing three more from
him in 1748. Wool cards also appear in the accounts. In January 1748
Mercer charged William Mills with "3 months Hire of Thuanus the Weaver,
£3," which suggests that Thuanus was an indentured white servant (his
name does not occur on the list of slaves) employed at Marlborough and
hired out to Mills, a Stafford County weaver.
PERSONAL ACCESSORIES
In contrast to the elegancies of dress materials and clothing, Mercer
left little evidence of jewelry, toilet articles, or other personal
objects. In Ledger G we find "2 horn combs" bought for fivepence, an
ivory comb for tenpence, two razors, two strops, snuff-boxes, bottles of
snuff, "a smelling bottle," and "buck-handled" and silver-handled
penknives. From John Hyndman, a Williamsburg merchant, Mercer acquired a
set of silver buckles for £1 10s., and from William Woodford he bought
"a gold watch, Chain & Swivel" for the not-trifling sum of £64 6s. 3d.
Like most successful men, Mercer had his portrait painted. During the
General Court sessions held in the spring and fall of 1748 in
Williamsburg, he lodged with William Dering, the dancing master and
portrait painter. Dering lived in the house still standing on the
capitol green, now known as the Brush-Everard house. In Dering's account
we find: "by drawing my picture, £9.2.9."[90]
FOOTNOTES:
[90] See J. HALL PLEASANTS, "William Dering, a
mid-eighteenth-century Williamsburg Portrait Painter," _VHM_
(Richmond, 1952), vol. 60, pp. 53-63.
FOOD AND DRINK
Good food and drink played an important part in Mercer's life, as it did
in the lives of most Virginia planters. In the ledger accounts are found
both double-refined and single-refined sugar, bohea tea, coffee,
nutmegs, cinnamon, mace, and chocolate. Most meats were provided by the
plantation and thus are not mentioned, while fish were caught from the
plantation sloop or by fixed nets. However, Thomas Tyler of the Eastern
Shore sold Mercer a barrel of drumfish and four and one-half bushels of
oysters, while Thomas Jones, also of the Eastern Shore, provided a
barrel of pork for 47s. 6d. in 1749. Earlier there appeared a ledger
item under "General Charges" for 1775 pounds of pork.
Molasses was an important staple, and Mercer bought a 31-gallon barrel
of it from one "Captain Fitz of the Eastern Shore of Maryland" in 1746
and 30 gallons the next year, charging both purchases to his wife. In
1750 he received 88 gallons of molasses and 255 pounds of "muscovy
sugar" from Robert Todd. Muscovy sugar was the same as "muscavado"
sugar, the unrefined brown sugar of the West Indies, known in Spanish as
_mascabado_.
[Illustration: Figure 9.--FRENCH HORN dated 1729. Mercer purchased a
"french horn" like this from Charles Dick in 1743. (USNM 95.269.)]
Beverages and the fruits to go with them were bought in astonishing
quantities between 1744 and 1750. Major Robert Tucker, a Norfolk
merchant, exchanged a "Pipe of Wine" worth £26 and a 107-1/2-gallon
hogshead of rum valued at £22 in return for Mercer's legal services.
Again as a legal fee, Mercer received 55 gallons of "Syder" from Janet
Holbrook of Stafford and bought 11 limes from John Mitchelson of York
for 12 shillings. From William Black he purchased "11 dozen and 11
bottles of Ale" at 13 shillings, and from John Harvey "5-1/12 dozen of
Claret" for £11 6d. "Mark Talbott of the Kingdom of Ireland E^{sq}" sold
Mercer a pipe of wine for £3 3s.
LIFE OF THE CHILDREN
During the 1740's Mercer's first four surviving children, George, John
Fenton, James, and Sarah Ann Mason Mercer,[91] were growing up, and the
accounts are scattered through with items pertaining to their care and
upbringing. There are delightful little hints of Mercer's role as the
affectionate father. On May 17, 1743, "By Sundry Toys" appears in
Hunter's account; an item of "1 horses 1^d" in Dick's account for 1745
was undoubtedly a toy. Most charming of all the entries in the latter
account is "1 Coach in a box 6^d. 4 Toys. 8^d, 2 Singing birds." The
birds may have occupied a birdcage and stand bought from George Rock,
the account for which was settled a year later.
[Illustration: Figure 10.--MERCER LISTED A HORNBOOK in his General
Account in 1743. It probably resembled this typical hornbook in the
collection of Mrs. Arthur M. Greenwood.]
"1 french horn" and "3 trumpets" are listed in the Dick account. The
horn was probably used in hunting; the three trumpets were bought
perhaps for the three boys. Mercer's library contained one book of music
entitled _The Musical Miscellany_, which may have furnished the scores
for a boyish trio of trumpets. Music and dancing were a part of the life
at Marlborough, and in 1745 an entry under "General Charges" reads "To
DeKeyser for a years dancing four children £16," while in the following
year ninepence was paid William Allan "for his Fidler." In 1747 "Fiddle
strings" were bought from Fielding Lewis in Fredericksburg for 2s.
4-1/2d.
From the ledger we also learn much about the children's clothing:
child's mittens and child's shoes, boy's pumps, boy's shoes, girl's
shoes, boy's collared lamb gloves, two pairs of "girl's clock'd
Stocking," "2 p^r large boys Shoes 6^l 2 p^r smaller 5/ ... 1 p^r girls
22^d, 1 p^r smaller 20^d," boy's gloves, and "Making a vest and breeches
for George" in October 1745. In 1748 Captain Wilson brought from England
"a Wig for George," worth 12 shillings. George then had reached the age
of 15 and young manhood. Hugh MacLane, the Stafford tailor, was employed
to make clothes for the three boys--a suit for George, and a suit, vest,
coat, and breeches each for James and John.
That the children were educated according to time-honored methods is
revealed in the "General Expenses" account for May 1743, where "1
hornbook 3^d" is entered. The hornbook was an ancient instructional
device consisting of a paddle-shaped piece of wood with the alphabet and
the Lord's Prayer printed or otherwise lettered on paper that was glued
to the wood and covered for protection with thin sheets of transparent
horn. Elaborate examples sometimes were covered with tooled leather, or
were made of ivory, silver, or pewter. The mention of hornbooks in
colonial records is a great rarity, although they were commonplace in
England until about 1800.
The Mercer children were taught by private tutors. One, evidently
engaged in England, was the Reverend John Phipps, who was paid a salary
of £100 annually and, presumably, his board and lodging. Mercer noted in
his journal on November 18, 1746, that "Mr Phipps came to Virginia."
That Mr. Phipps left something to be desired was revealed years later in
the letter written in 1768 by John to George Mercer, who was then in
England, asking him to find a tutor for his younger children: "... the
person you engage may not pretend, as M^r Phipps did that tho' he
undertook to instruct my children he intended boys only, & I or my wife
might teach the girls. As I have mentioned M^r Phipps, it must remind
you that a tutor's good nature & agreeable temper are absolutely
necessary both for his own ease & that of the whole family."[92]
In 1750 George entered the College of William and Mary. He had a room at
William Dering's house, and the account of "Son's Maintenance at
Williamsburg" provides an interesting picture of a well-to-do
college-boy's expenses, chargeable to his father. Such items as "To Cash
p^d for Lottery Tickets" (£7 10s. 6d.), "To Covington the Dancing Master
... 2.3," "To W^m Thomson for Taylor's work" (£1 9s. 6d.), "To p^d for
Washing" (£1 1s.), and "To Books for sundrys" (£22 4s. 7-1/2d.) show a
variety of obligations comparable to those sometimes encountered on a
modern campus. The entire account appears in Appendix J.
FOOTNOTES:
[91] Born 1733, 1735, 1736, and 1738, respectively.
[92] _George Mercer Papers_, op. cit. (footnote 51), p. 202.
BUILDING THE MANOR HOUSE
As early as 1742 the ledger shows that Mercer was building steadily,
although the nature of what he built is rarely indicated. Hunter's
account for 1742 lists 2500 tenpenny nails and 1000 twenty-penny nails,
while in the following year the same account shows a total of 4200
eightpenny nails, 5000 tenpenny, 2000 fourpenny, and 1000 threepenny
nails. The following tools were bought from Hunter in 1744: paring
chisel, 1-1/2-inch auger, 3/4-inch auger, socket gouge, broad axe, adze,
drawing knife, mortice chisel, a "square Rabbit plane," and "plough Iron
& plains." In Charles Dick's account we find purchases in 1745 of 16,000
flooring brads, 4000 twenty-penny nails, 2000 each of fourpenny,
sixpenny, eightpenny, and tenpenny brads, and 60,000 fourpenny nails.
Beginning in 1744 Mercer made great purchases of lumber. Thomas Tyler of
the Eastern Shore sold him 2463 feet of plank in that year, and in 1745
made several transactions totaling 5598 feet of 1-, 1-1/2-, and 2-inch
plank, as well as 23,170 shingles. In 1746 Charles Waller of Stafford
sold Mercer 5193 feet of 1-, 1-1/4-, and 1-1/2-inch plank. In the same
year James Waughhop of Maryland provided "4000 foot of Plank of
different thicknesses for £12," and in May 1749, "2300 foot of 1-1/2
Inch Plank at 7/." Mercer made several similar purchases, including
14,700 shingles, from Robert Taylor of the Eastern Shore.
Where all these materials were used is a matter for conjecture. We know
that Mercer made "Improvements" to the extent of "saving" 40 lots under
the terms of the Act for Ports and Towns, and that a great deal of
construction work, therefore, was going on. One building was probably a
replacement for a warehouse, for a laconic entry in his journal on New
Year's day of 1746 notes that "My warehouses burnt." These were
doubtless the buildings erected in 1732 and officially vacated in 1735.
That at least one eventually was rebuilt for Mercer's own use is known
from an overseer's report of 1771 (Appendix M).
The windmill, the foundations of which still remain in part near the
Potomac shore, was probably built in 1746. Mercer's cash account for
that year includes an item of 2s. 6d. for "Setting up Mill," which
apparently meant adjusting the millstones for proper operation. In
August he paid Nathaniel Chapman £22 19s. 8-3/4d. "in full for Smith's
work." A windmill, with its bearings, levers, lifts, and shafts, would
seem to have been the only structure requiring such a costly amount of
ironwork.
The most elaborate project of all, however, is clearly discernible in
the ledger. In 1746 Thomas Anderson,[93] in consideration of cash and
legal services, charged for "making & burning 40^m Stock bricks" at 4
pounds 6 pence per 1000. In the same year David Minitree, described by
Mercer as a "Bricklayer," came to Marlborough from Williamsburg.
Minitree was more than an ordinary bricklayer, however, for he had
worked on the Mattaponi church, and later, between 1750 and 1753, was to
build Carter's Grove for Carter Burwell.[94]
The credit side of Minitree's account in Ledger G is as follows:
£ s. d.
1746
Decemb^r 5 By making & burning 9 5 7-1/2
41,255 Bricks at 4/6
1747
Septemb^r By stacking & burning 16 9-1/2
11,200 D^o at 1/6
By making & burning 14 2 10
62,849 D^o at 4/6
By making & burning 4 6
1000 D^o at 4/6
By short paid of my 9-1/2
Order on Maj^r
Champe
By building part of 10-1/2
my House
The last item, in particular, is clear indication that an architectural
project of importance was underway and that Mercer had set about to make
Marlborough the equal of Virginia's great plantations. Only "part of my
house" was built by Minitree, yet his bill was more than five times the
total cost of Mercer's previous house, completed in 1730!
Since it was customary in Virginia to make bricks on the site of a new
house, utilizing the underlying clay excavated from the foundation,
Minitree, as well as Anderson, made his bricks at Marlborough before
using them. Mortar for laying bricks was made of lime from oystershells.
In 1747 and 1748, we learn from the ledger, 61-1/2 hogsheads of
oystershells were bought from Abraham Basnett, an "Oysterman," payment
having been made in cash, meat, and brandy. "Flagstones &c" were
obtained in 1747 through Major John Champe at a cost of £36 4s. 6d.
These may have been the same stones brought up as "a load of stone" by
"Boatswain Davis" of Boyd's Hole in Passapatanzy in October 1747 for £4
5s. 5d.
Early in 1748 a new set of developments concerning the house took place.
Major William Walker of Stafford, revealed in the journal and the
ledgers as an old acquaintance of Mercer's, then became the
"undertaker," or contractor, for the house. Walker was a talented man
who had started out as a cabinetmaker, a craft in which his brother
Robert still continued. Whiffen (_The Public Buildings of Williamsburg_)
shows that he both designed and built a glebe house for St. Paul's
Parish, Hanover County, in 1739-1740, and the steeple for St. Peter's
Church in New Kent the latter year. Also in 1740 he built a bridge
across the Pamunkey for Hanover County. At the same time that he was
engaged on Mercer's mansion, he undertook in March 1749 to rebuild the
burned capitol at Williamsburg. He died 11 months later before bringing
either of these major projects to completion.[95]
Walker's carpenter was William Monday. Mercer settled with Monday in
March 1748 for a total bill of £126 16s. 2-1/2d., but with a protest
addressed to himself in the ledger: "By work done about my House which
is not near the value as by Maj^r Walker's Estimate below, yet to avoid
Disputes & as he is worth nothing I give him Credit to make a full
Ballance."
Meanwhile, William Bromley, a joiner, had gone to work on the interior
finish. Like Minitree and Walker, Bromley represented the highest
caliber of artisanship in the colony. Eighteen years later Mercer
referred to Bromley, "who," he said, "I believe was the best architect
that ever was in America."[96] Bromley employed several apprentices,
among them an Irishman named Patterson.[97] For the interval from July
9, 1748, to December 25, 1750, Bromley was paid £140 1s. 1/2d., almost
entirely for wages. The payment included "3 p^r hollows & rounds / 6
plane irons / 1 gallon Brandy." For the same period Andrew Beaty, also a
joiner, received £113 5s. 1-1/2d. On June 19, 1749, Mercer noted in his
journal, "Beaty's apprentice came to work." These men were specialists
in framing woodwork and in making paneling, doors, wainscoting, and
exterior architectural elements of wood.
The opulence of the building's finish is indicated by a charge on
Walker's account for "his Carver's work 69 days at 5/, £17. 15...."
Previously, while Minitree was still working on the house, an item had
been entered in August 1747, "To Cash paid for cutting the Chimneypiece
... 6.3." A chimneypiece was usually the ornamental trim or facing
around a fireplace opening, although in this instance the overpanel may
have been meant.
Jacob Williams, a plasterer, worked 142-1/2 days for a total of £22 4s.
4d., while his helper Joseph Burges was employed 43 days for £5 7s. 6d.
Walker charged £3 8s. 11d. for "his Painters work about my house," and
a purchase of "42 gallons of Linseed Oyl" was recorded in the general
charges account. Three books of goldleaf, which Mercer had obtained from
George Gilmer, the Williamsburg apothecary, were charged, together with
paint, to Walker.
In May 1750, a charge by George Elliot, "Turner, Stafford," was
recorded, "By turning 162 Ballusters at 6^d, £4.1...." Another item, for
supplying "341-1/2 feet Walnut Plank at 2^d," settled in October, may
have been for the wood of which the balusters were made.
Thomas Barry, "Bricklayer," carried on the work that Minitree had not
completed. His account for 1749 follows:
£ s. d.
By Building the Addition to my House 26
22 Arches at 6/ 6 12
900 Coins & Returns at 6/ 2 14
A Frontispiece 3 10
Underpinning & altering the Cellar 2
raising a Chimney 1 5
building an Oven 15
building a Kiln 1
building a Kitchen 9 10
3 Arches at 6/ 18
2 Plain D^o at 2/6 5
500 Coins & returns at 6/ 1 10
-- -- --
55 19 0
Expensive stone was imported for the house by Captain Roger Lyndon,
master of the _Marigold_, whose account occurs in the ledger:
£ s. d.
1749 April By 630 Bricks at 20/ p^r m. 10
Dec^r By Gen'l Charges for hewn
Stone from M^r Nicholson[98] 65 16 4
1750 June By Gen'l Charges for
sundrys by the Marigold
By Do for freight of
Stones to my House 5
It is interesting to note that bricks, probably carried from England as
ballast, were brought by Captain Lyndon.
[Illustration: Figure 11.--FIREPLACE MANTELS illustrated in William
Salmon's _Palladio Londonensis_.
(_Courtesy of the Library of Congress._)]
Not all the hewn stone was fashioned in England. William Copein, a
Prince William County mason, and Job Wigley were employed together in
1749 to the amount of £2 8s. In 1750 Copein was paid by Mercer for 64
days of work at 3s. 1d. per day, totaling £9 17s. 4d. Copein was another
accomplished craftsman, the marks of whose skill still are to be seen in
the carved stone doorways of Aquia Church in Stafford County and in the
baptismal font at Pohick Church in Fairfax.
The design of the house will be considered in more detail later in the
light of both archeological and documentary evidence. It is already
quite clear, however, that the new mansion was remarkably elaborate,
reflecting the workmanship of some of Virginia's best craftsmen. The
most significant clues to its inspiration are found in the titles of
four books which Mercer purchased in 1747. These are listed in the
inventory of his books in Ledger G as follows:
"Hoppne's Architecture." This was probably _The Gentlemans and
Builders Repository on Architecture Displayed. Designs Regulated
and Drawn by E. Hoppus, and engraved by B. Cole. Containing useful
and requisite problems in geometry ... etc_, (1738). Edward Hoppus
was "Surveyor to the Corporation of the London Assurance." He also
edited Salmon's _Palladio Londonensis_. We find no writer on
architecture named Hoppne and assume this was a mistake.
"Salmon's Palladio Londonensis." _Palladio Londonensis: or the
London Art of Building_, by William Salmon, which appeared in at
least two editions, in 1734 and in 1738, had a profound influence
on the formal architecture of the colonies during the mid-century.
"Palladio's Architecture." The Italian Andrea Palladio was the
underlying source of English architectural thought from Christopher
Wren down to Robert Adam. Under the patronage of Lord Burlington,
this book was brought out in London in an English translation by
Giacomo Leoni under the title _The Architecture of A. Palladio; in
Four Books_. It had appeared in three editions prior to this
inventory, in 1715, 1721, and 1742, according to Fiske Kimball
(_Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early
Republic_; New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1924, p. 58). Mercer
probably owned one of these.
"Langley's City & Country Builder." _City and Country Builder's and
Workman's Treasury of Design_ by Battey Langley, 1740, 1745. This
was another copybook much used by builders and provincial
architects.
[Illustration: Figure 12.--DOORWAYS ILLUSTRATED IN WILLIAM SALMON'S
_Palladio Londonensis_ (the London Art of Building), one of the books
used by William Bromley, the chief joiner who worked on Mercer's
mansion. (_Courtesy of the Library of Congress._)]
All four of these books were listed in succession in the ledger and
bracketed together. Next to the bracket are the initials "WB," to
indicate that the books had been lent to someone who bore those
initials. In this case it is virtually certain that the initials are
those of William Bromley, to whom the books would have been of utmost
importance in designing the woodwork of the house.
Door hardware was purchased from William Jordan in June 1749, according
to an item for "Locks & Hinges" that amounted to the large sum of £13
8s. 8d.
FOOTNOTES:
[93] Probably the same Thomas Anderson whose appointment as
tobacco inspector at Page's warehouse, Hanover County, was
unsuccessfully protested on the basis that the job required
"a person skilled in writing and expert in accounts"
(_Calendar of Virginia State Papers_, op. cit. (footnote 18),
vol. 1, pp. 233-234). A letter to Thomas Anderson of Hanover
County was listed as uncalled for at the Williamsburg Post
Office in August, 1752 (_Virginia Gazette_; all references to
the _Gazettes_ result from use of LESTER J. CAPPON and STELLA
F. DUFF, _Virginia Gazette Index 1736-1780_ [Williamsburg,
1950], and microfilm published by The Institute of Early
American History and Culture [Williamsburg, 1950]).
[94] See THOMAS TILESTON WATERMAN, _The Mansions of Virginia,
1706-1776_ (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina
Press, 1946), pp. 183-184, and MARCUS WHIFFEN, _The Public
Buildings of Williamsburg_ (Williamsburg, Virginia: Colonial
Williamsburg, Inc., 1958), pp. 84, 133, 218.
[95] WHIFFEN, ibid., pp. 134-137, 217; _JHB, 1742-1747;
1748-1749_ op. cit. (footnote 6), p. 312; _JHB, 1752-1755;
1756-1758_ (Richmond, 1909), p. 28.
[96] Purdie & Dixon's _Virginia Gazette_, September 26, 1766.
Mercer spelled the name _Brownley_ in Ledger G, but in the
_Gazette_ article it is printed consistently as _Bromley_. As
published in the _George Mercer Papers_ it is spelled, and
perhaps miscopied, _Bramley_. We have chosen _Bromley_ as the
most likely spelling, in the absence of other references to
him.
[97] _George Mercer Papers_, op. cit. (footnote 51), p. 204.
[98] Captain Timothy Nicholson was a London merchant and
shipmaster engaged in the Virginia trade with whom Mercer
arranged several transactions.
DOMESTIC FURNISHINGS
As the mansion progressed, so did the acquisition of furnishings
suitable to its elegance. As early as 1742, doubtless in anticipation of
the new house, Mercer had bought from Hunter a "lanthorn," three
porringers, two cotton counterpanes at 27s., a plate warmer for 7s. 6d.,
a half-dozen plates for 3s. 6d., a half-dozen deep plates for 6s., a
dozen "Stone Coffee cups" for 18d., a dozen knives and forks for 3s.,
two tin saucepans at 4d. each, and "4 Dishes, 19-1/2 lib." (obviously
large pewter chargers). In 1743 he bought "5 gallon Basons 4/7" and "2
pottle Basons at 2/4" (for toilet use), "1 Soop Spoon 1/," and "1 Copper
Chocolate pot 7/6 & mull Stick 6^d," "2 blew & W^t Jugs 2/" (probably
Westerwald stoneware), and "1 Flanders Bed Bunt, 25" (colored cotton or
linen used for bedcovers).
In 1744 Mercer acquired from Charles Dick 4 candlesticks for a penny
each, 2 pairs of large hinges, a "hair sifter," "2 kitchen buck hand
knives," 12 cups and saucers for 2s., "1 milkmaid 2^d" (probably a
shoulder yoke), and "1 bucket 1/2^d." In 1745 a 5-gallon "Stone bottle"
for 3s. 6d., "1 doz. butcher knives," a hearthbroom, six spoons for a
shilling, a pair of scissors, "8 Chamberdoor Locks w^{th} brass knobs
£2," and "1 Sett finest China 35/, 2 punch bowls ... 2.7" were
purchased.
The following year Mercer paid a total of £23 for a silver sugar dish,
weighing 8 oz., 5 dwt.; one dozen teaspoons and tray, 8 oz., 7 dwt.; a
teapot and frame, 26 oz., 8 dwt. This lot of silver probably was bought
at second hand, having been referred to as "Pugh's Plate p^d Edw^d
Wright as by Rec^t." He paid John Coke, a Williamsburg silversmith, £1
6s. for engraving and cleaning it. In the meanwhile, in 1745, he had
sold Coke £6 worth of old silver. He also sold a quantity of "old Plate"
for £15 17s. 3d. to Richard Langton in England through Sydenham &
Hodgson. In 1747 he made a large purchase of silver from the silversmith
William King[99] of Williamsburg:
oz. dwt. £ s. d.
May 1747
By Bernard Moore for 1 Cup 51 1 30 8 3
By James Power for 1 Waiter 8 7-1/2 4 14 2-1/2
By a pair of Sauceboats 25 8
By a large Waiter 29 3 48 11 3-1/2
By a smaller D^o 23 8
By a small D^o 8 8
--------------------------------
148 15-1/2 @ 11/3 84 13 9
In March 1748, Mercer settled with Captain Lyndon for the following:
£ s. d.
1 superfine large gilt Sconce glass 6 16
1 D^o 5 5
1 Walnut & gold D^o 2 10
1 Marble Sideboard 32/6 Bragolo [sic] 32/6 3 5
The following June he bought a marble table from William Jordan and in
October "4 looking Glasses," which Jordan obtained from Sydenham &
Hodgson.
Meanwhile, William Walker's brother Robert made 14 chairs for Mercer, on
which William's carver spent 54 days. The total cost was £30 8s. The
quality of Mercer's furniture is illustrated further by a purchase in
1750 from Lyonel Lyde,[100] a London merchant, of £43 13s. worth of
"Cabinet Ware from Belchier." Belchier was a leading London furniture
maker, whose shop in 1750 was located on the "south side of St. Paul's,
right against the clock." Sir Ambrose Heal, in _The London Furniture
Makers_, illustrates a superb japanned writing cabinet in green and gold
chinoiserie made by Belchier in 1730.[101] Belchier also supplied
Shalstone Manor, the Buckinghamshire estate of Henry Purefoy, with a
table-desk in 1749 (fig. 13).[102]
The ledger notes other occasional purchases of furniture during this
period. In 1746 Mercer paid cash "for oysters & a bedsteed," in the
amount of 10s. 6d. In September 1748, he bought "an Escritoire" from
tutor John Phipps, for which he paid £5.
FOOTNOTES:
[99] Probably William King, who married Elizabeth Edwards in
Stafford in 1738. He was the son of Alfred King, whose
parents were William King (d. 1702) and Judith Brent of
Stafford. His account with Mercer seems to indicate that he
was a silversmith. "Notes and Queries," _The King Family,
VHM_ (Richmond, 1916), vol. 24, p. 203.
[100] The _Virginia Gazette_ on January 27, 1738, announced
that Major Cornelius Lyde, "Son of Mr. _Lionel Lyde_, an
eminent merchant in Bristol, died at his House in _King
William_ County." Later it referred to "Capt. Lyonel Lyde of
Bristol, [master of] the _Gooch_." Mercer's account with Lyde
in Ledger G is headed "M^r Lyonel Lyde, Merch^t in London."
Lyde died in 1749 before Mercer settled his account.
Elsewhere in the ledger is an account with "Mess^{rs} Cooper,
Macartney, Powel, & Lyde. E^{xrs} of Lyonel Lyde." Another
Lyonel Lyde, who became "Sir Lyonel" by 1773, was evidently
heir to the business.
[101] SIR AMBROSE HEAL, _The London Furniture Makers from the
Restoration to the Victorian Era, 1660-1840_ (London:
Batsford, 1953), pp. 6, 13, 236, 237.
[102] GEORGE E. ELAND, _The Purefoy Letters_ (London:
Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd., 1931), vol. 1, pp. 98, 107, 111,
177, and pl. 11.
LIGHTING DEVICES
Artificial lighting for the manor house receives sparse mention. The
four candlesticks bought in 1744 for a penny each were probably of iron
or tin for kitchen use. Candlesticks purchased earlier probably remained
in use, sufficing for most illumination. It is a modern misconception
that colonial houses were ablaze at night with lamplight and
candlelight. Candles were expensive to buy and time-consuming to make,
while lamps rarely were used before the end of the century in the more
refined areas of households. The principal use of candles was in guiding
one's way to bed or in providing the minimum necessary light to carry on
an evening's conversation. During cold weather, fireplaces were a
satisfactory supplement. In general, early to bed and early to rise was
the rule, as William Byrd has shown us, and artificial light was only a
minor necessity.
[Illustration: Figure 13.--TABLE-DESK made in 1749 for Henry Purefoy of
Shalstone Manor in Buckinghamshire by John Belchier of London. In the
following year, John Mercer received £43 13s. worth of "Cabinet Ware"
from that noted cabinetmaker. (_Reproduced from_ Purefoy Letters,
1735-1753, _G. Bland, ed., Sidgwick and Jackson, Ltd., London, 1931, by
courteous permission of the publisher_.)]
Nevertheless, some illumination was needed in the halls and great rooms
of colonial plantation houses, especially when guests were present--as
they usually were. The three sconce glasses which Captain Lyndon
delivered to Mercer in 1748 were doubtless elegant answers to this
requirement. These glasses were mirrors with one or more candle
branches, arranged so that the light would be reflected and multiplied.
On special occasions, these, and perhaps some candelabra and a
scattering of candlesticks to supplement them, provided concentrations
of light; for such affairs the use of ordinary tallow candles, with
their drippings and smoke, was out of the question. A pleasant
alternative is indicated by the purchase in April 1749 of "11-1/2 lib.
Myrtle Wax att 5d ... 14.4-1/2" and "4 lib Beeswax 6/" from Thomas Jones
of the Eastern Shore. Similar purchases also are recorded. Myrtle wax
came from what the Virginians called the myrtle bush, better known today
as the bayberry bush. Its gray berries yielded a fragrant aromatic wax
much favored in the colonies. In making candles it was usually mixed
with beeswax, as was evidently the case here. A clean-burning, superior
light source, it was nonetheless an expensive one. Burning in the
brackets of the sconce glasses at Marlborough, heightening the shadows
of the Palladian woodwork and, when snuffed, emitting its faint but
delicious fragrance, it must have been a delight to the eyes and the
nostrils alike.
NEGROES
Negroes played an increasingly important part in the life of
Marlborough, particularly after the manor house was built. Between 1731
and 1750 Mercer purchased 89 Negroes. Most of these are listed by name
in the ledger accounts. Forty-six died in this period, while 25 were
born, leaving a total of 66 Negroes on his staff in 1750. In 1746 he
bought 6 men and 14 women at £21 10s. from Harmer & King in
Williamsburg. The new house and the expanded needs for service were
perhaps the reasons for this largest single purchase of slaves.
There is no indication that Mercer treated his slaves other than well,
or that they caused him any serious difficulties. On the other hand, his
frequent reference to them by name, the recording of their children's
names and birth dates in his ledger, and the mention in his journal of
new births among his slave population all attest to an essentially
paternalistic attitude that was characteristic of most Virginia planters
during the 18th century. Good physical care of the Negroes was motivated
perhaps as much by self-interest in protecting an investment as by
humane considerations, but, nonetheless, we find such items in the
ledger as "To Cash p^d Doctor Lynn for delivering Deborah."
That discipline served for the Negroes as it usually did for all
colonials, whether the lawbreaker were slave, bondsman, or free citizen,
is indicated by an entry in the Dick account: "2 thongs w^{th} Silk
lashes 1/3." One must bear in mind that corporal punishment was accepted
universally in the 18th century. Its application to slaves, however,
usually was left to the discretion of the slave owner, so that the
restraint with which it was administered depended largely upon the
humanity and wisdom of the master.
The use of the lash was more often than not delegated to the overseer,
who was hired to run, or help run, the plantation. It was the overseer
who had a direct interest in eliciting production from the field hands;
a sadistic overseer, therefore, might create a hell for the slaves under
him. It is clear from Mercer's records that some of his overseers caused
problems for him and that at least one was a brutal man. For October
1747 a chilling entry appears in the account of William Graham, an
overseer at Bull Run Quarters: "To Negroes for one you made hang
himself. £35." Entered in the "Negroes" account, it reappears, somewhat
differently: "To William Graham for Frank (Hanged) £35 Sterling. £50.
15." This is one of several instances on record of Negroes driven to
suicide as the only alternative to enduring cruelties.[103] In this
case, Graham was fined 50 shillings and 1293 pounds of tobacco.
We do not know, of course, whether other Negroes listed as dead in
Mercer's account died of natural causes or whether cruel treatment
contributed to their deaths. In the case of a homesick Negro named Joe,
who ran away for the third time in 1745, Mercer seems reluctantly to
have resorted to an offer of reward and an appeal to the law. Even so,
he declined to place all the blame on Joe. Joe had been "Coachman to
Mr. Belfield of Richmond County" and in the reward offer Mercer states
that Joe
... was for some time after he first ran away lurking about the
Widow Belfield's Plantation.... He is a short, well-set Fellow,
about 26 Years of Age, and took with him several cloaths, among the
rest a Suit of Blue, lined and faced with Red, with White Metal
Buttons, Whoever will secure and bring home the said Negroe, shall
receive Two Pistoles Reward, besides what the Law allows: And as I
have a great Reason to believe, that he is privately encouraged to
run away, and then harboured and concealed, so that the Person or
Persons so harbouring him may be thereof convicted, I will pay to
such Discoverer Ten Pistoles upon Conviction. This being the third
Trip he has made since I bought him in _January_ last, I desire he
may receive such Correction in his Way home as the Law directs,
when apprehended.[104]
Whether Joe received the harsh punishment his offense called for is not
recorded. However, in 1748 Mercer accounted for cash paid for "Joe's
Lodging & burial £3. 10.," suggesting that Joe enjoyed death-bed care
and a decent burial, even though he may have succumbed to "such
correction ... as the law directs."
As has already been suggested, his overseers seem to have given Mercer
more trouble than his slaves. One was Booth Jones of Stafford, about
whom Mercer confided in his ledger, "By allowed him as Overseer tho he
ran away about 5 weeks before his time was out by w^{ch} I suffered more
damage than his whole wages. £3. 11." Meanwhile, in 1746 William
Wheeland, an overseer at Bull Run Quarters, "imbezilled" 40 barrels of
corn.
James Savage was one of the principal overseers and seems to have been
in charge first at Sumner's Quarters and then at Bull Run Quarters. John
Ferguson succeeded him at the former place. William Torbutt was also at
Bull Run, while Mark Canton and Nicholas Seward were overseers at
Marlborough.
The outfitting of slaves with proper clothes, blankets, and coats was an
important matter. It called for such purchases as 121 ells of
"ozenbrigs" from Hunter in 1742. "Ozenbrigs" was a coarse cloth of a
type made originally in Oznabruck, Germany,[105] and was traditionally
the Negro field hand's raiment. Many purchases of indigo point to the
dying of "Virginia" cloth, woven either on the plantation or by the
weavers mentioned earlier. Presumably, shoes for the Negroes were made
at Marlborough, judging from a purchase from Dick of 3-1/4 pounds of
shoe thread. The domestic servants were liveried, at least after the
mansion was occupied. William Thomson, a Fredericksburg tailor, made "a
Coat & Breeches [for] Bob, 11/." Bob was apparently Mercer's personal
manservant, who had served him since 1732. Thomson also was paid £4 16s.
2d. for "Making Liveries." The listing of such materials as "scarlet
duffel" and "scarlet buttons" points to colorful outfitting of slaves.
FOOTNOTES:
[103] _Virginia Gazette_, July 10, 1752; BRUCE, op. cit.
(footnote 5), vol. 2, pp. 107-108; ULRICH BONNELL PHILLIPS,
_American Negro Slavery_ (New York & London: D. Appleton,
1918), pp. 271, 272, 381.
[104] _Virginia Gazette_, September 12, 1745.
[105] GEORGE FRANCIS DOW, _Everyday Life in the Massachusetts
Bay Colony_ (Boston: The Society for the Preservation of New
England Antiquities, 1935), p. 78.
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. To equip
the sloop, 14 yards of topsail, ship's twine, and a barrel of tar were
purchased in 1747. Mercer had two Negroes named "Captain" and
"Boatswain," and we may suppose that they had charge of the vessel. Such
an arrangement would not have been unique, for many years after this, in
1768, Mercer wrote that "a sloop of M^r Ritchie's that came around from
Rapp^a for a load of tobacco stopped at my landing; his negro skipper
brought me a letter from M^r Mills...."[106]
That there was considerable hunting at Marlborough is borne out by
repeated references to powder, shot, gunpowder, and gunflints. Fishing
may have been carried on from the sloop and also in trap-nets of the
same sort still used in Potomac Creek off the Marlborough Point shore.
In 1742 purchases were made of a 40-fathom seine and 3 perch lines, and
in 1744 of 75 fishhooks and 2 drumlines.
FOOTNOTES:
[106] _George Mercer Papers_, op. cit. (footnote 51), p. 208.
BOOKS
In Ledger G, Mercer listed all the books of his library before 1746. He
then listed additions as they occurred through 1750 (Appendix K). This
astonishing catalog, disclosing one of the largest libraries in Virginia
at that time, reveals the catholicity of Mercer's tastes and the
inquiring mind that lay behind them. Included in the catalog are the
titles of perhaps the most important law library in the colony.
The names of all sorts of books on husbandry and agriculture are to be
found in the list: "Practice of farming," "Houghton's Husbandry,"
"Monarchy of the Bees," "Flax," "Grass," and Evelyn's "A Discourse of
Sallets." Mercer's interest in brewing, which later was to launch a
full-scale, if abortive, commercial enterprise is reflected in "London
Brewer," "Scott's Distilling and Fermentation," "Hops," and the "Hop
Gardin," while "The Craftsman," "Woollen Manufacture," and "New
Improvements" indicate his concern with the efficiency of other
plantation activities.
He displayed an interest in nature and science typical of an
18th-century man: "Bacon's Natural History," "Gordon's Cosmography,"
"Gordon's Geography," "Atkinson's Epitome of Navigation," "Ozamun's
Mathematical Recreations," "Keill's Astronomy," and "Newton's Opticks."
Two others were "Baker's Microscope" and "Description of the Microscope
&c." It may be significant that in 1747 Mercer bought three microscopes
from one "Doctor Spencer" of Fredericksburg, the books on the subject
and the instruments themselves possibly having been intended for the
education of the three boys.
"150 Prints of Ovid's Metamorphosis" appears, in addition to "Ovid's
Metamorphosis and 25 Sins," for which Mercer paid £8 6s. to William
Parks in 1746. "Catalog of Plants" and "Merian of Insects" are other
titles related to natural science.
Many books on history and biography are listed--for example, "Life of
Oliver Cromwell," "Lives of the Popes," "Life of the Duke of Argyle,"
"Hughes History of Barbadoes," "Catholick History," "History of
Virginia," "Dr. Holde's History of China," "The English Acquisitions in
Guinea," "Purchas's Pilgrimage."
There are 25 titles under "Physick & Surgery," reflecting the planter's
need to know the rudiments of medical care for his slaves and family.
Art, architecture, and travel interested him also, and we find such
titles as "Noblemen's Seats by Kip," "Willis's Survey of the
Cathedrals," "8 Views of Scotland," "Perrier's Statues," "Pozzo's
Perspective," "100 Views of Brabant & Flanders," "History of
Amphitheatres." There was but one title on music--"The Musical
Miscellany," mentioned previously. "Report about Silver Coins" was
probably an English report on the exchange rate of silver coinage in the
various British colonies.
Mercer kept abreast of English literature of his own and preceding
generations: "Swift's Sermons," the "Spectator" and the "Tatler,"
"Pope's Works," "Turkish Spy," "Tom Brown's Letters from the Dead to the
Living," "Pamela," "David Simple," "Joseph Andrews," "Shakespeare's
Plays," "Ben Jonson's Works," "Wycherley's Plays," "Prior's Works,"
"Savage's Poems," "Cowley's Works," and "Select Plays" (in 16 volumes),
to mention but a few. The classics are well represented--"Lauderdale's
Virgil," "Ovid's Art of Love," "Martial" (in Greek), as well as a Greek
grammar and a Greek testament. There were the usual sermons and
religious books, along with such diverse subjects as "Alian's Tacticks
of War," "Weston's Treatise of Shorthand" and "Weston's Shorthand
Copybook," and "Greave's Origin of Weights, &c." He subscribed to the
_London Magazine_ and the _Gentleman's Magazine_, and received regularly
the _Virginia Gazette_.
While most of Mercer's books were for intellectual edification or
factual reference, a few must have served the purpose of sheer visual
pleasure. Such was Merian's magnificent quarto volume of hand-colored
engraved plates of Surinam insects, with descriptive texts in Dutch. The
18th-century gentleman's taste for the elegant, the "curious," and the
aesthetically delightful were all satisfied in this luxurious book,
which would have been placed appropriately on a table for the pleasure
of Mercer's guests.[107]
FOOTNOTES:
[107] MARIA SIBYLLA MERIAN, _Metamorphosis Insectorum
Surinamensium efte Veranderung Surinaamsche Insecten_
(Antwerp, 1705).
THE PETITION
Although overseeing the construction of his mansion, buying the
furniture for it, and assembling a splendid library would have been
sufficient to keep lesser men busy, Mercer was absorbed in other
activities as well. On May 10, 1748, for example, he recorded in his
journal that he went "to Raceground by James Taylor's & Wid^o
Taliaferro's,"[108] traveling 50 miles to do so. On December 13, 1748,
he went "to Stafford Court & home. Swore to the Commission of the
Peace," thus becoming a justice of the peace for Stafford County.
[Illustration: Figure 14.--ARCHEOLOGICAL SURVEY PLAN superimposed over
detail of 1691 plat, showing southwest corner of town developed by
Mercer. It can be seen that the mansion foundation was in the area near
the change of course "by the Gutt between Geo. Andrew's & the Court
house," hence in the vicinity of the courthouse site.]
In the meanwhile, years had gone by, and no action had been taken on the
suit in chancery brought in the 1730's to establish Savage's survey of
Marlborough as the official one. During this time, Mercer had continued
to build on various lots other than those he owned, "relying on the
Lease and Consent of [the feoffees], at the Expense of above Fifteen
Hundred Pounds, which Improvements would have saved forty lots."
Finally, "judging the only effectual way to secure his Title would be to
procure an Act of General Assembly for that purpose,"[109] Mercer
applied to the Stafford court to purchase the county's interest in the
town, to which the court agreed on August 11, 1747, the price to be
10,000 pounds of tobacco. Since this transaction required legislative
approval, Mercer filed with the House of Burgesses the petition which
has served so often in these pages to tell the history of Marlborough.
Mercer argued in the petition that the county had nothing to lose--that
it "had received satisfaction" for at least 30 lots, some of which he
might be obliged to buy over again; that, considering the history of the
town, no one but himself would be likely to take up any other lots, the
last having been subscribed to in 1708; and that his purchase of the
town would be not to the county's disadvantage but rather to his own
great expense. He was willing to accept an appraisal from "any one
impartial person of Credit" who would say the town was worth more, and
to pay "any Consideration this worshipful House shall think just."
He pointed out that the two acres set aside for the courthouse were
excluded and that they "must revert to the Heir of the former
Proprietor, (who is now an Infant)." He did not indicate in the petition
that he himself was the guardian of William Brent, infant heir to the
courthouse property. It is most significant, therefore, that in asking
for favorable action he added, "except the two acres thereof, which were
taken in for a Courthouse, as aforesaid and which he is willing to lay
of as this worshipful House may think most for the Benefit of Mr.
William Brent, the Infant, to whom the same belongs, _or to pay him
double or treble the worth of the said two acres, if the same is also
vested in your Petitioner_." (Italics supplied.) Plainly, Mercer had
much at stake in obtaining title to the courthouse land. This supports
the hypothesis that the Gregg survey of 1707 infringed on the courthouse
land, that Ballard's lot 19 on the Gregg survey overlapped it, and that
Mercer's first two houses, and now his mansion, were partly on land that
rightfully belonged to his ward, William Brent. Mercer apparently had so
built over all the lower part of Marlborough without regard to title of
ownership, and had so committed himself to occupancy of the courthouse
site, that he was now in the embarrassing position of having to look
after William Brent's interests when they were in conflict with his own.
Likely it is that he had depended too much on acceptance of the
still-unauthorized Savage survey to correct the previous discrepancies
by means of its extra row of lots.
Still further indication that the courthouse land was at issue is found
in the proceedings that followed the petition. In these, there are
repeated references to Mercer's having been called upon to testify "as
the Guardian of William Brent." Clearly, the legislators were concerned
with the effect the acceptance of the petition would have on Brent's
interests. If Mercer, as seems likely, was building his mansion on the
courthouse land, the burgesses had reason to question him. In any case,
the House resolved in the affirmative "That the said Petition be
rejected".[110]
This setback was only temporary, however. The wider problems of
Marlborough had at least been brought to light, so that by the time the
next fall session was held Mercer's 18-year-old suit to have Savage's
designated the official survey finally was acted upon:
"At a General Court held at the Court House in Williamsburg the 12th
October 1749" the John Savage survey of 1731 was "Decreed & Ordered" to
be "the only Survey" of Marlborough. The problem of overlapping
boundaries occasioned by the conflicts between the first two surveys was
solved neatly. Mercer agreed to accept lots 1 through 9, 22 and 25, and
33, 34, 42, and 43, "instead of the s^d 17 lots so purchased." The new
lots extended up the Potomac River shore, while the "s^d 17 lots" were
those which he had originally purchased and had built upon. Since he had
"saved" these 17 lots by building on them, according to the old laws for
the town, "it is further decreed & ordered that the said Town of
Marlborough grant & convey unto the s^d John Mercer in fee such & so
many other Lotts in the said Town as shall include the Houses &
Improvm^{ts} made by the said John Mercer according to the Rate of 400
square feet of Housing for each Lot so as the Lots to be granted for any
House of greater Dimensions be contiguous & are not separated from the
said House by any of the Streets of the said Town."[111]
Thus, Mercer's original titles to 17 lots were made secure by
substituting new lots for the disputed ones he had occupied. This device
enabled the feoffees to sell back the original lots--at £182 per
lot--with new deeds drawn on the basis of the Savage survey. The final
provision that lots be contiguous when a house larger than the minimum
400 square feet was built on them, and that the house and lots should
not be separated by streets from each other, guaranteed the integrity of
the mansion and its surrounding land. No mention was made here, or in
subsequent transfers, of the courthouse land. Presumably it was
conveniently forgotten, Mercer perhaps having duly recompensed his ward.
FOOTNOTES:
[108] James Taylor lived in Caroline County; the "Wid^o
Taliaferro" was probably Mrs. John Taliaferro of
Spotsylvania.
[109] Petition of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17).
[110] _JHB, 1742-1747; 1748-1749_, op. cit. (footnote 6), pp.
285-286.
[111] John Mercer's Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12).
HEALTH AND MEDICINE
Three weeks before his petition was read in the House, Mercer became
ill. On October 26, 1748, he noted in his journal, "Very ill obliged to
keep my bed." This was almost his first sickness after years of
apparently robust health. Such indispositions as he occasionally
suffered had occurred, like this one, at Williamsburg, where
conviviality and rich food caused many another colonial worthy to
founder. In this case, anxiety over the outcome of his petition may have
brought on or aggravated his ailment. In any event, he stayed throughout
the court session at the home of Dr. Kenneth McKenzie, who treated him.
On November 3 he noted that he was "On Recovery," and two days later
"went out to take the air." The following appears in his account with
Dr. McKenzie:
October 1748: By Medicines & Attendance myself & Ice £7.19.11
By Lodging &c 7 weeks 6. 6. 7
From William Parks, on another occasion, he bought "Rattlesnake root,"
which was promoted in 18th-century Virginia as a specific against the
gout, smallpox, and "Pleuritick and Peripneumonic Fevers."[112] Twice he
bought "British oyl," a favorite popular nostrum sold in tall, square
bottles, and on another occasion "2 bottles of Daffy's Elixir."[113] In
1749 he settled his account with George Gilmer, apothecary of
Williamsburg, for such things as oil of cinnamon, Holloways' Citrate,
"Aqua Linnaean," rhubarb, sago, "Sal. Volat.," spirits of lavender, and
gum fragac. The final item in the account was for April 22, 1750, for "a
Vomit." The induced vomit, usually by a tartar emetic, was an accepted
cure for overindulgence and a host of supposed ailments. That inveterate
valetudinarian and amateur physician, William Byrd, was in the habit of
"giving" vomits to his sick slaves.[114]
In November and December 1749 Mercer sustained his first long illness,
during which he was attended by "Doctor Amson." "Taken sick" at home on
November 13, he evidently did not begin to recover until December 11.
Whatever improvement he may have made must have received a setback on
the last day of the year, when he recorded in his journal: "Took about
60 grains of Opium & 60 grains of Euphorbium by mistake instead of a
dose of rhubarb."
FOOTNOTES:
[112] Ten years earlier a vogue for rattlesnake root had been
established, apparently by those interested in promoting it.
On June 16, 1738, Benjamin Waller wrote to the editor of the
_Virginia Gazette_ extolling the virtues of rattlesnake root
in a testimonial. He claimed it cured him quickly of the
gout, and, he wrote, "I am also fully convinced this Medicine
has saved the Lives of many of my Negroes, and others in that
Disease, which rages here, and is by many called a
_Pleurisy_; And that it is a sure Cure in a Quartan Ague."
Two weeks later the _Gazette_ carried "Proposals for Printing
by Subscription a _Treatise_ on the DISEASES of _Virginia_
and the Neighbouring Colonies ... To which is annexed, An
Appendix, showing the strongest Reasons, _a priori_, that the
Seneca Rattle-Snake Root must be of more use than any
Medicine in the _Materia Medica_."
[113] See GEORGE B. GRIFFENHAGEN and JAMES HARVEY YOUNG, "Old
English Patent Medicines in America," (paper 10 in
_Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology:
Papers 1-11_, U.S. National Museum Bulletin 218, by various
authors; Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1959).
[114] _The Secret Diary of William Byrd of Westover,
1709-1712_, edit. Louis B. Wright and Marian Tingling.
(Richmond, Virginia: The Dietz Press, 1941), p. 188 (for
example).
RELIGION AND CHARITIES
Mercer's religious observances were irregular, although usually when he
was home he attended Potomac Church. At the same time he continued as a
vestryman in Overwharton Parish (which included Potomac and Aquia
churches). On September 28, 1745, the vestry met to decide whether to
build a new Aquia church or to repair the old one. They "then proceeded
to agree with one _William Walker_, an Undertaker to build a new brick
Church, Sixty Feet Square in the Clear, for One Hundred and Fifty Three
Thousand Nine Hundred and Twenty Pounds of Transfer Tobacco."[115] In
October Mercer entered in Ledger G, under the Overwharton Parish
account, "To drawing articles with Walker." In December he charged the
parish with "2 bottles claret" and "To Robert Jackson for mending the
Church Plate." Jackson was a Fredericksburg silversmith.[116]
The following March, the proprietors of the Accokeek Ironworks
petitioned the Committee on Propositions and Grievances with an
objection to the vestry's decision to rebuild, claiming that "as the
said Iron-Works lie in the Parish aforesaid, and employ many Tithables
in carrying on the same, they will labour under great Hardships
thereby...."[117] The petition was rejected, but nothing seems to have
been done on the new church until three months after Walker's death in
February 1750, when Mourning Richards was appointed undertaker.[118]
Mercer's charities in this decade form a short list. His only outright
gift was his "Subscription to Protestant working-Schools in Ireland. To
my annual Subscription for Sterling £5.5." In 1749 he did £12 3s. worth
of legal work for the College of William and Mary, which he converted
into "Subscriptions to Schools" of equal value; in other words, he
donated his services.
FOOTNOTES:
[115] Op. cit. (footnote 19), p. 203.
[116] _Virginia Gazette_, October 20, 1752; RALPH BARTON
CUTTEN, _The Silversmiths of Virginia_ (Richmond, 1953), pp.
39-40.
[117] Op. cit. (footnote 19), p. 199.
[118] WHIFFEN, op. cit. (footnote 94), p. 142.
CATHERINE MERCER'S DEATH AND ANN ROY'S ARRIVAL
On April 1, 1750, Mercer went to Williamsburg for the spring session and
stopped en route to visit his friend Dr. Mungo Roy at Port Royal in
Caroline County. He remained at Williamsburg until the seventh, except
for going on the previous day to "Greenspring" to be entertained by
Philip Ludwell in the Jacobean mansion built a century earlier by
Governor Berkeley. Again stopping off at Port Royal, he returned home on
May 10. He remained there until June 15, when he made the laconic entry
in his journal: "My wife died between 3 & 4 at noon." What time this
denotes is unclear.
Following this loss--Catherine Mercer was only 43--Mercer remained at
home for five days, then visited his sister-in-law Mrs. Ann Mason. The
next night he stayed with the pastor of Aquia Church, Mr. Moncure, then
returned to Marlborough and remained there for nearly a month.
Meanwhile, he purchased from Fielding Lewis, at a cost of £3 18s.
7-1/2d., "sundrys for mourning." William Thomson, the Stafford tailor,
made his mourning clothes. The preparations for the funeral must have
been elaborate; it was not held until July 13.
[Illustration: Figure 15.--PORTRAIT OF ANN ROY MERCER, John Mercer's
second wife and the daughter of Dr. Mungo Roy of Port Royal, painted in
1750 or shortly thereafter. (_Courtesy of Mrs. Thomas B. Payne._)]
At the end of July Mercer went to Williamsburg, thence to Yorktown, and
from there to Hampton and Norfolk by water on an "Antigua Ship,"
returning to Hampton on August 5 on a "Negro Ship," evidently having
caught passage on oceangoing traders. The younger children remained in
Williamsburg with George and a nurse. On September 8 he went to Port
Royal and stayed "at Dr. Roy's." He returned home on the 10th, then went
back to Port Royal on the 14th, staying at Dr. Roy's until the 20th,
attending Sunday church services during his visit. He returned home
again on the 23rd, only to visit Dr. Roy once more on the 28th. The
October court session drew him to Williamsburg, where he remained until
November 7. While there, he purchased the following from James
Craig,[119] a jeweler:
£ s. d.
By a pair of Earrings 2 12
By a pair of Buttons 2 12
By a plain Ring 1 1 6
On November 8 he returned to Dr. Roy's. On the 10th he added a
characteristically sparse note to his chronicle, "Married to Ann Roy."
The period for mourning poor Catherine was short indeed. But the mansion
at Marlborough needed a mistress, and Mercer's children, a mother. A new
chapter was about to open as the decade closed. From the meticulous
records that Mercer kept, it has been possible to see Mercer as a
dynamic cosmopolite, accomplishing an incredible amount in a few short
years. His constant physical movement from place to place, his reading
of the law and of even a fraction of his hundreds of books in science,
literature, and the arts, his managing of four plantations, attending
two monthly court sessions a year at Williamsburg, looking after the
legal affairs of hundreds of clients, concerning himself with the design
and construction of a remarkable house and selecting the furnishings for
it--all this illustrates a personality of enormous capacity.
Marlborough was now a full-fledged plantation. Although the legacy of an
earlier age still nagged at Mercer and prevented him from holding title
to much of the old town, he had, nevertheless, transformed it, gracing
it with the outspread grandeur of a Palladian great house.
FOOTNOTES:
[119] "James CRAIG, _Jeweller_, from LONDON Makes all sorts
Jeweller's Work, in the best Manner at his Shop in _Francis_
Street (facing the Main Street) opposite to Mr. Hall's new
Store." _Virginia Gazette_, September 25, 1746.
V
_Mercer and Marlborough, from Zenith to Decline, 1751-1768_
THE OHIO COMPANY
The long last period of Mercer's life and of the plantation he created
began at a time of growing concern about the western frontier and the
wilderness beyond it. In 1747 this concern had been expressed in the
founding of the Ohio Company of Virginia by a group of notable colonial
leaders: Thomas Cresap, Augustine Washington, George Fairfax, Lawrence
Washington, Francis Thornton, and Nathaniel Chapman. George Mason was an
early member, and so, not surprisingly, was John Mercer, whose prestige
as a lawyer was the primary reason for his introduction to the company.
We learn from the minutes of the meeting on December 3, 1750.
"[Resolved] That it is absolutely necessary to have proper Articles
to bind the Company that Mason ..., Scott & Chapman or any two of
them, apply to John Mercer to consider and draw such Articles and
desire him attend the next general meeting of the Company at
Stafford Courthouse...."[120]
At the meeting in May 1751, Mercer presented the Articles and was
"admitted as a Partner on advancing his twentieth part of the whole
Expence."[121] From then on he was virtually secretary of the company,
as well as its chief driving force. He was made a committee member with
Lawrence Washington, Nathaniel Chapman, James Scott, and George Mason,
who was treasurer. The "Committee" was the central or executive board.
With the leading members living in Stafford County or nearby, most of
the meetings of both the company and the committee were held at Stafford
courthouse, and occasionally in private houses of the members. We can
imagine with what pride Mercer noted in his journal for February 5-7,
1753, "Ohio Committee met at my house." The important role played by the
Ohio Company in the Mercers' lives--and by them in the Company--is fully
recounted in the _George Mercer Papers Relating to the Ohio Company of
Virginia_.
FOOTNOTES:
[120] _The George Mercer Papers_, op. cit. (footnote 51), p.
5.
[121] Ibid.
GEORGE, JOHN, AND JAMES
Mercer doubtless threw himself into the Ohio Company's affairs with
characteristic drive and enthusiasm. We may surmise that there was heady
talk at Marlborough about the frontier and of dangerous exploits against
the Indians and the French--enough, at least, to have stirred youthful
cravings for adventure among the Mercer boys. Certain it is that George
and John Fenton, aged 19 and 18, respectively, joined the frontier
regiment of their neighbor Colonel Fry as young officers "upon the first
incursions of the French."[122]
James, aged 16 and too young for soldiering, exhibited an unusual
aptitude for architecture. 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.
Mercer's decision was as unconventional as it was prescient, being made
at a time when gentlemen were not expected to learn a trade, yet at a
moment when the respected place the professional architect was later to
have could be envisioned. 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. At the same time I bound four young Negro
fellows (which I had given him) to Mr. Waite, who covenanted to instruct
each of them in a particular branch. These, I expected, when they were
out of their time, would place him in such a situation as might enable
him to provide for himself, if I should not be able to do any more for
him. It is notorious that I received the compliments of the Governour,
several of the Council, and many of the best Gentlemen in the country,
for having set such an example, which, they said, they hoped would
banish that false pride that too many of their countrymen were actuated
by."
On June 25, 1753, Mercer noted in his journal, "At home. Bound son James
& Peter & Essex to W^m Waite for 5 y^{rs}." However commendable this
effort to banish "false pride" may have been, it was probably not a
realistic solution for James' career. James, as we shall see, was to
make his own choice later and was to follow with great distinction in
his father's footsteps as a lawyer.
FOOTNOTES:
[122] All the foregoing quotations in this section are from
Purdie & Dixon's _Virginia Gazette_, September 26, 1766.
GROWING BURDENS, RESPONSIBILITIES, AND DEBTS
Meanwhile, Mercer had announced his intention to publish a new edition
of the _Abridgment_. In doing so, he adopted a hostile, testy approach
that was unusual even in 18th-century advertising. Implying that he was
doing a favor to an ungrateful populace, he stated in the Virginia
_Gazette_ on August 16, 1751, "I have been prevail'd upon to print it,
if I have a prospect of saving myself, though the Treatment I met from
the Subscribers to the last had determined me never to be again
concerned in an Undertaking of this Kind." On the following February 20,
he announced in the _Gazette_ that if there were 600 subscribers by the
last of the next General Court he would send the copy to press. If not,
he would return the money to those who had subscribed, "which I should
not have troubled myself with, if I could have thought of any other
Expedient to secure myself against the base Usage I met with from the
Subscribers to my former _Abridgment_, who left above 1200 of them on my
Hands." This kind of advertising had its predictable response:
publication of the new _Abridgment_ was postponed indefinitely.
The first suggestion that all was not well in Mercer's financial affairs
was given in an advertisement in the _Gazette_ on April 10, 1752. In
this he noted that he had agreed to pay the debts of one Francis
Wroughton, a London merchant, out of Wroughton's effects. However,
although Wroughton's effects had not materialized, he promised to make
payment anyway, "notwithstanding a large Ballance due to myself." He
concluded, "Besides Mr. _Wroughton's_ Debts, I have some of my own (and
not inconsiderable) to pay, therefore I hope that such Gentlemen as are
indebted to me will, without putting me to the Blush which a Dunn will
occasion, discharge their Debts...."
Perhaps to alleviate these difficulties, he had advertised in the
Gazette on the previous March 15 that he would lease "3,000 Acres of
extraordinary good fresh Land, in Fairfax and Prince William," but there
is no evidence that he was successful.
Signs of irritability became increasingly noticeable. In 1753 he
outraged his fellow justices at Stafford court--so much so that they
brought charges against him before the Executive Council "for
misbehavior as a Justice."[123] It was decided that, although "his
Conduct had been in some Respects blameable, particularly by his
Intemperance, opprobrious Language on the Bench, and indecent Treatment
of the other Justices, ... that in Consideration of his having been a
principal Instrument in a due Administration of Justice, and expediting
the Business of the County, it has been thought proper to continue him
Judge of the Court."[124]
A growing burden of debt, in contrast to the prosperity of the preceding
decade, clearly affected Mercer's attitude, as we can see in a Gazette
advertisement on November 7, 1754: "I will not undertake any new, or
finish any old Cause, 'til I receive my Fee, or Security for it to my
liking: And I hope such Gentlemen as for above these seven years past
have put me off with Promises every succeeding General Court will think
it reasonable now to discharge their accounts." Concurrent with
indebtedness was an almost annual increase in the size of his family. In
1752 Grace Fenton Mercer was born, the next year Mungo Roy, and in 1754
Elinor.
At the same time, he still pursued the restless activity that
characterized his earlier years. On July 24, 1753, Mercer went "to
Balthrop's, Smith's Ordin^{ry} & Vaulx's,"[125] a distance of 27 miles,
during which he "Overset." On the 25th he went on eight miles farther
"to Col^o Phil Lee's"[126] for a three-day meeting of the Ohio Company,
then went the whole 35 miles home on the 28th. On September 6 he was
called eight miles away "to Boyd's hole on Inquest as Coroner & home by
4 in the morn^g," while the next day he was "at home. Son Mungo Roy born
ab^t 2 in the morning." On the 19th Mungo Roy was christened. Four days
later he went 15 miles to Fredericksburg
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