What started as merely a matter of expanding a little detail in a small
corner of my main project (see the URL in my sig) has now become a
fascinating chase. It has only just occurred to me to do a web search, and
although using Google has not uncovered any more history than subscribers
have already given me, in view of the delicacy with which the name of the
place has been handled you might like to see, in this report of current
concerns about the surrounding (or nearby?) wetlands being swallowed up by
new building, the term 'poetic' being used:
" . . . nearby residents said they are organizing an environmental
foundation in hope of buying the 69-acre tract, which has the poetic name
Pleasure House Point . . . "
[ http://www.vcnva.org/news/news_articles/2003/feb/26a.htm ]

The Google search also threw up the "Gleanings on Walke Family Homes",
Calvert Walke Tazewell, mentioned by Jon Strickland
[ http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/4450/walkehou.txt ]
but it gives no further detail of the "Historical Sketches" from which the
reference to the Pleasure House is quoted - does anyone know something about
this work?

In the article that Eric Johnson sent me (for which I'm grateful) there is
the passage:
"In a letter to Virginia Gov. James Barbour written in May 1812, [agent]
Tatham described the Pleasure House and its habitues thus: 'It is a suitable
lounge for Gamblers, tipplers, & those gentry of pleasure who love idleness,
lack of discipline, & temporary convenience, in preference to their
countries safety.' " [The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.) February 18, 2001
Sunday Final Edition]. It seems almost inescapable that the term 'Pleasure
House' must have carried the implication that it was at some time used or
run as a brothel, or at least as a place for illicit assignations or
liaisons. I wonder if there has been a study of such institutions in the
Chesapeake for that period?

John Weiss
Independent Scholar, London
http://homepage.virgin.net/john.weiss/trinidad/trinidad.html

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