"1783, July 9.—John Payne's family came to reside in Philadelphia."
A year later when the young people had become friends she writes:
"1784, July 10.—Sally Drinker and Walter Payne, Billy Sansom and Polly Wells, Jacob Downing and Dolly Payne went to our place at Frankford," and
"1784, July 18.—Walter Payne went to Virginia."
"1785, Dec 26.—First day. This evening Walter Payne took leave of us, intending to set off early to-morrow morning for Virginia, and in a few weeks to embark there for Great Britain."
Of the family life at Scotch Town, Dolly has left us no record, but only the assurance that "the days were full of happiness."
The Marquis de Chastellux, a major-general under Rochambeau, in the Revolutionary Army, who wrote an account of his travels in Virginia in 1780-2, has, however, given us a picture of a country family of this time, and of one not far distant from Scotch Town. He visited the family of General Nelson at Offley, an "unpretentious country place in Hanover county," and says:
"In the absence of the General, who had gone to Williamsburg, his mother and wife received us with all the politeness, ease and cordiality natural to his family. [It being bad weather] the company assembled either in the parlor or saloon, especially the men, from the hour of breakfast to that of bed-time, but the conversation was always agreeable and well supported. If you were desirous of diversifying the scene, there were some good French and English authors at hand.
An excellent breakfast at nine o'clock, a sumptuous dinner at two, tea and punch in the afternoon, and an elegant little supper, divided the day most happily for those whose stomachs were never unprepared."
The Pleasants and Winstons were their neighbors also, but the large estates, in a measure, isolated each family, which thus became a little community in itself, raising all necessary food, manufacturing all clothing and materials for clothing, and even, on the tidewater estates, exporting from their own wharves the great staple, tobacco, for which in return their few luxuries were brought to their very door.
With all his broad acres the Virginia gentleman had no great wealth at his command. It has been estimated that Colonel Byrd, who was perhaps their largest land-owner, was worth but $150,000. Patrick Henry wrote to General Stevens (Stephens) that his father-in-law "owned one hundred and fifty slaves and four or five thousand acres of land, not counting some three thousand in Kentucky," but that from him his son, Captain Alexander Spotswood Dandridge, "could have no great expectations."
The families were large, and the land often had little real value, two dollars an acre being considered a good price. The best land in the near neighborhood of cities brought only from twenty to forty dollars per acre. There is a quaint record preserved in Goochland showing that William Randolph sold to Peter Jefferson (father of Thomas) two hundred acres for the consideration of "Henry Wetherburn's biggest bowl of arrack punch." Henry Wetherburn was the host of the famed Raleigh Tavern at Williamsburg.
