“For their recreation, the plantations, orchards and gardens constantly afford them fragrant and delightful walks.  In their woods and fields, they have an unknown variety of vegetables, and other varieties of Nature to discover.  They have hunting, fishing and fowling, with which they entertain themselves an hundred ways.  There is the most good nature and hospitality practised in the world, both towards friends and strangers; but the worst of it is, this generosity is attended now and then with a little too much intemperance.”

“The inhabitants are very courteous to travelers, 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 their people, that the gentry, when they go abroad, order their principal servant to entertain all visitors, with everything the plantation affords.  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 traveler, to repose himself after his journey....”

Many other statements, not only by Americans, but by cultured foreigners might be presented to show the charm of colonial life in Virginia.  The Marquis de Chastellux, one of the French Revolutionary generals, a man who had mingled in the best society of Europe, was fascinated with the evidence of luxury, culture and, feminine refinement of the Old Dominion, and declared that Virginia women might become excellent musicians if the fox-hounds would stop baying for a little while each day.  He met several ladies who sang well and “played on the harpsichord”; he was delighted at the number of excellent French and English authors he found in the libraries; and, above all, he was surprised at the natural dignity of many of the older men and women, and at the evidences of domestic felicity found in the great homes.

II.  Splendor in the Southern Home

Of these vast, rambling mansions numerous descriptions have been handed down to our day.  The following, written in 1774, is an account recorded in his diary by the tutor, Philip Fithian, in the family of a Virginia planter: 

“Mr. Carter has chosen for the place of his habitation a high spot of Ground in Westmoreland County ... where he has erected a large, Elegant House, at a vast expense, which commonly goes by the name of Nomini-Hall.  This House is built with Brick but the bricks have been covered with strong lime Mortar, so that the building is now perfectly white (erected in 1732).  It is seventy-six Feet long from East to West; & forty-four wide from North to South, two stories high; ...  It has five stacks of Chimneys, tho’ two of these serve only for ornaments.”

“There is a beautiful Jutt, on the South side, eighteen feet long, & eight Feet