The Douglas independent. [volume] (Roseburg, Or.) 187?-1885, 1883-08-11

ard, of Newport, Rhode Island, told me
that his great-grandfather, Robert Haz-
ard, of Narragansett, used in later life,
when he had given away many OF his
farms to his children, to congratulate
himself on the small limits to which he
had reduced his household, having only
seventy in parlor and kitchen. He occu-
pied at one time nearly twelve thousand
| acres of land, and kept some four thous-
and sheep, from whose fleece his large
household was almost wholly clothed.
He had in his dairy twelve negro women,
all slaves, and each having young girl
to assist her; each dairy maid had the
| care of twelve COWS, and they were ex-
pected to make from one to two dozen
| cheeses every day. This was the
| agricultural and domestic side; the social
| life consisted of one long series of gay
| entertainments, visiting from house to
house, fox-hunting and horse-racing
with the then famous breed OF
Narragansett PAGERS. Mr.. Isaac Hazard
had known old men who in their youth
had gone to Virginia to ride their own
horses at races, end kept open house for
the Virginia riders in return. To
| illustrate how thoroughly the habits of
slavery were infused into the daily life,
he told me that another of these
Narragansett magnates, his great-uncle.
Rowland Robinson, said, impulsively,
one day, ST have not servants enough; !;
go fetch me some from Guinea" Upon
this the master of q small packet of
twenty tons, belonging to Mr.. Robinson,
fitted her out at once, set sail for
Guinea, and brought home eighteen
slaves, one of whom was q kings son.
His employer burst into tears on their
arrival, his order not having been seri-
ously given. But all this was not in
Maryland or Virginia; it was in Rhode
Island, and on part of Rhode Island so
much place of resort for the leading
Boston families that a portion of it is
called Boston Neck to this day.
/ These descriptions could the paral-
leled, though not quite fully, in all the
northern colonies. The description of
the Schuyler family and of their way of
living at Albany, as given by Mrs.
Grant, of Laggan, about 1750, lis quite on
par with these early scenes at Nara
gansett. In Connecticut it is recorded
of John Peters, father of the early and
malicious historian of that name, that he
saped the style of British nobleman,
built his house III forest, kept his
coach, and looked with some degree of
scorn upon republicans" The stone
house of the Lee family at Marblehead
cost G10 900; the house of Godfrey NAL
bone at Newport cost EGO 900; the Went
| worth house at Portsmouth had fifty two
rooms. Through all the colonies these
evidences of a stately way of living were
to be found.
These facts are unquestionable, and
would not so fully have passed out of
sight but for another fact never yet fully
explained. When the war of Indepen-
dence cane it made no social change in
the Southern provinces, but it made
| social revolution in the Northern prov
inces. For some reason, perhaps only
| for the greater nearness to Nova Scotia,
| the gentry of the New England prov
inces took the loyal side, and fed, while
the gentry of Virginia fell in with the new
movement, becoming its leaders. From
my window, as write, I have gil "pses
of some of the large houses of ''Tory
Row." in Cambridge. Massachusetts.
where, according to the contemporary
description of the Baroness Riedesol,
seven kindred families lived in the
greatest luxury until the Revolution, all
probably Shareholders, like the Vassells,
and some of them owning plantations in
Jamaica. All fed, most of their estates
were confscated, and the war trans
ferred the leadership of the New Eng
land colonies, as Professor Sumner has
lately well shown in his Life of Jackson,
to a new race of young lawyers. Hence
all the ante Revolutionary life disap-
peared, and was soon forgotten; slavery
disappeared also, while the self-same
social order still subsisted in Virginia,
though constantly decaying, until a more
recent war brought that also to an end.
Mr.. Lodge has best summed it up: 'The
aristocracy of New England did not have
at the bottom any of the great strength
of that in Virginia; but its existence was
unquestioned. IT. W. Higginson, in
Harper's Magazine for August.