Mercer had become a vestryman in Overwharton Parish as early as 1730, and appears to have been made responsible for all legal matters pertaining to that church. His account, shown in detail in Appendix G, is of interest in showing that violations of moral law were held accountable to the church and that fines for convictions were paid to the church. Mercer, representing the parish, collected a portion of each fine as his fee.

Most of his energies now seem to have been divided between the law and the substantial responsibilities for managing his plantations. The increasing extent of tobacco cultivation is revealed in the tobacco account with “M^r Jonathan Foward, Merchant in London” (presumably John Foward, mentioned earlier), extending from 1733 to 1743. This account lists shipments of 129 hogsheads of tobacco, totaling £643 1s. 11d. (if we include a few extraneous items, such as “To an over charge in Lemons” and “To a Still charg’d never sent”). Several similar accounts involve proceeds from tobacco. In 1734 and 1738, for example, he shipped 54 hogsheads to William Stevenson, another London merchant, for £207 7d. on the ships Triton, Snake, Brooks, and Elizabeth.

Marlborough’s full transition to a seat of tobacco-planting empire is now clearly discernible. In so becoming, it was typical of the consolidation of wealth, property, and power in Virginia as the mid-century approached. Land had become both a substitute for tobacco in lean years and the means for paying off debts. The same land in better years yielded crops to its new owners, so that a relatively few dynamic men were able to amass great wealth and form a ruling aristocracy. The varieties of talents in men like Mercer—who, besides being a planter, was an accomplished lawyer and able administrator—placed them in the ascendancy over their less able fellows. The vigor and ability with which such men were endowed fostered the remarkable class of leaders of the succeeding generation, who had so much to do with founding the nation.

IV

Marlborough at its Ascendancy, 1741-1750

TRAVEL

On April 12, 1741, Mercer was admitted to practice at the General Court in Williamsburg.[73] His trip there on that occasion was typical of the journeys which took him at least twice yearly to the capital. On the first day of this Williamsburg trip he rode “To Col^o Taliaferro’s,” a distance of 19 miles. The following day “To Caroline Court” (18 miles), the next “To M^r Hubbard’s” (30 miles), then as far as “M^r J^no Powers” (24 miles), and finally “To Furneas & Williamsburg” (30 miles). The route was usually to West Point, or Brick House on the opposite shore in New Kent County, and thence either directly to Williamsburg, or by way of New Kent courthouse. Stopovers were made either at ordinaries or at the houses of friends.[74]

Mercer’s travels, summarized in the journal that he kept in the back of Ledger B from 1730 until his death in 1768, were prodigious. In 1735, for example, he journeyed a total of 4202 miles and was home only 119 days. This pace had slackened considerably in the period we are now considering, but, nevertheless, he was not at home more than 218 days out of any one year of the decade 1741-1750. This energetic and restless moving about was common among the leading planters, but in Mercer’s case it seems to have reached its ultimate. Practicing law, playing politics, acquiring property, and becoming acquainted with people led him all over Virginia.

A representative sample from the journal covers the period of September and October 1745. It will be noted that the days of the week are indicated alphabetically, a through g, as in the calendar of the Book of Common Prayer. The mileage traveled each day is entered at the right.

[He remained at Williamsburg until November 6.]

Such itineraries were punctuated by periods of staying at Marlborough, but even then there were day-long journeys to Stafford courthouse, to church, or to a survey. The courthouse, which succeeded that at Marlborough, was situated on the south side of Potomac Creek, about three miles upstream from the old site. Mercer almost invariably took the 10-mile-long land route through the site of the present village of Brook, along the Fredericksburg road past Potomac Church, then along the headwaters of Potomac Run on a now-disused road leading to Belle Plains. Just before reaching the courthouse, which stood on a rise of land some distance back from the creek, he passed “Salvington,” the mansion of Joseph Selden.[83] Near the water, and in sight of the courthouse, stood the house of John Cave, whose grandfather in 1707 had bought his land from Sampson Darrell, undertaker of the Marlborough courthouse.[84] Near it, on a foundation still visible, Cave built the warehouse that bore his name, and through him passed much of the tobacco that Mercer raised locally. Occasionally, when he had business to do at Cave’s, Mercer would return home by water, as he did on August 14, 1746:

VEHICLES

During the 1740’s Mercer’s travels were often by chaise or chariot. We learn from Ledger G that he bought “a fourwheel Chaise” from Charles Carter[85] in September 1744, a significant step in emulating the manners and ways of Virginia’s established aristocrats. Three years later he purchased “a Sett of Chaisewheels” from Francis Hogans, a Caroline County wheelwright, and in June 1748 he discounted as an overcharge the cost of “a Chaise worth nothing” in his account with the English mercantile firm of Sydenham & Hodgson.[86] A “chaise” could have been one of several types of vehicles, but it was probably “a carriage for traveling, having a closed body and seated for one to three persons,” according to Murray’s A New Oxford Dictionary.

In 1749 Mercer bought a “chariot” from James Mills of Tappahannock for £80. Doubtless an elegant piece of equipage, this was, we learn from Murray, “a light four-wheeled carriage with only back seats, and differing from the post-chaise in having a coach-box.” In November 1750 he paid John Simpson, a Fredericksburg wheelwright, 10 shillings for “wedging & hooping the Chariotwheels” and 9 shillings for “mending 3 fillys & 3 Spokes in D^o.”[87]

At the same time he bought a “p^r Cartwheels” for £2 and a “Tumbling Cart” for £1 6s. from Simpson. Murray tells us that a “tumble cart” or a “tumbril cart” was a dung cart, designed to dump the load.

TOBACCO CASK BRANDS

Hogsheads and casks of tobacco were branded with the symbols or initials of the original owners. Many of the brands are recorded explicitly in the ledger. Mercer, at the beginning of his career, used a symbol M. As his plantations multiplied, however, three symbols were adopted, based on his own two initials. Tobacco casks from Bull Run were marked I ^B.M. Those from Sumner’s Quarters bore the brand I ^S.M, while the “Home Plantation” at Marlborough had casks marked I ^C.M (fig. 8).

The interpretation of these symbols warrants some digression. In the 17th century, and indeed in the 18th century also, the triangular cipher to indicate the initials of man and wife was commonly used to mark silver, pewter, china, delftware, linens, and other objects needing owners’ identifications. The common surname initial was placed at the top, the husband’s first-name initial at the lower left, and the wife’s at the lower right. This arrangement was used consistently in the 17th century. In the 18th century, however, variations began to appear in the colonies, although not, apparently, in England. Silver made in New York and Philadelphia during the 1700’s presents the initials reading from left to right, with the husband’s at the lower left, the wife’s at top center, and the surname initial at the lower right. The large keystone of the Carlyle house in Alexandria, built in 1751, bears a triangular arrangement of John and Sarah Carlyle’s initials: J ^S.C.[88]

Like Carlyle, Mercer used initials in this fashion, but also, as we have seen, in two other combinations in which “J. M.” remains constant, the upper center initial having a subordinate significance. “S” signifies Sumner’s Quarters, and “B,” Bull Run Quarters. “C” on seals and brands having to do with Marlborough apparently refers to Catherine, honoring her as Mercer’s wife and mistress of the home plantation. The possibility that “C” stands for Cave’s warehouse may be dismissed as being inconsistent with the other two marks, the tobacco from Sumner’s Quarters having also been shipped through Cave’s, and that from Bull Run Quarters having been stored at the Occaquan warehouse.[89]

John Withers also used the left-to-right arrangement, I ^H.W, although Henry Tyler, a planter whose account is mentioned in Mercer’s Ledger, used the conventional three-letter cipher, H ^T.M. These marks occurred on casks transmitted to Mercer as payments, and are recorded in Ledger G (fig. 7).

TOBACCO EXCHANGE

Tobacco, before being transferred to another owner, was examined by official inspectors. Mercer kept a special “Inspector’s Notes” account where he kept track of fees due the inspectors. Direct payments of tobacco were made in transactions with William Hunter and Charles Dick, the Fredericksburg merchants from whom Mercer bought most of his goods and supplies. To others, however, payments were made in a complexity of tobacco notes, legal-fee payments, and plain barter. Tobacco shipped overseas was usually handled by Sydenham & Hodgson. Also involved with tobacco transactions in England were two Virginia merchants, Major John Champe, a distinguished resident of King George County who lived at Lamb’s Creek plantation, and William Jordan, of Richmond County, both of whom arranged for purchases of books, furniture, and other English imports for Mercer.

The following are excerpts from Sydenham & Hodgson’s account in Ledger G:

Revealed in this account are the hazards of shipping goods overseas in the 18th century. A partnership apparently figured in the second loss at sea, however, as the following entry in Ledger G shows:

Between 1747 and 1750 Mercer lost a total of 107 hogsheads of tobacco. Over and above this, however, he shipped overseas tobacco to the amount of £385 11s. 7d., during the same period.

CLIENTS

Mercer’s success was gained despite the failures of a great many persons to pay the fees they owed him. In 1745 he listed 303 “Insolvents, bad & doubtful debts.” That matters were no worse may be attributed to a high average of responsible clients. Among them were such well-known Virginians as Daniel Dulaney, William and Henry Fitzhugh, William Randolph, Augustine, John, and Lawrence Washington, Gerard Fowke, Richard Taliaferro, John and Daniel Parke Custis, Andrew and Thomas Monroe, George Tayloe, George Lee, George Wythe, and William Ramsay.

CLOTHING

By the early 1740’s Mercer was in a position to surround himself with symbols of wealth and prestige. Clothes, a traditional measure of affluence, were now a growing concern for himself and his family. Between 1741 and 1744, the ledger reveals, he purchased from William Hunter a greatcoat, women’s stockings, women’s calf shoes, morocco pumps, a “fine hat,” three felt hats, two dozen “plaid hose,” two pairs of men’s shoes, one pair of “Women’s Spanish Shoes,” and “2 p^r Calf D^o.” In 1744 and 1745 he bought from Charles Dick two pairs of “women’s coll’^d lamb gloves,” two pairs of silk stockings, “1 velvet laced hood,” a “laced hat,” a “Castor” (i.e., beaver) hat, “fine thread stockings,” silk handkerchiefs, a “flower’d pettycoat,” worsted stockings, and buckskin gloves. From Hugh MacLane, a Stafford tailor, he obtained a suit in 1745.

The rise in Mercer’s wealth and prestige is reflected in his patronizing Williamsburg tailors, beginning in 1745 when he settled with George Charleston for a tailor’s bill of £6 10s. In 1748 he paid Charleston four shillings for “Collar lining a Velvet Waistcoat.” In 1749 he purchased a “full trimm’d velvet Suit” from Charles Jones, the work and materials totaling £7 7s. 4¼d., while in 1750 he spent £11 2s. 1½d. on unitemized purchases from the same tailor. In that year he bought also from Robert Crichton, a Williamsburg merchant, “a flower’d Velvet Waistcoat, £5.” As the decade advanced, Mercer played with increasing consciousness the role of wealthy gentleman, as his choice of tailors shows.

MATERIALS

Textile materials, as seen under “General Expenses” and in the accounts of Hunter and Dick, ran the gamut of the usual imported fabrics, as well as rare, expensive elegancies. An alphabetical list of the materials mentioned in these accounts, with definitions, is given in Appendix I.

From this list we gain an impression of great diversity and refinement in the materials used for clothing and interior decoration, as well as of a tremendous amount of sewing, embroidering, and making of clothes at home, probably typical of most of the great plantations in the middle of the century.

WEAVING

In addition to fine imported materials, there were needed blankets, work clothes for slaves, and fabrics for other practical purposes. To these ends Mercer employed several weavers in various parts of Virginia. In 1747 William Threlkeld wove 109 yards of woolen cloth at fourpence a yard. During that year and the next, John Booth of King George County wove an indeterminate amount for a total of £2 4d. In 1748 John Fitzpatrick wove 480 yards of cotton at fourpence a yard, and William Mills wove 30 yards of “cloath.” Much of the work appears to have been done in payment for legal services.

Weaving and spinning evidently were done at Marlborough, as they were at most plantations. In 1744 Mercer recorded under “General Charges” that he had sold a loom to Joseph Foxhall. In 1746 he bought a spinning wheel from Captain Wilson of Whitehaven, England, purchasing three more from him in 1748. Wool cards also appear in the accounts. In January 1748 Mercer charged William Mills with “3 months Hire of Thuanus the Weaver, £3,” which suggests that Thuanus was an indentured white servant (his name does not occur on the list of slaves) employed at Marlborough and hired out to Mills, a Stafford County weaver.

PERSONAL ACCESSORIES

In contrast to the elegancies of dress materials and clothing, Mercer left little evidence of jewelry, toilet articles, or other personal objects. In Ledger G we find “2 horn combs” bought for fivepence, an ivory comb for tenpence, two razors, two strops, snuff-boxes, bottles of snuff, “a smelling bottle,” and “buck-handled” and silver-handled penknives. From John Hyndman, a Williamsburg merchant, Mercer acquired a set of silver buckles for £1 10s., and from William Woodford he bought “a gold watch, Chain & Swivel” for the not-trifling sum of £64 6s. 3d.

Like most successful men, Mercer had his portrait painted. During the General Court sessions held in the spring and fall of 1748 in Williamsburg, he lodged with William Dering, the dancing master and portrait painter. Dering lived in the house still standing on the capitol green, now known as the Brush-Everard house. In Dering’s account we find: “by drawing my picture, £9.2.9.”[90]

FOOD AND DRINK

Good food and drink played an important part in Mercer’s life, as it did in the lives of most Virginia planters. In the ledger accounts are found both double-refined and single-refined sugar, bohea tea, coffee, nutmegs, cinnamon, mace, and chocolate. Most meats were provided by the plantation and thus are not mentioned, while fish were caught from the plantation sloop or by fixed nets. However, Thomas Tyler of the Eastern Shore sold Mercer a barrel of drumfish and four and one-half bushels of oysters, while Thomas Jones, also of the Eastern Shore, provided a barrel of pork for 47s. 6d. in 1749. Earlier there appeared a ledger item under “General Charges” for 1775 pounds of pork.

Molasses was an important staple, and Mercer bought a 31-gallon barrel of it from one “Captain Fitz of the Eastern Shore of Maryland” in 1746 and 30 gallons the next year, charging both purchases to his wife. In 1750 he received 88 gallons of molasses and 255 pounds of “muscovy sugar” from Robert Todd. Muscovy sugar was the same as “muscavado” sugar, the unrefined brown sugar of the West Indies, known in Spanish as mascabado.

Beverages and the fruits to go with them were bought in astonishing quantities between 1744 and 1750. Major Robert Tucker, a Norfolk merchant, exchanged a “Pipe of Wine” worth £26 and a 107½-gallon hogshead of rum valued at £22 in return for Mercer’s legal services. Again as a legal fee, Mercer received 55 gallons of “Syder” from Janet Holbrook of Stafford and bought 11 limes from John Mitchelson of York for 12 shillings. From William Black he purchased “11 dozen and 11 bottles of Ale” at 13 shillings, and from John Harvey “5 ⅟₁₂ dozen of Claret” for £11 6d. “Mark Talbott of the Kingdom of Ireland E^sq” sold Mercer a pipe of wine for £3 3s.

LIFE OF THE CHILDREN

During the 1740’s Mercer’s first four surviving children, George, John Fenton, James, and Sarah Ann Mason Mercer,[91] were growing up, and the accounts are scattered through with items pertaining to their care and upbringing. There are delightful little hints of Mercer’s role as the affectionate father. On May 17, 1743, “By Sundry Toys” appears in Hunter’s account; an item of “1 horses 1^d” in Dick’s account for 1745 was undoubtedly a toy. Most charming of all the entries in the latter account is “1 Coach in a box 6^d. 4 Toys. 8^d, 2 Singing birds.” The birds may have occupied a birdcage and stand bought from George Rock, the account for which was settled a year later.

“1 french horn” and “3 trumpets” are listed in the Dick account. The horn was probably used in hunting; the three trumpets were bought perhaps for the three boys. Mercer’s library contained one book of music entitled The Musical Miscellany, which may have furnished the scores for a boyish trio of trumpets. Music and dancing were a part of the life at Marlborough, and in 1745 an entry under “General Charges” reads “To DeKeyser for a years dancing four children £16,” while in the following year ninepence was paid William Allan “for his Fidler.” In 1747 “Fiddle strings” were bought from Fielding Lewis in Fredericksburg for 2s. 4½d.

The Mercer children were taught by private tutors. One, evidently engaged in England, was the Reverend John Phipps, who was paid a salary of £100 annually and, presumably, his board and lodging. Mercer noted in his journal on November 18, 1746, that “Mr Phipps came to Virginia.” That Mr. Phipps left something to be desired was revealed years later in the letter written in 1768 by John to George Mercer, who was then in England, asking him to find a tutor for his younger children: “... the person you engage may not pretend, as M^r Phipps did that tho’ he undertook to instruct my children he intended boys only, & I or my wife might teach the girls. As I have mentioned M^r Phipps, it must remind you that a tutor’s good nature & agreeable temper are absolutely necessary both for his own ease & that of the whole family.”[92]

In 1750 George entered the College of William and Mary. He had a room at William Dering’s house, and the account of “Son’s Maintenance at Williamsburg” provides an interesting picture of a well-to-do college-boy’s expenses, chargeable to his father. Such items as “To Cash p^d for Lottery Tickets” (£7 10s. 6d.), “To Covington the Dancing Master ... 2.3,” “To W^m Thomson for Taylor’s work” (£1 9s. 6d.), “To p^d for Washing” (£1 1s.), and “To Books for sundrys” (£22 4s. 7½d.) show a variety of obligations comparable to those sometimes encountered on a modern campus. The entire account appears in Appendix J.

BUILDING THE MANOR HOUSE

As early as 1742 the ledger shows that Mercer was building steadily, although the nature of what he built is rarely indicated. Hunter’s account for 1742 lists 2500 tenpenny nails and 1000 twenty-penny nails, while in the following year the same account shows a total of 4200 eightpenny nails, 5000 tenpenny, 2000 fourpenny, and 1000 threepenny nails. The following tools were bought from Hunter in 1744: paring chisel, 1½-inch auger, ¾-inch auger, socket gouge, broad axe, adze, drawing knife, mortice chisel, a “square Rabbit plane,” and “plough Iron & plains.” In Charles Dick’s account we find purchases in 1745 of 16,000 flooring brads, 4000 twenty-penny nails, 2000 each of fourpenny, sixpenny, eightpenny, and tenpenny brads, and 60,000 fourpenny nails.

Beginning in 1744 Mercer made great purchases of lumber. Thomas Tyler of the Eastern Shore sold him 2463 feet of plank in that year, and in 1745 made several transactions totaling 5598 feet of 1-, 1½-, and 2-inch plank, as well as 23,170 shingles. In 1746 Charles Waller of Stafford sold Mercer 5193 feet of 1-, 1¼-, and 1½-inch plank. In the same year James Waughhop of Maryland provided “4000 foot of Plank of different thicknesses for £12,” and in May 1749, “2300 foot of 1½ Inch Plank at 7/.” Mercer made several similar purchases, including 14,700 shingles, from Robert Taylor of the Eastern Shore.

Where all these materials were used is a matter for conjecture. We know that Mercer made “Improvements” to the extent of “saving” 40 lots under the terms of the Act for Ports and Towns, and that a great deal of construction work, therefore, was going on. One building was probably a replacement for a warehouse, for a laconic entry in his journal on New Year’s day of 1746 notes that “My warehouses burnt.” These were doubtless the buildings erected in 1732 and officially vacated in 1735. That at least one eventually was rebuilt for Mercer’s own use is known from an overseer’s report of 1771 (Appendix M).

The windmill, the foundations of which still remain in part near the Potomac shore, was probably built in 1746. Mercer’s cash account for that year includes an item of 2s. 6d. for “Setting up Mill,” which apparently meant adjusting the millstones for proper operation. In August he paid Nathaniel Chapman £22 19s. 8¾d. “in full for Smith’s work.” A windmill, with its bearings, levers, lifts, and shafts, would seem to have been the only structure requiring such a costly amount of ironwork.

The most elaborate project of all, however, is clearly discernible in the ledger. In 1746 Thomas Anderson,[93] in consideration of cash and legal services, charged for “making & burning 40^m Stock bricks” at 4 pounds 6 pence per 1000. In the same year David Minitree, described by Mercer as a “Bricklayer,” came to Marlborough from Williamsburg. Minitree was more than an ordinary bricklayer, however, for he had worked on the Mattaponi church, and later, between 1750 and 1753, was to build Carter’s Grove for Carter Burwell.[94]

The credit side of Minitree’s account in Ledger G is as follows: