horseback, for either persons or property, and this was the universal
method of travel until nearly the beginning of the 19th century. It was
a common custom for the post rider to also act as a squire of dames,
and sometimes he would have in charge four or six women travelling
on horseback from one town to another. It was to the north that the
carriage came first, and in the early days only the very wealthy
families had them. And with the coming of the carriage, the colonists
realized that they needed something better than an Indian trail or
bridle path, and the agitation for good roads had its birth. One can
form some idea of what the so-called roads must have been in 1704,
when we read that the mail from Philadelphia to New York "is now a
week behind and not yet com'd in." The mail after 1673 was carried
by horseback between New York and Boston, but as late as 1730, the
postmaster was advertising for applications from persons who desired to
perform the _foot_ post to Albany that winter. The route was largely up
the Hudson river on skates. In 1788 it took four days for mail to go
through from New York to Boston in good weather--in winter much longer.
The commerce between the settlements on the coast and those in
southwestern Pennsylvania and western Virginia was carried on by pack
horse. The people in these districts sent their peltry and furs by pack
horse to the coast and there exchanged them for such articles as they
needed in their homes and for work upon their farms. Several families
would form an association, a master-driver would be chosen and the
caravan move on its slow way to the settlement east of the mountains.
Afterwards this pack horse system was continued by common carrier
organizations.
The earliest legislation in reference to highways was in the
Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1639, providing for supervisors, and the
relaying of the roads so as to be more convenient for travel, with
authority to "lay out the highways where they may be most convenient,
notwithstanding any man's property, or any corne ground, so as it
occasion not the pulling down of any man's house, or laying open any
garden or orchard." The law in force in Pennsylvania, prior to the
grant to Penn was part of the system established for the New York
Colony in 1664. In 1700 a revision of existing road laws was made,
giving control of county roads to county officials, but the king's
highway and public roads to be controlled by governor and council.
The fact appears that while the early roads in the American colonies
were bad, England had few, if any, good roads, and the improvement,
when begun, was so rapid that driving for pleasure was introduced here
long before it was known in England. In fact, the idea was carried back
to England by officers who fought in the Revolution.
When stage coaches were started in the colonies in 1718, from Boston
to Rhode Island, there was no wagon road over this route, it not being
built until 1721. It was a common thing for the passengers of the early
stage coaches to have to get out, and help lift or push the stage coach
out of the mud, and the objection raised to this was the reason for the
introduction of the corduroy road. If one has had the doubtful pleasure
of riding over a short portion of such road, one knows that it was a
question whether long stretches of it and being shaken around in the
coach like peas in a pod, was much improvement over being dumped out
into the mud, while the coach was lifted out of the mire with which
the old roads were padded. With the development of stage routes, came
bridges, ferries, turnpikes and national roads. As the passengers and
light baggage were carried by stage, the freight traffic was carried on
by the old time teamsters, with their huge wagons, with six or eight
horses attached to each, and moving along the turnpikes, traveling
together for company and protection. These turnpikes presented a
bustling appearance, with the dashing stage coaches, parties on
horseback, the long trains of teamsters' huge wagons, and the many
taverns that lined these thoroughfares. The passenger on the stage
coach had time to study nature and his surroundings as he passed along,
and to be fortunate enough to secure the box seat with the stage driver
and hear, as one rode along, the gossip of the route, made a joy one
does not experience in our days of rapid travel.
Following the institution of national roads and staging, came the
introduction of canals and artificial waterways, as a means of
transportation for freight in the carrying on of commerce. A short
canal, for the transporting of stone, was built in Orange County, New
York, as early as 1750. The first public canal company was the James
River Company, incorporated in 1785. From that time on there have been
vast improvements in methods and much of our freight is moved by means
of the large canals all over our country.
The next development in transportation facilities was the railroad,
the first of which was the "Experiment" railroad built to carry stone
to Bunker Hill Monument. Oliver Evans, in 1772, began to experiment
upon the construction of a steam carriage to run upon the ground, but
it remained for John Stevens to combine the steam carriage and the
railway. The first rail cars, or coaches, were run by horse power. It
is interesting to read Mr. Evans' prediction, which is as follows:
"I do verily believe that the time will come when carriages propelled
by steam will be in general use, as well for the transportation of
passengers as goods, travelling at the rate of fifteen miles an hour,
or three hundred miles per day." In 1813 he predicted that the time
would come when a traveller could leave Washington in the morning,
breakfast at Baltimore, dine at Philadelphia and sup at New York, all
in the same day, travelling "almost as fast as birds fly, fifteen to
twenty-miles an hour."
In 1811, Robert Fulton, journeying by stage to Pittsburgh, said, "The
day will come, gentlemen, I may not live to see it, though some of you
who are younger will probably--when carriages will be drawn over these
mountains by steam engines at a rate more rapid than that of a stage on
the smoothest turnpike."
A howl of protest went up from the old stage drivers when the
railroad was projected, but as every public necessity had its will,
the railroads had come to stay. There were many accidents on these
primitive roads, and these were made the most of by the opposition. One
old stager said, "You got upset in a stage coach, and there you were.
You got upset in a rail car--and where are you?"
From trail in the days of the Indians to T-rail of recent years seems a
slow, tedious advance, but as some one has said:
"When we reflect upon the obstinate opposition that has been made by
a great majority to every step towards improvement; from bad roads to
turnpikes, from turnpikes to canals, from canal to railways for horse
carriages, it is too much to expect the monstrous leap from bad roads
to railways for steam carriages at once. One step in a generation is
all we can hope for."--CLARA D. PATTERSON, _Easton, Pennsylvania_.
COLONEL BENJAMIN HAWKINS.
BY MRS. J. L. WALKER, _Waycross_.
Colonel Hawkins, patriot, soldier, United States senator and Indian
agent, was born August 15, 1754, in the county of Butts, now Warren
County, North Carolina. He was the son of Colonel Philemon and Delia
Hawkins. He attended Princeton College until his senior year when the
institution was closed on account of the Revolutionary War.
His knowledge of the French language led Washington to press him into
service as a member of his staff to act as interpreter with the French
allies. He was one of the founders of the Society of Cincinnati in 1783.
He was a gallant Revolutionary soldier, having participated in several
important engagements, among the number the Battle of Monmouth. After
North Carolina ratified the federal constitution he was elected United
States Senator from that state, taking his seat in 1790. At the close
of his term in the senate he was appointed agent of the three great
Indian tribes east of the Mississippi and entered upon his duties in
the part of Georgia now known as Crawford County, but at that time
called "The Agency Reserve."
This place became an important trading post and was selected by Colonel
Hawkins as a convenient locality for the transaction of duties that
devolved upon him. He infused progression, activity and thrift into the
little village. Mills, workshops, and comfortable homes appeared on
every side.
"Colonel Hawkins brought his own slaves from his old home in North
Carolina, and under the right conceded to his office, he opened and
cultivated a large plantation at the agency, making immense crops of
corn and other provisions."
"While he lived his cattle brand was rigidly respected by the red men;
although soon as his death, if reports be true, the Creeks, oblivious
of former obligations, stole numbers of his cows and hogs."
To him does the state of Georgia owe a debt of special gratitude. He
not only risked his life for the state of his adoption, but preserved
the history of the Creek country, some of which is most valuable and
interesting.
The French general, Moreau, who in exile, was his guest for some time,
was so much impressed with his character and labors, that he pronounced
him one of the most remarkable men he met in America.
Colonel Hawkins possessed great adaptability and through his
beneficence he acquired the respect of the Indians. It is said he
gained their love and bound them to him by "ties as loyal and touching
as those of old feudal allegiance and devotion."
He was closely associated with Generals Floyd, Blackshear and John
McIntosh, and Governors Troup, Mitchell and Early.
The Indians of Chehaw were closely allied to Colonel Hawkins. They
frequently furnished him with valuable information in regard to the
treachery of the British and the unfriendly Indians.
It has been conceded to some of our patriots that they were great in
war. Benjamin Hawkins was not only great in war, but, like Washington,
was great in peace. It was he who most strongly advocated terminating
the War of 1812. He knew well how to approach the "children of the
forest." The simple and diplomatic way in which he addressed the
Indians is displayed in his quaint letter to the Ammic-cul-le, who
lived at the Indian town of Chehaw:
"The time is come when we are to compel our enemies to be at peace,
that we may be able to sit down and take care of our families and
property without being disturbed by their threatening and plundering of
us.
"General Blackshear is with you to protect and secure the friendly
Indians on your river, and to aid in punishing the mischief-makers. Go
you to him; see him; take him by the hand, and two of you must keep
him. You must point out sixty of your young warriors, under two chiefs,
to be with, and act under the orders of the general till you see me. He
will supply them with provisions and some ammunition.
"You must be very particular about spies. You know all the friendly
Indians, and all who are hostile. If any spies come about you of the
hostiles, point them out to the general. And your warriors, acting
with the general must be as quick and particular as his white soldiers
to apprehend or put to death any enemy you meet with. Your warriors
will receive the same pay as the soldiers in the service of the United
States.
"Tell your women and children not to be afraid,--that friends have come
for their protection, and that I am at the head of the Creek warriors.
"I am your friend and the friend of your nation."
Colonel Hawkins was closely identified in the negotiation of the Treaty
of Peace and Friendship with the Indians. His name, together with
George Clymer and Andrew Pickens, was signed as commissioners on the
part of the United States to the Treaty held at Coleraine, in Camden
County, Georgia, March 18, 1797.
A treaty of limits between the United States and the Creek nation of
Indians, was held near Milledgeville, at Fort Wilkinson, on the part
of the United States. The signers were Benjamin Hawkins and Andrew
Pickens. This treaty was signed by forty chiefs and warriors. Treaty
with the Creeks at the agency, near Flint River, on November 3, 1794,
signed by Hopoie Micco and other Indians, also bore Hawkins' signature.
"In 1802 Colonel Hawkins recommended the establishing of a fort and
trading post on the Old Ocmulgee Fields." The right to establish such
a post was obtained by the Fort Wilkinson treaty. Colonel Hawkins
selected a site on an eminence near the river where the city of Macon
now stands. A tract of one hundred acres of land was set apart for the
use of the post.
Fort Hawkins was built in 1806 and was garrisoned by troops from Fort
Wilkinson early in the following year. The fort was named in honor
of Benjamin Hawkins, one of the few honors bestowed upon him by the
state he had so ably served. "This fort was considered one of the most
formidable on the frontier. Two block houses, each twenty-eight feet
square with two stories and a basement were built with heavy mortised
logs. This place was provided with port holes for both cannon and
musketry, and stood at the southeast and northwest corner of a strong
stockade. During the war of 1812 the fort was a strong point for the
mobilization of troops."
Colonel Hawkins died at the agency in Crawford County, June 6, 1816,
and was "buried on a wooded bluff overlooking the Flint River." The
little graveyard that served as a last resting place for those who
lived around the agency has long since been abandoned. The unmarked
grave of a patriot is there, sleeping unhonored amid the tangled vines
and weeds.
GOVERNOR JARED IRWIN.
Jared Irwin was born in Mecklenburg, N. C., in 1750, about two years
after his parents arrived from Ireland. They emigrated from Mecklenburg
County, N. C., and came to Burke County, Georgia, when Jared was seven
years old. Years afterward Jared moved to Washington County.
He was a faithful soldier in the Indian wars, serving as a
Brigadier-General in the Georgia Militia. In the Revolutionary War he
served as Captain and afterwards as Colonel, fighting in the siege of
Savannah and Augusta and in the battles of Camden, S. C., Briar Creek,
Georgia, Black Swamp, and others.
Just after the first siege of Augusta, in 1780, Colonel Williamson was
placed in command of Colonel Clarke's forces and on April 16th, 1781,
he led them to Augusta and fortified his camp within twelve hundred
yards of the British works. Here Captain Dun, and Captain Irwin with
the Burke County men, joined him, where they guarded every approach
to Augusta for nearly four weeks, never for a moment relaxing their
vigilance, but waiting impatiently for the promised assistance from
General Greene.
At last, the militia, destitute of almost every necessity of life,
wearied of their hard service, and giving up all hope of aid,
determined to return to their homes. The encouragement of Colonel
Jackson roused their drooping spirits, inspired them with hope and
courage, and saved them from tarnishing the laurels they had already
won. The militia afterwards nobly did their part in all the fights
around Augusta.
Jared with his three brothers John, William, and Alexander, built a
fort in Washington County known as Fort Irwin, which was used as a
defence against the British and with his private money he equipped his
company of soldiers for the war.
Jane, the Governor's youngest child, received a claim through our great
members, Alexander H. Stephens and Robt. Toombs, in the United States
Congress, to the amount of ten thousand dollars for money expended by
her father in the defence of his section of the country in time of the
Revolutionary War.
Jared Irwin represented Washington County in the Legislature and was
President of the State Senate at different times from 1790 to 1818. He
was in the Convention for revising our Constitution in 1789, and was
president of the body which revised it in 1798. At the close of the war
of Independence he was a member of the Legislature that convened under
our present form of government.
In 1796, the Legislature assembled in Louisville, then the Capitol of
Georgia, and on the second day of the session, January 17th, he was
elected Governor. The Legislature at once took up the Yazoo Act over
which the State was greatly excited.
A committee of investigation pronounced it not binding on the State on
account of the fraud used to obtain it. James Jackson introduced a bill
known as the "Rescinding Act." This was at once passed by both houses
and signed by Gov. Irwin, Feby. 13th, 1796.
It was resolved to burn the papers of the Yazoo Act and thus purge the
records of everything relating to it. So on Feby. 15th, 1796, wood was
piled in front of the State House, and, in the presence of Gov. Irwin
and both branches of the Legislature, fire was kindled by the use of a
lens and the records and documents were burned "with a consuming fire
from heaven."
After the death of General James Jackson, United States Senator,
Governor Milledge was elected to fill his place by the Legislature
at an extra session held in June, 1806, and in September following
tendered his resignation as Governor. In this way, Jared Irwin,
President of the Senate, again became Governor, and when the
Legislature met in November he was elected to that office for a full
term, thus filling the Governor's chair from the 23rd of September,
1806, to the 7th of November, 1809.
His administration as Governor was distinguished for justice and
impartiality. The spotless purity of his character, his affable
disposition, his widespread benevolence and hospitality, made him
the object of general affection. To the poor and distressed he was
benefactor and friend.
In every position of public life, as a soldier, a statesman and a
patriot, the public good was the object and the end of his ambition,
and his death was lamented as a national calamity.
Governor Irwin married Isabella Erwin, his cousin, and they had four
children, Thomas, John, Elizabeth and Jane. Thomas was among the nine
in the first class that graduated from the University of Georgia on
Thursday, May 31st, 1804, and had a speaker's place at Commencement.
Jane the youngest child, lived and died an old maid; she said she would
not marry for fear that the Irwin name might run out. She was spirited,
a good talker, and affable in her manner, a patriotic, whole-souled,
noble woman.
Governor Irwin died on March 1st., 1818, at the age of sixty-eight and
was buried at his home at Union Hill, in Washington County.
In 1856 there was an appropriation by the Georgia Legislature to
erect a monument to his memory; and in 1860, a Committee consisting
of Colonel R. L. Warthen, Captain S. A. H. Jones and Colonel J. W.
Rudisill, was appointed to select a site for same. It was decided to
erect the monument in Sandersville, Ga., the county site of Washington
County; and here it still stands on Court House square--a shaft of pure
white marble--a gift from the State to the memory of her noble son who
gave his life, love and ability to his beloved _Georgia_, "Empire State
of the South."--Governor Jared Irwin Chapter, D. A. R.
EDUCATION OF MEN AND WOMEN OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.
BY MRS. DEB. RANDOLPH KEIM.
_Regent Berks County, Reading Pa., Chapter and Honorary Vice-President
General, D. A. R._
Again you are assembled to do honor to the memory of George Washington,
Commander-in-Chief of the Continental armies during the war for
Independence, this being the one hundred and seventy-ninth anniversary
of his birth.
The first steps to the establishment of a school of systematic
education of young men was William and Mary College, of Williamsburgh,
the capital of Virginia, in 1617, twenty-six years before the
foundation of Harvard in Massachusetts. But the character of the former
was not granted until 1693, or fifty years after. The first common
school established by legislation in America was in Massachusetts, in
1645, but the first town school was opened at Hartford, Conn., before
1642, and I feel proud to say I graduated from this same school over
two hundred years later, then known as the Hartford Latin Grammar
School and later Hartford Boys' and Girls' High School.
The only established schools of higher learning in America after
William and Mary in Virginia and Harvard in Massachusetts for the
education of young men later prominent in the Revolution were: St.
John's, Annapolis, Md., 1696; Yale, New Haven, Conn., 1701; University
of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1740; Princeton, N. J., 1746; Washington
and Lee, Lexington, Va., 1749; Columbia, New York, 1754.
Only the sons of men of means could avail themselves of these
advantages. Therefore the great mass of those who became more or less
prominent picked up whatever they knew as best they could. In Virginia,
Patrick Henry, Washington and others had the limited opportunity and
means of the old "Field or Plantation School" which was the only road
to the rudest forms of knowledge. These were generally taught by men
of fair education, but adventurous life, who were paid by the planters
within a radius of eight or ten miles.
A notorious pedagogue, by the suggestive name Hobby, celebrated in
Virginia annals for the brisk coercive switching of the backs of his
"boys" as the most effective road to knowledge, is made famous in
history as the rudimentary educator of the great man whose beginning of
life's journey dates from this day. Washington's parents having removed
from the place of his birth when a child resided within a journey of
thirteen miles of the despotic jurisdiction of Hobby, and thither the
boy walked or rode daily except Sundays in all kinds of weather, even
being obliged to row across the Rappahannock River to Fredericksburg,
where this vigorous applier of the ferrule held forth.
At eleven years, the death of Washington's father put an end to even
this limited supply of "schooling." But the young man fortunately had
a mother who was one of the few educated women of that period. We
learn from a primitive record that Mary Ball, the name of Washington's
mother, was educated by a young man graduated from Oxford, England,
and sent over to be assistant to the rector of the Episcopal parish in
which she lived. At the age of fifteen she could read, write and spell.
In a letter preserved she wrote to a young lady friend: "He (her tutor)
teaches Sister Susie and me and Madame Carter's boy and two girls. I am
now learning pretty fast."
It was Governor Berkeley who, in a letter to his friends in England,
boastingly "thanked God that there were no schools and printing in
Virginia."
Washington was always methodical, and what he undertook was done
well. This trait he inherited from his mother, as she was a woman
worthy of imitation. From her stern disciplinary character and pious
convictions her son learned self-control and all the characteristics of
address and balance, which carried him through the most intricate and
discouraging experiences of his career.
The tastes of Washington in childhood were instinctively military; all
his amusements pointed that way. At twenty-one his first mission to
the French at le Boeuf, fixed his career as a fearless man of action.
The rescue of Braddock's Regulars from destruction by the savages was
his baptism of fire; the rest, a manifestation of human greatness put
the stamp of military prowess upon him. Virginia furnished more of
the leaders of the first rank in the contest with the Crown than any
other one colony, and yet some of the men who contributed most to the
incisive work of the conflict had few opportunities of education.
For instance, Patrick Henry, who electrified the issue in his famous
epigram which struck the fulminate of the combat for independence:
"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell and George
the Third" (Treason, treason being shouted), rejoined, "if this be
treason, make the most of it." This same authority, being criticised by
aristocratic loyalists for his lack of education, replied: "Naiteral
pairts are more acount than all the book lairning on the airth."
Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, was a man of higher education.
The private schoolhouse ten feet square on the Tuckahoe plantation,
thirteen miles west of Richmond, in which Thomas Jefferson and his
kinsman, Thomas Marr Randolph, were educated, in part by a private
tutor, was in a good state of preservation when I had the pleasure of
visiting Tuckahoe at the time of the international review at Hampton
Roads.