Latest / Chronicles of America Volume 05 - Pioneers of the Old South / 015 - Chapter 15
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- 0:00Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen of Pioneers of the Old South by Mary Johnston.
- 0:07Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter fifteen
- 0:13Speaker 1: Alexander Spotswood. In the spring of sixteen eighty nine, Virginian's
- 0:18Speaker 1: flock to Jamestown to hear William and Mary proclaimed Lord
- 0:22Speaker 1: and Lady of Virginia. The next year there entered as
- 0:26Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor Francis Nicholson, an odd character in whom an
- 0:31Speaker 1: immediate violence of temper went with a statesmanlike conception of
- 0:36Speaker 1: things to be. Two years he governed here, then was
- 0:40Speaker 1: transferred to Maryland, and then in seven years came back
- 0:43Speaker 1: to the James. He had not been liked there, but
- 0:47Speaker 1: while he was gone Virginia had endured in his stead
- 0:50Speaker 1: Sir Edmund andros that had been swapping the witch for
- 0:54Speaker 1: the devil. Virginian sixteen ninety eight seems to have welcomed
- 0:58Speaker 1: the returning Nicholson. Jamestown had been hastily rebuilt after Bacon's burning,
- 1:04Speaker 1: and then by accident burned again. The word malaria was
- 1:08Speaker 1: not in use, but all knew that there had always
- 1:11Speaker 1: been sickness on that low spit running out from the marshes.
- 1:15Speaker 1: The place might well seem haunted. So many had suffered
- 1:19Speaker 1: there and died there. Poetical imagination might have evoked a
- 1:23Speaker 1: piece of sad pageantry, starving times, massacres, quarrels, executions, cruel
- 1:29Speaker 1: and unusual punishments gliding Indians. A practical question, however, faced
- 1:35Speaker 1: the inhabitants, and all were willing to make elsewhere a
- 1:39Speaker 1: new capital city. Seven miles back from the James, about
- 1:44Speaker 1: halfway over to the Blue York, stood that cluster of
- 1:48Speaker 1: houses called Middle Plantation, where Bacon's men had taken his oath.
- 1:54Speaker 1: There was planned and builded Williamsburg, which was to be
- 1:57Speaker 1: for nearly one hundred years the capital of Virginia. It
- 2:01Speaker 1: was named for King William, and there was in the
- 2:04Speaker 1: minds of some loyal colonists the notion eventually abandoned of
- 2:09Speaker 1: running the streets in the lines of a huge W
- 2:12Speaker 1: and M. The long main street was called Duke of
- 2:16Speaker 1: Gloucester Street, for the short lived son of that Anne,
- 2:20Speaker 1: who was soon to become queen. At one end of
- 2:23Speaker 1: this thoroughfare stood a brick capital. At the other end,
- 2:27Speaker 1: nearly a mile away, rose the brick William and Mary College.
- 2:31Speaker 1: Its story is worth the telling. The formal acquisition of
- 2:36Speaker 1: knowledge had long been a problem in Virginia. Adult colonists
- 2:40Speaker 1: came with their education much or little gained already in
- 2:44Speaker 1: the mother country. In most cases, doubtless it was little,
- 2:48Speaker 1: but in many cases it was much. Books were brought
- 2:51Speaker 1: in with other household furnishing. When there began to be
- 2:55Speaker 1: native born Virginians, these children received from parents and kin
- 3:00Speaker 1: und some manner of training. Ministers were supposed to catechise
- 3:05Speaker 1: and teach well to do, and educated parents brought over tutors.
- 3:10Speaker 1: Promising sons were sent to England to school and university.
- 3:14Speaker 1: But the lack of means to knowledge for the mass
- 3:17Speaker 1: of the colony began to be painfully apparent in the
- 3:21Speaker 1: time of Charles. The first one, Benjamin Simms, had left
- 3:25Speaker 1: his means for the founding of a free school in
- 3:29Speaker 1: Elizabeth County, and his action had been solemnly approved by
- 3:33Speaker 1: the Assembly by degrees. There appeared other similar free schools,
- 3:38Speaker 1: though they were never many nor adequate. But the first
- 3:42Speaker 1: Assembly after the Restoration, had made provision for a college.
- 3:47Speaker 1: Land was to have been purchased and the building completed
- 3:50Speaker 1: as speedily as might be. The intent had been good,
- 3:54Speaker 1: but nothing more had been done. There was Indigenias sent
- 3:58Speaker 1: as commissioner of the Establs Church, a Scotch ecclesiastic doctor,
- 4:03Speaker 1: James Blair. In virtue of his office, he had a
- 4:06Speaker 1: seat in the council, and his integrity and force soon
- 4:10Speaker 1: made him a leader in the colony. A college in
- 4:13Speaker 1: Virginia became Blair's dream. He was supported by Virginia planters
- 4:18Speaker 1: with sons to educate daughter's education being purely a domestic affair.
- 4:24Speaker 1: Before long Blair had raised and promised subscriptions what was
- 4:28Speaker 1: for the time a large sum. With this for a nucleus,
- 4:32Speaker 1: he sailed to England and there collected more. Tillotson, Archbishop
- 4:37Speaker 1: of Canterbury, and Stillingfleet, Bishop of Worcester, helped him much.
- 4:42Speaker 1: The King and Queen inclined a favorable ear, and though
- 4:45Speaker 1: he met with opposition in certain quarters, Blair at last
- 4:48Speaker 1: obtained his charter. There was to be built in Virginia,
- 4:52Speaker 1: and to be sustained by taxation. A great school, a
- 4:56Speaker 1: seminary of ministers of the Gospel, where youths met be
- 5:00Speaker 1: piously educated in good letters and manners. A certain place
- 5:04Speaker 1: of universal study or perpetual college of Divinity, philosophy, languages,
- 5:10Speaker 1: and other good arts and sciences. Blaire sailed back to
- 5:15Speaker 1: Virginia with the charter of the college, some money, a
- 5:18Speaker 1: plan for the main building drawn by Christopher Wren, and
- 5:21Speaker 1: for himself the office of president. The Assembly for the
- 5:26Speaker 1: benefit of the college taxed raw and tanned hides, dressed buckskin,
- 5:31Speaker 1: skins of dough and elk, muskrat, and raccoon. The construction
- 5:35Speaker 1: of the new seat of learning was begun at Williamsburg.
- 5:39Speaker 1: When it was completed and open to students, it was
- 5:42Speaker 1: named William and Mary. Its name and record shine fair
- 5:47Speaker 1: in old Virginia. Colonial worthies in goodly number were educated
- 5:51Speaker 1: at William and Mary, as were later revolutionary soldiers and statesmen,
- 5:56Speaker 1: and men of name and fame in the United States.
- 6:00Speaker 1: Three American presidents, Jefferson, Monroe, and Tyler were trained there,
- 6:04Speaker 1: as well as Marshall, the Chief Justice for signers of
- 6:07Speaker 1: the Declaration of Independence, and many another man of mark.
- 6:12Speaker 1: The seventeenth century is about to pass. France and England
- 6:15Speaker 1: are at war. The colonial air vibrates with the struggle.
- 6:19Speaker 1: There is to be a brief law after sixteen ninety seven,
- 6:23Speaker 1: but the conflict will soon be resumed. The more northerly colonies,
- 6:28Speaker 1: the nearer to New France, feel the stronger pulsation. But Virginia,
- 6:32Speaker 1: too is shaken. England and France alike play for the
- 6:37Speaker 1: support of the Red Man, while the western side of
- 6:40Speaker 1: America lies open to incursion from that pressed back Indian
- 6:45Speaker 1: sea of unknown extent and volume up and down. The
- 6:49Speaker 1: people who have had no part in making that European
- 6:53Speaker 1: war are sensitive to the menace of its dangers. In Virginia,
- 6:57Speaker 1: they build blockhouses, and they keep ranging on guard far
- 7:01Speaker 1: up the Great Rivers. All the world is changing, and
- 7:06Speaker 1: the changes are fought with significance. For America, feudalism has passed.
- 7:12Speaker 1: Glasticism is gone. Politics, commerce, philosophy, religion, science, invention, music, art,
- 7:19Speaker 1: and literature are rapidly altering. In England, women marry pass away.
- 7:24Speaker 1: Queen Anne begins her reign of twelve years, then in
- 7:28Speaker 1: seventeen fourteen enters the House of Hanover with George the First.
- 7:33Speaker 1: It is the day of Newton and Locke in Berkley,
- 7:36Speaker 1: A fume of swift Addison, Steele, Pope Prior and Defoe.
- 7:41Speaker 1: The great Romantic sixteenth century Elizabeths spacious time is gone.
- 7:46Speaker 1: The deep and narrow. The intense, religious, individualistic seventeenth century
- 7:51Speaker 1: is gone. The eighteenth century immediate parent of the nineteenth
- 7:55Speaker 1: grandparent of the twentieth occupies the stage. In the year
- 8:00Speaker 1: year seventeen hundred and four, just over a decade since
- 8:03Speaker 1: Doctor Blair had obtained the charter for his college, the
- 8:06Speaker 1: erratic and able Governor of Virginia, Francis Nicholson, was recalled.
- 8:11Speaker 1: For all that he was a wild talker, he had
- 8:14Speaker 1: on the whole done well for Virginia. He was, as
- 8:18Speaker 1: far as is known, the first person actually to propose
- 8:21Speaker 1: a federation or union of all those English speaking political divisions,
- 8:27Speaker 1: royal provinces, dominions, palatinates or what not, that had been
- 8:32Speaker 1: hewed away from the vast original Virginia. He did what
- 8:36Speaker 1: he could to forward the movement for education and the
- 8:39Speaker 1: fortunes of the Way and Mary College. But he is
- 8:42Speaker 1: quoted as having on one occasion informed the body of
- 8:45Speaker 1: that people that the gentlemen imposed upon them, and a
- 8:50Speaker 1: guinea is said to have remarked of the servant population
- 8:52Speaker 1: that they had all been kidnapped and had a lawful
- 8:55Speaker 1: action against their masters. Sir. He stated to President Blair,
- 9:00Speaker 1: who would have given him advice from the Bishop of London. Sir,
- 9:03Speaker 1: I know how to govern Virginia and Maryland better than
- 9:07Speaker 1: all the bishops in England. If I had not hampered
- 9:11Speaker 1: them in Maryland and kept them under, I should never
- 9:13Speaker 1: have been able to govern them, to which Blair had
- 9:17Speaker 1: to say, Sir, if I know anything of Virginia, they
- 9:20Speaker 1: are a good natured, tractable people as any in the world,
- 9:24Speaker 1: and you may do anything with them by way of civility,
- 9:27Speaker 1: but you will never be able to manage them in
- 9:30Speaker 1: that way you speak of, by hampering and keeping them under.
- 9:35Speaker 1: About this time arrived Claude de Richebourg, with a number
- 9:40Speaker 1: of Huguenots who settled above the falls. First and last
- 9:43Speaker 1: Virginia received many of this good French strain. The old
- 9:47Speaker 1: dominion had now a population of over eighty thousand persons Whites, Indians,
- 9:53Speaker 1: and no great number and Negroes. The red men are
- 9:57Speaker 1: mere scattered dwellers in the land east of them mountains.
- 10:00Speaker 1: There are Indian villages, but they are far apart save
- 10:04Speaker 1: upon the frontier fringe. The Indian attacks no more, but
- 10:08Speaker 1: the African is here to stay. The Negroes live in
- 10:12Speaker 1: small cottages call quarters under the direction of an over
- 10:16Speaker 1: seer or a bailiff, who takes care that they tend
- 10:19Speaker 1: such land as the owner allots and orders upon which
- 10:23Speaker 1: they raise hogs and cattle, and plant Indian corn and
- 10:26Speaker 1: tobacco for the use of their master. The Negroes are
- 10:30Speaker 1: very numerous, some gentlemen having hundreds of them of all sorts,
- 10:34Speaker 1: to whom they bring great profit, for the sake of
- 10:36Speaker 1: which they are obliged to keep them well and not overwork, starve,
- 10:40Speaker 1: or famish them, besides other inducements to favour them, which
- 10:45Speaker 1: is done in a great degree to such, especially that
- 10:48Speaker 1: are laborious, careful, and honest, though indeed some masters, careless
- 10:53Speaker 1: of their own interest or reputation, are too cruel and negligent.
- 10:58Speaker 1: The Nigroes are not only increased by fresh supplies from
- 11:01Speaker 1: Africa and the West India Islands, but also are very
- 11:05Speaker 1: prolific among themselves, and they that are born here tak
- 11:08Speaker 1: good English and affect our language, habits, and customs. Their work,
- 11:14Speaker 1: or chimerical hard slavery, is not very laborious, their greatest
- 11:18Speaker 1: hardship consisting in that they and their posterity are not
- 11:22Speaker 1: at their own liberty or disposal, but are the property
- 11:25Speaker 1: of their owners, and when they are free, they know
- 11:28Speaker 1: not how to provide so well for themselves. Generally, neither
- 11:32Speaker 1: did they live so plentifully, nor many of them so
- 11:35Speaker 1: easily in their own country, where they are made slaves
- 11:39Speaker 1: to one another or taken captive by their enemies. The
- 11:44Speaker 1: White Virginians lived both after the fashion of England and
- 11:48Speaker 1: after fashions made by their new world environment. They are
- 11:52Speaker 1: said to have been, in general a handsome folk, tall,
- 11:56Speaker 1: well formed, and with a ready and courteous manner. Were
- 12:00Speaker 1: great lovers of writing and of all country life, and
- 12:03Speaker 1: fewfolk in the world might overpass them in hospitality. They
- 12:07Speaker 1: were genial, they liked a good laugh, and they danced
- 12:09Speaker 1: to good music. They had by nature an excellent understanding.
- 12:13Speaker 1: Yet thinks at least the Reverend Hugh Jones, they are
- 12:16Speaker 1: generally diverted by business or inclination from profound study and
- 12:21Speaker 1: prying into the depth of things. They are more inclinable
- 12:24Speaker 1: to read men by business and conversation than to dive
- 12:29Speaker 1: into books. They are apt to learn, yet they are
- 12:31Speaker 1: fond of and will follow their own ways. Humors and
- 12:34Speaker 1: notions being not easily brought to new projects and schemes.
- 12:40Speaker 1: It was as governor of these people that, in succession
- 12:43Speaker 1: to Nicholson, Edward Not came to Virginia. The deputy of
- 12:47Speaker 1: my Lord Orkney Not died soon afterward, and in seventeen
- 12:51Speaker 1: ten Orkney sent to Virginia in his stead Alexander Spotswood.
- 12:55Speaker 1: This man stands in Virginia history a manly, honorable, popular
- 13:00Speaker 1: figure of Scotch parentage. Born in Morocco, soldier under Marlborough,
- 13:05Speaker 1: wounded at Lenham, he was yet in his thirties when
- 13:08Speaker 1: he sailed across the Atlantic to the River James. Virginia
- 13:12Speaker 1: liked him, and he liked Virginia. A man of energy
- 13:15Speaker 1: and vision, he first made himself at home with all,
- 13:18Speaker 1: and that, after his own impulses, and upon his own lines,
- 13:21Speaker 1: went about to develop and to better the colony. He
- 13:25Speaker 1: had his projects and his hobbies, mostly useful and many
- 13:29Speaker 1: sounding with a strong modern tone. Now and again he
- 13:32Speaker 1: quarreled with the Assembly, and he made it many a
- 13:35Speaker 1: cutting speech, but it too In all Virginia and the
- 13:38Speaker 1: world were growing. Modern issues, were disengaging themselves, and were
- 13:43Speaker 1: becoming distinct. In these early years of the eighteenth century,
- 13:47Speaker 1: Wigan Tory in England drew sharply over against each other
- 13:52Speaker 1: in Virginia too, as in Maryland, the Carolinas, and all
- 13:55Speaker 1: the rest of England. In America, parties were emerging. The
- 13:59Speaker 1: Virginia flair for political life was thus early in evidence.
- 14:04Speaker 1: To the careless eye, the colony might seem overwhelmingly for
- 14:08Speaker 1: king and Church. If New England be called a receptacle
- 14:11Speaker 1: of dissenters, and in Amsterdam of religion, Pennsylvania, the nursery
- 14:15Speaker 1: of Quakers Meryland, the retirement of Roman Catholics North Carolina,
- 14:19Speaker 1: the refuge of runaways in South Carolina, the delight of
- 14:22Speaker 1: buccaneers and pirates Virginia may be justly esteemed the happy
- 14:26Speaker 1: retreat of true Britons and true Churchmen. For the most part, this,
- 14:31Speaker 1: for the most part, paints the situation for their existence
- 14:35Speaker 1: and opposition a minority which might grow to balance and overbalance.
- 14:40Speaker 1: In the meantime, the House of Burgesses at Williamsburg provided
- 14:43Speaker 1: a school for discussion. At the time when Parson Jones,
- 14:48Speaker 1: with his shrewd eyes, was observing society in the Old Dominion,
- 14:52Speaker 1: Williamsburg was still a small village, even though it was
- 14:55Speaker 1: the capital towns indeed, in any true sense, were nowhere
- 14:59Speaker 1: to be in Virginia. Yet Williamsburg had a certain distinction
- 15:04Speaker 1: within it. There arose beneath and between old forest trees,
- 15:08Speaker 1: the College, an admirable church, Bruton Church, the Capital, the
- 15:13Speaker 1: Governor's house or palace, and many very tolerable dwelling houses
- 15:17Speaker 1: of frame and brick. There were also taverns, a marketplace,
- 15:20Speaker 1: a bowling green and arsenal, and presently a play house.
- 15:24Speaker 1: The capital of Williamsburg was a commodious one, able to
- 15:28Speaker 1: house most of the machinery of state. Here were the
- 15:31Speaker 1: Council Chamber, where the Governor and Council sit in very
- 15:34Speaker 1: great state in imitation of the King and Council or
- 15:38Speaker 1: the Lord Chancellor, and House of Lords, and the Great
- 15:41Speaker 1: Room of the House of Burgesses, not unlike the House
- 15:43Speaker 1: of Commons. Here at the capitol met the general courts
- 15:47Speaker 1: in April and October, the Governor and Council acting as judges.
- 15:52Speaker 1: There were also riller and Terminay and Admiralty courts. There
- 15:57Speaker 1: were offices and committee rooms, and on the cupola a
- 16:01Speaker 1: great clock, and near the capitol was a strong sweet
- 16:04Speaker 1: prison for criminals, and on the other side of an
- 16:07Speaker 1: open court another for debtors, but such prisoners are very rare,
- 16:11Speaker 1: the creditors being generally very merciful. At the Capitol at
- 16:16Speaker 1: public times may be seen a great number of handsome,
- 16:19Speaker 1: well dressed, complete gentlemen. And at the Governor's house upon
- 16:23Speaker 1: birth nights, and at balls and assemblies, I have seen
- 16:26Speaker 1: as fine an appearance, as good diversion, and as splendid
- 16:30Speaker 1: entertainments in Governor Spotswood's time as I have seen anywhere else.
- 16:36Speaker 1: It is of horror from the Susan constant, the good
- 16:39Speaker 1: speed and the discovery, from those first booths at Jamestown,
- 16:43Speaker 1: from the starving time, from Christopher Newport and Edward Maria
- 16:47Speaker 1: Wingfield and Captain John Smith, to these days of Governor Spotswood.
- 16:51Speaker 1: And yet considering the change is still become a sentry
- 16:54Speaker 1: seems but a little time, and the far cry not
- 16:57Speaker 1: so very far. The Virginians were in the mass countryfolk,
- 17:02Speaker 1: yet villages or hamlets arose, clusters of houses pressing about
- 17:06Speaker 1: the courthouse of each county. They were now in the
- 17:09Speaker 1: colony over a score of settled counties. The western most
- 17:13Speaker 1: of these, the frontier counties, were so huge that they
- 17:17Speaker 1: ran at least to the mountains, and for all one
- 17:20Speaker 1: new to the contrary, presumably beyond, But beyond was a
- 17:24Speaker 1: mysterious word of unknown content, for no Virginian of that
- 17:28Speaker 1: day had gone beyond. All the way from Canada into
- 17:32Speaker 1: South Carolina and the Florida of that time stretched the
- 17:36Speaker 1: mighty system of the Appalachians. Fifteen hundred miles in length
- 17:39Speaker 1: and three hundred in breadth. Here was a barrier long
- 17:42Speaker 1: and thick, with ridge up to ridge of lifted and
- 17:45Speaker 1: forested earth, with knife blade veils between, and only here
- 17:49Speaker 1: and there a breakaway and an encompass treasure of broad
- 17:53Speaker 1: and fertile valley. The Appalachians made a true Chinese wall,
- 17:57Speaker 1: shutting all England in America in those early days out
- 18:01Speaker 1: from the vast inland plateau of the continent, keeping upon
- 18:05Speaker 1: the seaboard all England in America, from the north to
- 18:08Speaker 1: the south to Virginia. These were the mysterious mountains just beyond,
- 18:12Speaker 1: which at first were held to be the South Sea
- 18:15Speaker 1: in Cathay. Now men's knowledge being larger by one hundred years,
- 18:20Speaker 1: it was known that the South Sea could not be
- 18:22Speaker 1: so near the French from Canada, going by way of
- 18:25Speaker 1: the Saint Lawrence, and the Great Lakes had penetrated very
- 18:28Speaker 1: far beyond, and had found not the South Sea but
- 18:31Speaker 1: a mighty river flowing into the Gulf of Mexico. What
- 18:35Speaker 1: was the real nature of this world which had been
- 18:37Speaker 1: found to lie over the mountains? More and more Virginians
- 18:40Speaker 1: were inclined to find out. Foreseeing that they would need
- 18:43Speaker 1: room for their growing population, continuously came from the old country,
- 18:49Speaker 1: and continuously Virginians were born. Maryland wrote to the North Carolina,
- 18:54Speaker 1: to the South Virginia, seeking space, must begin to grow westward.
- 19:00Speaker 1: There were settlements from the sea to the falls of
- 19:02Speaker 1: the James, and upon the York, the Rappahannock, and the Potomac.
- 19:05Speaker 1: Beyond these, in the wilderness might be found a few
- 19:08Speaker 1: lonely cabins, a scattered handful of pioneer folk, small block houses,
- 19:12Speaker 1: and small companies of rangers charged with protecting all from
- 19:16Speaker 1: Indian foray. All this country was rolling and hilly, but
- 19:20Speaker 1: beyond it stood the mountains, out wall of enchantment against
- 19:24Speaker 1: the west. Alexander Spotswood Hardy Scott endowed with a good
- 19:28Speaker 1: temperamental blend of the imaginative and the active was just
- 19:32Speaker 1: the man the time being right to encounter and surmount
- 19:35Speaker 1: that wall. Fortunately, too, the Virginians were horsemen, man and horse,
- 19:40Speaker 1: one piece, almost New World centaurs. They would follow the
- 19:44Speaker 1: bridle tracks that pierced through the hilly country, and beyond
- 19:47Speaker 1: that they might yet make way through the primeval forest.
- 19:51Speaker 1: They would encounter dangers, but hardly the old perils of sea,
- 19:54Speaker 1: coast and foothills. Different. Indeed, is this adventure of the
- 19:58Speaker 1: Governor of Virginia and his chosen band from the old
- 20:01Speaker 1: push afoot into frowning, hostile woods by the men of
- 20:05Speaker 1: one hundred and odd years before. Spotswood rode westward with
- 20:10Speaker 1: a company drawn largely from the colonial gentry, men young
- 20:14Speaker 1: in body or in spirit, gay and adventures. The whole
- 20:17Speaker 1: expedition was conceived and executed in a key both humorous
- 20:21Speaker 1: and nightly. These knights set face toward the mountains in
- 20:25Speaker 1: August seventeen sixteen. They had guides who knew the upcountry,
- 20:29Speaker 1: a certain number of rangers used to Indian ways, and
- 20:32Speaker 1: servants with food and much wine in their charge. So
- 20:36Speaker 1: out of Settle Virginia they rode and up the long
- 20:39Speaker 1: gradual lift of earth above sea level into a mountainous
- 20:43Speaker 1: wilderness where before them, the Aryan had not come. By day.
- 20:47Speaker 1: They traveled and bivouactic night. Higher and more rugged grew
- 20:51Speaker 1: the mountain. Some trick of the light made them show blue,
- 20:54Speaker 1: so that they presently came to be called the blue ridge,
- 20:58Speaker 1: in counterradistinction to the word westward lying gray Alleghanies. They
- 21:03Speaker 1: were like very long ocean combers, with at intervals and
- 21:06Speaker 1: abrupt break, a gap cliff guarded boulders strewn with a
- 21:09Speaker 1: narrow rushing stream making way between hemlocks and pines, sycamore,
- 21:14Speaker 1: ash and beach, walnut and linden. Towards these blue mountains,
- 21:19Speaker 1: Spotswood and his Nights road day after day, and came
- 21:23Speaker 1: at last to the foot of the steep slope. The
- 21:26Speaker 1: long ridges were high, but not so high but that
- 21:29Speaker 1: horse and men might make shift to scramble through the crest.
- 21:32Speaker 1: Up they climbed, and from the heights they looked across
- 21:35Speaker 1: and down into the valley of Virginia, twenty miles wide
- 21:39Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty long, a fertile garden spot. Across
- 21:43Speaker 1: the shimmering distances, they saw the gray Alleghanies, fresh barrier
- 21:47Speaker 1: to a fresh west below them ran a clear river. Afterwards,
- 21:51Speaker 1: to be called the Shenandoah. They gazed. They predicted colonists,
- 21:56Speaker 1: future plantations, future towns for that great valley large indeed,
- 22:00Speaker 1: as are some old world kingdoms. They drank the health
- 22:04Speaker 1: of England's king, and named to outstanding peaks Mount George
- 22:08Speaker 1: and Mount Alexander. Then, because their senses were ravaged by
- 22:12Speaker 1: the Eden before them, they dubbed the river Euphrates. They
- 22:16Speaker 1: plunged and scrambled down the mountainside to the Uruphrates, drank
- 22:20Speaker 1: of it, bathed in it, rested eight and drank again.
- 22:23Speaker 1: The deep green woods were around them. Above them they
- 22:26Speaker 1: could see the hawk, the eagle, and the buzzard, and
- 22:29Speaker 1: at their feet the bright fish of the river. At
- 22:31Speaker 1: last they reclimbed the blue ridge, descended its eastern face, and,
- 22:35Speaker 1: leaving the great wave of it behind them, rode homeward
- 22:38Speaker 1: to Williamsburg in Triem. We are thus, with Spotswood and
- 22:42Speaker 1: his band, on the threshold of expanding American vistas. This
- 22:47Speaker 1: valley of Virginia, first a distant Beulah land for the
- 22:50Speaker 1: eye of the imagination, only presently became a land of
- 22:54Speaker 1: pioneer cabins far apart, very far apart. Then, thus settled
- 22:58Speaker 1: land of farms, hamlets and market towns. Nor did the
- 23:01Speaker 1: folk come only from that elder Virginia, of tidal waters
- 23:04Speaker 1: and much tobacco, of complete gentlemen at the capitol, and
- 23:08Speaker 1: of many slaves in the fields. But downward from the
- 23:11Speaker 1: Potomac they came south into this valley from Pennsylvania and Maryland,
- 23:15Speaker 1: many of them ulster Scots who had sailed to the
- 23:18Speaker 1: western world. In America they are called the scotch Irish.
- 23:22Speaker 1: And in the main they brought stout hearts, long arms,
- 23:25Speaker 1: and level heads. With these they brought in as luggage
- 23:29Speaker 1: the dogmas of Calvin. They permeated the valley of Virginia.
- 23:33Speaker 1: Many moved on south into Carolina. Finally, in large part
- 23:37Speaker 1: they made Kentucky and Tennessee. Germans, too, came into the
- 23:41Speaker 1: valley down from Pennsylvania. Quiet thrifty folk driven thus far
- 23:45Speaker 1: westward from a war Ravish rhine shrewd practicality, trod hard
- 23:51Speaker 1: upon the heels of romantic fancy. In the mind of Spotswood,
- 23:55Speaker 1: his order of the Knights of the Horseshoe had a
- 23:58Speaker 1: fleeting existence, but the vision of the rest lived on.
- 24:01Speaker 1: Frontier folk, and growing numbers were encouraged to make their
- 24:04Speaker 1: way from Tidewater to the foot of the Blue Ridge.
- 24:08Speaker 1: Spotsylvania and King George were names given to new counties
- 24:12Speaker 1: in the Piedmont in honor of the governor and the sovereign.
- 24:15Speaker 1: German craftsmen who had been sent over by Queen Anne.
- 24:19Speaker 1: Bind dressers and iron workers were settled on Spotswood's own
- 24:23Speaker 1: estate above the falls of the Rapidan. The little town
- 24:26Speaker 1: of Germana sprang up famous for its smelting furnaces to
- 24:31Speaker 1: his country seat in Spotsylvania. Alexander Spotswood retired when he
- 24:35Speaker 1: laid down the office of governor in seventeen twenty two,
- 24:39Speaker 1: but his talents were too valuable to be allowed to
- 24:41Speaker 1: rest in inactivity. He was appointed Deputy Postmaster General for
- 24:46Speaker 1: the English Colonies, and in the course of his administration,
- 24:50Speaker 1: made one Benjamin Franklin postmaster for Philadelphia. He was on
- 24:55Speaker 1: the point of sailing with Admiral Vernon on the expedition
- 24:58Speaker 1: against Cartagena in seventeen forty when he was suddenly stricken
- 25:02Speaker 1: and died. He was buried at Temple Farm by York Town.
- 25:06Speaker 1: On the expedition of Cartagenia went on Lawrence Washington, who
- 25:10Speaker 1: named his country seat after the admiral, and whose brother George,
- 25:14Speaker 1: many years later, was to receive the surrender of Cornwallis
- 25:17Speaker 1: and his army, harried by the resting place of Alexander Spotswood.
- 25:21Speaker 1: Colonial Virginia lies behind us. The era of revolution and statehood,
- 25:27Speaker 1: beckons us on end of chapter fifteen.