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Virginia's
Oldest Institutions:
From
Shirley Plantation to Burke & Herbert Bank
As
the Old Dominion prepares to celebrate the 400th
anniversary of the settling of Jamestown
next year, it seems appropriate to consider the
institutions and businesses that have survived
through the ages.
The
Jamestown settlers created few long-lasting
institutions, but there is one that still exists
today. In 1619, the first
representative assembly in the New World met in
Jamestown in response to orders from the Virginia
Company "to establish one equal and uniform
government over all Virginia." It eventually
moved to Williamsburg and then finally to Richmond,
where it still meets today. In the 17th and early
18th centuries, such an assembly was only one of
several institutions that attempted to regulate
society. Town meetings, county courts, churches and,
in England, the Privy Council all could deal with
issues such as regulating taverns, taking care of
fire hazards, fixing roads and bridges, keeping
order and even raising money by lottery.
(“Eighteenth-Century Colonial Legislatures and
Their Constituents,” Journal of American
History, September 1992).
But
as the Virginia colony grew, issues such as defense,
paper money and transportation became too complex
for local entities. The general assembly – then
known as the House of Burgesses – gained more
power and influence. Today, the Virginia General
Assembly consists of 100 representatives elected to
the House of Delegates and 40 to the Senate. Each
delegate represents about 71,000 people and each
senator, about 176,000. Laws do not result from a
citizen’s simple petition to his representative as
they did four centuries ago, but go through a
complex process that includes first, second and
third readings, consideration by committees and
finally approval by the governor.
The
state’s – and the nation’s – oldest family
business also dates from the Jamestown era. The Shirley
Plantation in Charles City is Virginia’s first
plantation, established in 1613. At the time,
tobacco plantation were the economic engines of the
commonwealth. Shirley is still privately owned and
operated by descendants of Edward Hill, whose family
has worked the plantation for 11 generations. The
plantation has survived Indian uprisings, Bacon’s
Rebellion (this e-journal’s namesake), the
Revolutionary War, the Civil War and the Great
Depression.
Charles
Carter, who ran the plantation before the
Revolutionary War, gave up tobacco to grow wheat and
other cash crops. Tobacco required more slaves and
had to be sold through British merchants. Wheat and
the other crops could be sold directly to the
colonists. The next owner, Robert Carter, gave up
farming because of his dislike of slavery and became
a doctor. Robert E. Lee’s mother, Anne Lee Carter,
was born at the Shirley Plantation in 1793 and
married Light Horse Harry Lee in the mansion’s
parlor.
By
the 1970s, the plantation’s agricultural business
was no longer viable. Owner Charles Hill Carter II,
started a sand and gravel mine behind the mansion.
By 2001, Charles Hill Carter III was working with
scientists from Virginia Tech to fill the mine with
mud dredged from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project
to restore fertile farm land. In addition to revenue
from farming and other businesses, the family has
opened the plantation to tourists since the 1950s.
(“Save Shirley Plantation,” Human Events,
January 2001).
Founded
much later than either the General Assembly or
Shirley Plantation is the Abingdon
Virginian.
Established
in 1841, the journal boasts that it is one of the
last private, family-owned small newspapers in
Virginia. “The Abingdon Virginian is the quirky
home of the small man’s feelings in a world grown
largely by greed,” writes editor Robert Weisfeld
on the paper’s website. A weekly, the
idiosyncratic paper features such sections as
“Read My Mind,” “Where It’s At,” “Birdland,”
“Among My Souvenirs” and of course “Letters to
the Editor.”
Even
though law is among the world’s oldest
professions, it is unlikely that there were early
practitioners at Jamestown. After all,
Shakespeare’s famous line, “the first thing we
do, let’s kill all the lawyers,” was uttered in
his play, “Henry VI” (Part II), in 1592.
That’s only 15 years before the first Jamestown
settlers arrived on our shores. Lawyers tended to
come from the upper classes and colonists tended to
be uneducated, unemployed males who distrusted the
elite classes. In 1645, Virginia even passed a law
prohibiting lawyers from courts.
One
hundred years later, as the population grew through
immigration, things changed and lawyers’
reputations improved. It was those trained in law,
such as Thomas Jefferson, who were leaders in the
American Revolution and signers of the Declaration
of Independence. Jefferson even founded the
commonwealth’s first law school at the University
of Virginia in 1819. One of the commonwealth’s
oldest law firms, McGuireWoods,
LLP, traces its origins to 1834 when an attorney
named Egbert R. Watson hung out his shingle in
Charlottesville. Through a series of mergers, the
names McGuire, Woods, and others were added to the
mix. Now headquartered in Richmond, the firm has 750
lawyers in 15 offices across the globe.
Banks
date from colonial times in Virginia as well. In the
early years of the nation, those who established
banks often needed permission from state governments
to operate. Bankers typically made only short-term
loans – 60 to 90 days – to make sure they had
funds when depositors demanded them. In rural areas,
though, farmers could sometimes get longer loans to
buy land, equipment and finance the shipment of
crops. In the early days of the country, each bank
issued its own distinctive currency.
By
1860, there were 10,000 different types of bank
notes circulating. Counterfeiting was rampant and
many banks failed. In 1863, the U.S. Congress passed
the National Currency Act to bring some order to the
situation. That Act and a revised National Bank Law
in 1864 created a system of national banks and an
agency to oversee them (A
Brief History of U.S. Banking).
Today,
the Burke
& Herbert Bank & Trust Company,
headquartered in Alexandria, may be Virginia’s
oldest bank still in operation. It was founded in
1852 by John Woolfolk Burke and Arthur Herbert. At
the time Alexandria was prospering; three other
banks already existed in the city. In its early
years, the bank’s services ranged from the sale of
stocks and real estate to the purchase of land
warrants for tracts to the west. Personal accounts
and online banking would come much later. The bank
now has 16 offices in northern Virginia and assets
totaling about one billion dollars. It’s a
Virginia institution with a long pedigree.
Whether
they can trace their origins to Jamestown or a more
modest 19th–century beginning, some institutions
have deep roots in the history of the Old Dominion.
Four hundred years may not be such a long time,
after all!
NEXT:
A Heartbeat Away: Vice Presidents From Virginia.
--
September 11, 2006
(Got
a question? Check out Ask
a Librarian Live.)
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