Routledge threw a glass of wine at Chiswell. At this challenge, Chiswell retaliated and threw a "bowl of Bumbo" at Routledge.

While much of our ethnic strife in the US is today manufactured by ideologues and media, it has been real and vivid in our history, just not always targeted at those whom today's rewriters of history imagine.  

In Virginia (and other states), there was sharp feeling in the 1700s against the intense, clannish Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who in general were strong advocates of freedom and independence.  

An example of this strong antipathy is recounted in The Hampden-Sydney Boys 1776-1778 by Joseph Eggleston.  

General Charles Lee, who was very reluctant to fight against the British, hated a Presbyterian Scotch-Irishman with all the in­tensity of an intense nature.  Dr. Freeman H. Hart quotes Lee's dia­tribe on the "Macs”:

 

We in Virginia live (if it can be called living) neither under Monarchy, Aristocracy nor Democracy - if it deserved any name it is Macocracy, that is, a Banditti of Scotch-Irish Servants or their immediate descendants (whose names generally begin with Mac) are our Lords and Rulers.  (The Valley of Virginia in the American Revolution, p. 109; quoting Lee Papers, 3: 457-458)

 

Lee's will, on record at Martinsburg, now in West Virginia, has this paragraph:

 

I desire most earnestly, that I may not be buried in any church, or church-yard, or within a mile of any Presbyterian of Anabaptist meeting house; for since I have resided in this country, I have kept so much bad company when living that I do not chose to continue it when dead. 

 

Without knowing anything definite, one might surmise that the distance between them in the world to which they went is much more than a mile or two. 

This is brought to mind when I read this account of a murder committed at Mosby Tavern in Powhatan County, Virginia in 1766.

On June 3, 1766, "pretty early in the morning," Colonel John Chiswell (pronounced Chis-ell), a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, got into an argument with Robert Routledge, a merchant from Prince Edward County, at Benjamin Mosby's Tavern. Both men were "much in liquor".  According to eyewitnesses, Colonel Chiswell, who was a Loyalist, called Routledge "a Presbyterian fellow, and a Scotish Rebel."  After these insults, Routledge, threw a glass of wine at Chiswell. At this challenge, Chiswell retaliated and threw a "bowl of Bumbo" at Routledge, followed by a candlestick and a pair fire tongs. Routledge then grabbed a chair intending to strike Chiswell with it. Chiswell then angrily called on his slave for his sword and demanded that Mr. Routledge leave the room. Joseph Carrington, the son-in-law of tavern owner Benjamin Mosby, took hold of Routledge and began to try and escort him out of the room when Routledge suddenly turned toward Chiswell and repeated the word "Fellow?" Chiswell stepped forward and thrust his sword at Routledge. Stabbed in the heart Routledge sank down in Carrington's arms dead.

The ensuing scandal intensified when Chiswell received special treatment. William Byrd, III, of Westover, was a justice of the General Court at Williamsburg and Chiswell's business partner in the lead mining operation. Byrd, along with fellow justices John Blair, Sr., and Presley Thornton permitted Chiswell to post a small bail of £2,000. In the 18th century bail for the crime of murder was unheard of.

The murder of Robert Routledge at the hands of John Chiswell unfolded following revelations that Chiswell's late son-in-law, John Robinson, Speaker of the House and Treasurer of Virginia, was the subject of a scandal regarding the misappropriation of public funds. Robinson had died a few months before in May 1766 and the subsequent investigation revealed that his estate owed the Colony of Virginia over £1,000,000.

On October 15, 1766, just before the start of his trial, John Chiswell was found dead on the floor of his home, the Chiswell-Bucktrout House in Williamsburg, Virginia. It is believed that he committed suicide on October 14th although the coroner stated that “the cause of his death ..., on oath, were nervous fits, owing to a constant uneasiness of mind,”.

The Virginia Gazette published a detailed account of the murder which included a diagram of the crime scene. This document is thought to be the first crime scene diagram in America.

Woof.  Ethnic strife, class privilege, government corruption, drunken barroom brawls, murder, suicide.   

They had it all, way back then.  In fact, our casual government corruption, bad as it is, seems boringly mundane compared to this drama.  Imagine a Presidential debate which involved drunkenness, thrown glasses of wine, bowls of Bumbo, candlesticks, fire tongs, and a chair.  That, I would watch.  

Reminds me of an incident years ago.  We had just won a global ERP implementation worth a vast amount.  We had been in pursuit for nearly a year and had probably spent well in excess of a million on that pursuit.  Senior partners, high stakes, big egos, big characters, strong opinions.  

One late night, at a particularly critical juncture with a key decision to be made, passions were high and tempers short.  One thing led to another resulting in an executive chair being hurled across the room from one partner at another.  The participants calmed down, tempers subsided, it was agreed that this was not appropriate behavior for partners in a global firm.   

It became part of the lore of the global account team over the years.  For the participants it was something of an embarrassment but also a bonding rite of passage.  

It didn't involve bowls of Bumbo or candlesticks or result in any partner being run through with a sword.  But it was a story that grew with the telling.