The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia. C. Malcolm Watkins
George Mercer Papers Relating to the Ohio Company of Virginia, comp. and edit. by Lois Mulkearn (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1954), p. 204.
[52] John Mercer’s Ledger B is the principal source of information for this chapter. It was begun in 1725 and ended in 1732. The original copy is in the library of the Bucks County Historical Society, Doylestown, Pennsylvania, a photostatic copy being in the Virginia State Library. Further footnoted references to the ledger are omitted, since the source in each case is recognizable.
[53] James Mercer Garnet, "James Mercer," WMQ [1] (Richmond, 1909), vol. 17, pp. 85–98. Mrs. Ann Fitzhugh was the widow of William Fitzhugh III, who died in 1713/14. She was the daughter of Richard Lee and lived at “Eagle’s Nest” in King George County (see “The Fitzhugh Family,” VHM [Richmond, 1900], vol. 7, pp. 317–318).
[54] William Rogers, who died in 1739, made earthenware and stoneware at Yorktown after 1711. See C. Malcolm Watkins and Ivor Noël Hume, “The ‘Poor Potter’ of Yorktown” (paper 54 in Contributions from the Museum of History and Technology, U.S. National Museum Bulletin 249, by various authors; Washington: Smithsonian Institution), 1967.
[55] John Mercer’s Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12).
[56] Petition of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17).
[57] John Mercer’s Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12).
[58] Charles F. Innocent, The Development of English Building Construction (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1916), pp. 23–61.
[59] Col. Alexander Spotswood, Governor of Virginia and a resident of Spotsylvania County, was at this time living in London. He authorized John Graham (or Graeme) of St. James, Clerkenwell, Middlesex, to “take possession of his iron works in Virginia, with plantations, negroes, stocks, and manage the same.” By 1732 Spotswood regretted that he had “committed his affairs to the care of a mathematician, whose thoughts were always among the stars.” In 1737 Graham became professor of natural philosophy and mathematics in the College of William and Mary. See “Historical & Genealogical Notes,” WMQ [1] (Richmond, 1909), vol. 17, p. 301 (quoting Basset, Writings of William Byrd, p. 378).
III
Mercer’s Consolidation of Marlborough, 1730–1740
MERCER THE YOUNG LAWYER
The 1730’s opened a golden age in the Virginia colony. There was an interval of peace in which trade might flourish; there were new laws which favored the tobacco planter and led to the building of resplendent mansions along Virginia’s shores. John Mercer wasted no time in grasping the opportunities that lay about him. With shrewd foresight he made law his major objective, thus raising himself above most of his contemporaries. At the same time he began an extensive purchasing of property, so that within a decade he was to become one of the major landed proprietors in the colony. Planting and legal practice each augmented the other in Mercer’s prosperity, which was assured by a classic combination of energy, ability, and outgoing personality. As with many successful men, Mercer had an eye for meticulous detail; the documents he left behind were a treasury of methodically kept records.
His Ledger B reveals that as early as 1730 his legal career was becoming firmly established. It records fee accounts, charges for drawing deeds, writing bonds, and representing clients in various courts. In that year he “subscribed to Laws of Virginia” through William Parks, the Williamsburg printer and stationer, and began to build up a substantial law library, which was augmented by the purchase of 40 lawbooks from Robert Beverley.
DIFFICULTIES IN ACQUIRING MARLBOROUGH
On October 13, 1730, Mercer obtained title from David Waugh to the Ballard house and lots on the basis of the “Statute for transforming uses into possessions.” At the same time he acquired the three lots originally granted to John Waugh, while nine months later he was given the release of the three lots inherited by George Mason from his father.[60] Mercer’s foothold in Marlborough was now secure.
Following these developments, he “employed the County Surveyor to lay off the several Lots he had purchased,” which led to the discovery of the previously mentioned disparities and conflicts between the Buckner survey of 1691 and the missing Gregg survey of 1707. For some reason the town now lacked feoffees, so Mercer “applied to the County Court of Stafford on the tenth day of June one thousand seven hundred and thirty-one and the said Court then appointed Henry Fitzhugh Esquire and James Markham Gent. Feofees of the said Town.” Mercer stated that he “proposed making great Improvements … and wanted to take up several other Lots to build on.” The court thereupon ordered John Savage, the county surveyor, to make a new survey, “having regard to the Buildings and Improvements then standing”—a significant instruction, intended no doubt to permit the reconciling of conflicting titles with respect to what actually was built.[61]
The new survey was laid out July 23, 1731, “in the presence of the said Feoffees,” and drawn with the same plan and numbering as Buckner’s, except that an additional row of lots was applied along the western border of the town, compressing slightly the former lots as planned by Buckner and pushing them eastward (fig. 2). This extra row, we have reason to believe, was added with “regard to the Buildings and Improvements then standing.”
At the time of the survey, the feoffees told Mercer “that he might proceed in his Buildings and Improvements on any the said Lots not before granted,” promising that they would at any time make him “any Title they could lawfully pass.” A proposal by Fitzhugh to give title to any lots already purchased or any which Mercer might take up under terms of the Port Act of 1705 was discouraged by Mercer’s lawyer, Mr. Hopkins, who took the view that, since the three surveys conflicted, the deeds would not be good. Accordingly, Fitzhugh and Mercer applied for an “amicable Bill,” or suit in chancery, in the General Court, in order “to have Savage’s or any particular Survey established.” The request was shelved, however, and still was unanswered in 1748.
The extra row of lots and the court’s instructions to Savage to make his survey with “Regard to the Buildings and Improvements then Standing” seem to be correlated. Savage made a significant notation on his survey plat: “The lots marked 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, & 21 joining to the Creek are in possession of Mr. John Mercer who claims them under Robinson, Berryman, Pope & Parry, & under Ballard & under John Waugh deced, all wch he says have been built on and saved.” On the Buckner plat the lots bearing these numbers comprise a block of six in the southwest corner of the town, extending up from the creek in two 3-tiered rows (fig. 2). The plat included the lots near the head of the “gutt” where the courthouse appears to have stood, as well as the land on which Structure B (the foundation of Mercer’s mansion)