The Life of John Marshall, Volume 1: Frontiersman, soldier, lawmaker, 1755-1788. Albert J. Beveridge

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118

Practically all log cabins, at that time, had only one story.

119

See infra.

120

Six more children were born while the Marshalls remained in "The Hollow": James M., 1764; Judith, 1766; William and Charles, 1767; Lucy, 1768; and Alexander, 1770.

121

Nearly twenty years later, "Winchester was rude, wild, as nature had made it," but "it was less so than its inhabitants." (Mrs. Carrington to her sister Nancy, describing Winchester in 1777, from personal observation; MS.)

122

See Mrs. Carrington to her sister Nancy, infra, chap. V.

123

John Marshall, when at the height of his career, liked to talk of these times. "He ever recurred with fondness to that primitive mode of life, when he partook with a keen relish of balm tea and mush; and when the females used thorns for pins." (Howe, 263, and see Hist. Mag., iii, 166.)

Most of the settlers on the frontier and near frontier did not use forks or tablecloths. Washington found this condition in the house of a Justice of the Peace. "When we came to supper there was neither a Cloth upon ye Table nor a knife to eat with; but as good luck would have it, we had knives of our [own]." (Writings: Ford, i, 4.)

Chastellux testifies that, thirty years later, the frontier settlers were forced to make almost everything they used. Thus, as population increased, necessity developed men of many trades and the little communities became self-supporting. (Chastellux, 226-27.)

124

More than a generation after Thomas Marshall moved to "The Hollow" in the Blue Ridge large quantities of bear and beaver skins were brought from the Valley into Staunton, not many miles away, just over the Ridge. (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 179-80.) The product of the Blue Ridge itself was sent to Fredericksburg and Alexandria. (See Crèvecœur, 63-65.) Thirty years earlier (1733) Colonel Byrd records that "Bears, Wolves, and Panthers" roamed about the site of Richmond; that deer were plentiful and rattlesnakes considered a delicacy. (Byrd's Writings: Bassett, 293, 318-19.)

125

See infra, chap. VII.

126

Even forty years later, all "store" merchandise could be had in this region only by hauling it from Richmond, Fredericksburg, or Alexandria. Transportation from the latter place to Winchester cost two dollars and a half per hundredweight. In 1797, "store" goods of all kinds cost, in the Blue Ridge, thirty per cent more than in Philadelphia. (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 203.) From Philadelphia the cost was four to five dollars per hundredweight. While there appear to have been country stores at Staunton and Winchester, over the mountains (Chalkley's Augusta County (Va.) Records), the cost of freight to those places was prohibitive of anything but the most absolute necessities even ten years after the Constitution was adopted.

127

Hist. Mag., iii, 166; Howe, 263; also, Story, in Dillon, iii, 334.

128

Story, in Dillon, iii, 331-32.

129

Ib.

130

See Binney, in Dillon, iii, 285.

131

"Fauquier was then a frontier county … far in advance of the ordinary reach of compact population." (Story, in Dillon, iii, 331; also see New York Review (1838), iii, 333.) Even a generation later (1797), La Rochefoucauld, writing from personal investigation, says (iii, 227-28): "There is no state so entirely destitute of all means of public education as Virginia."

132

See Binney, in Dillon, iii, 285.

133

Story, in Dillon, iii, 330.

134

Marshall to Story, July 31, 1833; Story, ii, 150.

135

See infra, chaps. VII and VIII.

136

"A taste for reading is more prevalent [in Virginia] among the gentlemen of the first class than in any other part of America; but the common people are, perhaps, more ignorant than elsewhere." (La Rochefoucauld, iii, 232.) Other earlier and later travelers confirm this statement of this careful French observer.

137

Story thinks that Thomas Marshall, at this time, owned Milton, Shakespeare, and Dryden. (Dillon, iii, 331.) This is possible. Twenty years later, Chastellux found Milton, Addison, and Richardson in the parlor of a New Jersey inn; but this was in the comparatively thickly settled country adjacent to Philadelphia. (Chastellux, 159.)

138

Story, in Dillon, iii, 331, and Binney, in ib., 283; Hist. Mag., iii, 166.

139

Lang: History of English Literature, 384; and see Gosse: History of Eighteenth Century Literature, 131; also, Traill: Social England, V, 72; Stephen: Alexander Pope, 62; and see Cabot to Hamilton, Nov. 29, 1800; Cabot: Lodge, 299.

140

Binney, in Dillon, iii, 283-84; Washington's Diary; MS., Lib. Cong.

141

Irving, i, 45; and Lodge: Washington, i, 59. Many years later when he became rich, Washington acquired a good library, part of which is now in the Boston Athenæum. But as a young and moneyless surveyor he had no books of his own and his "book" education was limited and shallow.

142

Binney, in Dillion, iii, 281-84.

143

Irving, i, 37, 45; and Sparks, 10.

144

Irving, i, 27.

145

Irving, i, 46.

146

As will appear, the Fairfax estate is closely interwoven into John Marshall's career. (See vol. II of this work.)

147

For description of Greenway Court see Pecquet du Bellet, ii, 175.

148

Washington's Writings: Ford, i, footnote to 329.

149

For a clear but laudatory account of Lord Fairfax see Appendix No. 4 to Burnaby, 197-213. But Fairfax could be hard enough on those who opposed him, as witness his treatment of Joist Hite. (See infra, chap. V.)

150

When the Revolution came, however, Fairfax was heartily British. The objection which the colony made to the title to his estate doubtless influenced him.

151

Fairfax was a fair example of the moderate, as distinguished from the radical or the reactionary. He was against both irresponsible autocracy and unrestrained democracy. In short, he was what would now be termed a liberal conservative (although, of course, such a phrase, descriptive of that demarcation, did not then exist). Much attention should be given to this unique man in tracing to their ultimate sources the origins of John Marshall's economic, political, and social convictions.

152

Sparks, 11; and Irving, i, 33.

153

For Fairfax's influence on Washington see Irving, i, 45; and in general, for fair secondary accounts of Fairfax, see ib., 31-46; and Sparks, 10-11.

154

Senator Humphrey Marshall says that Thomas Marshall "emulated" Washington. (Humphrey Marshall, i, 345.)

155

See infra.

156

Bond of Thomas Marshall as Sheriff, Oct. 26, 1767; Records of Fauquier County (Va.), Deed Book, iii, 70. Approval of bond by County Court; Minute Book (from 1764 to 1768), 322. Marshall's bond was "to his Majesty, George III," to secure payment to the British revenue officers of all money collected by Marshall for the Crown. (Records of Fauquier County (Va.), Deed Book, iii, 71.)

157

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