but these stones are the corner-stones of the foundation upon which rests the government of the Federal Republic, while the monument which rises from the battlefield at Yorktown marks the place where the old order gave place to the new, and reminds us of the price of liberty.
Here the value of our free institutions may be measured by recalling what their creation cost, for on this soil are the tokens which recall the toil, the tears, the blood, and the birth-*pangs of our civilization and our liberty.
Williamsburg
Because here the "air was pure and serene" and because "clear and crystal springs burst from champaign soils," settlers came in 1632 and "laid off and paled in" Middle Plantation, and named it thus because it lay midway between the James and the York. To both of these rivers it had access by navigable creeks, which run up to the outskirts of the town.
Of these early days little is known. The pioneers battled with the wilderness, with no dream of the glory which the future would throw like a halo over the soil reclaimed from the primeval forests. Their dreams were of Indians lurking without the palisades and hiding in the outskirts of the wood-*land.
The Church
These forefathers of the hamlet[1] built for themselves a church here at Middle Plantation, and sleep in unknown graves in its unknown churchyard. The written records of the Parish do not begin until 1674.
The College
The College of William and Mary was largely the gift of
- ↑ The use in this connection of the familiar quotation from the Elegy in the Country Churchyard in a previous History of Bruton Parish has lead the sexton to tell visitors that "the father of Hamlet dat Mr. Shakespeare wrote about is buried somewhar in dis here churchyard." As the Rector is quoted as authority for this statement, this explanatory note is inserted to safeguard the truth of history.
