I go for a lot of walks. Upon reaching the end of my driveway, I make the decision whether to turn right or left. Right usually wins, as that leads to the beach, which is one of my favorite haunts and always pleases the Chesapeake Bay Retriever at my side. But some days something weighs heavy on my mind, and the only thing for it is some time away from my own problems. On those days, I turn left and follow in the footprints of Mrs. Adam Thoroughgood.
In 1626, the locally renown Englishman, Captain Thoroughgood, arrived to these shores, worked off his indenture, received some land, and built his Grand Manor House. Described by the late and equally-renown archeologist, Floyd Painter, the Captain’s wooden home had six rooms, a passage, a kitchen, and a cellar. It was here that the he and his wife raised their son and three daughters. When their son was grown and to be married, the young man moved to a location which is about a twenty minute walk away from his parents, where now stands the brick house we all know as the Adam Thoroughgood House.
When my house was being built in 1955, the grading of the roadbanks revealed broken Indian and European artifacts.
Painter, snooping around as he was known to do, recognized
that many of the European objects were identical to those related to the
earliest phase at
Now, we hear the Captain’s name a lot, but being a navy wife
myself, I prefer to think about Mrs. Adam Thoroughgood.
When her son married and moved to the place twenty minutes away, this displaced
Englishwoman finally had family to go and visit. There is no doubt in my mind
but that she would walk on over there to see how things were going for the
young couple. She must have worried a lot about them because it could not have
been very easy to keep a house going back then. She, of all people, would know
about that. So when I need to get away
from my own problems, I retrace the path that I imagine she took to her son’s
place, and try to figure out what one of the first mothers in
I imagine that she would get to her son’s place and have a cup of tea, and then make her way home again. She probably felt better for the walk, and her worries were not so large as when she left the Grand Manor House. Somehow, they’d all manage, as I would somehow manage my own problems.
Floyd Painter wrote a detailed article about his excavation of the Grand Manor House, which was printed in the Quarterly Bulletin of the Archeological Society of Virginia in March of 1959. Painter ends his scholarly article asking that this small spot of land that has been a homesite, by his estimation since the last great Ice Age, would “always remain a homesite, where men of the future may rest in security and comfort, amid family and friends.”
There is no historical marker on my front lawn, nor will be there as long as I have a pulse. There have always been, however, the markers of a homesite. From big wheels to bicycles, skateboards to surfboards – all have been strewn across the front lawn and driveway, while from the shed in the back yard came the pounding beats of a young boy teaching himself to play the drums. The man of the house these days, a Captain Boland, putters away in the garage in his never-ending task of keeping the old place ship-shape. The Chessie stands guard over it all from the shade of the Crape Myrtle. The only artifacts I come across each fall as I put my pansies in are the forgotten toys of two little boys- dirt-encrusted water pistols, GI Joes, a magic wand from a Christmas long ago, and the plastic wrapper of a whoopee cushion found in the furthest corner of the yard under a soggy pile of leaves.
Mr. Painter would be happy to walk around this ancient homesite now, for he would see that his wish has come true. House after house, street after street, he would see places just like mine, where folks continue to rest in security and comfort, amid family and friends.