Hospitality in Colonial Virginia
Early and late, east and west, the Colonial Virginia woman knew that she must be a good neighbor and an ever ready, always gracious hostess. From the beginning of time,…
From: 1632 C.E. To: 1774 C.E.
Location: Virginia, United States of America
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From “Hospitality” in Colonial Virginia: Its People and Customs by Mary N. Stanard, 1917.
Early and late, east and west, the Colonial Virginia woman knew that she must be a good neighbor and an ever ready, always gracious hostess.
From the beginning of time, making the stranger welcome to roof and board has been an unwritten law in thinly settled rural communities, and so liberally observed was this law in his Majesty's first colony that at an early day in its history Virginia hospitality passed into a proverb. One of the first witnesses to this was the traveller, De Vries, who writing on March II, 1632, says:
“At noon we came to Littleton, where we landed and where resided a great merchant named Mr. Menife, who kept us to dinner and treated us very well."
In 1648 a writer calling himself Beauchamp Plantagenet said in an account of a visit to America that on reaching Virginia he came to Newport's News, where he received kind entertainment at the houses of Captain Matthews and Master Fauntleroy and "free quarter everywhere."
Captain Matthews was a councillor and was afterward governor of the colony. Another traveller who enjoyed his hospitality has left a description of him, which, in a sentence, sums up the ideal of old Virginia character: "In a word, he keeps a good house, lives bravely and is a true lover of Virginia."
The cordiality with which the Old Dominion received Cavalier refugees is an oft-told tale. Toward the end of 1649 three such visitors, Colonel Henry Norwood, Major Francis Moryson, and Major Richard Fox, landed in a storm on the Eastern Shore, were made welcome at the nearest plantation and heartily entertained on all sides. Stephen Charlton "would have the Colonel to put on a good farmer-like suit of his own." A few days later they sailed across to York River where, at Captain Ralph Wormeley's, they found several other Cavalier officers—Sir Thomas Lunsford, Sir Henry Chichley, Colonel Phillip Honeywood, and Colonel Mainwaring Hammond—feasting and carousing. Colonel Norwood declared of Governor Berkeley's hospitality to Cavaliers, "house and purse were open to all such."
Writing of Virginia about 1700, Robert Beverley, the historian, says:
"The inhabitants are very courteous to travellers, who need no other recommendation but the being human creatures. A stranger has no more to do but to enquire upon the road where any gentleman or good housekeeper lives and there he may depend upon being received with hospitality. This good nature is so general among these people that the gentry when they go abroad order their principal servant to entertain all visitors with everything the plantation offers. And the poor planters who have but one bed will very often sit up or lie upon a form or couch all night to make room for a weary traveller to repose himself after his journey."
Says Hugh Jones, in his "Present State of Virginia," 1724: "No people can entertain their friends with better cheer and welcome, and strangers and travellers are here treated in the most free, plentiful and hospitable manner so that a few inns or ordinaries on the roads are sufficient."
Forty years later Lord Adam Gordon wrote in his "Journal":
"The inhabitants are courteous, polite and affable, the most hospitable and attentive to Strangers of any I have yet seen in America."
So much for the Virginians and the strangers within their gates. Letters and diaries give more intimate pictures of them with their friends and relatives. Those of the upper class were like one big, scattered family, for they were almost all related either by blood or marriage, and closely connected in all their interests. The casual caller had often travelled a good distance, on horseback or in carriage, and was always offered immediate refreshment and not only invited, but urged, to spend the day and night and to stay as much longer as was agreeable to him, and he very often accepted—sometimes prolonging his visit for days. If he came alone this meant entertainment for himself and his horse only, but as likely as not he came in his coach, chariot, or chair, with anywhere from a pair to six horses, a driver and perhaps postilions and outriders and a maid or two to wait upon the family with which the equipage overflowed.
In January, 1735, Sir John Randolph and his family had been making such a visit to the Byrds of "Westover," and upon their departure their host, who had done everything in his power to keep them longer, followed them with a letter to further assure them of his kind feeling. He wrote:
"Dear Sir:
"In hopes you may be safe at Williamsburg by this time and my lady up to the elbow in Sassages & Black Puddings I can't forbear Greeting you well, and signifying our joy at your arrival in your own chimney-corner. We have had the good nature to be in pain for you ever since you left us, 'tho in good truth your obstinacy in exposing your wife and children to be Starved with cold and buried in the mire hardly deserved it."
A letter bearing date November 25, 1765, from William Byrd, the third, to his niece Maria Carter, of "Cleve," shows that "Westover" was keeping up its traditions of hospitality. After congratulating his dear Molly" upon her engagement to William Armistead, of "Hesse," Gloucester County, the writer says:
"I & the rest of your relatives here beg the Favour of you & Mr. Armistead to spend your Christmas at Westover, where many young People are to make merry; & give our love to your Sisters & bring them with you. Our coach shall attend you anywhere at any time."
In the towns there was much tea-drinking and entertaining at meals. Here is an invitation sent to the charming widow Pratt and her sister by one of her admirers, a short time before she gave her hand to the adoring Thomas Jones, of Williamsburg:
Pleasant Madam,
The favor of your company with Mrs. Ann's will be very accept- able at Dinner, Supper and all other times to
Madam, Y'r most oblidged Serv't
Graves Packe.
May 23, 1725.
Queen's Creek.
The coming of a new Governor always stimulated sociability. On November 23, 1751, President John Blair of the Council recorded in his diary that he and Mrs. Blair dined, by invitation, at "Ye Attorney's with the newly arrived Governor Dinwiddie and his wife and daughters." and that "many ladies and gentlemen visited them in the afternoon."
On November 25 he writes: "The Governor, his lady and Miss Dinwiddie, Mr. Attorney and his lady, the Councillor and his lady dined and supped with us this day." And on December 31, "I invited the Governor and his family to begin the year with us tomorrow."
In 1769 President Blair's daughter, Anne, wrote her sister, Mrs. Braxton:
"I am to drink tea at the Attorney's; he breakfasted with us this morning. Tomorrow I breakfast with him at his Quarters and on Thursday he has bespoke some Firmaty at our lower plantation."
Even the hospitable Virginian had too much company sometimes, though his training forbade him to acknowledge it save to his ever ready and supposedly safe confidant, his diary.
We cannot forbear hearty sympathy with Colonel James Gordon, of "Merry Point," Lancaster County, a man of many affairs and with an ill son-in-law in his house, who has left the following record:
"March 2, 1761. Mr. Hunt came soon after breakfast, and Captain Thornton, Captain Foushee and his wife, Colonel Tayloe and Armistead Churchill after dinner, so that we had the house full."
"March 3. So much company I can't do any business."
"March 4. All the company went away after dinner."
We can almost hear the sigh of relief with which this entry was made.
On March 29 he has had guests again—ten of them, who stayed several days. On March 30 all of these left, but the respite was brief, for on April 1 the record began again with "Armistead Churchill and his wife, Richard Span and his wife and baby arrived," and continued thus:
"3. Our Company still with us, with the addition of Mr. Wormeley, his wife and daughter, which is rather troublesome at this time.
"4. It blowed so hard that our company could not get over the river.
"5. Our company all went off, tho' we insisted upon their staying till tomorrow."
Their ideal of hospitality and good breeding demanded this insistence, no matter how inconvenient acceptance of the invitation might have been. On May 11 he wrote, "No company, which is surprising,” but was soon to add,
"13. Mr. Wm. Churchill his wife and five children came, & Mrs. Carter & her son & Miss Judith Bassett.
"15. The Company all here yet."
On May 16, "Mr. Carter and Mr. Churchill & their families went away."
It is evident that all of these visitors were uninvited and unexpected. No mention is made of the horses and servants they brought to be cared for on the plantation—they were doubtless taken as a matter of course.
Colonel Landon Carter of "Sabine Hall," made a regular practice of celebrating his birthday with what would be called to-day a house-party and recorded in his diary his enjoyment of these entertainments. On January 14, 1770, he writes of his sixtieth birthday feast:
“My annual entertainment began on Monday, the 8th, and held till Wednesday night, when except one individual or two that retired sooner things pleased me much, and therefore I will conclude that they gave the same satisfaction to others. The oysters lasted till the third day of the feast."
On January 22 he writes, "Colonel Fauntleroy's feast day, where I suppose my family must go."
On January 16, of the following year, he describes his birthday celebration with even greater gusto:
"From the 1st day of this month till this day we have had prodigious fine weather indeed, so that I have enjoyed my three days' festival, to wit: The 10, 11 & 12, with great cheerfulness to everybody; in all about 60 people of whom were Mr. Carter of Corotoman & his Lady, my nephew Charles Carter, late of Nanzaticoe, & his Lady, my nephew Fitzhugh, his Lady, Col. P. Lee, his Lady, & all my neighborhood except Col. Brockenbrough, although invited & really promised to come."
In 1774 he simply says:
"As it was my 64th birthday I received the compliments of most of my better sort of neighbors."
Stanard, Mary N. Colonial Virginia: Its People and Customs. J. B. Lippincott Company, 1917.
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