[With William Byrd at Mr. Chiswell’s on September 24 & 25, 1732.]
"We had a haunch of venison for dinner, as fat and well-tasted as if it had come out of Richmond Park. In these upper parts of the country the deer are in better case than below, though I believe the buck which gave us so good a dinner had eat out his value in peas, which will make deer exceedingly fat.
"In the afternoon I walked with my friend to his mill, which is half a mile from his house. It is built upon a rock very firmly, so that 'tis more apt to suffer by too little water (the run not being over plentiful) than too much. On the other side of this stream lie several of Colonel Jones's plantations. The poor Negroes upon them are a kind of Adamites, very scantily supplied with clothes and other necessaries; nevertheless (which is a little incomprehensible), they continue in perfect health and none of them die except it be of age. However, they are even with their master and make him but indifferent crops, so that he gets nothing by his injustice but the scandal of it.
"And here I must make one remark, which I am a little unwilling to do for fear of encouraging of cruelty, that those Negroes which kept in the barest of clothes and bedding are commonly the freest from sickness. And this happens, I suppose, by their being all face and therefore better proof against the sudden changes of weather to which this climate is unhappily subject.
"25 [of September 1732]. After saying some very civil things to Mrs. Chiswell for my handsome entertainment, I mounted my horse and Mr. Chiswell his phaeton, in order to go to the mines at Fredericksville. We could converse very little by the way, by reason of our different [modes of travel]. The road was very straight and level the whole journey, which was twenty-five miles, the last ten whereof I rode in the chair and my friend on my horse, to ease ourselves by that variety of motion.
"About a mile before we got to Fredericksville we forded over the north branch of Pamunkey, about sixty yards over. Neither this nor the south branch run up near so high as the mountains but many miles below the spread out into a kind of morass, like Chickahominy. When we approached the mines there opened to our view a large space of cleared ground, whose wood had been cut down for coaling [charcoal making].
"We arrived here about two o’clock, and Mr. Chiswell had been so provident as to bring a cold venison pasty with which we appeased our appetites without the impatience of waiting. When our tongues were at leisure for discourse, my friend told me there was one Mr. Harrison in England who is so universal a dealer in all sorts of iron that he could govern the market just as he pleased." [This paragraph to be continued.]
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