Spaces were wide in a country where one great landowner, Lord Fairfax, held no less than five million acres.

Houses lay isolated and remote and a gentleman dining out would sometimes drive his elaborate equipage from twenty to fifty miles.

There was a tradition of lavish hospitality, of gallant men and fair women, and sometimes of hard and riotous living.

Many of the houses were, however, in a state of decay, with leaking roofs, battered doors and windows and shabby furniture.

To own land in Virginia did not mean to live in luxurious ease.