Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian Part 2

Besides a handsome dowry, Frances Tasker brought her husband a family influence that proved of great a.s.sistance in both his public and private career. Benjamin Tasker, her father, who had wide commercial connections, had served for thirty-two years as a member and President of the Council of Maryland, and for a period as acting-Governor. Her mother, Anne Bladen Tasker, was the daughter of William Bladen who had been successfully Secretary and Attorney-General of that colony.

Thomas Bladen, her mother's brother, a former governor of Maryland, had removed to England and become a member of Parliament for Old Sarum, where he was now in an excellent position to promote the interests of his American relatives.[23]

[23] Sisters of Anne Bladen Tasker and Thomas Bladen had married Daniel Dulany, Samuel Ogle, and Christopher Lowndes, all men of important political and financial connections in their world.

Robert Carter led a busy life at "Nomini Hall." To utilize profitably the resources of an estate of seventy thousand acres was a task that demanded foresight and planning. He customarily cultivated as many as a dozen large plantations at once, and it was necessary that the operations on the several units be carefully integrated. Though tobacco const.i.tuted the crop of first importance on his estate, entire plantations were sometimes devoted to producing grain stuffs and supplies needed at "Nomini Hall" and on the other plantations. From time to time, too, Carter sought to develop other money crops which might supplement the constantly dwindling profits from tobacco. The preparation of new grounds to replace discarded fields const.i.tuted a laborious task that had to be coped with at intervals. He set up and equipped so many plantations that he resorted at one time to the signs of the zodiac for names for them.

Apart from the lands he himself cultivated, Carter rented or leased a large proportion of his estate to others. He developed an elaborate system of tenancy reminiscent in its princ.i.p.al features of the modern lien system and "share cropping." Lands were leased for varying periods under specific agreements as to the uses to be made of them, the provision of tools and other supplies by the landlord, and the proportion of the crops to be paid as rent. Other tracts were leased for a fixed money rental.

To Carter's interests as a planter and a landlord he added those of a manufacturer. When conditions made it economical or necessary to furnish his own supplies, he operated textile factories, salt works, grain mills, and bakeries to fill his own and his neighbors' needs. In his smiths's shops the simple farm implements of the time were forged and repaired, and work was also done for near-by planters. Through his wife's relations he received a one-fifth share in the Baltimore Iron Works. As part owner of this firm he produced bar and pig iron in large quant.i.ties on a commercial basis, and incidentally supplied raw materials needed on his plantations. He also carried on extensive operations as a merchant and factor. From his stores at "Nomini Hall,"

European manufactures and merchandise of every sort were dispensed. He owned a number of vessels which regularly carried supplies to the landings of other planters on the Virginia rivers and the Chesapeake and took their produce off their hands. Sometimes he provided these men with banking and credit facilities.

The scope of Carter's activities is indicated by the fact that at one time his slaves numbered over 500. In addition, he employed numerous white stewards, overseers, clerks, skilled craftsmen, and artisans. In a labor force so numerous and diversified the most careful adjustments in human relationships were necessary. In a very real sense Carter acted as a protector, father, physician, and court of last resort for all his people. No complaint was too insignificant to receive the master's consideration.

As part of the obligations of his station, the master of "Nomini Hall"

served as a vestryman and a warden of his church in Cople Parish and performed other public duties. At the age of twenty-eight he was made a member of the governor's Council. His large estate made him eligible and his wife's uncle, Thomas Bladen, supplied the influence in England necessary to secure his appointment to this highest governing body in the colony. By virtue of belonging to the Council he also served as a colonel in the militia. As was customary, he was henceforth known as Colonel or Councillor Carter. In the latter capacity, he went twice a year to Williamsburg to advise the royal governor and to sit as a member of the General Court. For a decade after 1762 he found it pleasant and convenient to live at the Capital the greater part of the time. He acquired a residence in the town and established his wife and children there. With the outbreak of the disturbances which led to the Revolution, however, he returned with his family to "Nomini Hall"

where he lived during the remainder of his active years, devoting his time to the development of his estate and the promotion of his commercial interests, the rearing of his family, and the quiet enjoyment of his scholarly and cultivated tastes. Despite his many duties, he spent much time in reading and in scientific investigation.

An accomplished musician, he practiced daily on some of the numerous instruments at his home.

The social life of the family at "Nomini Hall" was of the most agreeable sort. Situated on a hill overlooking the Potomac and Nomini rivers, the mansion was admirably suited to the hospitable tradition of the region. A large rectangular structure of brick, covered with stucco, the great house was surrounded by more than thirty dependent structures or offices and presented an attractive and imposing appearance. The four princ.i.p.al offices were set off at a distance of one hundred yards from the corners of the house, and within the rectangle formed by these buildings was a long bowling green.

Extensive and well-tended gardens provided agreeable promenades for members of the family and guests. One approached the mansion from the public highway through a wide avenue of poplars which terminated in a circle about the house. Viewed through this avenue from a distance, Fithian a.s.serted, "Nomini Hall" appeared "most romantic, at the same time it does truly elegant."

The lower floor of the great house contained the master's library, a dining room, used also as a sitting room, a dining hall for the children, a ballroom thirty feet long, and a hallway with a fine stairway of black walnut. The upper rooms were used as sleeping quarters for members of the family and for guests. The older boys and their tutor slept above-stairs in one of the large offices that was also used as a schoolhouse. During the time Fithian was there Carter arranged to convert one of the lower rooms of this office into a concert or music room. Here he proposed to place the harpsichord, harmonica, forte-piano, guitar, violin, and German flutes which were in the great house, and to bring up for that purpose from his Williamburg residence, the organ which had been built for him in London according to his own specifications.

Seven of the nine surviving Carter children[24] and the Councillor's nephew, Harry Willis, were placed under Fithian's care. Benjamin, the eldest son, was a quiet, studious boy of eighteen. Robert Bladen, two years younger, loved the out-of-doors and cared little for learning.

John Tasker, only four, was too young for instruction. Priscilla, the eldest daughter, was an attractive girl of fifteen. Anne Tasker, called Nancy, and Frances or f.a.n.n.y, whom Fithian thought the "Flower of the Family," were thirteen and eleven respectively. Betty Landon was ten, and Harriot Lucy, a "bold, fearless, merry girl," was seven.

Sarah Fairfax, the baby, was only a few months old at the time Fithian arrived.

[24] Four of the seventeen Carter children were born after Fithian had left the family.

Apart from the members of the family, the tutor, and the numerous domestics, various other persons maintained a more or less permanent connection with the household. Among these were Miss Sally Stanhope, the housekeeper, Mr. Randolph, who served as clerk and steward for Carter, Mr. Christian, a peripatetic dancing master who visited most of the great manor houses of the Northern Neck, Mr. Stadley, music master to the children, and Mrs. Oakley, who had nursed several of them at Williamsburg.

In no section of the colony were the great planters more numerous than in the Northern Neck; in none did they dominate society more completely. The families on the manor plantations a.s.sociated on terms of intimacy. Gay a.s.semblies, dances, b.a.l.l.s, and banquets brought them together frequently. Dancing masters held their cla.s.ses in rotation at the great plantation houses. At these homes their pupils a.s.sembled in turn, frequently accompanied by parents and friends. After the master had instructed the young men and women on these occasions, an informal dance was generally held. These families customarily congregated about the parish church before and after services to enjoy social exchanges.

Attendance at county court provided another regular opportunity for commingling. Boat races, barbecues, "Fish-feasts," and horse races brought friends together at intervals. Sometimes elaborate private entertainments were given at which music, feasting, and dancing continued for several days. Rarely a day pa.s.sed but found some guest at the Councillor's table. Members of the Carter household constantly exchanged visits with the plantation families of their neighborhood and with relatives and friends in adjoining counties. They dined frequently with the Turbervilles at "Hickory Hill," the Washingtons at "Bushfield," the Lees at "Chantilly" and "Stratford," and with the more distant Tayloes at "Mount Airy."

With all these persons the young Princeton tutor was familiar. He accompanied the Carters frequently when they dined at their friends'

tables, he attended banquets and b.a.l.l.s with them, conversed with the people of the vicinity at the parish churches, met them at races, and observed their conduct as guests at "Nomini Hall." The sprightly interest with which Fithian comments upon these men and women and their way of life makes them seem as real today as then.

For more than a century the ma.n.u.script of Fithian's journal and the letters he wrote home remained unpublished. During that time, some years apparently after Philip's death, his brother, Enoch, a.s.sembled the letters and papers and the various sections of the journal kept over a period of years and copied them in several bound volumes from the loose and various-sized sheets upon which they were written. It is from this transcript that the journal is known today, and the irregularities in punctuation, spelling, and capitalization in the form in which it has been preserved are doubtless due largely to this fact.

The journal kept at "Nomini Hall" and a group of letters written by Fithian during his residence there were finally published in 1900 by the Princeton University Library, into whose custody had come seven ma.n.u.script volumes of Fithian's papers in Enoch Fithian's hand. This publication was edited by John Rogers Williams, a member of the Princeton Historical a.s.sociation.[25] A small part of the journal and certain letters which the editor regarded as "of too intimate and personal or too trivial a character" were omitted, his object being "in general to present such as have some bearing on historic places and personages, together with representative ones showing" Fithian's "character and circ.u.mstances."[26] The editor, moreover, was interested in Fithian's ma.n.u.scripts primarily from the standpoint of the tutor's a.s.sociation with Princeton.

[25] Some extracts from the Journal were published in the _American Historical Review_ of January, 1900.

[26] Cf. Philip Fithian's _Journal_, edited by John Rogers Williams, p. xiv.

In the present edition the ma.n.u.scripts have been treated with special reference to the light they throw on life in the Old Dominion. The journal kept at "Nomini Hall" and all the letters written by Fithian from Virginia are given in their entirety. Several letters written after his departure from "Nomini Hall," but which relate to matters and persons in Virginia, are now printed for the first time.

The journal and letters of Philip Fithian are so revealing of his personality that one inevitably becomes attached to the young tutor, and the reader today may well be curious to know his subsequent career. Having prepared himself for the Presbyterian ministry, Fithian left the Carter household late in 1774 despite the strong ties of friendship and grat.i.tude which now bound him to the family. His decision to return to New Jersey was influenced both by a sense of duty and his growing attachment for Elizabeth Beatty, the "fair Laura"

of his journal. In December, 1774, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Philadelphia. That winter he filled vacancies in West Jersey and the following summer served as a Presbyterian missionary in the Valley of Virginia and Pennsylvania. He married Elizabeth Beatty in October, 1775. Early in 1776 he enlisted as a chaplain in the Revolutionary forces. Shortly after the battle of White Plains he died as the result of an attack of dysentery and exposure in camp. Though his promise to visit the family at "Nomini Hall" again was never fulfilled, the letters he wrote to members of the Carter household after his departure reveal the tender regard in which all were held.

_JOURNAL & LETTERS_

OF

Philip Vickers Fithian

[ANDREW HUNTER,[27] JR., TO PHILIP VICKERS FITHIAN]

Na.s.sau-Hall June 26th 1773.

SIR.

I expected notwithstanding your small offence you would have let me know before this time whether you had made any determination different from what you designed when I left you. If you design teaching before you get into business, there are now several considerable offers made to young men who are willing to go to Virginia by some of the first gentlemen in the colony; one particularly who will give as good as 60, the best accomodations, a room to study in and the advantage of a library, a horse kept and a servant to wait upon you.

[27] Philip Vickers Fithian had left his home at Cohansie, New Jersey, in 1770, at the age of twenty-three, to enter the College of New Jersey at Princeton. Na.s.sau Hall was the princ.i.p.al structure of the college, and the inst.i.tution was often familiarly referred to by that name. Fithian was graduated there in September 1772. His parents had both died suddenly during the previous February. Andrew Hunter, Jr., of Cohansie, who wrote this letter, was the nephew of the Reverend Andrew Hunter, Sr., of Greenwich, New Jersey, under whom Philip was at this time studying Hebrew in connection with his preparation for the ministry.

Dr Witherspoon[28] is very fond of getting a person to send him. I make no kind of doubt but if you were to write to the doctor but he would engage it to you, the terms are exactly as I write you as I have informed myself that I might let you know--

[28] Dr. John Witherspoon (1723-1794), a Scottish Presbyterian clergyman, served as president of the College of New Jersey at Princeton intermittently from 1768 until his death in 1794. A staunch Calvinist, Witherspoon exerted a strong influence on American educational, religious, and political development. Owing largely to the labors of his former students, a number of whom went as clergymen and tutors to the Southern colonies, his influence was very extensive in that region.

There are a number of our friends and cla.s.s-mates getting into business as fast as possible, whether they are called or not I cannot pretend to judge, this much I would say that I think it is not any ones duty to run too fast. No less than four Debow, Reese, McCorkle, Allen, under trials by a presbytery, and Bryan[29] trying to get license to plead law in some of the best courts on the continent, if infamy were law or lies were Gospel he might get license either to plead or preach.

[29] John Debow, Oliver Reese, Samuel McCorkle and Moses Allen, and Andrew Bryan. With the exception of Andrew Bryan of Baltimore who was admitted to the bar, all of these young men were licensed as Presbyterian ministers.

We have had the pleasure of Laura's[30] company here for some weeks past, I hope you will not envy us considering that continual pleasure is too much for such mortals as we to bear.

[30] Elizabeth Beatty, Fithian's "Laura," frequently visited in the home of her brother, Dr. John Beatty, who lived at Princeton. Fithian had known Elizabeth earlier in the home of her sister, the wife of the Reverend Enoch Green, a Presbyterian minister of Deerfield, New Jersey, under whom he had prepared for college. Cf. Williams, John, ed., _The Journals and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian, 1767-1774_, p. 55, fn. 3.

I beg that you may no longer refrain from writing, as I should be very glad to hear many things from you and other of my friends in Cohansie which you can relate with little trouble. If you have been trying with me who could keep from writing longest, I own fairly beat. The number of our students are considerably increased, and our school consists of thirty-nine--I have heard there are some disagreeable stories going through your country I wish you would let me know something about them. Doctr Ward spent part of yesterday with me in his return.

My love to Mr and Mrs Green.

I am, Sir,

Your very friend,

ANDW HUNTER.

[JOURNAL]

_July 1. [1773]_

Rose at five. Read in the greek Testament, the third Chapter of the Acts. Breakfasted at seven. Busy the greater part of this Day in coppying off some loose miscellanous Pieces. P. M. Read the Spectator in my Course. Received in the Evening, by the Stage, a Letter from Mr and: Hunter jur In which he invites me to remove, & accept a School, of very considerable Consequence, in Virginia. He also informs me that four of our Cla.s.s-Mates, are on Trial, under a Presbytery, for Preachers; & one has applied for Licence to plead Law in Maryland; Poor Boys! hard they push to be in the midst of Tumult, & Labour.