Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, 1773-1774
Preface
Once in a great while historians find a firsthand account that provides striking insight into a past era. Only rarely is such a document written with the perception and charm that make its readers feel as if they had participated in the incidents described and shared the experiences related. The journal and relevant correspondence of Philip Fithian constitute this kind of source.
Fithian was reared in New Jersey and attended the College of New Jersey in Princeton, receiving his degree in 1772. Before entering the Presbyterian ministry, he followed the advice of President Witherspoon of Princeton and became a tutor in the family of Robert Carter at "Nomini Hall" plantation on the Northern Neck of Virginia. The reactions of the somewhat austere young man to the rich, warm life of a Virginia plantation are always instructive and often amusing. The Carters and their seven children were a fascinating family, liberal in their sentiments and deeply interested in books and music. Fithian sets forth truthfully, yet with lively touches, the family's assessments of the society in which it moved, the institution of slavery, and the dispute developing with the mother country. Throughout his experiences Fithian remained true to his "fair Laura" – Elizabeth Beatty in far off New Jersey.
The journal, with certain of the letters, was first published in 1900, in somewhat abbreviated form, by the Princeton Historical Association. Dr. Hunter Dickinson Farish, in his edition of The Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian (Williamsburg Restoration Historical Studies, III; Williamsburg, Va., 1943), included the complete journal, added other relevant letters as well as Fithian's catalogue of Carter's library, and supplied a thoughtful Introduction.
Dr. Farish was Director of Research at Colonial Williamsburg from 1937 until ill health forced him to retire in 1944. He broadened the program there by bringing young research associates to the staff, making grants-in-aid to scholars in the field of early American history, and establishing and editing the Williamsburg Restoration Historical Series. He also taught at the College of William and Mary and helped to work out the organizational plans for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, which since 1943 has been jointly sponsored by Colonial Williamsburg and the College of William and Mary.
Dr. Farish's edition of the Journal had been out of print for a few years when, in 1957, Colonial Williamsburg reissued it, with pen and ink illustrations by Fritz Kredel designed to interest new readers. The present edition by the University Press of Virginia reproduces the 1957 one, but in convenient paperback form. Young Fithian's revealing picture of Virginia plantation life will always be a key source for the historian and an absorbing human document for the general reader.
Colonial Williamsburg
September 1967
CHAPTER ONE
Virginia During The Golden Age
In the "Golden Age," or half-century immediately preceding the American Revolution, a remarkable civilization reached its zenith in the broad coastal plain of eastern Virginia. Gradually, during a century of colonization and expansion, the heavily wooded tidewater had been converted into a land of settled order and accumulated wealth. Vast estates had been carved out of the wilderness and large plantations were everywhere the rule.
Embraced by numerous arms of the Chesapeake and covered by a network of wide rivers and creeks, this sylvan Venice abounded in safe and convenient water routes. Pressing through the mouths of the deep estuaries, the ocean tides reached the "fall-line," beyond which the streams were inaccessible to shipping owing to the rapids. Ocean vessels could penetrate to the plantations in every part of the lowlands and carry cargoes thence straight to the wharves of London and the outports. Despite the distance and rigors of the voyage, the colonists of the Tidewater had maintained a constant intercourse with the mother country from the time of their earliest settlement.
The hope had long persisted that this coastal plain might yield the ores, timber, ship stores and other products England needed, and for which she then largely depended on foreign potentates. Lacking an ample supply of cheap labor, however, colonial industries could not compete with well-established ones of the Old World. For well over a century tobacco proved the one commodity which the colony could profitably produce for the home market in large quantities.
A notable result of the method of tobacco cultivation was a rapid depletion of the soil. Intent only upon reaping quick returns, men customarily neglected the most ordinary precautions to preserve fertility. Since the tobacco plant required the richest loam to produce the leaf in its perfection, fields were usually abandoned after three or more crops had been harvested, and "new grounds" were cleared. Thus there developed an ever recurring need for fresh lands.
Under so wasteful a system, Virginians had soon realized the necessity of acquiring many times the quantity of land they could cultivate at any one time. Farseeing men, realizing a day would come when fertile soil could no longer be had for a song, wished also to provide sufficient elbow room for their children at a future day. The appreciation in land values in a new country provided a further incentive to the accumulation of large holdings. As a result, enterprising persons everywhere competed to secure the best tracts.
Towards the close of the seventeenth century the practice of engrossing lands gained increased momentum. African slavery was rapidly superseding white indentured servitude as the principal source of labor supply. The price of tobacco had steadily declined owing to overproduction, the burdens of the Navigation Acts, and the effects of European wars. As a result of these conditions, the margin of profit from the leaf had so decreased that the cheaper labor of slaves and large-scale production had now become virtually essential to economic survival. After he had served his indentureship, the white servant could no longer establish himself as an independent farmer as he had once done, and the small yeoman now usually felt obliged to sell his lands to his wealthier neighbor and either become his tenant or migrate to some other section or colony. Political developments likewise favored the accumulation of large estates. Through repeated intermarriage certain families had acquired a very extensive influence. Members of these families were active in the Governor's Council or the House of Burgesses and held other high offices as a matter of course. Their official position often aided them as private individuals in acquiring lands. Through the presentation of "head right" certificates, compensation for military services, purchase from private proprietors, and other ways they obtained domains comprising thousands of acres. Some carved out what resembled small principalities. William Fitzhugh of Stafford County owned over 50,000 acres, and by 1732 Robert or "King" Carter of Lancaster County held some 333,000 acres.
The estates of such men, far from consisting of one compact property, generally comprised many separate and sometimes widely scattered tracts, perhaps in half a dozen or more counties. They ranged in size from a few hundred to thousands of acres. The individual owner acquired his holdings over a period of years, in what often appeared a haphazard manner. Not infrequently, a planter, foreseeing the depletion of his Tidewater lands, engrossed large tracts in the Piedmont and Valley sections.[1]
Life in the Tidewater during the Golden Age was dominated, to a remarkable extent, by families possessing vast estates. Not everyone, it is true, owned such princely domains as the Carters or Fitzhughs, but men in their station were imbued with a deep sense of their obligation to society. They sat as justices in the county courts, served as sheriffs and as colonels of the militia in their counties, and acted as vestrymen and church wardens in their parishes. They accepted seriously their duty to preserve the peace and watch over the less fortunate classes. Because of their wealth and position, their education, resourcefulness and keen sense of public responsibility, they were able to influence and to impress their ideals and tastes upon the community in a measure rarely equalled by a similar aristocracy.
The great landed proprietors operated their estates in either of two ways or a combination of the two. They might take full responsibility themselves, planting tobacco and secondary crops; they could lease tracts to others to cultivate; or they might do both. Sometimes a man leased more of his arable lands than he