To all of these people and to the countless others who contributed in one way or another to the completion of this study, I offer my grateful thanks. C. MALCOLM WATKINS Washington, D.C. 1967 The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia [Illustration: Figure 1.--JOHN MERCER'S BOOKPLATE.] HISTORY I _Official Port Towns in Virginia and Origins of Marlborough_ ESTABLISHING THE PORT TOWNS The dependence of 17th-century Virginia upon the single crop--tobacco--was a chronic problem. A bad crop year or a depressed English market could plunge the whole colony into debt, creating a chain reaction of overextended credits and failures to meet obligations. Tobacco exhausted the soil, and soil exhaustion led to an ever-widening search for new land. This in turn brought about population dispersal and extreme decentralization. After the Restoration in 1660 the Virginia colonial government was faced not only with these economic hazards but also with the resulting administrative difficulties. It was awkward to govern a scattered population and almost impossible to collect customs duties on imports landed at the planters' own wharves along hundreds of miles of inland waterways. The royal governors and responsible persons in the Assembly reacted therefore with a succession of plans to establish towns that would be the sole ports of entry for the areas they served, thus making theoretically simple the task of securing customs revenues. The towns also would be centers of business and manufacture, diversifying the colony's economic supports and lessening its dependence on tobacco. To men of English origin this establishment of port communities must have seemed natural and logical. The first such proposal became law in 1662, establishing a port town for each of the major river valleys and for the Eastern Shore. But the law's sponsors were doomed to disappointment, for the towns were not built.[1] After a considerable lapse, a new act was passed in 1680, this one better implemented and further reaching. It provided for a port town in each county, where ships were to deliver their goods and pick up tobacco and other exports from town warehouses for their return voyages.[2] One of its most influential supporters was William Fitzhugh of Stafford County, a wealthy planter and distinguished leader in the colony.[3] "We have now resolved a cessation of making Tob^o next year," he wrote to his London agent, Captain Partis, in 1680. "We are also going to make Towns, if you can meet with any tradesmen that will come and live at the Town, they may have privileges and immunitys."[4] [Illustration: Potomack River] [Illustration: Figure 2.--Survey plats of Marlborough as copied in John Mercer's Land Book showing at bottom, John Savage's, 1731; and top, William Buckner's and Theodorick Bland's, 1691. (The courthouse probably stood in the vicinity of lot 21.)]