Commence my tour by land--Bruinsbury--A primitive clergyman--Bayau
Pierre swamp--Hilly country--Plantations--Thunder storm--A
benevolent shoemaker--Norris’s--Cole’s creek--A consequential
landlord--Greenville--Union town--A travelling painter.
On Monday 22d August, I set out from Bruinsbury on horseback, for
the purpose of visiting the most improved parts of the Mississippi
territory, and the adjacent part of the Spanish province of West
Florida.
Bruinsbury was the property of judge Bruin,[199] until lately, that
he sold it together with a claim to about three thousand acres of the
surrounding land to Messrs. Evans and Overaker of Natchez, reserving to
himself his house, offices and garden.
It is a mile below the mouth of bayau Pierre, the banks of which
being low and swampy, and always annually overflowed in the spring,
he projected the {285} intended town of Bruinsbury, where there was a
tolerably high bank and a good landing which has only been productive
of a cotton gin, a tavern, and an overseer’s house for Mr. Evan’s
plantation, exclusive of the judge’s own dwelling house, and it will
probably never now become a town notwithstanding many town lots were
purchased, as Mr. Evans means to plant all the unappropriated lots,
preferring the produce in cotton to the produce in houses.
I was accompanied from the judge’s by an elderly Presbyterian
clergyman, a native of New England, who had been a missionary among
the Chickasaw or Cherokee nations. He was a man of great simplicity
of manners, and wonderfully ignorant of all established modes. During
the short time we rode together, the characteristick feature of his
country was displayed in the innumerable questions he asked me relative
to whence I came, where I was going, and my objects and intentions,
particularly in my present journey. I at last discovered a mode of
parrying his wearisome curiosity, by becoming curious in my turn. This
seemed to gratify him equally, as it led to a circumstantial account
of a life as little chequered by incident as can be conceived. He had
been the scholar of the family, one of the sons of a farmer’s family in
New England being always selected for that purpose. He had graduated
at college--been ordained--went to Carolina--kept a school there--was
appointed by a synod a missionary for the propagation of the gospel
among the Indians, in which situation for several years, he had raised
a family, and leaving his eldest children to possess and cultivate
lands granted him by the Indians, he had removed with his wife and
his youngest children to this territory, where, by keeping a school,
preaching alternate Sundays, at two or three different places, twelve
or fourteen miles asunder, and cultivating a small cotton plantation,
he made a very comfortable subsistence. {286} Although I could not
agree with him with respect to the comfort of a subsistence so hardly
earned, yet I could not help admiring the truth of the old adage, that
_custom is second nature_, and always fits the back to the burthen.
Our first two miles was through the river bottom, the most remote part
of which from the river, is inundated annually by the back waters of
bayau Pierre, which overflows all the neighbouring low lands for forty
miles from its mouth, when its current is checked by the rising of the
Mississippi. On the subsiding of the floods, so much water remains
stagnant, as to cause the fever and ague to be endemick in all the
tract of country washed by the bayau Pierre, from ten miles above the
town of Port Gibson.
On leaving the swamp we ascended a hill, on the brow of which is a
charmingly situated plantation owned and occupied by a Mr. Smith. The
increased elasticity of the air, renovated our spirits, and seemed to
increase the good parson’s garrulity. A mile of a delightful road
through open woods on a dry ridge brought us from Mr. Smith’s, to
Mr. Robert Cochran’s fine plantation. It was near dinner time, and
a thunder cloud rising before us, gave my companion a pretext for
wishing to stop, but I having declared before that I would not, and now
refusing Mr. Cochran’s invitation, who from the stile as we passed told
us dinner was on the table, the good man good humouredly sacrificed
his desire to mine, and proceeded with me, by which complaisance he
got wet to the skin. He only accompanied me another mile, turning off
to the left to go to Greenville, while I continued my route to the
southward along the lower Natchez road, which runs nearly parallel to
the Mississippi, on the ridges behind the river bottoms.
A thunder cloud which had been threatening at a distance for some time
before, now began to rise and spread rapidly. It was in vain that I put
spurs to my {287} horse--I was instantly deluged with torrents of rain,
accompanied by as tremendous thunder and lightning as I ever had before
witnessed, and a heavy gust of wind at the same time, blew down several
trees in every direction close round me. My horse though an old steady
traveller, was so affrighted that I could not manage him but with great
difficulty. Three miles and a half through the storm brought me to
Glascock’s small plantation, where I fortified against a chill with a
glass of gin presented to me by the good lady of the house, who also
regaled me with some fine peaches. The rain soon subsiding, I resumed
my journey in my wet clothes, but I had scarcely advanced a mile, when
another shower forced me to take shelter at a small, but pleasantly
situated farm, rented by a Mr. Hopper from Mr. Cochran.
The face of the country became now more broken, but the soil improved,
and the road degenerating to a bridle path through the woods, and being
hilly, and forked and intersected by cattle paths, was both difficult
to find and disagreeable to travel. A mile from Hopper’s, I stopped at
an old school-house, where I observed a shoemaker at work under a shed
in front of the cabin, to get my boot mended. He was named Ostun, had
lately arrived from South Carolina with his family, and had made the
unoccupied school-house his temporary abode, until he should find an
eligible situation for a settlement. He repaired my boot, entertained
me with his intentions, hopes, and expectations, regretted he had no
shelter to offer me for myself and my horse, that he might prevent my
going farther that night through the rain (which was literally the
case, as the old little cabin let the water in at almost every part)
and would accept of nothing for his trouble. It would be unpardonable
to neglect noticing the kindness of this plain, honest shoemaker, in a
country where benevolence is a virtue not too much practised.
{288} A mile from hence, by the advice of my friendly shoemaker, I
turned to the left, to seek shelter for the night, at the hospitable
cabin and fine farm of Mr. James Norris, half a mile farther, instead
of keeping the usual road to the right, two miles to Mr. Joseph
Calvet’s.[200] I was well recompensed for my deviation, by a frank and
hearty welcome, a pleasant fire, a good supper, an excellent bed, and
the intelligence that I was on the best and plainest road, and the
shortest by four miles. This neighbourhood consists of half a dozen
families, chiefly from South Carolina, from which state Mr. Norris
came a few years ago. I found him fully deserving the high character
Mr. Ostun gave me of him for hospitality. He strongly recommended my
settling some place near, and recommended it to me to purchase, if
possible, a tract of land owned by Mr. Cochran, near Hopper’s.
August 23d, departing from Mr. Norris’s at early dawn, the road, which
had been opened wide enough for a wagon, but now much overgrown by poke
and other high weeds, (the dew from which as I pressed through them,
wet me as much as a shower of rain would have done) led me along the
top of a narrow and very crooked ridge in generally a S. E. direction
nearly four miles, where coming to three forks, I kept the left one
which brought me in a mile more through some beautiful open woods on
a light soil to a small corn field on the right, with no habitation
visible, beyond which I crossed up to my horse’s knees the North fork
of Cole’s creek, which now was a pretty little, transparent, sandy
bottomed stream, but after heavy rains it swells suddenly and becomes
a frightful and deep torrent, sometimes impassible for several days.
Turning to the left beyond the creek, I had one mile to an old deserted
field, now an arid plain, affording a very scanty pasture of poor grass
to a few lean cattle. The distant crowing of a cock {289} advertised me
of my approach to a settlement, and I soon after came to a corn field
and a hatter’s shop, on the banks of the middle fork of Cole’s creek,
a stream in size and appearance similar to the North fork. Crossing
it, the road led through some small plantations on a light thin sandy
soil, a mile and a half to Greenville, where I put up at Green’s tavern
and breakfasted. My host affected a little consequence, but when he
understood that I was in search of land to settle on, he became more
attentive, and persuaded me much, to purchase from him, a tract of land
in the neighbourhood, which he recommended very highly.
Greenville (or Huntstown, its old name) the capital of Jefferson
county, is very handsomely situated, on a dry sandy plain near the
middle branch of Cole’s creek. It is surrounded at a little distance by
small farms and woods, which add variety and beauty to its appearance.
A stranger would suppose it healthy, but my information respecting
it was rather the reverse, particularly in the autumnal months, when
it is subject to bilious disorders. Perhaps this may be owing to the
excessive heat occasioned by the reflection of the sun from the sandy
soil, as it is sufficiently elevated, and there is no stagnant pond,
nor low marsh, near it to generate fevers. This is probably one cause
of its being in a state of decay; another may be the difficulty of
approaching it during floods in Cole’s creek, which happen after every
rain, and which in a manner insulate it while they last. It consists of
one wide straight street nearly half a mile long, running N. by W. and
S. by E. intersected by two small cross ones, containing in all forty
tolerably good houses, many of which are now unoccupied, and offered
for sale, at little more than a quarter of their cost in building. It
has a small church for general use of all christian sects, a small
court-house, a gaol and a pillory, a post-office, two stores, two
taverns, {290} and an apothecary’s shop. The town is well watered by
wells dug to about thirty feet deep.[201]
Proceeding to the S. S. W. keeping to the right at the south end of the
town, at one mile I crossed a deep ravine, with a spring well and a
washing camp in it, overhung by a house on the projecting corner of a
small plantation, on a hill on the left.
The road was well opened, but hilly, through the woods, for two miles
farther, when on crossing a water course (now dry) and rising a hill,
I had a view on the right, over the extensive plantation of colonel
West,[202] who has upwards of two hundred acres in one field in
cultivation. The soil seems very thin, as in the whole neighbourhood of
Greenville, but the crop of cotton and corn now looked luxuriant, from
the wetness of the season.
Two miles farther I passed on the right Parker Cardine’s delightfully
situated plantation, with an excellent dwelling house, and good apple
and peach orchards, with the south branch of Cole’s creek, winding
round on the right below, and which I crossed soon after. The soil
however is very light, and is soon washed off, and worn out, where it
has been cultivated a few years, on the whole tract between Greenville
and Natchez.
The country here is well opened and inhabited to a little beyond
Uniontown, which is a small village of three or four houses in decay,
about a mile beyond Cardine’s.[203]
I stopped at Uniontown to _feed_ my horse. (I make use of the active
verb _feed_, instead of the passive one, _to have my horse fed_, as
travellers in this country, who will not take the trouble of giving
corn and fodder to their horses themselves, may expect to have them
soon die of famine, although they pay extravagantly for food and
attendance.) I was here joined by a trig looking young man mounted on a
mule, who requested to accompany me on the road towards Natchez. {291}
In riding along, he entertained me with his history. He said his name
was Jackson--that he was born in London--was bred a painter, and was
sent to a rich uncle in St. Vincents, when only fourteen years old.
That aided by his uncle, he had traded among the West India islands,
until he was seventeen, when being concerned with a son of colonel
Haffey, in a contraband adventure to Martinique, he lost every thing,
and then came to the continent, where he had supported himself as
an itinerant house and landscape painter, in which capacity he had
travelled over most parts of the United States. Unfortunately for
the credit of his veracity, he described my old friend colonel Henry
Haffey, as a native French Creole of Martinique, when in reality, he
was born in the North of Ireland, and had nothing of the Frenchman,
either in manner or character. Besides, having no children himself,
he had adopted Henry Haffey Gums, a nephew of his wife’s. On this
discovery I humoured my companion, and affected to believe all he said,
which betrayed him into many laughable absurdities and contradictions.
FOOTNOTES:
[199] Judge Peter Bryan Bruin was an Irishman, who having come to
America while yet young, became a patriot in the Revolution, joined
Morgan’s riflemen, and was captured at the siege of Quebec. He entered
Morgan’s New Madrid land scheme, but proceeding to Natchez settled as
a planter at the mouth of Bayou Pierre, where he was alcalde under the
Spanish régime. Upon the organization of Mississippi Territory, Bruin
was appointed one of the three territorial judges, which office he held
until his resignation in 1810. The site of his plantation is noted
as the point where Grant crossed the Mississippi and began his march
against Vicksburg.--ED.
[200] Joseph Calvit served as lieutenant in Clark’s Illinois
campaign, and was with him at Kaskaskia in 1779. Later going to the
Natchez country, he became a prominent and respected citizen of
Mississippi.--ED.
[201] Greenville was laid out as the seat of Jefferson County, in 1802,
being named in honor of General Nathaniel Greene, of Revolutionary
fame. When the county-seat was removed to Fayette in 1825, Greenville
declined in importance, and the site is now a cotton-field.--ED.
[202] Colonel Cato West was a Virginian who removed to Georgia at an
early day, and subsequently left the Holston Valley to join George
Rogers Clark in Kentucky. Finding the current of the Ohio difficult to
stem, he floated down to Natchez, secured a Spanish grant, and became a
leading citizen of early Mississippi. Colonel West was secretary of the
territory from 1802-09, and member of the Constitutional Convention in
1817.--ED.
[203] Parker Carradine was a Mississippian who came thither during the
English rule, and belonged to the party who opposed Willing and Gayoso,
the American and Spanish invaders of the Natchez district.
Uniontown is now a small hamlet known as Union Church.--ED.