his reputation could only be repaired with the rapier. Williamsburg remains to-day very much as it was before the Revolution,-the same sandy soil and soft, dry air; a few venerable mansions and much-patched cottages; the old Bruton parish church and the dust of the colonial nobility that slumbers under its protecting shadows. Some of their descendants remain to cherish their pedigrees, their claw foot furniture, their old clocks. Reminiscences and relics of historical characters spring up at one from every turn in a surprising and gratifying manner. Here Jefferson, Marshall, Monroe, and Tyler were college students, and Washington and Jefferson courted their wives; here Patrick Henry made his reputation as an orator, and John Marshall occupied a law-office in the main street. William Wirt, Edmund Randolph, and other famous men lived and loved and worked in Williamsburg, and probably more distinguished characters passed over its sandy roads "in the good old colony times" than over those of any other town of its size in North America. Two of the buildings-the court-house and the main dormitory of William and Mary Collegewere designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, and the home of the president of the college is the only house in America that was built by a king. The original mansion was occupied by Lord Cornwallis as his head-quarters during the Revolution. When he retired it was taken possession of by the French allies and was accidentally burned. Louis XVI. of France heard of the disaster and sent over money to pay for its rebuilding. The Widow Custis (she that was Martha Dandridge), afterwards the wife of Washington, made her home in Williamsburg. Her residence, the centre of social gayety, was burned some years ago, and its site, still strewn with the soot-covered bricks that fell in the fire, is now a part of the grounds of the insane asylum. Nothing remains but the kitchen-a small one-story house, which was detached, as is usual in the South, from the main structure, and thus preserved from destruction. It is now a tool-house for the gardeners of the institution. The Custis family and the Dandridges, from which Mrs. Custis came, were rich, hospitable, and aristocratic, and had several plantations in the neighborhood. While most of the courting was done there when Washington was a member of the House of Burgesses, the wedding took place about thirty miles away, in New Kent County, where the bride's family had their home. Her first husband, George Parke Custis, is buried in a private cemetery upon one of his plantations, about two miles from town, and two infant children in the town cemetery. Lafayette promenaded the streets every day for months; Washington spent much time there, and the different houses in which he lived can still be pointed out. It is gratifying to have so much veneration and interest shown by the people in the preservation of historical structures. The residence of Chancellor George Wythe, with whom Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Henry Clay studied law and maintained a partnership for several years, was the head-quarters of Washington in 1781, and is as well preserved as if built in the last decade. A long frame structure near by was the home of Edmund Randolph, the first Secretary of State under the Constitution, who had already been Governor of Virginia. His descendants still occupy the home. The residences of William Wirt, John Marshall, and President John Tyler are still pointed out. The foundations of the old Capitol building, which was originally erected in 1705, restored after a fire in 1746, and then totally destroyed in 1832, have been unearthed by the Society for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities and marked with a low coping of cement. It seems to have been a twin building, in the form of the letter H, connected by a colonnade. Williamsburg was founded in 1632 and became the seat of government in 1698, when the StateHouse and the jail at Jamestown were burned. It was then called Middle Plantation, but was rechristened by Governor Nicholson in honor of the king. The three chief reasons for the removal, as stated by contemporaneous writers, were the destruction of the government buildings at Jamestown in what was known as the Bacon Rebellion against the authority of that testy old tyrant, Sir William Berkeley, because the College of William and Mary gave an air of scholastic dignity and social distinction to the place, and because “it was freer from the annoyance of moschetoes." The original town was composed of three streets, wide and straight, with a cipher made of a "W" at one end and an "M" at the other, in honor of King William and Queen Mary. The College stood at one end and the Capitol at the other. The governor's "Palace" was accidentally burned by the French troops during the Revolution. The last occupant was Lord Dunmore, who resided in great state, attended by the pomp and formality of viceroyalty, and at that time there was a park, comprising three hundred and sixty acres, behind the mansion, which is now a pasture. The site of the "Palace" is occupied by a school for boys. |