breads and pastry, and to bake them “to a turn.”
When, in the restoration of Mount Vernon, the kitchen was reached, recourse was had to Shirley’s kitchen. Drawings were made of an unusual colonial table, of a pair of andirons with hooks for spits to rest on, and of several other old-time cookery appointments; and, from these drawings, were constructed the duplicates that are now in the Mount Vernon kitchen.
It was on our way from the kitchen to the mansion that we came upon another visitor to Shirley. She was short and round and black and smiling and “feelin’ tol’ble, thank you, ma’am.” This, we learned, was Aunt Patsy. She had “jes heard dat Miss Marion done come home”; and so, arrayed in her best clothes including a spotless checked apron, she had come to “de gre’t house” to pay her respects to Mrs. Oliver.
Drawn out somewhat for our benefit, she gave her views upon the subject of matrimony.
“I been married five times,” she said. We were not particularly surprised at that; but were scarcely prepared for the added statement, “an’ I done had two husban’s.”
However, no one could fail to understand Aunt Patsy’s position, and to heartily agree with her, when she came to explain her marital paradox.
“De way ’tis is dis way,” she said. “What I calls a _husban_’ is one dat goes out, he do, an’ gethahs up” (here, a sweeping gesture with the apron, suggestive of lavish ingathering), “gethahs up things an’ brings ’em in to me. But what I calls _havin’ a man aroun’_ is whar he sets by de fiah and smokes he pipe, while I goes out an’ wuks an’ brings things home, an’ he eats what I gives him. An’ dat’s how come I been married five times, an’ I done had two husban’s.”
[Illustration: BRICK OVEN IN THE BAKE-ROOM.]
Before the old oak chest was opened for us, that day at Shirley, we knew that this colonial home was rich in antique silver. Yet, the family speak of the many pieces as “remnants,” because of the still greater number lost at the time of the war. The plate was sent for safe-keeping to a man in Richmond who was afterward able to account for but a small part of it. Evidently, the Hills and the Carters went far in following the old colonial custom of investing in household silver. And as an investment the purchase of this ware was largely regarded in those days; family plate being deemed one of the best forms in which to hold surplus wealth.
Different periods are represented in the old pieces yet remaining at Shirley. There are the graceful, classic types of the days of the Georges; the earlier ornate, rococo forms; and the yet earlier massive styles of the time of Queen Anne and long before. Among the most ancient pieces, are heavy tankards that remind one of the long ago, when such great communal cups went round from merry lip to merry lip–microbes all unknown. The numerous spoons too speak of the time when there were no forks to share their labours. Most of the silver remaining to-day is engraved with the coat of arms of the Carters.
Suggestive of the days when colonial belles were toasted about Shirley’s table, are the old punch bowl and the punch strainer and the wine coasters; though a more noteworthy object, having the same associations, is an antique mahogany wine chest with many of the original cut glass bottles still in its compartments.
[Illustration: SOME NOTEWORTHY PIECES OF OLD SHIRLEY PLATE.]
And looking at Shirley’s old silver in Shirley’s old dining-room, we thought of the lavish colonial entertainments in which both had played their part. What hospitable places were those early planters’ homes! As courts, assemblies, races, funerals, weddings, and festivals took the people up and down the country, they found few inns; but, instead, at every great plantation, wide-spreading roofs and ever-open doors. The spirit of welcome even stood at the gates and laid hands upon the passing traveller, drawing him up the shady avenues and into the hospitable homes.
In the days of the colonial Carters (who, through a complicated network of intermarriages, were cousins to all the rest of Virginia), Shirley must often have been full to overflowing.
And, along with our thoughts of Shirley’s hospitality, came the recollection of a pretty story that had been told to us one day at Brandon by Miss Mary Lee, daughter of General Robert E. Lee. It was a story of one of the merry, old-time gatherings about Charles Carter’s long table in the Shirley dining-room. Among the guests was a dashing young cavalry officer who had won fame and the rank of general in the Revolutionary War; and who, in his unsatisfied military ardour, was contemplating joining the Revolutionary Army of France. But just now, he was contemplating only his host and his dinner.
Suddenly, he became aware of a flushed and charming maiden in distress. She had lifted a great cut glass dish filled with strawberries, and it was more than her little hands could hold. She strove to avert a crash; and, just in time, the gallant young General caught the appealing look from the dark eyes and the toppling dish from the trembling hands. But in saving the bowl and the berries, he lost his heart.
And the maiden was Anne Hill Carter, daughter of the genial host; and the young General was “Light Horse Harry” Lee. The dreams of further glory on French battlefields were abandoned; and there was another feast at Shirley when bridal roses of June were in bloom. The young people went to live at Stratford, the ancestral home of the Lees; and there was born their famous son, Robert E. Lee.
As Shirley’s old dining-room thus brought to our minds that greatest Virginian of our day, so it brought to mind the greatest Virginian of all days; for, even as we looked at silver and thought of love stories, a life-size portrait of George Washington, by Charles Wilson Peale, stood looking down upon us from the panelled wall.
[Illustration: PEALE’S PORTRAIT OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.]
It is a noted and invaluable canvas that hangs there at Shirley, and it is doubtless a good likeness of the Father of our Country; but it is not just the George Washington that most of us have in our mind’s eye. When the average American thinks of hatchets and cherry trees and abnormal truthfulness, the face that rises before him is that benign and fatherly one that he has seen a thousand times in the popular reproductions of the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. Just as for generations only the good has been told of George Washington, so has this handsomest picture (doubtless a trifle flattering) always been the popular one.
However, in this day, when the ideal George Washington of story is being ruthlessly brushed aside in the search for the real flesh-and-blood man, any canvas also that has idealized him is somewhat in jeopardy.
It is well that the Washington of Sparks and of Irving and of Stuart should be superseded by the truer Washington of Mitchell and of Ford and of Peale; but the result will be that, for a while, the country will scarcely recognize its own father.
Always at Shirley our interest came back to the old colonial hall. Of course, to get the good of it, one had to set one’s eyes so as to throw out of focus many marks of modernism; but that adjustment would almost come of itself with a little study of quaint transoms, or of ancient hatchments, or, above all, of the time-worn stairway.
Why is it that the spirit of the long-ago so clings about an old stairway? Why should the empty stair seem to remember so much, to suggest so much, of a life that came to it only in fitful passings and that left nothing of itself behind?
There were no signs of that long by-gone life upon Shirley’s stairway, save for a dimming of the old rail where countless hands–strong, feeble, fair–had lightly rested or, more helpless, clung; and save for that worn trail of the generations that followed up the dull, dark treads. But even these had much to tell of the passings for nearly two centuries and a half up and down this household highway: of the masterful tread of spur-shod boots, the dancing of the belle’s slim-slippered feet, the pompous double steps of bumpy baby shoes, the gouty stump of old grandsire, and the faithful shamble of the black boy at his heels.
That day (regretfully our last in this colonial home) not only the stairway but all of the old house seemed inclined to become reminiscent. Nautica noticed this in the quiet drawing-room that would keep bringing up by-gone times, and, she insisted, by-gone people too. In the great hall, even the Commodore felt the mood of old Shirley and the presence of a life that all seemed natural enough, but that must have come a good ways out of the past.
On the staircase, despite the dim light over there (or because of it), one could even catch sight of a shadowy old-time company.
There were stately figures passing up and down: the old lords of the wilderness in velvet coats and huge wigs, and ladies of the wilderness too in rich brocades and laced stomachers. There were many slender and youthful figures. Charmingly odd and quaint were the merry groups of girls, catching and swaying upon the shadowy stair; dainty ruffles peeping through the balusters; laughing faces bending above the dark, old rail. And fine indeed were the gallants that did them homage; those young colonials of bright velvets and flowered waistcoats and lace ruffles and powdered periwigs.
Now, from the stairway the old-time life spread throughout the old-time home. Shirley was living over again some merry-making of colonial days. That was the Governor that just passed with the glint of gold lace and the glint of gold snuff-box; and that, a councillor’s lady that rustled by in stiff silks, her feet in gold-heeled slippers and her powdered head dressed “Dutch.” And quite as fine and quite as quaint were the ladies that followed in their gay flowered “sacques” looped back from bright petticoats and point lace aprons.
It was all as London-like as might be: rich velvets and brocades, wide-hooped skirts and stiff stomachers, laced coats and embroidered waistcoats, broad tuckers and Mechlin ruffles, high-heeled shoes and handsome buckles, powdered wigs and powdered puffs, and crescent beauty patches.
Evidently, by colonial time, twilight was coming on; for now the fragrant bayberry candles were lighted. There was the faint tinkle of a harpsichord. Dim figures moved in the stately minuet; their curtsies, punctiliously in keeping with the last word from London, were “slow and low.”
Little groups gathered about the card tables, where fresh candles and ivory counters were waiting. Lovers found their way to deep window-seats; and lovers of yet another sort to brimming glasses and colonial toasts, and perhaps to wigs awry.
It was the old-time Shirley, the strange, incongruous Shirley that was a bright bit of English manor life within; and, without, wilderness and savages and tobacco-fields and Africans. In from the life of the old messuage, came a touch of the barbaric; weird minor songs that belonged with the hot throb of the African tom-tom floated in through the deep windows, and strangely mingled with the thin tinkle of the harpsichord and the tender strains of an old English ballad.
The green bayberry candles grew dim, and in their fragrant smoke the old colonials faded away. Our visit at Shirley was over.
Out in the quadrangle, we turned for a last look at the homestead, and were almost forced to doubt that old colonial scene that we had just left within. There stood the fine buildings in perfect preservation, insisting at last as they had insisted at first that this matter of old age was but a huge mistake–that they had been built but yesterday.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE END OF THE VOYAGE
Before daylight on the following morning Gadabout was awake and astir. She had resolved to catch the early tide and finish her James River cruise that day by a final run to the head of navigation at Richmond.
For the last time the clacking windlass was calling the sleeping anchor from its bed in the river; the Commodore was hanging out the sailing-lights; and Nautica (who could not find the dividers) was stepping off the distance to Richmond on the chart with a hairpin.
How dreary a start before dawn sounds to a landsman! The hated early call; the hasty breakfast with coffee-cup in one hand and time-table in the other; the dismal drive through dull, sleeping streets; the cheerless station; the gloomy train-shed with its lines of coaches wrapped in acrid engine smoke.
But the houseboater knows another way. For him, the early call is the call of the tide that finds ready response from a lover of the sea. Does the tide serve before dawn, man of the ship? Then before dawn its stir is in your blood; your anchor is heaved home; your sailing-lights, white and green and red, are bravely twinkling; your propellers are tossing the waters astern; and you are off.
You are off with the flood just in from the sea, or with the ebb that is seeking the sea; and with it you go along a way where no one has passed before–an evanescent way that is made of night shades and river mists. And after a while you come upon a wonderful thing–almost the solemn wonder of creation, as, from those thinning, shimmering veils, the world comes slowly forth and takes shape again.
When the real world took shape for Gadabout that morning on the James, she was some distance above Shirley and the river was a smaller river than we had seen at any time before. By the chart, we observed that it was a comparatively narrow stream all the rest of the way to Richmond.
We had now entered upon a portion of the old waterway that Nautica insisted had been done up in curl-papers. Here, the voyager must sail around twenty miles of frivolous loops to make five miles of progress.
Upon coming to a group of buildings indicated on the chart and standing close to the right bank, we knew that Gadabout had navigated the first of the fussy curls. Around it, we had travelled six miles since leaving Shirley, and now had the satisfaction of knowing that the old manor-house itself stood just across from these buildings, less than a mile away.
On a little farther, we passed a fine plantation home called Curle’s Neck. A long while after that, another large plantation, Meadowville, came alongside. But the curious thing was that, at the same time, alongside came Curle’s Neck again. We had travelled something over four miles since leaving it, yet there it stood directly opposite and less than three quarters of a mile from us.
[Illustration: VARINA.]
Perhaps the river observed that we were getting a little out of patience; for, almost immediately, it sought to beguile us by bringing into view one of its show points, a landing on the left bank with a large brick house near by. The chart told us that this was Varina; and the guide-books told us a pretty story about how here, in their honeymoon days, lived John Rolfe and Pocahontas.
Although that honeymoon was almost three centuries gone, and there was nothing left at Varina to tell of it, yet somehow our thoughts quickened and Gadabout’s engines slowed as we sailed along the romantic site.
To be sure, to keep up the spirit of romance one has to overlook a good deal. The fact that John Rolfe had been married before and the report that Pocahontas had been too, somewhat discouraged sentiment. And then, was it love, after all, that built the rude little home of that strange pair somewhere up there on the shore? Or, had Cupid no more to do with that first international marriage in our history than he has had to do with many a later one? Can it be that politics and religion drew John Rolfe to the altar? and that a broken heart led Pocahontas there?
Poor little bride in any event! A forest child–wrapped in her doe-skin robe, the down of the wild pigeon at her throat, her feet in moccasins, and her hair crested with an eagle’s feather; bravely struggling with civilization, with a new home, a new language, new customs, and a new religion.
How many times, when it all bore heavy on her wildwood soul, did she steal down to this ragged shore, push out in her slender canoe, and find comfort in the fellowship of this turbulent, untamable river! And how often did she turn from her home to the wilderness, slipping in noiseless moccasins back into the narrow, mysterious trails of the red man, where bended twig and braided rush and scar of bark held messages for her!
Then came the time when the river and the forest were lost to her. The princess of the wilderness had become the wonder of a day at the Court of King James. Almost mockingly comes up the old portrait of her, painted in London when she had “become very formall and civill after our English manner.” The rigid figure caparisoned in the white woman’s furbelows; the stiff, heavy hat upon the black hair; the set face, and the sad dark eyes–a dusky woodland creature choked in the ruff of Queen Bess.
When Varina was left behind, we fell to berating the tortuous river again. Of course we did not think for a moment that the troublesome curlicues we were finding had always been there. When the river was the old, savage Powhatan, we may be sure it never stooped in its dignity of flow to such frivolity. These kinks were silly artificialities that came when the noble old barbarian was civilized and named in honour of a vain and frivolous foreign king.
Now, just ahead of us, was the most foolish frizzle of all. It was a loop five miles around, and yet with the ends so close together that a boy could throw a stone across the strip of land between. At a very early day, sensible folk lost patience and sought, by digging a canal across the narrow neck, to cut this offensive curl off altogether.
Some Dutchmen among the colonists were the first to try this (and Dutchmen understand waterway barbering better than anybody else); but they were unsuccessful. Their efforts seem to have resulted only in giving the place the name of Dutch Gap. Many years ago, the United States Government took up the work and, in 1872, the five-mile curl was effectually cut off by the Dutch Gap Canal.
A good deal of interesting history is associated with this loop of the James. Here, but four years after the coming of those first colonists, the town of Henrico or Henricopolis was founded. The place made a somewhat pretentious beginning and was doubtless intended to supersede James Towne as the capital of the colony. Steps were taken to establish a college here. If they had been successful, Harvard College could not lay claim to one of its present honours, that of being the earliest college in America. But the Indian massacre of 1622 caused the abandonment of the college project and of Henricopolis too.
We passed into the canal, which was so short that we were scarcely into it before we were out again and headed on up the river. The banks of the stream grew higher and bolder, and we were soon running much of the time between bluffs with trees hanging over.
On some of the bald cliffs buzzards gathered to sun themselves; and they lay motionless even as we passed, their wings spread to the full in the fine sunshine. It was almost the sunshine of summer-time. In its glow we could scarcely credit our own recollections of some wintry bits of houseboating; and as to that story in our note-books about our being ice-bound in Eppes Creek, it was too much to ask ourselves to believe a word of it.
[Illustration: DUTCH GAP CANAL.]
In colonial times there were a number of fine homes along this part of the James, but most of them have long since disappeared. Just after passing Falling Creek we came upon one colonial mansion yet standing. It belonged in those old times to the Randolphs, and is best known perhaps as the home of the colonial belle, Mistress Anne Randolph. Among the beaux of the stirring days just before the Revolution, she was a reigning toast under the popular name of “Nancy Wilton.” The second Benjamin Harrison of Brandon was among her wooers; and it is to his courtship that Thomas Jefferson refers when expressing, in one of his letters, the hope that his old college roommate may have luck at Wilton. He did have. And we remembered the sweet-faced portrait at Brandon of “Nancy Wilton” Harrison.
[Illustration: FALLING CREEK.]
Soon, our course was along a narrow channel saw-toothed with jetties on either hand. The signs of life upon the river told that we were nearing Richmond. We passed some work-boats, tugs, dredges, and such craft, and everybody whistled.
Over the top of a rise of land that marked the next bend of the river, we saw an ugly dark cloud. It had been long since we had seen a cloud like that; but there is no mistaking the black hat of a city.
So, there was Richmond seated beside the falls in the James–those water-bars that the river would not let down for any ship to pass; there was where our journey would end. To be sure, long years ago, the pale-faces outwitted the old tawny Powhatan by building a canal around its barriers. Their ships climbed great steps that they called locks; and, passing around the falls and rapids, went up and on their way far toward the mountains. But the river knew the ways of the white man, and kept its water-bars up and waited.
After a while the pale-faces took to a new way of getting themselves and their belongings over the country; they went rolling about on rails instead of floating on the water; and before long, they almost forgot the old waterways. Nature waited a while and then took their abandoned canals to grow rushes and water-lilies; and she covered the tow-paths with green and put tangles of undergrowth along; and then she gave it all to the birds and the frogs and the turtles.
So, it came to pass that river barriers counted once more–that the barrier across our river counted once more. We did not know whether the canal ahead of us was wholly abandoned; but we did know that it was so obstructed as to no longer furnish a way of getting a vessel above the falls.
The Powhatan was master again; and a little way beyond that next bend it would bar the progress of Gadabout just as, three centuries earlier, it had barred the progress of the exploring boats that the first settlers sent up from James Towne.
Well, it was high time anyway for our journey to end. We had been several months upon the river–several months in travelling one hundred miles! One can not always go lazing on, even in a houseboat; even upon an ancient waterway leading through Colonial-land.
The old river may carry you to the beginning-place of your country; it may bear you on to the doors of famous colonial homes, full of old-time charm and traditional courtesy. But if so, then all the more need for falls and rapids to put a reasonable end to your houseboat voyage.
We came about the bend in the stream and, at sight of the city before us, were reminded of the keen prevision of its colonial founder. When Colonel William Byrd, that sagacious exquisite of Westover, came up the river one day in 1733 to this part of his almost boundless estate, and laid the foundations of Richmond here in the wilderness beside the Falls of the James, he foresaw that he was founding a great city. A “city in the air” he called it, and his dream came true. Its realization in steeples and spires and chimneys and roof-lines opened before us now upon the slopes and the summits of the river hills.
Soon we were skirting the city’s water front. We passed piers and factories and many boats. We went from the pure air of the open river into the tainted breath of the town. Among many odours there came to be chiefly one–that of tobacco from the great factories.
And that brought to mind a strange fact. In all our journey up the river, we had not seen a leaf of tobacco nor had we seen a place where it was grown. Tobacco, upon which civilization along the James had been built; that had once covered with its broad leaves almost every cultivated acre along the stream; that had made the greatness of every plantation home we had visited–and now unknown among the products of the fertile river banks!
At last Gadabout was at the foot of the falls and rapids. Like those first exploring colonists we found that here “the water falleth so rudely, and with such a violence, as not any boat can possibly passe.”
[Illustration: THE VOYAGE ENDED. GADABOUT IN WINTER QUARTERS.]
Of course there was a temptation to do with our boat as the colonists once proposed to do with theirs–take her to pieces and then put her together again above the falls, and so sail on up the old waterway to the South Sea and to the Indies. But the exploring spirit of the race is not what it used to be, and we simply ran Gadabout into a slip beside the disused canal and stopped. An anchor went plump into the water, making a wave-circle that spread and spread till it filled the whole basin–a great round water-period to end our river story.
THE END.
INDEX
Adams
Alexander, Elizabeth
Appomattox River, The
Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, The
Back River, The
Bacon, Nathaniel
Barney, Mrs. Edward E., owner of Jamestown Island Berkeley, Lady Frances
Berkeley, Sir William
Berkeley (the estate)
home of elder branch of Harrison family ancestral home of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and of two Presidents of the United States plantation in 1776
Bermuda Hundred, village founded four years after settlement of James Towne Brandon
history of
riverward entrance to grounds
the “woods-way” to the mansion
“the quarters”
the landward entrance
type of architecture
characteristic hospitality
interior of mansion
colonial portraits
the old garden
present day family at Brandon
the bedrooms
colonial silver
ancient records
an old court gown
the family burying-ground
the garrison house
Bransford, Mrs. H.W., of the Carter family of Shirley, and one of the present owners of the plantation, living in the manor-house Buck, Reverend Richard
Byrd, Evelyn, portrait and romance of her room at Westover
tomb of
Byrd, Lucy Parke, wife of William Byrd of Westover Byrd, William, the second, of Westover
portrait at Brandon
about 1726 built present mansion at Westover death
tomb of
ability of this colonial grandee
founded the city of Richmond
Carter, Anne Hill, of Shirley, wife of “Light Horse Harry” Lee and mother of General Robert E. Lee
Carter, Charles, portrait at Shirley Carter, Elizabeth Hill, of Shirley, daughter of the third Edward Hill, and wife of John Carter of Corotoman
portrait at Shirley
Carter family acquire Corotoman
reach greatest prominence in days of “King” Carter cousins to all the rest of Virginia
Carter, John, son of “King” Carter of Corotoman, was secretary of the colony
married Elizabeth Hill of Shirley in 1723 portrait at Shirley
Carter, Robert, of Corotoman on the Rappahannock, one of the wealthiest and most influential colonials
his possessions
called “King” Carter
portrait at Shirley
Carter, Robert Randolph, of Shirley Carter, Mrs. Robert Randolph, of Shirley Carter, Miss Susy
Chickahominy River, The
Chippoak Creek
Chuckatuck Creek
City Point
Claremont
Colonial river trade
Constant, Sarah
Cornick, Reverend John, rector of Westover Church Corotoman, Carter family acquire
Cotton, Mrs. An.
Court House Creek
Curie’s Neck
Cuyler, Randolph
Cuyler, Mrs. Randolph, of Brandon
Dale, Sir Thomas
Dancing Point
Delaware, Lord
ownership of Shirley
Discovery, ship
Douthat family of Weyanoke
Douthat, Fielding Lewis
Douthat, Mrs. Mary Willis Marshall, granddaughter of Chief-Justice Marshall, and present mistress of Weyanoke Dutch Gap Canal
Eppes Creek
Eppes family, home at City Point
Faffing Creek
Fleur de Hundred
Ford, Paul Leicester
Fort Powhatan
“Friggett Landing”
Goodspeed, ship
Gordon family of Aberdeenshire
Gordon, William Washington
Grant, U.S., Grant’s army crossed the James
Hampton Roads
Harrison, Mrs. Anne, of Berkeley
Harrison, Miss Belle, of Brandon
in court gown of her colonial aunt, Evelyn Byrd Harrison, Benjamin, the emigrant
Harrison, Benjamin, of Berkeley, treasurer of the colony Harrison, Major Benjamin, of Berkeley, member of the House of Burgesses Harrison, Benjamin, of Berkeley, member of the Continental Congress and signer of the Declaration of Independence Harrison, Benjamin, of Brandon, member of the Council Harrison, Colonel Benjamin, of Brandon, portrait by Peale Harrison, Mrs. Benjamin. See Mistress Anne Randolph of Wilton Harrison, Benjamin, grandson of William Henry Harrison of Berkeley, and twenty-third President of the United States Harrison, George Evelyn, of Brandon
Harrison, Mrs. George Evelyn, present mistress of Brandon Harrison, Nathaniel, of Brandon
Harrison, William Henry, of Berkeley, ninth President of our country Harvard College
Harwood, Joseph
Henrico or Henricopolis, founded four years after James Towne site of proposed college which would have been oldest in America Henry, Patrick
Herring Creek
Hill family acquire Shirley
Hill, Edward, the second,
built present mansion at Shirley about the middle of the seventeenth century
his portrait at Shirley
Hill, Mrs. Edward, portrait of, at Shirley Hollingshorst, Elizabeth Gordon
Hollingshorst, Thomas
Indian massacre of 1622
caused abandonment of Henrico
Irving, Washington
James River, The
width
depth
historical importance
colonial life upon
colonial water life
Grant’s army crossed
colonial river trade
sturgeon in
buoy-tender on
narrow and crooked from Shirley to Richmond site of Richmond on
the Falls of the.
James Towne
settlement of
development, decline, and abandonment of Captain Edward Ross
the typical village
streets
buildings
“alehouses”
abandonment of
re-settlement
final abandonment
ancient site not lost
unearthing the buried ruins
Jamestown Island
settlement of
appearance
the way across
isthmus
width of
battle upon
church
churchyard
mysterious tomb
Confederate Fort
historic sites
where Pocahontas and John Rolfe were married coining of “the maids”
beginnings of American self-government the colonists’ first landing-place
the colonists’ first fort
the colonists’ first village
the story of the “Starving Time”
the “Lone Cypress”
Jefferson, Thomas
Kittewan Creek
Kittewan house
Kneller, Sir Godfrey
Lee, General Robert E.
Lee, Miss Mary
Lee, “Light Horse Harry,” married at Shirley Lee, Mrs. Henry. See Anne Hill Carter of Shirley Lewis family
Madison, James
Marshall, Chief-Justice John
Marshall, John, son of Chief-Justice Marshall Marshall, Mary Willis, wife of Chief-Justice Marshall Martin, Captain John
Meadowville
Merchants’ Hope Church
Mitchell, Dr. S. Weir
Mordaunt, Charles
Monroe, James
Newport News
Oliver, Commander James H., U.S.N.
Oliver, Mrs. James H., of the Carter family, and one of the present owners of Shirley
Opachisco
Opechancanough, Indian chief
Parke, Colonel Daniel
Peale, Charles Wilson
his portrait of Washington at Shirley Peterborough, Lord
Petersburg, March upon
Piersey, Captain Abraham, ownership of Fleur de Hundred Pocahontas
marriage to John Rolfe
after marriage lived at Varina
Pope, Alexander
Powell’s Creek
Powhatan, Indian chief, not at wedding of Pocahontas “Pyping Point”
Ramsay, Mrs. C. Sears, present owner of Westover Ramsay, Elizabeth
Ramsay family at Westover
Randolph, Mistress Anne, of Wilton
pre-Revolutionary belle, married the second Benjamin Harrison of Brandon
her portrait at Brandon
Richmond, at the Falls of the James founded by William Byrd of Westover in 1733 Rolfe, John
marriage to Pocahontas
after marriage lived at Varina
Shirley, colonial seat of the Hills and of the Carters right way to go to
great seventeenth-century American plantation early owners of
the exterior of the mansion and the ancient messuage the oldest homestead on the river and one of the oldest in the country
the present owners
the colonial “great hall”
interior of mansion
ghosts
colonial portraits
kitchen and cook-room
colonial furnishings copied in restoration of the Mt. Vernon kitchen colonial silverware
romance of “Light Horse Harry” Lee and Anne Hill Carter Peale’s portrait of Washington
old-time Shirley
Silverware, colonial, family silver at Brandon communion service of Martin’s Brandon Church at Brandon at Shirley
Smith, Captain John
Stratford, the ancestral home of the Lees Stuart, Gilbert
Thomas, colonial house of
Varina, site of early home of John Rolfe and Pocahontas Virginia society, type of
War of 1812, fort built in
Washington, George
portrait of, by Peale, at Shirley
Water Supply of James Towne colonists Westover
became property of the Byrds
present mansion built
its colonial importance, and its successive owners riverward front
interior of mansion
romantic centre of
present owner and family
landward front, courtyard, and noted entrance gates garden and sun-dial, and tomb of William Byrd mysterious subterranean chambers
recent restoration of
old survey of plantation
graveyard
Westover Church
one of earliest churches in the country Weyanoke
two plantations
houses of
an Indian name
Upper
Lower
present day family at
oldest building at
postoffice at
Williamsburg
Whittaker, Reverend Alexander
Willcox, John V., ownership of Fleur de Hundred Wilton, home of Mistress Anne Randolph
Windmill Point
first windmill in America
Wowinchopunk
Yeardley, Sir George, tomb of
ownership of Weyanoke
ownership of Fleur de Hundred
built first windmill in America
Yonge, Samuel H.
“SEE AMERICA FIRST” SERIES
Each in one volume, decorative cover, profusely illustrated
CALIFORNIA, ROMANTIC AND BEAUTIFUL
By George Wharton James $6.00
NEW MEXICO: The Land of the Delight Makers By George Wharton James $6.00
THREE WONDERLANDS OF THE AMERICAN WEST By Thomas D. Murphy $6.00
A WONDERLAND OF THE EAST: The Mountain and Lake Region of New England and Eastern New York
By William Copeman Kitchin, Ph.D. $6.00
ON SUNSET HIGHWAYS (California)
By Thomas D. Murphy $6.00
TEXAS, THE MARVELLOUS
By Nevin O. Winter $6.00
ARIZONA, THE WONDERLAND
By George Wharton James $6.00
COLORADO: THE QUEEN JEWEL OF THE ROCKIES By Mae Lacy Baggs $6.00
OREGON, THE PICTURESQUE
By Thomas D. Murphy $6.00
FLORIDA, THE LAND OF ENCHANTMENT
By Nevin O. Winter $6.00
SUNSET CANADA (British Columbia and Beyond) By Archie Bell $6.00
ALASKA, OUR BEAUTIFUL NORTHLAND OF OPPORTUNITY By Agnes Rush Burr $6.00
VIRGINIA: THE OLD DOMINION. As seen from its Colonial waterway, the Historic River James
By Frank and Cortelle Hutchins $5.00
A number of additional volumes are in preparation, including Maine, Utah, Georgia, The Great Lakes, Louisiana, etc., and the “See America First” Series will eventually include the whole of the North American Continent.