THE FIRST AMERICAN THEATRE

This document was written by Arthur Hornblow and originally published in A History of the Theatre in America, Vol. 1. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1919. pp. 21-40.

The history of the theatre in America begins early in the Eighteenth Century, about the time the first rumblings were heard of the storm which was to break the ties still holding the Colonies to the mother country.

William Dunlap, the earliest historian of the American stage, tells us that the drama was first introduced in this country by the Hallams in the year 1752 when they brought over a company from London and presented The Merchant of Venice at Williamsburg, then the capital of Virginia, in a building arranged for that purpose. "This," says Dunlap, "was the first theatre opened in America by a company of regular comedians." This singularly misleading statement is perhaps the most conspicuous of a number of similar erroneous assertions which mar an otherwise valuable and interesting work. [1] Dunlap ignored or was uninformed of a number of well authenticated dramatic performances which had been given in different parts of the Colonies many years before the arrival of the Hallams. Apparently, he knew nothing of the theatre built in Williamsburg, VA., in 1716. He had no knowledge of the theatre opened in New York in 1732. He makes no mention of the opening of the Playhouse in Dock Street, Charleston, S.C., in 1736. [2] He had never heard of Thomas Kean who acted Richard III at the First Nassau Street Theatre, New York, March 5, 1750.

Even so careful an historian as Joseph N. Ireland falls into the error of taking it for granted that no earlier records existed because he had not happened to stumble upon them. In his Records of the New York Stage, [3] referring to an advertisement in Bradford's Gazette of October, 1733, which mentions George Talbot's store as being "next door to the Playhouse," he says, "No other reference has been found respecting it (the Playhouse) and any conjecture as to its proprietors, its performers, or the plays presented therein would be vain and fruitless."

How little "vain and fruitless" may be judged from that fact that today we not only know what play was performed in this New York theatre of 1732, but also who some of the players were.

Virginia has some claim to be considered the cradle of the native American theatre, but 1752 was not the date of the drama's birth in this country. There were theatrical performances in Williamsburg and acting in New York by professional players many years earlier than that. We know that a regular theatre was built in Williamsburg and performances given as early as 1716. We also know that Murray and Kean's troupe of professional players acted Richard III iin Williamsburg some time before the Hallams arrived and presented The Merchant of Venice. In fact, the Hallams used the same theatre that the Murray-Kean company had recently occupied.

In view of the more than scant information regarding plays and players in the pre-Revolutionary newspapers and chronicles of the time, it would be an impossible task to attempt to ascertain when or where the first theatrical performance took place on the North American continent. It is likely that there were scattered dramatic performances of a sort in all the Colonies many years before we have any records of them, particularly in the South where the prejudice against the stage was less violent than in the North, but singularly enough it is in the Puritanical New England provinces that we find the first actual records of public theatricals, and in Quaker Philadelphia that the drama first found a permanent home.

That so little should be known of the early beginnings of the acted drama in America is not surprising when one considers the intolerance of the age against the theatre and the player. In face of the almost general condemnation of the playhouse the journals of the day were not encouraged to give much, if any, space in their slender columns to the doings of player-folk. It was also the custom at that time for the actors themselves to distribute handbills at the houses of prospective theatre goers, and thus stir up interest in the coming performance, instead of depending solely on newspaper advertising as is the modern practice. These reasons, perhaps, sufficiently explain the almost total absence of theatrical news in the pre-Revolutionary newspapers, a fact which has rendered exceedingly difficult the researches of the historian.

In the South the Colonists had imported a taste for the drama together with their other English customs, but in the North the playhouse was still considered the highway to hell and was everywhere fiercely condemned if not actually forbidden under the severest penalties. In 1750 the General Court of Massachusetts passed an act prohibiting stage plays and theatrical entertainments of any kind. On May 31, 1759, the House of Representatives in the Colony of Pennsylvania passed a law forbidding the showing and acting of plays under a penalty of £500. In 1761 Rhode Island passen "an act to Prevent Stage Plays and other Theatrical Entertainments within this Colony," and the following year the New Hampshire House of Representatives refused a troupe of actors admission to Portsmouth on the ground that plays had a "peculiar influence on the minds of young people and greatly endanger their morals by giving them a taste for intriguing, amusement and pleasure." In 1824 President Dwight of Yale College in his "Essay on the Stage" declared that "to indulge a taste for playgoing means nothing more or less than the loss of that most valuable treasure the immortal soul." Even as late as 1856, when the city of Brooklyn could boast of only one theatre and the citizens were gravely contemplating the erection of another, there was considerable opposition to the word "theatre," a compromise being finally reached by calling it an Academy of Music. Judge Daly [4] tells an amusing anecdote connected with the preliminary planning of this new house. There was a warm argument among the building committee over the questions of stage and scenery, a determined stand being taken against a curtain. "A curtain," exclaimed one solemn-faced objector, "is intended to conceal something and concealment suggests impropriety." So little versed in the lore of the theatre was this worthy city father that it was necessary to explain to him that stage plays were usually divided into sections, commonly called "acts," and that the curtain was lowered simply to mark the intervals.

Yet in spite of this hostile and uncompromising attitude toward the theatre, stage performances were occasionally, if not frequently, given, usually by special permission of the local authorities. The probability is that the laws forbidding play-acting remained a dead letter in many of the large towns at least, the regulations governing the players being introduced more to placate public opinion at the moment than with any serious intention of suppressing the player altogether as a public nuisance. How else can we account for the theatrical performances in New York in 1702 and again in 1732 or for the performances given in 1714 in Boston and Philadelphia?

It must not be forgotten that while the great majority of the Northern Colonists were bitterly opposed to the playhouse on religious and moral grounds, there was a large and growing class in the important centres who were burdened with no such scruples--people of means and leisure who had only recently crossed the Atlantic and who, when seeking recreation, naturally turned to a form of amusement highly popular at home. It is not unreasonable, then, to presume that as the Colonies grew in importance, and communication between America and Europe became more frequent, the old spirit of irreconcilable intolerance which put a ban on all secular amusements, was considerably modified, especially in the important towns. The citizens of these communities, in their moments of leisure, no doubt often longed for the pleasures of the theatre, glowing accounts of which arrived from London by every ship.

The drama in England had gradually risen from the depths into which it had sunk after the Restoration. Under the leadership of Addison, Pope, Steele and Swift began the so-called "Augustan age" of English literature. Dryden, hailed as a new Shakespeare, had already given the stage the vigor and brilliancy of his genius, while Thomas Otway's tragedy Venus Preserved had earned for him the title of "Euripides of the English Stage." Addison, producing his Cato, the finest English example of classical tragedy, at a moment of great political excitement, met with extraordinary success, calling forth praise even from the cynical Voltaire. Wycherley had made all London laugh with his masterpieces The Country Wife and The Plain Dealer; Congreve, the greatest English master of pure comedy, had produced his crowning triumph Love for Love. Colley Cibber had written his best play, The Careless Husband, and adapted Shakespeare. George Farquhar, leader among the comic dramatists, amused thousands with his sprightly farces The Recruiting Sergeant and The Beaux Stratagem. Sir Richard Steele, catering to the new public taste for sentimental comedy, had won immediate success with The Conscious Lovers. The most famous men in England wrote plays and attended their performance. The pit of the theatre was the resort of wit and learning; while fashion, beauty, taste and refinement, the proud and exclusive aristocracy of the land, took their places in the boxes, surrounding the assemblage of poets and critics below.

The acting of the day was the finest. Thomas Betterton, the great Shakespearean actor, and all the famous players of the Restoration were long past their maturity, but a new generation--Wilks, Cibber, Mrs. Porter, Peg Woffington and others, equally as celebrated--was rising to take their places. Barton Booth, the tragedian of the day, was so popular that he had been admitted to the Patent, while Ann Oldfield, the barmaid who became the associate of duchesses, was the reigning attraction at Drury Lane. Macklin, departing from tradition, had thrilled London by playing Shylock for the first time as a tragic character. In the same year David Garrick, the foremost actor of his age, made his début in Goodman's Fields as Richard III.

While the American Colonies were growing in wealth and energy, the times were not without their anxieties. There was increasing unrest at the burdens and vexations put on the provinces by the English Parliament and threats of the Colonists to throw off the yoke of the mother country were heard on every hand. The encroachments of the French on the Ohio also created concern, and two years after the Hallams landed in America and made their first bow to Williamsburg audiences Governor Dinwiddie of Virginia dispatched a young officer to the nearest posts to find out what the French were doing. The name of the young officer was George Washington. The French proving obstinate in their claims, the squabble was followed by the Fourth Intercolonial war, which was ended by the taking of Quebec and the conquest of Canada by the British.

The population of the Colonies, at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, was about six-hundred and fifty thousand. Newport, the metropolis of Rhode Island, had a population of five thousand, including Indians and negroes. Virginia had a population of sixty thousand, of whom about one-half were slaves. Massachusetts mustered about seventy or eighty thousand.

Means of travel in those days were so few and difficult that the cities were practically isolated. Coaches were slow and uncertain. It took a day to go from Philadelphia to New York and three days to go from New York to Boston. The great West was still an unexplored wilderness inhabited by marauding savages. The most popular mode of travel was by water. Hallam and his players selected the ocean route when they went North from Virginia in 1753. As an instance of the difficulties of communication between American cities, even as late as the year 1823, manager W.B. Wood [5] relates how the celebrated star Thomas Abthorpe Cooper one wintry night was unable to fill an important theatre engagement in Philadelphia because he found it impossible to reach that city from New York owing to an ice jam in the Hudson!

New York in 1700 had thirty thousand inhabitants, including seven thousand slaves. By 1732 the population had more than doubled, and it was rapidly becoming a gay and cosmopolitan town. Although not so important as Philadelphia, it grew larger and more prosperous year by year. Commerce thrived, stately ships left its docks for all ports of the world, beautiful homes rose on each side of "Hudson's River." The people were industrious and sociable. There still remained among them some influence of the old Dutch burghers' manners and habits, but the predominating tastes were English and French. There were weekly evening clubs and in the winter balls and concerts under the patronage of the new governor. It is only reasonable to presume that among these diversions theatre-going formed a part. The governor, almost invariably a member of the English aristocracy, was usually a man of culture whose taste for literature and art would naturally incline him to encourage rather than frown upon any attempt made to present plays in his jurisdiction, no matter what the local ordinances said to the contrary.

Exactly when the first dramatic performance was given in America it is, of course, impossible to say. There are records in Virginia of a play being acted in that colony [6] and the players summoned to court in consequence as early as 1665, but this was evidently only an amateur effort and need not detain us here. In 1690 Harvard students gave a performance at Cambridge, Mass., of Benjamin Colman's tragedy Gustavus Vasa, the first play written by an American acted in America, of which we have any knowledge. We also know that there were dramatic performances by professional actors in New York at the opening of, if not before, the Eighteenth Century. Anthony Aston, a well-known English actor-adventurer, says he acted in New York about 1702, and there is no reason to doubt his word. What he acted or where we do not know. But the fact that he was able to follow his profession at all, would seem to indicate not only that theatrical performances at the time of his visit were not taboo, but that they were already a popular feature of New York life.

Anthony Aston, sometimes known as "Mat Medley," was born in England and educated as an attorney. He became an actor towards the end of the reign of William III, presenting a musical and dramatic entertainment written by himself entitled "The Medley." In this he toured the English provinces and in 1717 performed at the Globe and Marlborough taverns in Fleet Street, London. Chetwood in his history (1749) speaks of Aston as "travelling still and as well known as the post horse that carries the mail." He was the author of a Supplement to the "Apology" of Colley Cibber and of several plays including The Fool's Opera. This piece, printed in London about the year 1731, is prefaced by "a sketch of the author's life and a frontispiece giving a scene from the play." A bad wood-cut portrait of Aston himself is in the upper left-hand corner. The title page runs as follows:

The Fool's Opera, or the Taste of the Age. Written by Mat Medley and Performed by his Company at Oxford: to which is prefixed a Sketch of the Author's Life Written by Himself. London (Circa 1731).

In the quaintly worded preface Aston speaks of his voyage to America many years earlier (1701 is believed to be the exact date) and his acting in New York. He begins thus:

My merry hearts, you are to know me as a gentleman, lawyer, poet, actor, soldier, sailer, exciseman, publican, in England, Scotland, Ireland, New York, East and West Jersey, Maryland, Virginia (on both sides Cheesapeek), North and South Carolina, South Florida, Bahamas, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and often a coaster by all the same. . . . After many vicissitudes I arrived at Charles Towne (Charleston, S.C.) full of lice, shame, poverty, nakedness and hunger--turned player and poet and wrote one play on the subject of the country.

After leaving Charleston, Aston proceeded North by ship. When nearly at the mouth of New York harbor the ship was blown to the Virginia Capes. After some delay he arrived in New York by way of Elizabeth. He continues:

There I lighted on my old acquaintance, Jack Charlton, Fencing Master and Counsellor Reignieur, sometimes of Lincoln's Inn (who) supply'd me with business (work?) till I had the honour of being acquainted with that brave, honest, unfortunate gentleman, Capt. Henry Pullein, whose ship (The Fame) was burnt in the Bermudas; he (to the best of his ability) assisted me, so that after acting, writing, courting, fighting that winter (1702?) my kind Captain Davies, in his sloop built at Rhode, gave me free passage to Virginia.

There is nothing in this account to warrant Mr. Oscar Wegelin's [7] assumption that Aston was the first professional player to act in New York. The very fact that the English adventurer makes nothing of his appearance, but announces the fact in the most commonplace way, would seem to indicate that he found other actors here when he reached New York. Otherwise, if acting had been unknown here, he would surely have had something to say of the sensation which such a novelty must have been to New Yorkers, unaccustomed to anything of the sort. The chief interest in Aston's sketch is the positive statement that there was acting in New York at the time of his visit. This being the very earliest information we have regarding theatricals in New York, the account of his visit is of great historic interest and value.

It is to be surmised from Aston's own statement that wherever he acted or in whatever play he acted, the occasion did not bring him much remuneration, or he would not have had to apply to his friend, the captain, to assist him with a free passage. After leaving New York, he went to London where he married and we hear no more of him.

After Aston's departure there was no mention of theatricals in the Colonies for many years. The first American newspaper had not yet made its appearance (the earliest public journal, the Boston News Letter, was not published until 1704) nor did any of the correspondence of the time, until 1714, make the slightest reference to plays or players. In that year, however, Justice Samuel Sewall, [8] of Massachusetts, wrote a letter in which he protests against the acting of a play in the Council Chamber of Boston, affirming that even the Romans, fond as they were of plays, were not "so far set upon them as to turn their Senate House into a Playhouse." "Let not Christian Boston," he continues, "goe beyond Heathen Rome in the practice of Shamefull vanities."

There is no further trace of the proposed performance. Owing to the judge's protest, it probably was not given in the Council Chamber. Possibly the promoters found some other quarters more suitable, for it will be noted that Judge Sewall merely protests. He does not invoke the law to prohibit the performance altogether.

A couple of decades later--1750 to be exact--a performance of Thomas Otway's tragedy The Orphan [9] was given in a coffee house in State Street, Boston, by local amateurs, assisted by two professional players recently arrived from England. The affair was such a novelty and the curiosity of the Boston public to see the play so keen, that the doors of the coffee house were besieged and an incipient riot took place. This disturbance caused such a scandal that the authorities were compelled to take notice, and the General Court at once enacted a law not only forbidding acting within the Commonwealth, but even rendering the spectators liable to a fine.

Yet Boston, early in the Eighteenth Century, was not quite such a place of gloom and solemn visages as New England tradition would lead us to think. This one can readily believe after reading a description, recorded by Spencer, of one of the principal residences of that town:

There was a great hall ornamented with pictures and a great lantern and a velvet cushion in the window-seat that looked into the garden. In the hall was placed a large bowl of punch from which visitors might help themselves as they entered. On either side was a large parlor, a little parlor or a study. These were furnished with mirrors, oriental rugs, window curtains and valance, pictures, a brass clock, red leather back chair, and a pair of huge brass andirons. The bedrooms were well supplied with feather beds, warming pans, and every other article that would now be thought necessary for comfort or display. The pantry was well filled with substantial fare and delicacies. Silver tankards, wine cups and other articles were not uncommon. Very many families employed servants, and in one we see a Scotch boy valued among the property and invoiced at £14. [10]

Even before this period in the matter of dress certain of the ladies were eager to copy the London and Paris fashions, so much so that a writer of the time complained, "Methinks it should break the heart of Englishmen to see so many goodly English women imprisoned in French cages peering out of their hood holes for some men of mercy to help them with a little wit."

The distinction of having erected what is believed to be the first theatre in America belongs to Williamsburg, Va. Research has not brought to light any playhouse in the Colonies of earlier origin than the one built in the then capital of Virginia in 1716, the year that Governor Spotswood crossed the Blue Ridge, the first white man, as far as known, to enter the Great Valley.

The theatre was erected by one William Levingston, who "for some time previous," says Dr. Tyler in his interesting book on Williamsburg, [11] "had been managing in New Kent County a peripatetic dancing school, in which the star dancers were Charles Stagg and his wife Mary. There is a contract recorded at Yorktown dated July 11, 1716, by which William Levingston, merchant, agrees with Charles and Mary Stagg, his wife, actors, to build a theatre in Williamsburg and to provide actors, scenery and music out of England for the enacting of comedies and tragedies in the said city. On November 21, 1716, Mr. Levingston purchased three and one-half acre lots and erected thereon a dwelling house, kitchen and stable. He laid out also a bowling alley and built a theatre."

That this is the same "Playhouse" mentioned by Hugh Jones in his now very scarce work The Present State of Virginia, [12] published in London in 1724, there can be little doubt. It is also probable that on the stage of this theatre was acted the play mentioned by Governor Spotswood in a letter written June 24, 1718. In this letter the governor refers to eight members of the House of Assembly who slighted an invitation to his house to witness a play. He writes:

In order to the solemnizing His Majesty's birthday, I gave a public entertainment at my home and all gentlemen that would come were admitted. These eight gentlemen would neither come to my house nor go to the play which was acted on the occasion, but, on the contrary, these eight committeemen got together all the turbulent and disappointed burghers to an entertainment of their own in the House of Burgesses and invited the mob and plentifully supplied it with liquor to drink the same health as was drunk in the governor's house, taking no more notice of the government than if there had been none in the place. [13]

No records exist as to what plays were presented at this theatre built by William Levingston in 1716. There was no newspaper in Virginia until 1732 when the Virginia Gazette first made its appearance. The house does not appear to have prospered, for in 1723 its mortgage was foreclosed and Dr. Archibald Blair, the mortgagee, took possession of the property. Charles Stagg died in Williamsburg in 1735, and after his death Mary Stagg earned a living holding "dancing assemblies."

In 1735 and 1736 the theatre was utilized for amateur productions, the students of William and Mary College giving performances. It is also believed that a company of professional players acted regularly there. The Virginia Gazette for September 10, 1736, contained this advertisement:

This evening will be performed at the Theatre by the young gentlemen of the College the Tragedy of Cato, and on Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be acted the following comedies by the young Gentlemen and Ladies of the country--The Busybody, [14] and The Recruiting Officer and The Beaux Stratagem. [15]

There is some doubt as to the exact meaning of this announcement. Some writers believe that it refers only to amateur performances. It is quite plain that it was the students who were to present Cato, but it is not equally certain that amateurs were to appear in the comedies mentioned. The expression "young Gentlemen and Ladies of the country" might well mean persons of both sexes belonging to the Colony who had organized themselves into a company of professional players. Some authorities give it this interpretation. The students were to perform Cato on that particular night, and on other nights the comedies would be presented by the organized theatrical company then performing regularly in the theatre.

A contemporary letter written September 17, 1736, only a week after the above advertisement appeared in the Virginia Gazette seems to point conclusively to this being the case. One Colonel Thomas Jones [16] writes to his wife in the country:

You may tell Betty Pratt there has been but two plays acted since she went, which is Cato, by the Young Gentlemen of the College, as they call themselves, and The Busybody by the Company on Wednesday night last, and I believe there will be another to Night ...

Additional color to the belief that competent players were acting in Williamsburg at that time, is given by a letter written by Colonol William Byrd of "Westover" to his good friend Sir John Randolph of Williamsburg. The colonel, evidently familiar with The Busybody (presented for the first time in London in 1709 with Ann Oldfield as Isabinda), is interested to learn how the play was received in Williamsburg. He writes:

Which of your actors shone most in the play, next to Isabinda who, I take it for granted, is the Oldfield of the theatre? How came Squire Marplot off? With many a clap, I suppose, though I fancy he would have acted more to the life in the comedy called The Sham Doctor. But not a word of this for fear in case of sickness he might poison you. [17]

This last bit of facetiousness evidently points to the rôle of Marplot being played by the Colonel's physician, which again would give support to the amateur theory.

That the drama should have taken root in Virginia earlier than anywhere else in America is not surprising. The Virginians, a gay, pleasure-loving people, had nothing in common with the more sober Puritans of New England. "They were," says Bancroft, "a continuation of English society, who were attached to the monarchy, with a deep reverence for the English church, and a love for England and English institutions." Descendants of the old cavaliers, their philosophy was to enjoy life while they could, rather than spend their days making gloomy preparations for death. Far from having prejudices against play-acting, they welcomed the thespian with open arms. Virginia and Maryland are, in fact, the only American colonies which never had laws prohibiting play-acting.

Williamsburg about that period was the most aristocratic and prosperous town on the continent. It was the seat of the Upper House and the House of Burgesses and the governor's official residence. The Law Courts were there; and the public buildings, chief of which was the College, were as fine as any in England. The women dressed fashionably and most of the leading families kept their coach. The shops were stocked with rich merchandise and it was the custom of the wealthy plantation owners and country gentry to run into the town for their shopping and amusements. Cooke, in his History of the People of Virginia, gives an interesting description of Williamsburg in those early days:

It was the habit of the planters to go there with their families at this season to enjoy the pleasures of the capital and one of the highways, Gloucester, was an animated spectacle of coaches and four containing the nabobs and their dames, Maidens in silk and lace, with high-heeled shoes and clocked stockings. All these people were engaged in attending the assemblies at the Palace, in dancing at the Apollo, in snatching the pleasures of the moment and enjoying life under a regime that seemed mad for enjoyment. The violins seemed to be ever playing for the diversion of the youths and maidens; cocks were fighting, horsemen riding, students mingled in the throng in their academic dress, and his Serene Excellency went to open the House of Burgesses in his coach drawn by six milk-white horses. It was a scene full of gaiety and abandon.

Just the place, it might seem, to support a theatre, yet in Williamsburg, as elsewhere, it was not the wealthy who were the best patrons of the drama. "The Virginia planter," Seilhamer reminds us, "was a fox hunting squire with the airs of an English duke. In the cities the first families were scarcely less haughty than the royalty itself. The rich were too mighty to patronize the theatre at home." Support of the playhouse came not from the class which could best afford the luxury, but from that large and ever-growing intelligent middle class which was quick to demand all the intellectual pleasures the Old World was enjoying--the same citizens to whose devotion and patriotism was due a little later the establishment of the Republic and who still to-day remain the principal factors in the development of our national drama.

After 1736 the theatre in Williamsburg seems to have languished, for we do not hear of any more performances. In 1745 the playhouse, which had not been put to any use for several years, was bought by a number of prominent men of the Colony and presented to Williamsburg as a town hall.

This ended the career, and is all we know, of the first theatre in America.

Purchase Books about American Theatre

FURTHER STUDIES:


1 A History of the American Theatre. By William Dunlap, New York, 1832.
2 George O. Seilhamer, another historian of the American Theatre, also appears to have been unaware of the existence of Charleston's earliest playhouse.
3 Records Of The New York Stage. By Joseph N. Ireland, vol. 1, page 2.
4 Life of Augustin Daly. By Joseph Francis Daly. Macmillan.
5 Personal Recollections of the Stage. By William B. Wood.
6 Early History of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. By J.C. Wise.
7 The Beginning of the Drama in America. By Oscar L. Wegelin.
8 "This early opponent of the American drama," says Judge Charles P. Daly in his First Theatre in America, "was an interesting character. As a judge he took part in the Salem Witchcraft Trials and is said to have been the only one of the judges who publicly confessed his error. In 1697, five years after these trials, he prepared a written confession which was read to the congregation of the old South Church in Boston by the minister, the judge, during the reading, standing up in his place."
9 This piece, which later became immensely popular with early American theatregoers, was founded on a novel called English Adventures. It was one of the two plays (the other being Venice Preserved) which gained for Thomas Otway the high rank he holds among the tragic poets of the Restoration. Notwithstanding his success, the author ended his days in the most abject poverty. The story goes that he almost choked to death while ravenously swallowing a crust of bread thrown to him by a passing stranger.
10 History of the United States. By J.A. Spencer.
11 Williamsburg, the old Virginia Capital. By Lyon G. Tyler.
12 One of the rarest books relating to Virginia published in the eighteenth century. The author was a Professor at William and Mary College, Williamsburg. After describing the situation and plan of Williamsburg College, the State house, the church, he continues: "Next there is a large octagon Tower which is the Magazine or Repositary of Arms and Ammunition, standing far from any house except Jamestown Court House, for the town is half in Jamestown County and half in York County. Not far from hence is a large area for a Market Place, near which is a Play House, and good Bowling Green."
13 Spotswoods Letters. Collections of the Virginia Historical Society, vol. ii, p. 284.
14 Comedy by Susanna Centlivre (1667-1723), an English writer who married Queen Anne's cook. She was the author of many popular pieces, each noted for its liveliness. Other plays by this dramatist, seen on the American stage, are The Wonder and A Bold Stroke for a Wife.
15 Farce by Farquhar, author of The Recruiting Officer. This piece, which long held its place on our boards, is said to have been written in six weeks while the author lay on his death bed.
16 Colonial Virginia: It's People and Customs. By Mary Newton Standard.
17 Va. Mag. Hist. Biog., 240, 241.

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