I'm heading home today, where I hear I'll find the same mess of downed power lines and no internet that Loretta has, all caused by that early snowstorm. But before I go, I'll leave you with one last picture from Colonial Williamsburg. While much is made of the last royal governor, John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, and his disastrous tenure on the eve of the American Revolution, little is known of those below stairs who kept the "palace" (a term of sarcasm employed by 18th c Virginians in reference to the expense of their royal governor's residence; as grand as it might have appeared to them, it must have seemed decidedly inferior to the aristocratic Dunmores.) Lord Dunmore's staff was a mixture of favorite servants brought with him from Scotland and enslaved people purchased in Virginia. True, the young woman I glimpsed early yesterday was a tour guide, not a servant of any kind, but she did make me think of all the more ordinary folk of that house who must have had their own stories to tell.
Loving your pictures of Williamsburg. I had an amazing vacation there a few years ago and am dying to go back. I spoke with one of the Governor's footmen, William, who came with his master from New York. We discussed the hotheads in New England where I'm from and the implications of arming black people.
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