candlestick was a srudgiiig concession to the need lor 

 artificial light. The only books were two Bibles; 

 the list mentions a single indentured seixant. 



THE GREGG SURVEY 



lii 1707, after the rexival of the I'oil Act, the new 

 county surveyor, Thomas Gregg, made another s\irvey 

 of the town. This was done apparently without regard 

 to Buckner's original sur\ey. Since Gregg adopted 

 an entirely new system of nuinbeiing, and since his 

 sur\ey was lost at an early date, it is impcssible to 

 locate by their description the sites of the lots granted 

 in 1708 and after. 



Forty years later John Mercer wrote : 



It is certain that 'I'homas (Jregg (being the .Surveyor 

 of Stafford County) did Sep 2'' 1707 make a new Survey 

 of the Town. ... it is as certain that (iregg had no 

 regard either to the l)ouncls or numbers of the former 

 Survey since he begins his Numbers the reverse way 

 making his number 1 in the corner at Buckner's 19 & 

 as his Survey is not to be found its impossible to tell 

 how he continued his Numbeis. No scheme I ha\c 

 tried will answer, & the Records differ as much, the 

 streets according t(j Buckner's Siuvcy running thro the 

 House I lived in built by Ballard tho his whole lot was 

 ditched in according to the Boiuids made by Gregg.*" 



Whatever the intent may have been in laying out 

 formal street and lot plans, Marlborough was essen- 

 tially a rustic village. If Gregg's plat ran streets 

 through the positions of houses on the Buckncr 

 sur\cy, and \'icc versa, it is clear that not nnuh 

 attention was paid to theoretical property lines oi 

 streets. Ballard apparently dug a boundary ditcli 

 around his lot, according to Virginia practice in the 

 17ih century, but the fact that this nmst have en- 

 croached on property assigned to somebody else on 



the basis ol the Bucknei- sui\ey seems not to have 

 been noted at the time. Rude houses placed in- 

 formally and connected by lanes and footpaths, the 

 courthouse attempting to dominate them like a 

 village schoolmaster in a class of country bumpkins, 

 a few outbuildings, a boat landing or two, some 

 culti\'ated land, and a road leading away horn the 

 courthouse to the north with another running in the 

 opposite direction to the creek — this is the way 

 Marlborough nuist ha\-e looked even in its best days 

 in 1708. 



THE DEATH OF MARLBOROUGH AS A TOWN 



Could this poor \ illage ha\e survived had the 

 courthouse not learned? It was an imhapp)- contrast 

 to the vision of a town governed by "benchers of the 

 guild hall," bustling with mercantile activity, swarm- 

 ing on busy market days with ordinaries filled with 

 people. This fantasy may have pulsated briefly 

 through the minds of a few. But, after the abrogation 

 of the Port Act in 171U, there was little left to justify 

 the town's existence other than the courthouse. So 

 long as court kept, there was need for ordinaries and 

 ferries and for independent jacks-of-all-trades like 

 Andrews. But with neither courthouse nor port 

 activity nor manufacture, the town became a paradox 

 in an economy and society of planters. 



Remote and inaccessible, uninhabited by individuals 

 whose skills could have given it N'igor, Marlborough 

 no longer had any reason for being. It lingered on 

 for a short time, but when John Mercer came to 

 transform the abandoned \illage into a flourishing 

 plantation, ''Most of the other Buildings were suffered 

 to go to Ruin, so that in the year 1726, when your 

 Petitioner [i.e., Mercer] went to live there, but one 

 House twenty-feet square was standing." ■" 



"John Mcr<xr'.s Land Hook, loc. cit. (footnote 12). 



Petition of John Mercer, loc. cit. (footnote 17). 



