Manors of Virginia in colonial times

Front matter

Class, r ^ ^^ ^ Book ' O i 6

MO

COPYRIGHT DEPOSm

Foreword

O those who made the writing of this book a possibility, I shall always be as deeply grateful as I am appreciative of their old homesteads, for I have but taken the family histories, romances and genealogies, which they so generously unrolled that I might see, and have welded them into one volume, hoping it may live to tell to future generations the stories of their forefathers and of their homes.

The interest which is shown to-day in the restoration and preservation of early mansions, encouraged me to undertake this meagre story of Virginia's oldest and most far-famed manor houses, no State in the Union boasting such a ,/ealth of historic estates as this superb old Commonwealth, towards which the rest of the country so proudly looks.

Following that period of bravery and awe during which the corner-stone of America was so

FOREWORD firmly laid, came the more pleasing era of plantation life, founded by men whose names are high enrolled in the book of history, and whose homes were little kingdoms worthy of the sincere study of our less picturesque generation, which may in them relive that wonderful yesterday, forgetting and regretting this later age in the dreams and reveries born of a knowledge of how the grandees lived in Colonial times.

And though America is proud of herself as a nation, England may take just pride in the way the little colony, planted by her in an unknown land, has grown into one of the most remarkable of world powers, treasuring in its most historic corner a group of ancient countrj^ seats which have braved the stress of years and circumstance to speak to all who visit them to-day, appealingly

of the past.

Edith Tunis Sale.

Contents

Sherwood Forest I.59

MONTICELLO 21tJ

LIST of FAMILIES AND ESTATES