AN OED COLONIAL. GARIGAL.

army, and awaited in Williamsburg the arrival of Washington and Rochambeau.
They came at last — the great commander-in-chief, strong, cool and confident,
great Virginia’s greatest son. With him came his ragged veteran continentals,
and his courtly ally, Rochambeau, with his brilliant French regiments in their .
white uniforms, gay trappings and waving plumes. They, too, sat down in
Williamsburg, and the sessions of the college were for a time interrupted, that
the French allies might be quartered in its halls. It was during this occupation
that William and Mary suffered from its second fire, the president’s house being
burned; but Louis XVI. of France made full reparation for the loss due to his
soldiers, though they were serving America’s cause and the disaster was acciden-
tal. The college has been less fortunate in dealing with our own Government.
The house in which Washington had his headquarters is one of the historic
houses of Williamsburg, and still-stands unchanged, save by the wear of time —
a large, square brick mansion, once the home of Chancellor Wythe, and now
said to possess the ghost of that great jurist. Wythe died in Richmond by
poison administered by a nephew, who expected to inherit his fortune; but the
chancellor had time to change his will, and the murderer was disappointed. It
appears that the unquiet ghost of the chancellor felt most at home in: the old
house at Williamsburg, and has preferred that to Richmond. Another room in
the same house boasts the
phantom of a Miss Byrd of
Westover, who married and
came there to reside, and to
die. Just over the garden
wall, in Bruton churchyard,
is the grave of a more recent
resident of the Wythe house:
the eminent scientist, Dr.
John Millington, who was
born in London in 1779, and
died in Richmond in 1868.
He at one time resided in
this house, being then pro-
fessor of natural science at
William and Mary. When
THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY, WILLIAMSBURG. dying he expressed a desire to
(Of which Washington was Chancellor.) be burie d in Bru ton church-
yard, as near as possible to his old Williamsburg home, to which he was most
attached, of all the places in which he had been during a life of travel.
Williamsburg has always developed a peculiarly strong attachment in those
who have come upon its charmed ground. In 1862 it was occupied by both
armies, devastated by war, and its people were obliged to desert their homes.