NOON IN THE GOLDEN AGE
Virginia, between the years 1760 and 1775, attained her highest prosperity. The growth of the colony in general, and the advance of luxury in living was rapid, marked by an increased taste for amusements of the most costly kind, and great expenditure in living and entertaining.
It was high noon in the Golden Age! Life was far more elegant and luxurious than it was even fifteen years before. The transplanted Englishman had rapidly prospered in the new land. Great wealth had suddenly come to him through his tobacco, and he made haste to use and enjoy it. The four-roomed house—quite good enough for his cavalier grandfather—had stepped aside to give place to a pillared, porticoed, stately mansion. The dormer windows—like heavy-lidded eyes—had been superseded by "five hundred and forty-nine lights" for one dwelling. The planter often built on the site of his old colonial residence, sometimes incorporating the old into the new. An eminence, commanding a wide view of the surrounding country, was a coveted spot in plantation times. It behooved the settler (for reasons similar to those which influenced Captain John Smith) to build his house "on a high hill neere a convenient river, hard to be assalted and easie to be defended." When the perilous days of Indian massacre and treachery had passed away, and the country had entered upon its Saturnian age of peace and plenty, the Virginians clung to the old historic building-sites, and upon them erected ambitious mansions, with flagged colonnades, extended wings, and ample offices; surmounting the whole with an observatory whence the proprietor with his "spy-glass" could sweep the country—not now for the stealthy approach of an enemy, but to feast his eyes upon a scene of unbroken beauty peacefully lying beneath a summer's sun. The mansion stood apart in solemn grandeur upon some knoll or eminence overlooking the great highway, the river. It was not to be taken casually, in a by-the-way sort of a manner, not to be stumbled upon by accident. It was to be approached with deliberation through a long line of sentinels—an avenue of Lombardy poplars—"the proper tree, let them say what they will, to surround a gentleman's mansion."
Monticello. The Home of Thomas Jefferson.
This landward approach to the house passed sometimes between columns of trimmed boxwood or stone gate-posts upon which the arms granted the family in England were carved in high relief. Gravelled paths under ornamental trees led to the veranda with its lofty columns. In the rear, the hill sometimes fell sharply to the riverside in terraces, after the English fashion. At a wharf, built out into the bed of the stream, the family often assembled to watch the sailing of their own ships, trading directly with the mother country. On the green, facing the river, there were summer-houses of latticed woodwork, covered with climbing roses, honeysuckle, and jasmine, and haunted by brilliant humming-birds. Other cool retreats from the ardor of the summer sun were made of resinous cedars planted in a close circle, their tops tied together and their walls shaven smoothly until they resembled little mosques of vivid green. A low wall covered with honeysuckle or Virginia creeper bounded the grounds at the water's edge.
THE GARDEN AT MOUNT VERNON.
But it was in the garden and in the greenhouse that the lady of the manor exulted! No simple flowers, such as violets, lilies, or roses were forced in those days. These would come with the melting of the snows early in February. Only tropical beauties were reared under the glass: century-plant, cacti, gardenias, lemon and orange trees; great, double, glowing pomegranates, and the much-prized snowy globes of Camellia Japonica, sure to be sent packed in cotton as gifts to adorn the dusky tresses of some Virginia beauty, or clasp the folds of her diaphanous kerchief. These camellias were reckoned the most elegant of flowers—so pure and sensitive, resenting the profanation of the slightest touch. Fancy a cavalier of that day presenting nothing rarer than a bouquet of daisies or daffodils!
But the garden! Who can describe a garden in the Virginia of 1770? When the little children of the family were sent forth to breathe the cool air of the morning, what a paradise of sweets met their senses! The squares, crescents, stars, and circles, edged with box, over which an enchanted, glistening veil had been thrown during the night; the tall lilacs, snowballs, myrtles, and syringas, guarding like sentinels the entrance to every avenue; the glowing beds of tulips, pinks, purple iris, and hyacinths; the flowering-almond with its rosy spikes; the globes of golden passion-fruit; the figs, rimy with the early dew and bursting with scarlet sweetness! The whole world filled with bloom and beauty, fragrance and melody.
At a respectful distance from the mansion were smaller houses of brick or stone, far enough removed from "the great house" to secure the master's quiet and privacy. In one, a five-roomed building served for schoolhouse and lodging-rooms for the tutor and boys of the family. Another was "the office" for the transaction of business with agents from the other plantations of the master, or with captains of trading vessels lying at his wharf, laden with outgoing tobacco, or unloading the liquors, books, musical instruments, and fine stuffs for the family. In the rear, hidden by maple or cherry trees, were many houses: wash-house, dairy, bake-house, storehouses, and a kitchen as large as the five-roomed schoolhouse, for the sole use of the great High Priest—the cook—and her family. "All these formed a handsome street," adds Mr. Fithian (the New Jersey Presbyterian tutor, whom nothing escaped), and all were surrounded with little gardens and poultry-yards, and enlivened with swarms of chickens, ducks, pigs, and little negroes. Remote from these were the great stables, well filled and admirably regulated.
The kitchens of these later mansions were always a long distance away, because that source of comfort, the black cook, had so many satellites revolving around her and drawing sustenance, light, and warmth from her centre, that it was absolutely necessary to give her elbow-room. The satellites, however, had their uses. At dinner-time, each one with shining face, robed in a great apron to supplement various trouser deficiencies, and bearing covered dishes, formed a solemn procession back and forth to the dining room. There the frosty eye of the gray-haired butler awed them into perfect decorum; and in the kitchen the vigorous arm of the cook kept them well within bounds, along with the hounds, and, like them, devouring with hopeful eyes the delicious viands in course of preparation.
The planter felt that the time had come to concern himself with the elegancies of fine living. He went home to England to select books for his library and to have his portrait painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds; perhaps bring over his grandfather's portrait by Sir Peter Lely, or, at least, secure a copy of Sir Peter's portrait of Charles the First. A precious picture now and then found its way to the drawing-rooms of the Northern Neck; and at "Elsing Green," a little lower down in King William County, were hangings of priceless value—a set of Gobelin tapestry presented to the owner's ancestor, Gilbert Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, by William of Orange. "Race horses, drawn masterly and set in elegant frames," adorned the dining-room walls of Colonel John Tayloe of Mount Airy, owner of the great Yorick, one of the most celebrated horses of the day; and in the same dining room stood the famous punch-bowl, since celebrated in verse. The fashion of adorning the grounds with marble statues is first mentioned in describing Colonel Tayloe's beautiful garden, near Mary Washington's girlhood home.
Elsing Green.
Libraries in 1770 had been well chosen, and had attained respectable proportions. Mr. Robert Carter of Westmoreland, and other men of wealth, had collected law-books, books on divinity relating to the Established Church, a large musical library, the works of Pope, Locke, Addison, Young, Swift, Dryden, "and other works of mighty men," in the Latin tongue.
MOUNT AIRY.
Mr. Carter had also every musical instrument then known: "An Organ, Spinet, Forte-Piano, Guittar, German Flutes, Harpsichord and Harmonica. The last, the wonderful new instrument invented by one Benjamin Franklin of Philadelphia" (him of the Blackbeard Ballad), "being musical glasses without water, framed into a complete instrument capable of thorough bass and never out of tune." On these the master, his sons, and daughters, and the Presbyterian tutor discoursed learned music, sonatas, etc.
Reading of this age, one is amazed at the activity of these Virginians of the Northern Neck. They were forever in motion, passing up and down the Potomac and Rappahannock—the great canals of their Venice—in barges and batteaux, and across country from one river to the other on horseback, in chaises and chariots.
The Potomac was the theatre of much rivalry and ostentation among the rich planters whose estates bordered the river. Superb barges were made to their order in England; and the negro crew rowing them were clad in showy uniforms. Occasionally a British frigate would appear on the river, when all the country would be thrown into a "paroxysm of festivity." Breakfasts and dinners at Mount Vernon and "Belvoir" (the seat of the Fairfaxes) would be in order, with the return courtesies of afternoon teas on board the frigate.
The river was always in order, but the highway on land was about the last thing to which the Virginian turned his attention. He accepted it as it was. If a section became impassable to the family chariot, drawn often by six horses, the outriders simply dismounted, and with axes cleared a passage around it for the vehicle to "turn out." Hence the necessity for these outriders. The family never went abroad unattended. At one dinner, described by our Froissart of the Northern Neck, eight servants accompanied the coach and chaise, namely: coachman, driver, two postillions, two servants for the master, one each to attend the two gentlemen on horseback—the chaise being driven by the master himself.
There were no bridges across the rivers. Logs of wood placed side by side with planks nailed across formed a wide, floating bridge which sank several inches under the weight of the great coach, the horses splashing through the water. When the roads lay through level ground, after rains they were submerged for miles. Struggling through such a watery lane to visit John Augustine Washington, an English traveller lost heart, and called out to the postillion of the coach sent to fetch him, "Here, you fellow! How far out into the river does your unfortunate master live?" Nobody ever thought it worth while to drain the roads. When they ran through fields crossed and recrossed by "stake-fences" (stakes set at intervals and woven basket-fashion with "savin" or juniper boughs) the pauses were incessant. Bars had to be let down, gates opened and shut. Our Froissart counted thirteen gates in fifteen miles.
"When the roads were too rough for carriages," says an old writer who remembered them, "the ladies used to ride on ponies, followed by black servants on horseback. In this way ladies, even when advanced in life, used to travel, clad in the scarlet riding-habits procured from England. Nay, in this way, on emergencies, the young ladies used to come to the balls, riding with their hoops arranged 'fore and aft' like lateen sails, and after dancing all night ride home again in the morning."
A "neighborhood" included everybody within a day's journey, all the way from Westmoreland to Mount Vernon. Dinner-parties were going on as incessantly then in the Northern Neck as now in the metropolis. The nearest neighbors were invited to these every few days, while occasionally, in order to reach the whole community of several counties, balls were given to last five days!
Of course, all this close and familiar intercourse was an important agent in the wonderful unanimity of the entire country when the hour of conflict had come. At these balls and dinners something was done besides dancing and card-playing—some hint or word from eloquent lips to keep alive the spark soon to burst forth in resistless, all-conquering flame. Historians speak of the period as "the lull before the storm." It was not by any means a "lull"—rather a carnival!