Governor Spotswood.
Four miles below Mary Washington's home was "Newpost," the ancestral home of John Spotswood, a son of Governor Spotswood. His two sons, Alexander and John, were destined to serve in the Revolutionary War, one as a general, the other a captain, and to mingle the Spotswood with the Washington blood by marriage with one of Mary Washington's granddaughters. They came honestly by their dash and spirit through the Spotswoods.
It appears that the Virginia Gazette of 1737 lent its columns to an article against Governor Spotswood, written by a Colonel Edwin Conway, upbraiding the governor for delaying to turn over the arms intended for Brunswick County. The article was entitled, "A Hint to discover a few of Colonel Spotswood's Proceedings." A few days after its appearance the Gazette printed the following:—
"An Hint for a Hint
"Mr. Parks,
"I have learnt in my Book, so far as to be able to read plain English, when printed in your Papers, and finding in one of them my Papa's name often mentioned by a scolding man called Edwin Conway, I asked my Papa whether he did not design to answer him. But he replied: 'No child, this is a better Contest for you that are a school Boy, for it will not become me to answer every Fool in his Folly, as the lesson you learned the other day of the Lion and the Ass may teach you.' This Hint being given me, I copied out the said Lesson and now send you the same for my answer to Mr. Conway's Hint from
"Sir, your Humble Servant
"John Spotswood."
"Feb. 10.
A Lion and an Ass
"An Ass was so hardy once as to fall a mopping and Braying at a Lion. The Lion began at first to show his Teeth, and to stomach the Affront. But upon second Thoughts, Well, says he, Jeer on and be an Ass still, take notice only by the way that it is the Baseness of your Character that has saved your Carcass."
There was a famous beauty in the family of Spotswood who shared, as we shall see hereafter, in the spirit of her race. This was Kate! She wore, on her high days and holidays, fawn-colored satin, looped over a blue satin petticoat, square bodice and elbow sleeves and ruffles; and her feet, which were extremely small and beautifully formed, were shod in blue satin shoes, with silver buckles. Age did not wither this haughty beauty. Her granddaughter remembered her as she combed a wealth of silver hair, a servant the while holding before her a mirror.
Not far from "Pine Grove" was "Traveller's Rest," the most beautiful and significant of all the ambitious names of stately mansions on the Rappahannock. "It should be called," said Byrd Willis, "Saint's Rest—for only they ever go there!" "Traveller's Rest" was part of the "200 acres of land on ye freshes of Rappahannock River" bequeathed to Mary Ball by her father, Joseph Ball. The family of Gray long lived at "Traveller's Rest," and thither in after years, Atcheson Gray brought his child-wife Catherine Willis, the great-granddaughter of Mary Washington.
These are only a few of the country gentry among whom Mary Washington lived, and to whom she was related. Time would fail to describe them all—Colonel Thomas Ludwell Lee of "Berry Hill"; "Bellevue" and its occupants; the Brent family at Richland, in Stafford County; "Belle Plaine," the residence of the Waugh family. All these places were in a space of eight or ten square miles, and from generation to generation the sons looked upon the daughters of their neighbor cousins, and found them fair, until the families were knit together in every conceivable degree of kinship.