 | A history of Caroline county, Virginia |  |
ARTS AND LETTERS
There were few artists in Virginia prior to 1750. Those who
desired portraits sat to English artists in England. There were
a few exceptions to this rule, however, one of these being associated
with Caroline county is worthy of mention here. An artist named
Bridges came over from England as early as 1737 and rented a
house in Williamsburg and painted a number of portraits of
prominent colonists. In 1740 he was employed to paint the
King's Arms for the Court-house of Caroline county at the price
of sixteen hundred pounds of tobacco. This painting adorned the
court house for many years. The author has not been able to
find any clue as to what became of this ancient painting. Reference
is made to it in Mary Newton Stanard's Colonial Virginia.
John Baylor, of "Newmarket," in Carolne, in the year 1770
bequeathed to his son John, all his books, and directed that he
should pay to his brothers, George and Robert, 25 pounds sterling
each, to assist them in establishing libraries, "Which," he concludes,
"I highly recommend to be yearly added to."
Thomas P. Westendorf was born in Bowling Green, Va.,
February 23, 1848. His family lived at the place now owned by
Miss Linda Anderson on Anderson Avenue. He married in
Caroline and shortly thereafter removed to Germany. It is
said that the homesickness of his wife prompted him to write
the ballad, "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen," which has
become popular both in this country and Europe. The words
are:
Across the ocean wild and wide,
To where your heart has ever been,
Since first you were my bonny bride.
The roses all have left your cheek,
I've watched them fade away and die;
Your voice is sad whene'er you speak,
And tears bedim your loving eyes.
Your heart was ever fond and true;
I always feel when you are near,
That life holds nothing dear but you;
I scarcely ever see them now,
Tho, many, many times I see,
A darkning shadow on your brow.
My Kathleen shall again return,
And when thy old friends welcome thee,
Thy loving heart will cease to yearn;
Where laughs the little silver stream,
Beside your mother's humble cot,
And brightest rays of sunshine gleam,
There all your grief will be forgot.
Oh! I will take you back, Kathleen,
Where your heart will feel no pain,
And when the fields are fresh and green,
I'll take you to your home again.
The original draft of this song, or a copy of the original issue
(the author is not sure which), was presented to Mrs. J. T. Richards,
of Bowling Green.
Mrs. Stanard in her very fine book—Colonial Virginia—says:
"It was not unusual for parents to have several children in school
in England at the same time. One such family was Col. John
Baylor, of Caroline who had received his own education at Putney
Grammar School and Caius College, Cambridge. In 1762 he
sent his 12 year-old son, John, to Putney, and later entered him
at Caius College, where he was friend and class-mate of William
Wilberforce. He also sent his daughters, Courtney, Lucy,
Frances and Elizabeth abroad to boarding school, placing them
at Croyden in Kent."
In 1906, Mr. J. P. Babington, who was then publishing a
weekly newspaper in Bowling Green, known as The Caroline
Echo, published and copyrighted a small book entitled The
Biography of Mrs. Catherine Babington, the Only Woman Mason
In the World. In this work, a copy of which is in the hands of
the author, Mr. Babington relates how that his mother, Catherine
Sweet, when a girl in Greenup county, Ky. (afterward Boyd county),
secreted herself under the pulpit of an old church, which was
used as a Masonic Lodge room, and heard and saw and inwardly
uncles, the Ulen brothers, finding that she knew Blue Lodge
Masonry, attempted, through many traps set for her, to intimidate
her into revealing the secrets of the fraternity; but, finding her
faithful, the Lodge obligated her in the usual manner, and she
remained faithful to the end of her days. The book is of interest
to Caroline people chiefly because it bears a Bowling Green
imprint.
George Fitzhugh, son of Dr. George Fitzhugh and Lucinda
Stuart, and descendant of William Fitzhugh, of England and
Stafford county, Va., was born July 2, 1807. He was educated
in the University of Virginia and admitted to the bar upon graduation.
He married Mary Metcalf Brockenbrough, of Port Royal,
Caroline county, and had issue R. H. Fitzhugh, Captain of Engineers
under Lee; George Stuart Fitzhugh, who was ordered
an Episcopal clergyman in 1873 and who at the age of eighty
still survives; Champe, Lucinda, Augusta, Mary Ella, Harriett
and Emily.
George Fitzhugh spent all of his life save the closing years at
Port Royal and at one time presided over a noted male academy
located at that place. He wrote and published the following
books and papers and was a frequent contributor to DeBow's
Review. "Cannibals All" (1857); "What Shall We Do With
Free Negroes?" (1851); "Sociology for the South" (1854); "The
Valleys of Virginia" (1859); "The Northern Neck of Virginia"
(1859); "Ancient Families of Virginia and Maryland" (1859);
and "The Revolutions of 1776 and 1861 Compared."
John Taylor was known as "The Publicist of the Revolutionary
Period," and was a strong and voluminous writer. For list of his
works see his biography elsewhere in this volume.
| A history of Caroline county, Virginia | |