Survey Maps of Marlborough as copied in the Land Book of John Mercer; showing at the bottom, John Savage 1731; and top, William Buckner and Theodrick Blands, 1691

Some of these towns actually were laid out, each on a 50-acre tract of half-acre lots, but only 9 tracts were built upon. The Act soon lagged and collapsed. It was unpopular with the colonists, who were obliged to transport their tobacco to distant warehouses and to pay storage fees; it was ignored by shipmasters, who were in the habit of dealing directly with planters at their wharves and who were not interested in making it any easier for the Custom Collectors of His Majesty.

The Property Owners at Marlborough

• Sampson Darrell held two lots, but he lived at Aquia Creek.
  
  
• Francis Hammersley was a planter who married the widow of Giles Brent and lived at "The Retirement," one of the Brent estates. George Brent, nephew of the original Giles Brent, was law partner of William Fitzhugh, and had been appointed Receiver General of the Northern Neck in 1690. His brother Robert also was a lot holder. Both lived at Woodstock, and presumably they did not maintain residences at the port town.
  
  
• Other leading citizens were Robert Alexander, Samuel Hayward, and Martin Scarlett, but again there is little likelihood that they were ever residents of the town.
  
  
• John Waugh, the uproarious pastor of Potomac Parish, also was a lot holder, but he lived on the south side of Potomac Creek in a house which belonged to Mrs. Anne Meese of London. His failure to pay for that house after 11 years occupancy of it, which led to a suit in which Fitzhugh was the prosecutor, does not suggest that he ever arrived at building a house in the port town.
  
  
• Captain George Mason was a distinguished individual who lived at "Accokeek," about a mile and a half from Marlborough. He certainly built in the town, for in 1691 he petitioned for a license to "keep an ordinary at the Town or Port for this county. " The petition was granted on condition that he "find a good and Sufficient maintenance and reception both for man and horse."
  
  
• Captain Mason was grandfather of George Mason of Gunston Hall, author of the Virginia Bill of Rights, and was, at one time or another, sheriff, lieutenant colonel and commander in chief of the Stafford Rangers, and a burgess. He participated in putting down the uprising of Nanticoke Indians in 1692, bringing in captives for trial at the unfinished courthouse in March of that year. Despite his interest in the town, however, it is unlikely that he ever lived there.
  
  
• Captain Malachi Peale, whose lease of the town land from the Brents had been purchased when the site was selected. He also was an important figure, having been sheriff. He may well have lived on one of his three lots, since he was a resident of the Neck to begin with.
  
  
• John Withers, one of the first feoffees and a justice of the peace, was a lot holder also. George Andrews and Peter Beach, somewhat less distinguished, were perhaps the only full-time residents from among the first grantees. After 1708 Thomas Ballard and possibly William Barber were also householders.
  
  Sources: Robert Beverley, The History and Present State of Virginia, edit. Louis B. Wright (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1947), p. 88; Philip Alexander Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, 2nd ed. (New York: P. Smith, 1935), vol. 2, pp. 553-554; Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 251; John Mercer Land Book; William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World. p. 76, 93, 162, 367; Stafford County Order Book, 1689-1694, p. 203; William Fitzhugh and His Chesapeake World, pp. 209, 211; Henry Chandlee Forman, Jamestown and St. Marys (Baltimore, 1938), pp. 1