Stranica 503 [503]
OCR
PRESTWOULD to make our glorious country “safe for Democracy" | and our leisure in studying the annals of the Court áz of St. James, it may be of interest to trace the JAM lineage of the Skipwith family in Virginia, from i} Sir Grey, who emigrated to America during the usurpation of Cromwell, to Sir Peyton, founder of the Virginia Prestwould, which he named for the ancestral home in Leicestershire County, England. And, in passing, it may not be amiss to call attention to this oft misspelled and mispronounced name, ‘‘Prest-w-o-u-l-d,” not ‘‘wold’”’ nor “wood,” though with the sound of the latter. Sir Grey Skipwith was succeeded by his only son, Sir William, who married Sarah, daughter of John Peyton. His first-born dying, he was succeeded by his second son, Sir William, from whom the title passed eventually to Sir Peyton. Sir Peyton Skipwith was married twice; first to Anne, daughter of Hugh Miller; and second to her sister, Jean—which brings us to the designer and presiding genius of the Prestwould Garden. But, first, a few words in regard to Prestwould itself. A littleknown bit of history, which might have been lost to us but for the watchful eye of the Honorable H. F. Hutcheson, Clerk of the Court of Mecklenburg County, Virginia, follows: | j A part of the Prestwould estate (including the three islands, “Saponi,”’ “‘Occaneeche” and ‘‘Totero’’), was originally the Bluestone Castle plantation owned by Colonel William Byrd II, founder of the cities of Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia. Indeed, it was probably while visiting this plantation that he conceived the idea of those cities, as he writes in his famous diary, on September 19, 1733: “After returning to ‘Bluestone Castle’ from a trip to the 1308]
