Page:Southern Antiques - Burroughs - 1931.djvu/29



ERHAPS there is no more pronounced instinct in the general character of the early Southerner than that of home-making. Scattered throughout this broad land today, are houses dating back to within a few decades of the first settlement of the white man on the North American continent, and there is much about them of beauty and comfort to impress the traveler. The fact is obvious that the best of the energies of these valiant and resourceful people were employed in surrounding themselves not only with what was comfortable and enduring, but with what was made for beauty as well.

The manner of living on the best of the plantations is reflected in the wonder of today: the fine sites on high hills overlooking winding rivers that the masters chose for their houses; their gardens with boxwood, guelder-rose and moss fringes left to tell the story; the broad sweep of the lawn revealed through rare trees; white-columned houses with doorways of Ionic or Doric entablature; silver-plated door knobs, red walnut panelings, stairways with precious carving, and exquisitely made chimney pieces, with an abundance of servants to keep bright the crested plate, the china from Canton, fine glass and best furniture from England, brought often to their doors on their own ships.

All of this speaks of a passion for beauty of the owner; but back of it were hardships which even those best provided for had to endure, and the necessity always to cope with conditions as they were. It was inevitable that, out of it something fine as well as useful in the way of furniture making must evolve itself in these five colonies, with a need so immediate, the demand so increasing, and much of the material and labor at hand so easily obtained.

There were four carpenters numbered among the "Gentlemen" company composing the Virginia colony the year following their first arrival. Scant equipment was allowed in the ships coming over for many years, and furniture sent from England could not of course have met the demand. In 1748 there were three hundred thousand people to be provided for in Virginia alone, at a time when she extended from sea to sea. Because of the western expansion of the colony, the small farmer class living inland grew so rapidly that Tidewater aristocracy was in danger of being overwhelmed. Such a vast number of people needed furniture and needed it badly, and despite what they had with them or what followed them over, at least one-half the population must have supplied themselves with furniture at hand. What we know of what was owned at the time is derived largely from wills and inventories of the wealthy planters, and we cannot be guided solely by them.

"If you could help me to a carpenter, a bricklayer or mason, I would willingly pay you somewhat extraordinarily," was the cry of William Byrd, who having made his arrival in Virginia somewhat late in the Rh