The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia. C. Malcolm Watkins
Chotank church. Waugh, who seems to have been a rabble rouser, appealed to the same small landholders and malcontents as those who, a generation earlier, had followed Nathaniel Bacon’s leadership. So seriously did the authorities at Jamestown regard the disturbance at Stafford courthouse that they sent three councillors to investigate. See “Notes,” William & Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine (Richmond, 1907), 1st ser., vol. 15, pp. 189–190 (hereinafter designated WMQ) [1]; and Richard Beale Davis’ introduction to William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World, op. cit. (footnote 3), pp. 35–39, and p. 251.
[29] Stafford County Order Book, 1689–1694, p. 167.
[30] Ibid., pp. 194, 267, 313.
[31] Hening, op. cit. (footnote 1), vol. 3, p. 60; Edward M. Riley, “The Colonial Courthouses of York County, Virginia,” William & Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine (Williamsburg, 1942), 2nd ser., vol. 22, pp. 399–404 (hereinafter designated WMQ [2]).
[32] Petition of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17).
[33] Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia (Richmond, 1930), vol. 2, p. 527.
[34] Stafford County Order Book, 1689–1694, p. 251.
[35] John Mercer’s Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12); William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World, op. cit. (footnote 3), p. 209.
[36] Ibid., pp. 76, 93, 162, 367.
[37] Stafford County Order Book, 1689–1694, p. 203; William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World, op. cit. (footnote 3), pp. 209, 211.
[38] Ibid., pp. 184, 230; John Mercer’s Land Book, op. cit. (footnote 12); William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World, op. cit. (footnote 3), p. 38.
[39] Henry Chandlee Forman, Jamestown and St. Mary’s (Baltimore, 1938), pp. 135–137.
[40] William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World, op. cit. (footnote 3), p. 203.
[41] Happel, op. cit. (footnote 22), p. 186; Stafford County Order Book, 1689–1694, pp. 210–211.
[42] Stafford County Order Book, 1689–1694, p. 195.
[43] Stafford County Will Book, Liber Z, pp. 168–169.
[44] A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford, 1928), vol. 10, pt. 2, p. 18.
[45] Edward H. Pinto, Treen, or Small Woodware Throughout the Ages (London, 1949), p. 20.
[46] Stafford County Will Book, Liber Z, pp. 158–159.
[47] John Mercer’s Land Book, loc. cit. (footnote 12).
[48] Petition of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17).
II
John Mercer’s Occupation of Marlborough, 1726–1730
MERCER’S ARRIVAL IN STAFFORD COUNTY
By 1723 Marlborough lay abandoned. George Mason (III), son of the late sheriff and ordinary keeper in the port town, held the now-empty title of feoffee, together with Rice Hooe. In that year Mason and Hooe petitioned the General Court “that Leave may be given to bring in a Bill to enable them to sell the said Land [of the town] the same not being built upon or Inhabited.” The petition was put aside for “consideration,” but within a week—on May 21, 1723—it was “ordered That Rice Hooe & George Mason be at liberty to withdraw their petition … and that the Committee to whom it was referred be discharged from proceeding thereon.”[49]
This curious sequence remains unexplained. Had the committee informally advised the feoffees that their cause would be rejected, suggesting, therefore, that they withdraw their petition? Or had something unexpected occurred to provide an alternative solution to the problem of Marlborough?
Possibly it was the latter, and the unexpected occurrence may have been the arrival in Stafford County of young John Mercer. There is no direct evidence that Mercer was in the vicinity as early as 1723; but we know that he appeared before 1725, that he had by then become well acquainted with George Mason, and that he settled in Marlborough in 1726.
Mercer’s remarkable career began with his arrival in Virginia at the age of 16. Born in Dublin in 1704, the son of a Church Street merchant of English descent—also named John Mercer—and of Grace Fenton Mercer, John was educated at Trinity College, and then sailed for the New World in 1720.[50] How Mercer arrived in Virginia or what means he brought with him are lost to the record. From his own words written toward the end of his life we know that he was not overburdened with wealth:
“Except my education I never got a shilling of my fathers or any other relations estate, every penny I ever got has been by my own industry & with as much fatigue as most people have undergone.”[51]
From his second ledger (the first, covering the years 1720–1724, having been lost) we learn that he was engaged in miscellaneous trading, sailing up and down the rivers in his sloop and exchanging goods along the way. Where his home was in these early years we do not know, but it would appear that he had been active in the Stafford County region for some time,