The Early Rebels of Caroline
The fourth in a series this Holiday Season relating Caroline’s role in the Colony and future Commonwealth of Virginia. See also Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
As shown in the third installment of this series, the history of Caroline was greatly influenced by the actions of Nathaniel Bacon and led directly to the opening of the Virginia frontier; however, the rebellion impacted other key factors as well. Bacon’s early death caused great trouble for those who had dared side with him. The few settlers living in Caroline territory were rebels who had already defied the law and settled beyond the established boundaries and so were those who had sought Bacon’s protection. Governor Berkeley seized the land of five such rebels and executed two of them. Their lands were given to favorites who had sided with the Royal Governor.
An unusual exception to this story is that of this author’s family who were represented at the time of Bacon by two men known to their contemporaries as the “Thornton brothers.” Francis and Anthony, my great-grandfather and great-uncle many times removed were notorious partisans and supporters of Nathaniel Bacon. The brothers were born, not in England, but in the Colony of Virginia and were accustomed to the rugged life of the pioneer. Their patent of 2,740 acres on the upper Mattaponi was in the wildest, most uncivilized part of the future county. In these backwoods they prospered and carved a thriving homestead, which they called Ormesby, after their family seat in England.
The Thorntons somehow emerged from Bacon’s Rebellion with their vast holdings in what is now the area of Guinea Station intact. More than one account has related the reason behind their ability to emerge from the rebellion unscathed. Apparently the Royal Governor was loathe to loose the number of soldiers it would take to both brave the conditions and the Indians on the frontier in order to find the Thorntons and bring them to the Colonial Capital to be hanged. Both brothers lived out their lives and one would father the son who would weary of bargaining with three counties for permission to build a road to take his tobacco to the river. As the next generation came of age, his answer would be to form a new county from the heads of Essex, King and Queen, and King William, and build his own thoroughfare to the river at Port Royal.
They were just part of a growing breed of settler who found this no man’s land to their liking. They were a fiercely independent circle who stubbornly held on to their homesteads and began to carve a new life and new freedoms for their families from the Virginia wilderness.
In the years following the rebellion, large portions of Caroline would be granted to land speculators who were in favor with the Royal Governor. The major favorite was Robert Beverley known as “The Soldier.” He had remained at Berkeley’s side during the crisis, and both had taken flight and run across the Chesapeake to escape Bacon’s citizen army. Beverley became one of Virginia’s largest landowners, second only to Lord Fairfax and King Carter. This gentleman was the quintessential land speculator and had no benevolent interest in the development of the soon-to-be County of Caroline, or the Colony of Virginia. Upon his death, his son, also a Robert Beverley but known as “The Historian,” inherited his vast holdings including the ones in the future Caroline County. This individual would make a great and positive mark forever, not only in Caroline, but throughout the Colony of Virginia and Great Britain as well.
Not all those, however, who received land in Caroline after Bacon’s Rebellion were speculators and these are worth mentioning as, again, they attracted a certain kind of settler who, after all was said and done, owed allegiance to the sweat of their brows and the strengths of their backs. During this period, there were numerous small patents of land. These landowners were in a better position to prosper since they were not dependent upon the limited supply of labor. Many of these owners of small grants became affluent members of this independent frontier community, like the man known as William Bryd, “The Frontiersman.”
In 1702, the early settlers of the Mattaponi Valley elected, and sent to the House of Burgesses, this man called William Bryd. He was not one of the famous Byrds of Westover who lived on the James River in elegance. To distinguish him from those Byrds, he was called “The Frontiersman.” There was in fact no kinship. The Byrds of Westover hated The Frontiersman. In contrast to the Royalist Byrds of Westover, this man had almost no schooling and little money, and was the leader of the common people.
Few people realize that “Byrd the Frontierman” was the true father of the Tea Party movement which played out in Boston some 70 years after his lifetime in 1773 and caught fire in the second decade of our century. His belief was that his loyalty should lay with the people who elected him and not to a sovereign in a far away land. Byrd was charged with making anti-royalist speeches. He was ordered to take an oath of allegiance to the new Queen of Britain, Anne. He flatly refused and was expelled from the House of Burgesses. He left Williamsburg in disgrace but was considered a hero upon his return to his wilderness home. Byrd was the first in a long line of Caroline citizens who would refused to bow to the power of British sovereignty
When Byrd returned to his land along the frontier on the Mattaponi River, the council sent spies to follow him who frequently witnessed his speeches against Queen Anne and her Government. As a result and because he was considered such a dangerous dissident, he was regularly ordered to Williamsburg to answer charges of sedition. He must have acquitted himself well as there is no record of either imprisonment or fining. He was a hero to the common people of the future Caroline County, Virginia. In 1706, Bryd and five of his most ardent supporters, including another partisan and notorious trouble maker named Covington, petitioned the Royal Governor, Edward Nott, for an 8,000-acre land grant in the great fork of the Mattaponi. Nott agreed, but only with the caveat that they take possession of this grant immediately. This land lay beyond the frontier away from settlements where Bryd could preach his treason. It was also in country still inhabited by the most unfriendliest of Indians. No doubt the Royal Governor was hoping to acquire Bryd’s silence in two ways.
In the year before William Bryd left Caroline, another more unlikely rebel moved into the Upper Valley of the Mattaponi. “Robert Beverley, The Historian,” whose father had gained favoritism and large land grants under Governor Berkeley, had been born into wealth and educated in England. Robert returned to Virginia to find his land and fortune slipping away as each succeeding new Governor had attempted to give away portions of his land to their favorites.
Beverley fought back and got elected to the House of Burgesses from the borough of Jamestown. He made plans to have the Assembly enact laws which would fix land titles and control future grants. The Royal Governor and the council wanted no part of these reforms. He presented his arguments, however, so smartly and succinctly that the council became alarmed. They voted over his protests to move the Colonial Capitol from Jamestown to Williamsburg. At the same time, they voted to strike the seat of Jamestown which eliminated him from service as a member in the House of Burgesses.
In the age old problem of colonial settlement, the established ruling class of Virginia were arch conservatives who opposed the future migration of settlers. They practiced a system which placed them in control of this new world much like the old English aristocracy in Britain, which discouraged small land ownership and industrialization. These men controlled huge plantations worked by thousands of African slaves, and the system allowed them to obtain vast tracts of land even though small homesteads might be found within them.
At first, they regarded Beverley as a minor inconvenience, but later as a very real and dangerous threat to their way of life. After his dismissal from the House of Burgesses, Beverley attempted to clear his land titles. The ruling powers cut him off by drawing his case out in endless litigation. Undaunted, Beverley packed up his papers and sailed for England to present his case directly to the privy council of the Queen. While there, he began to run an incredibly detailed and well crafted series of articles in London Publications which were highly critical of Virginia’s Royal Governor, then Sir Francis Nicholson. He revealed that the customs agent for the council in Virginia was actually stealing public money and he accused the Governor of raising a standing army to intimidate and suppress independence in the citizens.
When news of this reached Williamsburg, the council was enraged and demanded his return to answer charges. Beverley agreed to come home. He made arrangements, however, before leaving to have his notes printed in a volume entitled The History and Present State of Virginia. Hearings were held upon his return to the colony with Beverley winning most of the arguments. Soon he was a celebrity and was literally the author of the newest best seller when The History and Present State of Virginia reached Williamsburg. The book created a great commotion, with one section of the book devoted to how well the new colony was suited to trade and settlement and another section, the most controversial, about the ineptitude of the Colonial Government. There was also an amazing section on Beverley’s close observation and interaction with the Indians.
The book was read throughout Europe and was even read by those of the middle class who were literate. Ironically it revived interest in the new Colony of Virginia which had in the last decade experienced a decline in those who wished to settle there. As a result of the book, new colonists set out for Virginia who would become smaller landowners, the very ones the ruling class hoped to discourage. This element would in time increase the chances of outvoting the big landowners at the polls. As for the movers and shakers in England, they were convinced of misrule in Virginia and persuaded Queen Anne to send a new Royal Governor to the Colony.
The new Governor, Alexander Spotswood, would bring a ray of light to the Colony. He well understood the need for a balanced economy between agrarianism and industrialization. He passed laws which protected the poor from false imprisonment, and set up iron furnaces to encourage that type of production and fostered exploration of uncharted territory for settlement. Unfortunately for Beverley, Spotswood would not arrive in Virginia for almost five years.
Beverley was a persona non grata in polite society and was banished after copies of his book were read in Williamsburg. He retired into the wilderness of what would become Caroline County to his estate, Beverley’s Run. His disgrace abruptly ended with the arrival of Spotswood in 1710. The new governor restored him to favor and he would remain prominent in the colonies until his death in 1722, but he spent those years at Beverley’s Run. During that time, he exerted more influence over the pattern of civilization in Caroline than any other single human being.
Through granting and refusing to grant portions of his vast landholdings, he controlled the type of settler who took up residence in Caroline. Beverley’s view on agriculture, economics, and politics were the most advanced in Virginia so the settlers he chose were a carefully selected group who would be strong and hardy and willing to try a new way of growing produce.
Beverley instituted crop rotation, and made adjustments and improvement to his fields which were way ahead of his time. He demonstrated that the tilling of numerous crops was far more prosperous than single dependence on soil depleting tobacco. He imported grapevines from Europe and developed his own varieties which he planted along the slopes leading to Beverly’s Run. Governor Spotswood declared Beverly’s wine to be the best in the Colony of Virginia.
He turned his attention to the improvement of livestock including sheep for wool and the best cows for milk production and beef. On a nearby tract of land, Beverly and his friends hunted deer and fox on horseback. This land tract would become known as “The Chase.” Beverley considered it his sacred duty to see that his excess property became the homes of the right people. The size of his grants varied from small plots to estates of 2,000 acres. The new settlers had to be hard working and anti-royalist.
Governor Spotswood made numerous visits to the manor at Beverley’s Run. His most famous visit was in the late summer of 1716. John Fontaine, the log keeper of the Governor’s party, praised Beverly’s hospitality and made colorful observations of his wine. The Governor was headed to explore un-mapped country across the Blue Ridge Mountains and into the valley of the Shenandoah. With Beverley now a member of his party, the Governor crossed the territory of Caroline, stopping again this time at an estate called Windsor, the home of William Woodford, the elder. Woodford joined the party and Spotswood continued on.
The much needed weapons for the protection against the Indians and wild animals were carried along. They also carried a stupendous supply of wines and liquors. As the adventurers neared the mountains, the wilderness became more and more wild. At the foothills of the Blue Ridge they killed several rattlers daily. At the top of the Appalachian Mountains they drank to “the health of King George.” Again, as they crossed the Shenandoah, they toasted the Sovereign. Evidently they toasted a great deal and Fontaine reports after eating bear meat they were “very merry.”
When Spotswood reached the crest of the Blue Ridge, he created the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe. This he did to encourage gentlemen to venture into uncharted territory, making discoveries and establishing new settlements. The Knights were so named because they had been required to provide an unusual number of horseshoes for the expedition due to the rocky trail they followed into the mountains. When the men returned to the lowlands, the Governor presented each with a golden horseshoe studded with jewels.
Beverley’s friendship with Spotswood caused him to revise and republish his criticisms of the royal government in the book which had caused such a stir in the colonies. In it, he softened his attacks. He explained that, with an enlightened and reasonable Governor, it was possible for Virginia to develop a strong, balanced economy and to adhere to fair practices for the common folk under royal rule.
Beverley would bitterly regret these revisions. The new King of England, George I, removed Alexander Spotswood on false charges. The new governor, Hugh Drysdale, was the type of politician Beverley had worked so hard to prevent. He hastily began to revise his book yet another time but fell ill before he could succeed. Sadly, Beverley died a broken man, positive all hope for Virginia was lost and the colony destined to become the property of a few greedy landowners with slave labor. Ironically, his fears were very real. Virginia would not see the complete wisdom of Beverley’s plan until she had been subjected to a great and bloody civil war.
Beverley’s legacy is many fold for someone to whom no monuments are erected. The History and Present State of Virginia is readily available in print but is read in our time mostly by research students. The beginning of the book certainly reflects the skewed viewpoint of a well heeled man of the early 18th Century, but scholars agree it is uncannily accurate, including his chapters on the Indians and his first-hand accounts of their laws and customs.
As Elliott Campbell points out in his Colonial Caroline, “It is the only history of Virginia written by a historian who lived in Virginia between John Smith and William Stith, a period of over one hundred and twenty five years.” Campbell also points out that, “Its publication saved Virginia and perhaps the entire south from becoming another Haiti. It had more influence on the American way of life than the words to come from the pen of any other author between the Mayflower Compact (1620) and the Declaration of Independence (1776).”
Today there are very little physical remains in Caroline of this remarkable individual except the wild grapes which grow on Beverley’s Run Road. The site of the manor house is said to be that of present day Salem Church on the hill overlooking the community of Sparta. Perhaps his most incredible legacies are the families Beverley brought to what we in Caroline call the Sparta, Alps, and Smoots Mill areas, and whose descendants still live there in the agricultural community on farms today. It can be said that Virginia has adopted the economy he advocated over three centuries ago.
Next week: Caroline Becomes a County and The Seeds of the American Revolution
