seat and of
its colonial owners.

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. It was
Edward Hill, second of the name, who built the present mansion. He was
a member of the King's Council; and his position is indicated, and his
fortune as well, by the building in those early times of such a home.
Antedating almost all of the great colonial homes, it must long have
stood a unique mark of family distinction. The exact date of the
building of the manor-house is not known, but doubtless it was not far
from the middle of the seventeenth century.

In the meantime, the Carters had become notable. This family reached
its greatest prominence in the days of Robert Carter, who was one of
the wealthiest and most influential men in the colony. In person he was
handsome and imposing; in worldly possessions he stood almost
unequalled; and in offices and honours he had about everything that the
colony could give. His estate included more than three hundred thousand
acres of land and about one thousand slaves. Either because of his
imposing person or of his power or of his wealth, or perhaps because of
all three, he was called "King" Carter. He does seem to have been quite
a sovereign, and to have known considerable of the pompous ceremony
that "doth hedge a king."

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. In
the descendants of this union the old plantation has remained to this
day.

The first time that we went from our creek harbour up to Shirley was a
strange time perhaps for people to be abroad in woods and field-roads.
The day was one of struggle between fog and sun, neither being able to
get his own way, but together making a wonderful world of it. We walked
in a luminous mist; the road very plain beneath our feet, but leading
always into nothingness, and reaching behind us such a little way