When young Christopher Calthrope, aged sixteen years, came to Virginia in 1622, George Sandys, Treasurer of the Colony, proffered him the entertainment of his home and offered him his own room to lodge in. Although the young man declined, having other friends, Sandys saw to it that he was adequately cared for in the Colony.
The hospitality of Captain Samuel Mathews of "Denbigh" was widely known, even in England, where several, who had visited in Virginia, recorded the welcome they had received at his extensive plantation at the mouth of the Warwick River. In 1648, a writer, who signed himself Beauchamp Plantagenet, recounted his visit to Virginia where, upon arrival at Newport News, a few miles below "Denbigh," he was welcomed at the home of Captain Samuel Mathews and given "free quarter everywhere."
Virginia proved a haven to numerous Royalists as previously mentioned. Many who found it expedient to flee from England, about 1649, sought refuge in Virginia. Their coming was often kept secret, but they were accorded a warm welcome. Furthermore, when it was safe to make their presence generally known, they were received into official life in the Colony.
Among those who came and received welcome on the Eastern Shore at the home of Stephen Charlton were Colonel Henry Norwood, Major Richard Fox and Major Francis Moryson. Later they joined Colonel Mainwaring Hammond, Sir Henry Chicheley, Sir Thomas Lunsford and Colonel Philip Honeywood at Captain Ralph Wormeley's, on the Rappahannock River, and joined in the "feasting and carousing."
Photo by Flournoy, Virginia State Chamber of Commerce
Rosegill—Middlesex County
The first Ralph Wormeley, who died in 1651, at the early age of thirty-one, cordially welcomed refugee royalists to Rosegill. Sir Henry Chicheley, Deputy Governor, made his home at Rosegill and died here Dec. 1, 1682. In 1686, the second Ralph Wormeley was host to the Frenchman Monsieur Durand of Dauphiné, who sought in the Colony a haven for the Huguenots, his forlorn compatriots.
Governor Berkeley, a staunch Royalist, made the Cavaliers from across the seas particularly welcome, and as Colonel Norwood recorded, "house and purse were open to all such." Incidently, the term Cavalier loosely applied at times to all gentlemen who came to Virginia in the seventeenth century, irrespective of date, was a designation strictly applicable to those of a political party, loyal to the cause of Charles I, and it came into use during the Civil Wars in England nearly thirty-five years after Jamestown was settled.
Not only were guests from far-away places accorded the utmost in hospitality and given every indication that they were welcome, but visitors from neighboring plantations were often honored guests and they were ever the first consideration of their host. On 3 August 1658, Henry Perry of "Buckland" in Charles City County had been subpoenaed to appear in Court as a witness. On that day he had guests, so he addressed a polite note to the Court stating that he had a "company of friends" and therefore could not be present to testify as summoned to do. His courteous note was recorded in the County Court records.
The custom, occasionally adhered to, in the present time, of laying an extra place at the table for the possible coming of an unexpected guest from near or far, had its American origin in the seventeenth century in Virginia. More often then than now the extra place was filled at meal time.