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HISTORIC GARDENS OF VIRGINIA garden, however, centers about the tree-box, which in quantity and quality, ranks with the finest in the south. When the grounds for the Jamestown Exposition were being laid off, in 1906, the owner of Tedington was offered four thousand dollars for the boxwood, but the trees had fastened their hold on their latter-day master, and the offer was declined. “Today these trees and lines of boxwood rear their heads as proudly as of yore. The widow of William Howell Lightfoot married John Minge, Esquire, and their daughter, Sarah Melville, married Robert Bolling, of Petersburg, Virginia. An interesting description of a Christmas at Tedington, by Charles Campbell, the Virginia historian, presents to the reader of today a vivid picture of the season of gifts on an old James River plantation in ante-bellum days. Ihe letter is dated Iedington, Christmas, 1841, and reads, in part, as follows: ‘Rainy Sunday. In the drawing-room at Iledington, three sisters, descendants of Pocahontas [evidently the Misses Bolling], Alice, Virginia and Rosalina; Miranda from an Italian city famous for its pictures and palaces. Five darkies put off in a rowboat to meet the river boat. en more ladies ie the party, afterwards breakfast. “Breakfast: Buttermilk rolls, Sally eel hominy. Prenala and Miranda ride with two gentlemen, Farrel and Racket. Ground half frozen. The cows stand close together in cowpen, stoically chewing their cuds; several little mules are huddled up in their shed eating their fodder; flocks of wild geese are flying over the broad wheat fields, reiterating their ‘cohonk,’ ‘cohonk,’ as they disappear from sight. Later, the ladies are firing ‘poppees,’ in the dining-room. | | — “Dinner: Ham of bacon—in Virginia, sine qua non. Without it we cannot organize or take any parliamentary action. Ham of mutton (Napoleon’s favorite), a venison with jelly, oysters (Back River), stewed and baked, a huge round of beef, potatoes, Hibernians and sweet, salsify, hominy, celery, .and cauliflower. [32]
