While they carried the weight of the nation on their young shoulders, they have left us only “shreds and patches” from which to deduce anything like specific exactness of the manners and customs of those early days of our great country. It is, therefore, difficult to elaborate the conditions of the country and particularly the distinctive qualities which made up the social life of those who evolved and produced, to us, the best government in all the world.
The peculiar conditions of early times invest our greatest leaders with additional interest and make the fact of their greatness stand out all the more clearly. Schools were few and travel much restricted. Only about thirty families had good libraries. To the women of that day has been ascribed the honor of training the great men of the nation. George Washington was only eleven years old when his father died. His mother daily taught him from a manual of maxims which he preserved and often consulted in after life. A French general, after a visit to Mary Washington, said, “No wonder America produces such great men when they have such mothers.”
Thomas Jefferson’s father died when he was fourteen. His mother was said to have been unusually refined and intellectual, evincing much literary taste in the art of letter-writing. This was the only field open to a woman with literary proclivities at that time. It was from her he inherited his intellect, and in the training of her boy all that was best and noblest in her was brought to bear upon the formation of his character. These two mothers of great men are not exceptions. History records the names of many noble women who have devoted their lives to their children, not only in Virginia, but elsewhere.
Virginians admired the king and the nobility but liked their own rights better. They loved the pride and pomp of aristocracy, but this was only a matter of taste. When it came to losing a freeman’s right they relegated their aristocratic tastes to the background. They loved the solemn ritual of the church. Governor Spottswood describes the Virginians of his time as “living in gentlemanly conformity with the Church of England,” and the famous old chapel, built in 1632, now familiarly called Old Bruton Church, is consecrated by many hallowed associations. Here worshiped the dauntless Spottswood, himself, as well as Lord de Botetourt, Lord Dunmore and many others in a pew elevated from the main floor and richly canopied. And here worshiped many men whose names are indissolubly bound up with the conception of this grand commonwealth. The churchyard is the place of sepulture of some of Virginia’s most distinguished men.
WILLIAM AND MARY COLLEGE
Nearly all the great Virginians were descended from the Cavaliers. Washington was the great-grandson of one of them, and Madison, Monroe, the Randolphs, Richard Henry Lee, and others were also descendants of royalists. Virginia succeeded in keeping out the importation of felons. A number of redemptioners, or political prisoners, who were sold by the English government to speculators, were traded in the colonies, but misfortune being their only crime, they became in most cases useful citizens.
The men of that time were fond of sport. Washington was ever an enthusiastic fox hunter. Patrick Henry was devoted to the woods, fields and streams; he also played the fiddle and danced with keenest zest. Social life was ideal at that time. Each plantation was a small principality and they vied with each other in hospitality. It was not unusual for a carriage full of guests to arrive without warning, and the visitors and their retinue were the recipients of the most lordly hospitality for days and sometimes weeks. Card playing was much in vogue, and under great provocation an oath or two was sometimes found to be the only expression that could do the situation justice. It is said Washington swore heartily at General Stephens for losing the battle of Germantown on account of drunkenness.
The dance after supper went without saying, to the music of “the fiddlers three.” It was a delight in which the stately Washington often indulged, with, it may be shrewdly guessed, the belle of the ball for a partner. In the hall of William and Mary College hangs a picture which represents him dancing the minuet with Mary Cary. The Virginia Reel called for the whole company. Flushed and breathless, full of laughter and fun they threaded its mazes in the wee sma’ hours.
“Oh, the instruments are shattered and the strings are snapped in twain,