Dr. Farish was Director of Research at Colonial Williamsburg from 1937 until ill health forced him to retire in 1944. He broadened the program there by bringing young research associates to the staff, making grants-in-aid to scholars in the field of early American history, and establishing and editing the Williamsburg Restoration Historical Series. He also taught at the College of William and Mary and helped to work out the organizational plans for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, which since 1943 has been jointly sponsored by Colonial Williamsburg and the College of William and Mary. Dr. Farish's edition of the _Journal_ had been out of print for a few years when, in 1957, Colonial Williamsburg reissued it, with pen and ink illustrations by Fritz Kredel designed to interest new readers. The present edition by the University Press of Virginia reproduces the 1957 one, but in convenient paperback form. Young Fithian's revealing picture of Virginia plantation life will always be a key source for the historian and an absorbing human document for the general reader. EDWARD P. ALEXANDER Director of Interpretation _Colonial Williamsburg September 1967_ _Contents_ INTRODUCTION 1. Virginia During the Golden Age xiii 2. Philip Fithian and the Carter Family xxv JOURNAL AND LETTERS OF PHILIP FITHIAN 3 APPENDIX 221 NOTES 237 INDEX 249 _CHAPTER ONE_ Virginia During The Golden Age In the "Golden Age," or half-century immediately preceding the American Revolution, a remarkable civilization reached its zenith in the broad coastal plain of eastern Virginia. Gradually, during a century of colonization and expansion, the heavily wooded tidewater had been converted into a land of settled order and accumulated wealth. Vast estates had been carved out of the wilderness and large plantations were everywhere the rule. Embraced by numerous arms of the Chesapeake and covered by a network of wide rivers and creeks, this sylvan Venice abounded in safe and convenient water routes. Pressing through the mouths of the deep estuaries, the ocean tides reached the "fall-line," beyond which the streams were inaccessible to shipping owing to the rapids. Ocean vessels could penetrate to the plantations in every part of the lowlands and carry cargoes thence straight to the wharves of London and the outports. Despite the distance and rigors of the voyage, the colonists of the Tidewater had maintained a constant intercourse with the mother country from the time of their earliest settlement.