The Taylor-Trotwood Magazine, Vol. IV, No. 4, January 1907

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.

[Illustration: 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, And the fiddles are forgotten and will never play again. But above the stars eternal in their faded pinks and blues, With the powder on their ringlets and the buckles on their shoes, I shall see the beaux and sweethearts in the long procession kneel, And their harps will play the music of the Old Virginia Reel.”

[Illustration: TAZEWELL HALL]

William and Mary College, the oldest of the American colleges except Harvard, is situated in the old colonial capital, Williamsburg, sometimes called The Middle Plantation. Before the college was burned the first time it had many rare volumes marked with the coats of arms of royalty and noblemen whose names were connected with its early days. Within its walls were trained the youth of the eighteenth century who were to consecrate their lives to the cause of liberty. The Reverend James Blair was its founder and its first president. He went to London and unfolded his scheme of Christianizing the Indians and educating the youth of America. Queen Mary warmly approved of his plan. King William was equally agreeable and gave an order for two thousand pounds sterling to be used in the erection of the buildings. But when Seymour, the Attorney-General, received the order to draw up the charter and pay the money, he was enraged. The nation was engaged in an expensive war, he said, and needed the money for other and better purposes—why was a college wanted in Virginia, anyhow? Mr. Blair explained its purpose as being that of preparing young men for the ministry, adding that the people of Virginia had souls to save as well as the people of England. The idea struck Seymour as particularly absurd and maudlin; his retort, historically recorded, was: “Souls! ⸺ your souls! Make tobacco!”

[Illustration: BASSETT HALL]

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.

[Illustration: 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.

YORKTOWN

There are two monuments at Yorktown to commemorate the surrender of Cornwallis, and the old customhouse still stands, with moss-peaked roof, thick walls, massive oaken doors and shutters. It is said to have been the first customhouse erected in America.

In the colonial period, says a popular writer, it was the rendezvous of the gentlemen of the town and country surrounding it. It was there that the haughty young aristocrats took snuff, fondled their hounds and probably talked over the last Assembly ball, and, mayhap, laughed about the conquests made of their colleagues by the bright eyes of the country-side belles.

There still stands an old weather-boarded mansion whose antique roof and fireplaces set across the corners demand for it the reverence inspired in us by a relic of bygone days. Here in the sitting room were drawn up the articles of capitulation and surrender. It was historical long before that, as being the country residence of Governor Spottswood. Here he held his mimic court, entertaining in the most lavish and ostentatious manner his knights of the Golden Horse Shoe. Not far away is the foundation of a curious building said to have been a temple of worship built by Governor Spottswood. The spectacular taste of the governor gives this an appearance of truth which is borne up by the name of the surrounding plantation. It is called Temple Farm.

PITHY POINTS FOR PONDERING PEOPLE

By William J. Burtscher

A dishonest man doesn’t care for honest criticism.

Don’t _stop_ to think if you can think without stopping.

Energy keepeth her eyes open twenty-four hours every day.

Life is a chain of duties. Discharge one, and another looms up ahead.

Do as you please as long as you please, as long as you please to do right.

It is hard for a man to hang to the religion that he hangs on the outside of himself.

While the lazy man lies in bed dreaming of success, energy gets up and hustles for it.

Some people are so busy grieving over being poor that they have no time to begin to get rich.

Some men are so liberal in their criticism that they forget to compliment the deeds that please.

It is easy to follow the path of an optimist on account of the sunshine he leaves behind him.

Work is a lazy man’s enemy. So long as he loves not his enemy religion abideth not with him.

When in Rome do as Rome does—not want you to do. Do as Rome ought to do, or as right requires.

The rich man is seldom as thankful for his wealth as the hungry tramp always is when a morsel of bread comes his way.

While some men are waiting for a rich relative to die and leave them a fortune they could attend to business and make one.

A little man brags of his bravery when the danger is past. The man who is really brave doesn’t need to brag. His friends do it for him.

HISTORY OF THE HALS

CHAPTER XVI

By John Trotwood Moore

[NOTE.—The History of this remarkable family of horses was begun in the first number of _Trotwood’s Monthly_, and has proven to be so popular that nearly all of the back numbers of the magazine have been bought up and bound by the admirers of this great family of horses. Orders are coming in daily, often as many as ten to twenty, for a complete set of last year’s _Trotwood_. We regret, therefore, that we will be unable to furnish back numbers much longer. This History will be continued during the year, including the story of Brown Hal, Star Pointer, Mattie Hunter, Hal Dillard, Old Brooks, Star Hal, Hal B., and many others now known to fame. It will close with a beautiful tribute to the life and the career of Edward F. Geers, the “Silent Man from Tennessee,” who is to the turf world what Napoleon was to war.—Pubs. TAYLOR-TROTWOOD.]

THE REVERY RACE

Quadrupe dante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.—_Virgil._

In days agone, Upon that shore which mortals call the Unreturning Past, What bursts of speed from gallant steed have come like bugle blast! What battles have been fought and won, what names to fame been given, What mighty shout has put to rout the thunder notes of heaven, When, coming in his pride and scorn The old horse won in days agone!

In days to come, Upon that shore where Memory’s twilight skies hang o’er, Oft will the old horse race as he has never raced before! His silent ghost will come to post while spectral grandstands listen To the noiseless beat of his phantom feet—as the silver moonbeams glisten On the gray-haired horseman who tells it o’er— How the old horse won in days of yore!

—_John Trotwood Moore._

“Seeing an article in a turf paper about pacing horses being natural swimmers,” remarked a friend to Trotwood a few days ago, “reminds me of an experience I had a dozen years ago down in the piney woods of Alabama, that convinced me that whether a pacer is a born swimmer or not, one thing is certain, the trotting horse I was driving that February day didn’t act like he was a South Sea Islander, by any means.

“You see,” he said, as a companionable crowd of horsemen gathered around him, and passed around the cigar box, as a sign that a story was about to begin, “I had been courting down in that state and made up my mind that I wanted to marry a blue-eyed, pretty daughter of old Major Blank, and I had about half way convinced the girl that she wanted to marry me, when this infernal non-swimming horse had about upset the whole thing. I hadn’t seen the girl for about a month, so I boarded the cars one bright day in February for a short visit. I took precaution to get the best ring I could find in Nashville within my means—I knew the fit of her finger pretty well—and I was as dead certain of leaving that ring in Alabama on the fourth finger of a dimpled hand as I am to-day that little Robert J. could pace round a draft horse.

“I stopped at a small town, ten miles from where she lived in the country, at the house of a friend of mine, for I had to hire a buggy and drive through to the Major’s, as he lived off the railroad. According to agreement, the young lady had written me a letter to that point, telling me how glad they all would be to see me, accenting the “all,” and ending up with a message that made my heart beat like a thumped horse, and enclosing a bunch of violets tied with a few _deshabille_ strands of her own sunset hair. By the way, this was in February as I remarked, but what was the name of that poet that said, ‘love comes like a summer’s sigh?’

“Well, that letter made it July with me.

“I would have been a married man with an interesting family to-day,” he remarked after a pause, with a sigh, “if that friend of mine hadn’t been so everlastingly clever. He had a dish-faced trotter he had bought up in Kentucky, at one of Shanklin’s sales, that could go a mile in that Alabama sand in about five minutes, and do it with such a rip and tear and splutter and dirt throwing that you would think he was trotting ’round the world in eighty days. I had often bragged on the beast, just to please my clerking friend, who thought I knew every trotting horse personally, in the world, and now I got in to it by being so complimentary. Nothing would do but I must drive that old, shying, crow-hopping fool. And I had it to do. After I got him out of town he quit shying at the tree shadows and the black-jack stumps on the road side, and I thought I was getting along pretty well. Considering the fact that I was looking into a pair of blue eyes all the way, and putting a ring on an imaginary finger every mile I went, while the trusting hand to which it was attached nestled coyly between my two big ones, and I smelt the sweet perfume of violets in a wavy mass of auburn hair that nestled, in my mind’s eye, on my breast, I got along without any other accident; but was about to drive into a pretty rapid sheet of water in my dreaming, and perhaps end my own and Old Crow’s—the horse’s—career at the same time, when I heard a gruff voice with true Southern accent and a native nonchalance, say:

“‘You doan’t wanter go in washin’ this early in the season, do you, sah?”

“Well, I didn’t, and I waked up in time to stop the fool horse and back him out. The stranger watched me get out and then proceeded to tell me what I hadn’t had sense enough to see before—that Raccoon Creek was on a boom and Dead Deer Slough, into which I was driving, would swim a horse most anywhere. Now, a slough, in the far South, is a low, marshy place near the borders of a creek or lake, and, while generally dry in summer, in winter it manages to get plenty of water from the overflowing creek or lake nearby. This one ran directly across the road leading up to the foot of the bridge spanning Raccoon Creek beyond, and, though the bridge was partly under water, I could see it was all right and fully half of it, on the highest curve, was clear of water. Moreover, the other part was built on the bluff side of the creek and seemed to be entirely clear. So if I could only get to the bridge I would be all right.

“‘You had better give it up to-day, sah, and wait till mornin’,’ said the stranger, who appeared much interested in my movements. ‘The slough will run down by then, and you can get on the bridge easy. If there are no stoops in it’—I afterwards learned that stoops meant holes washed out by the water—‘you will find no trouble getting over. I’ll take keer of you, sah,’ he added, with true Southern hospitality, ‘for I want somebody to play euchre with to-night. It’s been raining for five days, and I knew old Rack would be scudding along, so I just rode down here to watch her, sah.’

“I thanked him, but told him I was going over. I was young, boys, and the picture of the old Major’s parlor with the big wood fire sending sparks up the chimney and then dying down to adjust the shadowy light necessary for the ring scene and the tableau act, was too much for my youthful head.

“‘But can that horse there swim?’ said the Southerner, with a more serious expression. ‘It isn’t every horse that can, my young frien’, an’ you had better know what he can do before you go into this mud-hole, sah.’

“‘Oh, I’ll soon teach him,’ I said, with one of those laughs that a man with more brass than sense is frequently caught indulging in. ‘He’ll have to swim or drown and you know he’ll swim before he’ll do that.’

“But right there is where I failed to size up that slanting-headed descendant of old Messenger.

“Well, the Southerner was very quiet and did not intrude his opinion on me further. He sized me up about right and decided to let me go it. The buggy was out of the question so I took old Crow out. Stripped him of everything but the bridle and put the lap robe on his back to help break the angularity of my seat. By the Southerner’s advice I pulled off my pants and underclothing, tying them around my shoulders, thrust my stockings in my upper coat pocket to keep them dry, tied my shoestrings together and threw my shoes over my shoulders, mounted my steed and spurred him with my trembling heels—for I was beginning to shake a little—into the slough. The stranger told me to let the horse have the bit and keep him to the right of a line of willows which he said skirted the road. By no means was I to jerk the beast, but guide him gently to right or left with the line.

“Right here, I want to explain to you that that horse had been listening to us and had decided that now was the time for him to suicide—a thought he had had in his mind for a year or two, I am sure. By doing the job now he expected to kill two birds with one stone, and I was the other bird—a jay at that—for, looking back at that roaring flood from the standpoint of fifteen years’ more sense, I am sure nobody but an idiot would ever have tried it. Well, we went in and I headed him for the willows, and the water crept up to my feet, then to my knees and was soon on the horse’s withers. Right here I expected to see him sail off with me on his back, his tail streaming out, his head on the wave, his ears laid back and his nostrils dilated and sending his steamy breath right and left; but not much of a sail he made. I forgot to tell you he had the longest neck I ever saw on a horse, but I didn’t know it was as long as it was, or I’d never have gone in that slough. Why, that neck was a telescope, and after he got me in up to the armpits he just lengthened it out a notch or two above the waves whenever he wanted to. I am not much on mathematics, but I saw that, as he then held it, it was fully six inches higher than the top of my hat, and I imagined I saw the faintest trace of a satanic grin on his under lip as he let her out another link and looked back at me, as much as to say: