Virginia: the Old Dominion: As seen from its colonial waterway, the historic river James, whose every succeeding turn reveals country replete with monuments and scenes recalling the march of history and its figures from the days of Captain John Smith to the present timeHutchins, Frank W.
History
Virginia: the Old Dominion: As seen from its colonial waterway, the historic river James, whose every succeeding turn reveals country replete with monuments and scenes recalling the march of history and its figures from the days of Captain John Smith to the present time
Hutchins, Frank W.
Historic buildings -- Virginia; Houseboats; James River (Va.)
Very soon, and without his moving at all, that bull was far away from
us. We recognized at once that the field was properly his preserve and
that we really had no right there; but we trusted that our intrusion in
coming in would be atoned for by our promptness in getting out.
In the absorbing process of putting space between the bull and the
houseboaters, the restlessness of the Commodore's knees was really an
advantage. They moved so fast that he was able to keep in advance of
Nautica, and so be ready to protect her if another bull should appear
on ahead. When he felt satisfied that he need no longer expose himself
in the van (and, incidentally, that the bull in the rear had been left
out of sight), he slackened his pace. We managed to get down to a walk
in the course of half a mile or so; and at last approached Brandon at a
quite decorous gait.
There, we learned that we had gone to the wrong cemetery anyway--to the
one that had belonged to the old Brandon Church whose communion service
we had seen. The Harrison burying-ground was not far from the home.
So, with members of the household, we went out across the lawn and
around a corner of the garden to the family graveyard. The first
Benjamin Harrison, the emigrant, who died about 1649, is not buried
here. His tomb stands near the great sycamore tree in the churchyard at
James Towne. However, the tombs of his descendants, owners of Brandon,
are (with one exception) in this old plantation burying-ground.
[Illustration: THE ANCIENT GARRISON HOUSE.]
In the walk back to the house, we stopped to see what is probably the
oldest, and in many respects the most interesting, building on the
plantation. It is just an odd stubby brick house with a crumbling
cellar-hut at one end. But family tradition says that it is one of the
old garrison houses, or "defensible houses," built in early times for
protection against the Indians. It certainly looks the part, with its
heavy walls, its iron doors and shutters, and the indications of former
loopholes. Upon those first scattered plantations, a characteristic
feature was such a strong-house or "block-house" surrounded by a
stockade or "palisado" of logs.
While this strong-house at Brandon must have been built after the
terrible Indian massacre of 1622, yet it doubtless served as a place of
refuge in later attacks. Many a time that dread alarm may have spread
over this plantation. We thought of the hurrying to and fro; of the
gathering of weapons, ammunition, bullet-molds, food, and whatever
necessities there may have been time to catch up; and of the
panic-stricken men, women and children fleeing from field and cabin to
the shelter of the stockade and of the strong-house.
Back again in the manor-house, we spent our last hour at Brandon; for
Gadabout was to sail away next day. It was a colonial hour; for Brandon
clocks tick off no other, nor would any other seem natural within those
walls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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