Craig Kilby has sent more information about voting in Virginia in the eighteenth century. The ultimate source for this seems to be Morton's " Colonial Virginia " (II, 504).
The practice whereby candidates for election won the voters' attention was called "treating". Probably most of the treating was done on election day, else the voter might forget who had treated him. The candidate might have large bowls of punch and other intoxicating refreshments to show that his heart was in the right place. Sometimes the crowd became so unruly that it might better be called rioting.
On one occasion Beverley Whiting of Gloucester County ran (and was elected) and was supported by a friendly Captain of the Militia who held a muster for his men on election day. He (the Captain) brought forty gallons of cider and twenty gallons of punch for his men. He asked in return that the men vote for Whiting. Whiting, at the same time, was using liquor to secure votes. A protest was filed with the election committee at the House of Burgesses, and they rejected the election of Whiting. It was considered that this was going too far, especially putting pressure on the Militia.
In another election, Landon Carter complained that William Fauntleroy had won an election from him by the excessive treating, in which "several in the company were merry with liquor." But the house took note that Fauntleroy himself had not treated the voters, nor had he encouraged his friends to do so. So the election stood.
New subject . Craig has also given us several deeds showing the physical relationships among several people. He mentioned the names, Amberger, Bloodworth, Ballinger, and Zimmerman. All of these people had their first patents in the Mt. Pony area, as did some other Germanna people. Zimmerman continued to live in the area, but Amberger, Bloodworth, and perhaps Ballinger, moved west several miles.
Because the Germanna Foundation never has recognized the Mt. Pony area as the home of several Germanna families, many students of Germanna history have been confused. They have assumed that all of the Second Colony people (or other early related people) moved to the Robinson River Valley, a distance of more than twenty miles from their first homes, which were just to the west of Germanna. But in fact, several families moved only a few miles west to land south of present day Stevensburg and southeast of Mt. Pony. Two of the people, Zimmerman and Kabler, in the Mt. Pony area are known to be coopers. Their choice of this region might have been dictated by a desire to be closer to the market for (tobacco) casks. Both of these families remained in this area. (Virginia was shipping about 30,000 casks of tobacco per year to England.)
(18 Dec 00)
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