One of Robert Beverley's enthusiasms was wine. He was very serious about this and made a collective bet that he could produce seven hundred gallons of wine from one year's grapes. John Fontaine tells us in 1715 that Beverley was likely to win his bet. After the Germans were settled on the north bank of the Rapidan River, Beverley, who was one of the major partners in the settlement, encouraged them to grow grapes.
John Fontaine spent several days with Beverley. Originally he had planned to stay only one night, but it rained and Beverley insisted that he stay until the weather was better. For several days, Fontaine joined in the hunting, church, and socializing of the Beverley household. Beverley took pride in being hospitable; this was, in his estimation, the mark of a true Virginian. Fontaine noted, "This man lives well, but though rich, he has nothing in or about his house but what is necessary. He hath good beds in his house, but no curtains; and instead of cane chairs, he hath stools made of wood. He lives upon the product of his land."
Though Beverley liked to hunt and fish, he was not given to doing anything in excess. He was envious of the Indians, who "by their pleasure alone, supplied all of their necessities." But in all things, temperance was the watch word of Beverley. The gardens about his house were developed with a view toward enhancing the birds to visit. During his last years, he busied himself about his own little realm and a revision of his history. He had mellowed and he removed most of the pungent comments about his contemporaries from the history. The second edition of his history was published in the year of his death, in 1722, when he was only 49 years old.
Another project of Beverley's later life was compilation of the laws of Virginia. This too was published in the same year as the second edition of the history. This " An Abridgment of the Public Laws of Virginia " was dedicated to Alexander Spotswood for "protecting the laws and liberties of the country, for suppressing the pirate Teach, for reviving the College of William and Mary, for encouraging teachers to instruct the Indians, and for extending the frontier settlements."
The biggest project in extending the frontier settlements was the joint project of Spotswood and Beverley in settling seventy-odd Germans to the west of Germanna. After Robert Beverley died, William Beverley, who was quite young, did not wish to continue in the partnership and he sold his share to Spotswood. When Spotswood sued the Germans, he included those Germans whose transportation had been paid by Beverley. In the case of the German, George Moyer, William Beverley was called to court to testify about the contract between his father and Moyer. Unfortunately, we do not know what the testimony said.
The inventory of Beverley's estate has been lost. It would have been interesting to see what his library contained, for Beverley was one of the two strongest pre-Revolutionary writers that Virginia developed. The other was his brother-in-law, William Byrd.
Many of the comments here about Robert Beverley came from Louis B. Wright's " The First Gentlemen of Virginia ", which was published in 1940 by the Huntington Library.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.