Festivities, Recreation and Sports
That Christmas was an occasion to be enjoyed, both with comfort and merriment in the Colony, is indicated in an account, recorded in 1608, when a group of the first settlers in two ships undertook to visit Powhatan at his seat Werowocomoco on the Pamunkey (York) River. Setting sail from Jamestown they encountered rough weather and were forced to put in at Kecoughtan (now Hampton), where they spent Christmas with the Indians. Their scribes recorded that they were "never more merry, nor never had better fires in England than in the dry, warm, smoky houses of Kecoughtan."
Drawing by the late Bessie Barclay, based on a study of the original John White drawings made in 1653 and now in the British Museum. Through courtesy of the Daily Press, Newport News.
Christmas at Kecoughtan 1608
A group of colonists from Jamestown bound for Powhatan's seat on the York River put in at Kecoughtan after encountering adverse weather. There they spent Christmas with the Indians who entertained them in the native arched bark-house with feasting and a tribal dance.
Christmas in the seventeenth century was celebrated on the day known to the present as "Old Christmas," that is the sixth of January.
The dry, smoky houses of the Indians were long, arched structures with a framework of bent saplings, over which was secured a close covering of bark, while the roof was covered with mats or reeds. A fire built in the middle of the habitation, with smoke curling through an opening above, afforded both warmth and fuel for cooking. Mats and skins, hung at the entrance and exit, kept in the heat and also some of the smoke, but shut out the rough weather. Several families slept, ate and carried on their indoor activities in these ample shelters.
And, here, it was that the colonists, with only the Indian maids to provide feminine company, celebrated the first Christmas, of which there is a record in the new world. After the feasting and the passing of the pipes, as a token of friendship, there was probably a customary Indian oration of welcome. Then, the Indian dancers appeared with their rattles, and beating time to the tom-toms with their feet, they gestured wildly with their arms. As a participant became weary, another took his place and this exhibition, first stimulating in its activity, then soothing in its cadence, carried far into the night, as, one by one, the audience of white men and natives drifted off to the hurdles that served as beds, and to sleep.
When the weather broke, and before the colonists resumed their journey, they likely were entertained by their hosts in a deer-hunt staged according to the Indian custom. Several Indian runners left, early in the morning, to drive up the deer and herd them on a narrow peninsula, of which there are many between the James and the York Rivers and elsewhere in Tidewater Virginia. Canoes, with native hunters and their white men guests, awaited in the waters nearby, and when the drivers, pursuing the deer, forced them into the water, the frightened animals were slaughtered in numbers. Ladened with the spoils, hosts and guests returned to the bark houses to cook and feast upon their game.
Firearms played an important part in all celebrations in the seventeenth century as every planter possessed one or more "pieces" which were used to give dash to the frolics. A proclamation, issued in 1627, warns against "spending powder at meetings, drinkings, marriages and entertainments." Thus, it is certain that the colonists were wont to assemble and celebrate as occasions warranted.
One of the most colorful of these occasions took place at Middle Plantation (later Williamsburg) in 1677; Sir Herbert Jeffreys, having been sent over with 1000 English soldiers to look into the state of affairs in Virginia and to put an end to the Rebellion led by Nathaniel Bacon, found Bacon dead and the Rebellion over. Shortly thereafter, Governor Sir William Berkeley, who had caused so much grief by hanging Bacon's chief associates, was summoned back to England, whereupon Jeffreys ordered a celebration. The King's birthday provided the occasion which he promoted, not only to honor the Sovereign but to assemble the people, to heal the wounds and promote peace with the Indians. Not only the colonists and the English troops gathered, but all the leading Indian chieftains and queens of Tidewater and their retinues were invited, and attended in ceremonial regalia. That there was not only formal recognition of the important day, but much firing of arms, drinking and hilarity on the side may be certain.
The planters of the Northern Neck, living in widely separated plantations, took steps in 1670, to bring together the families and promote sociability in the section. An agreement was entered into by Mr. Corbin, Mr. Gerrard, Mr. Lee and Mr. Allerton to build a banqueting house "for the continuance of a good neighborhood." Each man or his heirs in turn then would make "an honorable treatment fit to entertain the undertakers thereof, their wives, mistresses and friends, yearly and every year." This appears to be the antecedent of the modern country club.
In hunting, fishing, and fowling there was always ample out-of-door recreation at hand. In addition to the deer-hunts, there were often bear-hunts, and 'possum and 'coon-hunts were popular nighttime sports. On the latter occasions a party of men set out, preferably on a moonlight night, with their dogs. Having entered the woods, the dogs shortly took up the trail of their intended victim, while the men on foot followed the yelping dogs through the rough terrain. Finally the exhausted animal was "treed" and there the sport reached a climax. If the dogs were unable to reach their victim the tree was hastily felled, whereupon the pack of dogs made short work of the creature. In case the 'possum sought refuge in a hollow log, he was smoked out and the end was the same.
There was less excitement in hunting rabbits and squirrels, and the pursuit of the fox had certainly not attained in the seventeenth century the social status that it enjoys in sections of Virginia today.
In fishing, many of the colonists acquired from the natives a skill in spearing fish, though netting them was far more general in the Colony.
Horse-racing as a regular sport was inaugurated in the latter half of the seventeenth century, although it does not appear that horses were bred and kept especially for racing in that period as they were during the eighteenth century. At the "race-paths" at "Malvern Hill," the Cocke plantation in Henrico, running the quarter of a mile was a popular contest.
Elsewhere, similar races were engaged in. In 1674, James Bullock, a tailor, was fined 100 pounds of tobacco in York County for racing his horse against Mr. Mathew Slader's horse, the decree reciting that it was "contrary to law for a laborer to make a race, being a sport only for gentlemen." Yet, Mr. Slader's intent to cheat at the race brought him a sentence of an "hour in the stocks."
On 10 May, 1676, Samuel Morris aged 27 years, deposed in Court about a horse-race run at Rappahannock Church.
Richard Ligon, to whom his cousin Thomas Harris bequeathed his "mares and foals" in 1679, was one of the racing enthusiasts of the Colony. He engaged in a horse-race and a controversy over it in 1678, and the following year he ran his horse against that of Alexander Womack, the wager being 300 pounds of tobacco. In 1683, Andrew Martin and Edward Hatcher put their horses in a contest in which the loser's horse was the stake to be won.
The colonists often were quarrelsome over their racing, and not infrequently, bets on horses were put in writing and recorded in the County records, that there might be no mistake in regard to the terms. These races elicited a great deal of interest on the part of the people in the countryside where they were staged.
For active recreation, bowling and tenpins; and card games of various sorts were engaged in, often at the ordinaries, and, since wagers on the games of which there are a record, were usual, they will be dealt with elsewhere.