Part 2 (1/2)

No description of the courthouse has been found. The Act of 1663 seems to have required a brick building, although its wording is ambiguous.

Even if it did stipulate brick, the law was 28 years old in 1691, and its requirements probably were ignored. Although Bayley, the builder, was a carpenter, this would not preclude the possibility that he supervised bricklayers and other artisans. Brick courthouses were not unknown; one was standing in Warwick when the Act for Ports was pa.s.sed in 1691. Yet, the York courthouse, built in 1692, was a simple building, probably of wood.[31] In any case, the Stafford courthouse was a structure large enough to have required more than a year and a half to build, but not so elaborate as to have cost more than 40,000 pounds of tobacco.

FOOTNOTES:

[22] RALPH HAPPEL, ”Stafford and King George Courthouses and the Fate of Marlborough, Port of Entry,” _VHM_ (Richmond, 1958), vol. 66, pp. 183-194.

[23] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 187.

[24] Ibid., p. 122.

[25] _William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World (1676-1701)_, op. cit. (footnote 3), p. 241.

[26] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 194.

[27] Ibid., p. 182.

[28] In Virginia recurrent English fears of Catholic domination were reflected at this time in hysterical rumors that the Roman Catholics of Maryland were plotting to stir up the Indians against Virginia. In Stafford County these suspicions were inflamed by the harangues of Parson John Waugh, minister of Stafford Parish church and Chotank church.

Waugh, who seems to have been a rabble rouser, appealed to the same small landholders and malcontents as those who, a generation earlier, had followed Nathaniel Bacon's leaders.h.i.+p. So seriously did the authorities at Jamestown regard the disturbance at Stafford courthouse that they sent three councillors to investigate. See ”Notes,” _William & Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine_ (Richmond, 1907), 1st ser., vol. 15, pp. 189-190 (hereinafter designated _WMQ_) [1]; and Richard Beale Davis' introduction to _William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World_, op. cit. (footnote 3), pp. 35-39, and p. 251.

[29] Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 167.

[30] Ibid., pp. 194, 267, 313.

[31] HENING, op. cit. (footnote 1), vol. 3, p. 60; EDWARD M.

RILEY, ”The Colonial Courthouses of York County, Virginia,”

_William & Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine_ (Williamsburg, 1942), 2nd ser., vol. 22, pp. 399-404 (hereinafter designated _WMQ_ [2]).

LOCATION OF THE STAFFORD COURTHOUSE

The location of the building is indicated by a notation on Buckner's plat of the port town: ”The fourth course (runs) down along by the Gutt between Geo: Andrew's & the Court house to Potomack Creek.” A glance at the plat (fig. 2) will disclose that the longitudinal boundaries of all the lots south of a line between George Andrews' ”Gutt” run parallel to this fourth course. Plainly, the courthouse was situated near the head of the gutt, where the westerly boundary course changed, near the end of ”The Broad Street Across the Town.” It may be significant that the foundation (Structure B) on which John Mercer's mansion was later built is located in this vicinity.

In or about the year 1718 the courthouse ”burnt Down,”[32] while it was reported as ”being become ruinous” in 1720, with its ”Situation very inconvenient for the greater part of the Inhabitants.” It was then agreed to build a new courthouse ”at the head of Ocqua Creek.”[33] Aquia Creek was probably meant, but this must have been an error and the ”head of Potomac Creek” intended instead. Happel shows that it was built on the south side of Potomac Creek. Thus, the burning of the Marlborough courthouse in 1718 merely speeded up the forces that led to the end of the town's career.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] Pet.i.tion of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17).

[33] _Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia_ (Richmond, 1930), vol. 2, p. 527.

MARLBOROUGH PROPERTY OWNERS

Not only was Marlborough foredoomed by external decrees and adverse official decisions, but much of its failure was rooted in the local elements by which it was const.i.tuted. The great majority of lot holders were the ”gentlemen” who were so carefully distinguished from ”all other of the Inhabitants” in the order to survey the town in 1691. Most were leading personages in Stafford, and we may a.s.sume that their purchases of lots were made in the interests of investment gains, not in establis.h.i.+ng homes or businesses. Only three or four yeomen and ordinary keepers seem to have settled in the town.

Sampson Darrell, for example, held two lots, but he lived at Aquia Creek.[34] Francis Hammersley was a planter who married Giles Brent's widow and lived at ”The Retirement,” one of the Brent estates.[35]

George Brent, nephew of the original Giles Brent, was law partner of William Fitzhugh, and had been appointed Receiver General of the Northern Neck in 1690. His brother Robert also was a lot holder. Both lived at Woodstock, and presumably they did not maintain residences at the port town.[36] Other leading citizens were Robert Alexander, Samuel Hayward, and Martin Scarlett, but again there is little likelihood that they were ever residents of the town. John Waugh, the uproarious pastor of Potomac Parish, also was a lot holder, but he lived on the south side of Potomac Creek in a house which belonged to Mrs. Anne Meese of London.

His failure to pay for that house after 11 years' occupancy of it, which led to a suit in which Fitzhugh was the prosecutor, does not suggest that he ever arrived at building a house in the port town.[37]

Captain George Mason was a distinguished individual who lived at ”Acc.o.keek,” about a mile and a half from Marlborough. He certainly built in the town, for in 1691 he pet.i.tioned for a license to ”keep an ordinary at the Town or Port for this county.” The pet.i.tion was granted on condition that he ”find a good and Sufficient maintenance and reception both for man and horse.” Captain Mason was grandfather of George Mason of Gunston Hall, author of the Virginia Bill of Rights, and was, at one time or another, sheriff, lieutenant colonel and commander in chief of the Stafford Rangers, and a burgess. He partic.i.p.ated in putting down the uprising of Nantic.o.ke Indians in 1692, bringing in captives for trial at the unfinished courthouse in March of that year.[38] Despite his interest in the town, however, it is unlikely that he ever lived there.