The Phi Beta Kappa Society, the first fraternal society in this country, was organized at William and Mary December 5th, 1776, and the first meeting was held in the Apollo room at the Raleigh tavern.
Jefferson, the first Democrat, was in 1764, five years after Washington had been happily married to Martha Custis, a gay young student at Williamsburg, or “Devilsburg,” as he wrote of it, in a letter to a friend, expressing himself as being “as happy last night as dancing with Belinda in the Apollo room” could make him.
How close it brings our heroes, to know intimately their youthful loves and pleasures! “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” To the same chum, who seems to be in a like manner transfixed with Cupid’s dart, he writes later: “Have you any glimmering of hope? How does ⸺ do? Had I better stay here and do nothing or go down there and do less? Inclination tells me to go, receive my sentence and be no longer in suspense; but reason says, ‘If you go and your attempt proves unsuccessful you will be ten times more wretched than ever!’——I hear Ben Harrison has been to Wilton. Let me know his success.” Ben Harrison’s success at Wilton, where he was courting Anne Randolph, a cousin of Jefferson, was greater than his own, for she married him and had the honor of being the wife of a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a governor of Virginia. Jefferson’s sweetheart might have sat in like high places if she had only smiled a little more. “Cupid lacks the gift of prophecy and Fame will not tell her secrets till the time comes, for the sweetest lips that ever smiled.” Lucy Grymes, a cousin, is said to have been one of his sweethearts, also beautiful Mary Coles, the mother of Dolly Madison. It is told of Washington that before he arrived at wealth and distinction, he went courting Mary Cary and was asked out of the house by her father, the old colonel, on the ground that his daughter had been accustomed to ride in her own coach.
MONUMENT AT YORKTOWN
The Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg still holds much that is interesting. The foundation of the old Capitol lies at one end and one mile away at the other end still flourishes the old college, William and Mary. The courthouse, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, bids fair to last for generations yet. Across the green stands Tazewell Hall, with its “ghost rooms high up under the eaves.” This was the home of the Randolphs. Bassett Hall is on the other side and is noted as having entertained Lafayette within its walls. Thomas Moore was also entertained here. It was at this house he first saw the fireflies, which he immortalized in his poem on the Dismal Swamp.
“And all night long by her firefly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe.”
Martha Washington’s kitchen is yet to be seen not far from Governor Spottswood’s old Powder-Horn. Governor Dunmore’s ice house is still shown to strangers. Dunmore was the last of the royal governors. Patrick Henry, as was fitting, was the first American governor to take his seat in the vice-regal palace which has now entirely disappeared to make way for a model school.