Or   Southern Life Before the Revolution By Maud Wilder Goodwin Illustrated by Harry Edwards New York Lovell, Coryell & Company 1894 Copyright , 1894, BY UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY. All Rights Reserved. The Colonial Cavalier...

Two great forces have contributed to the making of the Anglo-American character. The types, broadly classed in England as Puritan and Cavalier, repeated themselves in the New World. On the bleak Massachusetts coast, the Puritan emigrants founded a race as rugged as their environment. Driven by the force of compelling conscience from their homes, they came to the new land, at once pilgrims and pioneers, to rear altars and found homes in the primeval forest. It was not freedom of worship alone the

The Colonial Cavalier His Home I stood in the wide hall of the old brick mansion built, a century and a half ago, by “King Carter,” on the shore of the James River. It was Autumn. The doors at either end of the saloon were open, and their casements framed the landscape like a picture. From the foot of the moss-grown steps at the rear, the drive stretched its length, under several closed gates, for half a mile, till it joined the little travelled high-road. From the porch in front, the ground fel

SWEETEHEARTS and WIVES The first settlers in America had no homes, for the first requisite for a home is a wife. They soon learned that “a better half, alone, gives better quarters.” The Indian squaws were almost the only women known to the voyagers on the Susan Constant and her sister ships; and though the adventurers wrote home in glowing terms of their dusky charms, they looked askance upon the idea of marriage with the heathen natives. We cannot help, however, echoing the sentiments of Colon

His Dress. “In teacup time of hood and hoop And when the patch was worn” If you have any curiosity to know what clothes these first Colonial Cavaliers wore, you may learn very easily by reading over the “particular of Apparrell” upon which they agreed as necessary to the settler bound for Virginia. The list includes: “1 dozen Points, a Monmouth cap, 1 waste-coat, 3 falling bands, 1 suit of canvase, 3 shirts, 1 suit of frieze, 1 suit of cloth, 4 paire shoes, 3 paire Irish stockings, and 1 paire g

News, Trade, and Travell In the early days, the highways of the Cavalier Colonies were the broad waters of bay and sound; their by-ways, the innumerable rivers and creeks; and their toll-gates, the ports of entry. Road-making was tedious and costly, and the settlers saw no reason for wasting time and energy in the undertaking, when nature had spread her pathways at their feet, and they needed only to step into a canoe, or a skiff manned by black oarsmen, to glide from one plantation to another;

His Friendes and Foes. The early adventurers had never seen anything of savage life till they touched the shores of Virginia. Everything connected with the strange beings there was full of interest. They set down faithfully whatever they saw, and a good deal more besides. The Susquehannocks impressed them most of all the Indian tribes. Their enormous height and fine proportions made them look like giants, and their attire was as impressive as their persons. One who saw them, writes home in those

His Amusements. ‘Let your Recreations Be Manful/not Sinful.’ Of all the amusements of the Colonial Cavalier, none was so popular as gambling. The law strove in vain to break it up. This statute in the Colonial Record, tells its own story: “Against gaming at dice and cardes, be it ordained by this present assembly that the winners and loosers shall forfaicte ten shillings a man, one ten shillings thereof to go to the discoverer, and the rest to pious uses.” I fear very little was ever collected f

His Man-Servants and his Maid Servants. “Jove fixed it certain That whatever day Makes a man slave, Takes half his worth away” A New England farmhouse and a Southern plantation:—What a contrast the two presented in colonial days! In the homes of Massachusetts and Connecticut, the notable housewife was up before light, breaking the ice over the water, of a winter morning, preparing with her own hands the savory sausages and buckwheat cakes for the men’s breakfast, and setting the house in order.

His Church. Williamsburg Church Bruton Parish. “M ixe not holy thinges with profane! ” so runs the inscription on the quaint old silver chalice used in the communion service of the Jamestown church. Had the advice been heeded, the history of the Colonial Church of England would not have been the sorry story it is. In point of fact, holy and profane things are so mixed in its chronicles that it is hard to write of it without seeming levity and flippancy. To call the differences between the parson

His Education. Governor Berkeley , that old stumbling-block-head who stopped the wheels of progress in Virginia for fifty years, wrote to the English Commissioners in 1670: “I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have, for learning hath brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing hath divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!” The bigoted Sir William set forth but too accurately the condition of a

Laws, Punishments, and Politics. Ye Stocks. It is a far cry from Patrick Henry, pouring out defiance against the king, while his listeners as one man echoed his final words, “Liberty or death!” back to the night of the arrival of the English ships in Chesapeake Bay, when the box given under the royal seal was opened, and the names of the council who were to govern Virginia were found within. It would have seemed to the group of men standing about the sacred casket on that April night incredible

SICKNESS and DEATH. Pioneer life is all very well when the adventurer is in high health and spirits; but when sickness comes, he must be stout of heart indeed if he does not sigh for the comforts of a civilized home. The poor settlers had a sorry time of it in that first fatal summer on the banks of the James, when they breathed in malaria from the marshes and drank the germs of fever and “fluxes” in the muddy water. “If there were any conscience in men,” wrote gallant George Percy, “it would ma

Alden’s Collection of American Epitaphs and Inscriptions Alsop’s Character of the Province of Maryland Anburey’s Travels through the Interior Parts of America Bancroft’s History of the United States Beverley’s History and Present State of Virginia Bozman’s History of Maryland Browne’s Maryland Buck’s Old Plate Burwell Papers, The Byrd’s Westover Manuscripts Campbell’s History of the Colony and Ancient Dominion of Virginia Chastellux’s Travels in North America Cooke’s Virginia Doyle’s English Col