RELIGION
After Virginia became an established English colony, adherance to the canons and constitution of the Church of England was demanded. Each minister was required to:
1/ Preach every Sunday
2/ Give communion three times a year
3/ Instruct the young
4/ Encourage all others in purity of life.
Parishners were required to:
1/ Attend church Sundays and holidays or pay a shilling for each absence.
2/ Pay tythes
3/ Forbidden to belittle the minister.
The Book of Common Prayer was specially permitted to the colony.
Tillotson Parish was the recognized church of Buckingham County.
SPEECH
In 1773, a tutor named Philip Fithian went to teach at the Carter Plantation near Richmond.His notation about the language he heard, " The people here pronounce shower ' sho-er' and what in New Jersey we call Vendue here they call a 'sale'----all taverns they call Ordinarys----when a horse is frolicsome and brisk, they say at once he is gayly. I piddle at my exegesis, but as they say in Virginia, I did a mighty little...."
Virginians vowels were prolonged and embellished as in ha-alf for half, while consonants softened and prolonged as in chimbley for chimney.
These Virginia speech ways were not invented in America but were recorded regional dialects spoken throughout the south and west of England.
FAMILY WAYS
For most Virginia the home was the basic family unit, but the extended family was the rural neighborhood. Kin-neighborhoods developed by division of property and arranged marriages.
From the earliest colony times extended families were buried together in family cemeteries as was the practice in England for centuries.
Virginians took pride in hospitality. A bed and meal was offered to all visitors. A royal like bed for wealth to a mat before the kitchen fire for a beggar.
Virginia families were hierarchal. The head of a family considered a patriarch.
MARRIAGE
Everyone was expected to marry.Bachelors and spinsters were condemned as unnatural.Matrimony was reguarded as an indissolvable union---- a sacred knot that could never be untied by mortal hands. Divorce didn't exist.
Virginians followed the Church of Englands five step process:
1/ espousal
2/ publication of banns
3/ religious ceremony
4/ sexual consummation
In order to marry, children under age had to have written permission by parents or guardians.Clandestined marriages were punished by imprisonment.
Favorite times of marriage were early November and late December, after Christmas. The bride and groom often united in two ceremonies. First the Christian ceremony according to laws of the Anglican church and Book of Common Prayer. The other a pagan ritual observed throughout Britain and western Europe of jumping over a broomstick.This was the only ceremony allowed to slaves.
Parents had an active role in the marriage decision. Children were rarely made to marry against their will, but neither left to decide for themselves. Many of these unions were cousin- marriages that had been arranged by elders.
Marriage was reguarded as something to be arranged between families, didn't require love as precondition, something that could never be dissolved and joined husband and wife in an organic and patriarchal heirarchy. Given this idea, the pattern developed of joining a man of maturity to a Miss in her teens.
CHILD REARING
First born children were named for their grandparents and second born for the parents.Virginians preferred to name other sons after warriors, knights, and English kings, other daughters after Saints.
Growing up in Virginia in the 1700s was difficult.Half of all children died before adulthood. Children were expected to have strong wills yet at the same time yeild willingly in a patriarchal culture.The child's will was not broken but in a phrase that Virginians liked to use, it was " severely bent against itself".
Child rearing in Virginia included many exercises in restraint. Respect and honor were the prized virtues.Youth was submissive to age.
Beneficial resources for Day surname in this time period:
Virginia in 1760: A Reconstructed Census
Day, Benjamin / Cumberland 18:193 *
Day, Edward / Charles City 42:216
Day, Francis / Blisland Parish 54:148
Day, Thomas / Isle of Wight 53:254
Day, Thomas / Norfolk 20:30, 20:57
Day, Thomas / Southampton 29:353
Day, William / Fauquier 6:134
Virginia Tithables From Burned Record Counties
Day surname:
Day, Ambrose......Buckingham Co......1774
Day, John..............Hanover Co...........1763
Day, John..............James City............1768
Day, John .............Buckingham Co......1773 & 1774
Day, Lewis............Buckingham Co.......1773 & 1774
Day, Mary............Glouchester.............1770
The 1787 Personal Property Tax Census of Buckingham Co.
Day, John; taxed on 2 horses and 4 cattle
Land Tax Summaries; Buckingham Co. Virginia Records Vol. 1
Day, John; 1794 bought 178 acres from Rhoda Morris
