the distinguished men and women who first saw the light of day within its confines. It will be excellent parallel reading to be engaged in by every student of history in the high schools of the State. It is also interesting in that it discusses and makes a record of many traditions and customs peculiar to the region. It will be both interesting and valuable as a reference book for future historians of Virginia and will afford great pleasure to all of us who love to read about the history of our State.

Prior to the coming of good roads to Virginia and the building of the bridges across the Rappahannock and Potomac Rivers what is known as the Northern Neck, although actually a peninsula, was to those living in the eastern portion almost an island and it was but natural that marked peculiarities of the people of this section distinguished them not only from those who lived in other sections of the country but to a less extent from those living in other parts of Virginia. These distinct peculiarities appeared in pronunciation, in folk-lore and traditions. With the exception of the colored people at least ninety-five per cent of the ancestors of the present population of this section came from Great Britain and preserved with little change the speech, the culture and the habits of the British people and it is these things that distinguished them to some extent from people living in other parts of the country. In Colonial days a very high state of culture was in existence among the great plantations of the Northern Neck and their contributions to the development of this country have included several of the great heroes of the nation. To a considerable extent all these attributes have been handed down from generation to generation and every one in the Northern Neck well knows and is proud of the fact that George Washington and Robert E. Lee were natives of the section.

All these things are emphasized by Miriam Haynie in her most excellent and readable book, which will be a real contribution to the history of Virginia.

PART I

Seventeenth Century

TIDEWATER

The country surrounding the Chesapeake Bay, which is known as the Tidewater, has been compared to the Bible Lands, the Netherlands and Venice.

Captain John Smith, military leader of the expedition to Virginia in 1607, who explored and mapped the Chesapeake Bay and the Bay Country, described it thus:

"There is but one entrance by sea into this country, and that is at the mouth of a very goodly Bay, the widenesse whereof is 18 or 20 miles.

"Within is a country ... heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's habitation.... Here are ... hils, plaines, valleys, rivers and brookes all running most pleasantly into a faire Bay compassed but for the mouth with fruitfull and delightsome land...."

"YE NORTHERNE NECK"

On the western shore of the Bay there are three peninsulas, or necks, carved out of Virginia's shoreline by the tidal rivers.

The third, and northernmost, of these peninsulas lies between the Rappahannock and the Potomac Rivers. It was probably referred to orally by the first white men who settled at Jamestown as "the northern neck." The name appeared in print certainly as early as 1677, when in an official document it was mentioned as "ye Northerne Neck."

This third peninsula north lies aloof, and long, between its broad rivers, as they flow into the Chesapeake Bay on the east.

From the Bay the narrow strip of land, only fifteen or twenty miles wide, runs inland between the rivers for almost a hundred miles, until it narrows near Fredericksburg so that the rivers almost join—not quite an island but more cut-off than the usual peninsula. In the old days when there were almost no roads, and no bridges, the Neck was to those living in the eastern portion more like an island than a peninsula. Only from the west could one travel in or out by land and that exit was rarely used.

Its geographical position made the Northern Neck for many years almost as inaccessible as an ancient stronghold surrounded by a moat.

THE PEOPLE

The Northern Neck could be compared with ancient Mesopotamia—a land between two rivers where a new civilization started.

The early settlers came to the wilderness in satins and velvets, they surrounded themselves with the niceties of living, as near like those they had left in England as was possible. They shopped in London as they had before and traded with the world directly from their own habitations.

But the conditions of their new wilderness home changed and moulded them and made them into something different—a new breed of men.

By the time unusual men were needed to shape an unusual type of government, descendants from this stock were ready for the undertaking.

In the Northern Neck there are still so many reminders of these remarkable people that it is not hard to imagine them as they might have been in their habitat several centuries ago—John Mottrom sailing into the Coan in his brightly-colored shallop; the Mottrom children playing their medieval games in the shadow of the primeval woods; Ursula twirling the venison roast on its hempen string before the fire; Hanna Neale passing the witchcraft test; young Jack Lee dashing down the forest aisles on his spirited mount; George Mason pulling the arrows from the "poor people"; Moore Fauntleroy measuring off his thirty arm's lengths of rhoanoke for the waiting Accopatough; King Carter rumbling down his avenue in his coach and six; Mary Ball on her dapple gray; James Monroe and John Marshall walking down the Parson's Lane with school books and muskets; Nelly Madison singing to her new baby; young George Washington riding down to see "Miss Betsy" on a fruitless mission, and little Robert E. Lee saying good-bye to the cherubs in the nursery fireplace....

INDIANS AND EARLY EXPLORERS

What men first knew this land between the Rappahannock and the Potomac Rivers?

It is believed that Indians lived along the shores of the Chesapeake Bay's tributaries three thousand years ago.

The Vikings may have entered the Bay and explored the nearby streams and lands in the eleventh century.

Cabot, an Italian seaman under commission from King Henry VII of England, may have entered the Chesapeake at the end of the fifteenth century.

Spaniards sailed into the Bay and explored some of the region in the sixteenth century.

European traditions tell of adventurers of other nations who may have visited this region.

Late in the year 1607, Captain John Smith traveled from Jamestown as far north as the Potomac when, as a captive of Opechancanough, he was paraded before the Indian tribes of the Tidewater region. He may have been the first white man to make a comprehensive tour of the Northern Neck of Virginia.

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH

When John Smith heard about the New World across the seas it sounded good to him—it was the sort of adventure that he had been waiting for all of his life.

He had been born in Lincolnshire, England, in 1579. Even as a small lad John Smith had been "set upon brave adventures." Tradition says that he sold his books and satchel and was preparing to run away to sea when