The final restoration of Bruton Parish Church was made during the last days of Dr. Goodwin and he was able to visit it during all but the last stages. At the first service held in the completed edifice his body was buried beneath the floor of the church by the side of great men of colonial times. It has been suggested that an appropriate epitaph, referring not alone to the church but to the community, would be: If you would see his monument, look about you.
THE COLE SHOP
The Cole Shop [(D)] is believed to be the oldest store in America, having opened for business shortly after 1750. It was built by Charles Taliaferro, a coach and chair maker. Originally consisting of only one room, prior to 1782 another small building was moved up and joined to it on the west as a sort of lean-to, the roof-line which had theretofore been a symmetrical dormer being extended to cover the addition. At a later, but still early, date two rooms were added in the rear and the street elevation was finished off with a false front. In 1804 the shop was sold to Dr. Jesse Cole in whose family it remained until the death of his grandson in 1936.
There is no record of the type of goods carried under the Taliaferro management; but in 1827 a professor newly arrived in Williamsburg wrote thus of the Cole Shop: “I reached the Post Office which stands in the Center of Main St. It is one of the Curiosities of this Place.... There is not an Article whatever in the World which could not be found in it. It is a Book Seller’s Store in which you will find Hams and French Brandy; it is an Apothecary’s Shop in which you can provide yourself with silk Stockings and shell Oysters; it is a Post Office in which you may have Glisters and chewing Tobacco & in a Word it is a Museum of natural History in which we meet every Afternoon to dispute about the Presidential Election and about the Quality of Irish Potatoes.”
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE COLONY
The discussion group referred to by Prof. De La Pena was the famous Pulaski Club which moves its sessions from indoors to the benches outside in favorable weather. George Washington, in his diary, refers repeatedly to attending the club at Mrs. Campbell’s Tavern (near the Capitol) but in modern times the meeting place has been at the Cole Shop. This is claimed to be the oldest men’s social club in the country; and whatever may be the members’ effect on the quality of Irish potatoes, they have effectively “saved the country” for a long time.
Le Maison des Foux (Eastern State Hospital for the Insane, to you), of which Dr. Jesse Cole was the Superintendent was founded by the Colony in 1769. It is on the site of the Custis estate where Martha Dandridge lived with her first husband. The only Custis building still standing is the small brick house which can be seen over the fence from Francis Street. This is generally known as “Martha Washington’s Kitchen.”
