The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia. C. Malcolm Watkins
in general, the irresponsibilities, the lack of respect for law and order, and the frontier weaknesses which made it necessary to strengthen authority. It begins with Sampson Darrell himself, whose moral shortcomings seem to have been legion (hog-stealing, cheating a widow, and refusing to give indentured servants their freedom after they had earned it, to name a few). Darrell undoubtedly had the fastidious Fitzhugh’s confidence, for certainly without that he would not have been appointed undertaker at all. In his position in the court, Fitzhugh would have been instrumental in selecting both architect and architecture for the courthouse, and Darrell seems to have met his requirements. Fitzhugh, in fact, had sufficient confidence in Darrell to entrust him with personal business in London in 1688.[25]
Although several months elapsed before a site was chosen, enough of the new building was erected by October to shelter the court for its monthly assembly. In the course of this session, there occurred a “most mischievous and dangerous Riot,”[26] which rather violently inaugurated the new building. During this disturbance, the pastor of Potomac Parish, Parson John Waugh,[27] upbraided the court while it was “seated” and took occasion to call Fitzhugh a Papist. The court, taking cognizance of “disorders, misrules and Riots” and “the Fatal consequences of such unhappy malignant and Tumultuous proceeding,” thereupon restricted the sale of liquor on court days (thus revealing what was at least accessory to the disturbance).[28] Fitzhugh’s letter to the court concerning this episode mentions the “Court House” and the “Court house yard,” adding to Happel’s ample documentation that the new building was by now in use.
During the November session, James Mussen was ordered into custody for having “dangerously wounded Mr. Sampson Darrell.”[29] This suggests that the sequence of disturbances may have been associated with the unfinished state of the courthouse, which, like the town, symbolized the purposes of Fitzhugh and the property-owning aristocracy. Certain it is that Darrell, publicly identified with Fitzhugh, was violently assaulted and that “a complaint was made to this Court that Sampson Darrell the chief undertaker of the building and Erecting of a Court house for this county had not performed the same according to articles of agreement.” He and Bayley accordingly were put under bond to finish the building by June 10, 1692. By February Bayley was complaining that he had not been paid for his work, “notwithstanding your petr as is well known to the whole County hath done all the carpenters work thereof and is ready to perform what is yet wanting.” On May 12, less than a month from the deadline for completion, Darrell was ordered to pay Bayley the money owing, and Bayley was instructed to go on with the work. Nearly six months later, on November 10, Darrell again was directed to pay Bayley the full balance of his wages, but only “after the said Ambrose Bayley shall have finished and Compleatly ended the Court house.”[30]
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 passed 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.
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.
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 constituted. 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 assume that their purchases of lots were made in the interests of investment gains, not in establishing 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 “Accokeek,” about a mile and a half from Marlborough. He certainly built in the town, for in 1691 he petitioned for a license to “keep an ordinary at the Town or Port for this county.” The petition 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 participated in putting down the uprising of Nanticoke 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.
Another lot owner was Captain Malachi Peale, whose lease of the town land from the Brents had been purchased when the site was selected.