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These people could not tell us much about the old manor-house; for, while possessing two of the finest plantations in the colonies, Shirley and Corotoman, they made their home chiefly at Williamsburg. However, they were especially interesting people to meet because of their familiarity with the first half of the eighteenth century, that brightest and most prosperous period of colonial life.
He looked very imposing in his velvets and his elaborate, powdered periwig, standing ceremoniously, one hand thrust within his rich, half-open waistcoat. Now was the time for all that we knew about Queen Anne and King George the First, and about the recent removal of the colonial capital from James Towne to Williamsburg. These were the young people who united the houses of Shirley and Corotoman.
It was in the fourth generation of the houses of Shirley and of Corotoman, and in the year 1723, that the families were united by the marriage of John, son of "King" Carter, and Elizabeth, daughter of the third Edward Hill. John Carter was a prominent man and the secretary of the colony; Elizabeth Hill was a beauty and the heiress of Shirley.
Another diarist, who lived only a few miles away from Gordon, also on the Rappahannock river, was Landon Carter, son of the famed Robert, or "King," Carter of Corotoman in Lancaster County. There is no doubt about it: he was an oyster lover.
Too modest to suppose that he had come over from Corotoman on our account, we strongly suspected that the matter of alliance between the families of Hill and of Carter was in the air; which would account for the presence of the potentate of the Rappahannock.
At that time, in the colony of Virginia, two of the proud families on two of the proud rivers were the Hills, who had recently acquired the plantation of Shirley on the James, and the Carters, who were establishing their seat at Corotoman on the Rappahannock. In the story of these two houses is most of the story of Shirley. The Hills became one of the leading families in the colony.
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