VIRGINIA AND ITS ECONOMY—CONTINUED.
_Norfolk._—In order to be in time for the train of cars in which I was
to leave Petersburg for Norfolk, I was called up at an unusual hour in
the morning and provided with an apology for breakfast, on the ground
that there had not been time to prepare anything better (though I was
charged full time on the bill), advised by the landlord to hurry when I
seated myself at the table, and two minutes afterwards informed that,
if I remained longer, I should be too late.
Thanks to these kind precautions, I reached the station twenty minutes
before the train left, and was afterwards carried, with about fifty
other people, at the rate of ten miles an hour, to City-point, where
all were discharged under a dirty shed, from which a wharf projected
into James River.
The train was advertised to connect here with a steamboat for Norfolk.
Finding no steamboat at the wharf, I feared, at first, that the delay
in leaving Petersburg and the slow speed upon the road had detained
us so long that the boat had departed without us. But observing
no disappointment or concern expressed by the other passengers, I
concluded the boat was to call for us, and had yet to arrive. An hour
passed, during which I tried to keep warm by walking up and down the
wharf; rain then commenced falling, and I returned to the crowded shed
and asked a young man, who was engaged in cutting the letters G. W. B.,
with a dirk-knife, upon the head of a tobacco-cask, what was supposed
to have detained the steamboat.
“Detained her? there aint no detention to her, as I know on; ’taint
hardly time for her to be along yet.”
Another half-hour, in fact, passed, before the steamboat arrived, nor
was any impatience manifested by the passengers. All seemed to take
this hurrying and waiting process as the regular thing. The women sat
sullenly upon trunks and packing-cases, and watched their baggage and
restrained their children; the men chewed tobacco and read newspapers;
lounged first on one side and then on the other; some smoked, some
walked away to a distant tavern; some reclined on the heaps of freight
and went to sleep, and a few conversed quietly and intermittently with
one another.
The shores of the James River are low and level—the scenery
uninteresting; but frequent planters’ mansions, often of considerable
size and of some elegance, stand upon the bank, and sometimes these
have very pretty and well-kept grounds about them, and the plantations
surrounding them are cultivated with neatness and skill. Many men
distinguished in law and politics here have their homes.
I was pleased to see the appearance of enthusiasm with which some
passengers, who were landed from our boat at one of these places, were
received by two or three well-dressed negro servants, who had come
from the house to the wharf to meet them. Black and white met with
kisses; and the effort of a long-haired sophomore to maintain his
dignity, was quite ineffectual to kill the kindness of a fat mulatto
woman, who joyfully and pathetically shouted, as she caught him off
the gang-plank, “Oh Massa George, is you come back!” Field negroes,
standing by, looked on with their usual besotted expression, and
neither offered nor received greetings.
_Jan. 10th._—Norfolk is a dirty, low, ill-arranged town, nearly
divided by a morass. It has a single creditable public building, a
number of fine private residences, and the polite society is reputed
to be agreeable, refined, and cultivated, receiving a character from
the families of the resident naval officers. It has all the immoral and
disagreeable characteristics of a large seaport, with very few of the
advantages that we should expect to find as relief to them. No lyceum
or public libraries, no public gardens, no galleries of art, and though
there are two “Bethels,” no “home” for its seamen; no public resorts of
healthful amusement; no place better than a filthy, tobacco-impregnated
bar-room or a licentious dance-cellar, so far as I have been able
to learn, for the stranger of high or low degree to pass the hours
unoccupied by business.
Lieut. Maury has lately very well shown what advantages were originally
possessed for profitable commerce at this point, in a report, the
intention of which is to advocate the establishment of a line of
steamers hence to Para, the port of the mouth of the Amazon. He says—
“Norfolk is in a position to have commanded the business of the
Atlantic sea-board: it is midway the coast. It has a back country
of great facility and resources; and, as to approaches to the
ocean, there is no harbour from the St. John’s to the Rio Grande
that has the same facilities of ingress and egress at all times
and in all weathers. * * * The back country of Norfolk is all that
which is drained by the Chesapeake Bay—embracing a line drawn
along the ridge between the Delaware and the Chesapeake, thence
northerly, including all of Pennsylvania that is in the valley of
the Susquehanna, all of Maryland this side of the mountains, the
valleys of the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James Rivers, with
the Valley of the Roanoke, and a great part of the State of North
Carolina, whose only outlet to the sea is by the way of Norfolk.”
In a letter to the _National Intelligencer_, Oct. 31, 1854, after
describing similar advantages which the town possesses, to those
enumerated above, Lieut. Maury, who is a Virginian, again says—
“Its climate is delightful. It is of exactly that happy
temperature where the frosts of the North bite not, and the
pestilence of the South walks not. Its harbour is commodious and
safe as safe can be. It is never blocked up by ice. It has the
double advantage of an inner and an outer harbour. The inner
harbour is as smooth as any mill-pond. In it vessels lie with
perfect security, where every imaginable facility is offered for
loading and unloading.” * * * “The back country, which without
portage is _naturally_ tributary to Norfolk, not only surpasses
that which is tributary to New York in mildness of climate, in
fertility of soil, and variety of production, but in geographical
extent by many square miles. The proportion being as _three
to one_ in favour of the Virginia port.” * * * “The _natural_
advantages, then, in relation to the sea or the back country, are
superior, _beyond comparison_, to those of New York.”
There is little, if any exaggeration in this estimate; yet, if a
deadly, enervating pestilence had always raged here, this Norfolk
could not be a more miserable, sorry little seaport town than it is.
It was not possible to prevent the existence of some agency here for
the transhipment of goods, and for supplying the needs of vessels,
compelled by exterior circumstances to take refuge in the harbour.
Beyond this bare supply of a necessitous demand, and what results from
the adjoining naval rendezvous of the nation, there is nothing.
_Jan. 18th._—The “Great Dismal Swamp,” together with the smaller
“Dismals” (for so the term is used here), of the same character, along
the North Carolina coast, have hitherto been of considerable commercial
importance as furnishing a large amount of lumber, and especially of
shingles for our Northern use, as well as for exportation. The district
from which this commerce proceeds is all a vast quagmire, the soil
being entirely composed of decayed vegetable fibre, saturated and
surcharged with water; yielding or _quaking_ on the surface to the
tread of a man, and a large part of it, during most of the year, half
inundated with standing pools. It is divided by creeks and water-veins,
and in the centre is a pond six miles long and three broad, the
shores of which, strange to, say, are at a higher elevation above the
sea, than any other part of the swamp, and yet are of the same miry
consistency. The Great Dismal is about thirty miles long and ten miles
wide, on an average; its area about 200,000 acres. And the little
Dismal, Aligator, Catfish, Green, and other smaller swamps, on the
shores of Albemarle and Pamlico, contain over 2,000,000 acres.
The swamp belongs to a great many proprietors. Most of them own only
a few acres, but some possess large tracts and use a heavy capital in
the business. One, whose acquaintance I made, employed more than a
hundred hands in getting out shingles alone. The value of the swamp
land varies with the wood upon it, and the facility with which it can
be got off, from 12½ cents to $10 an acre. It is made passable in any
desired direction in which trees grow, by laying logs, cut in lengths
of eight or ten feet, parallel and against each other on the surface of
the soil, or “sponge,” as it is called. Mules and oxen are used to some
extent upon these roads, but transportation is mainly by hand to the
creeks, or to ditches communicating with them or the canal.
Except by those log-roads, the swamp is scarcely passable in many
parts, owing not only to the softness of the sponge, but to the
obstruction caused by innumerable shrubs, vines, creepers, and briars,
which often take entire possession of the surface, forming a dense
brake or jungle. This, however, is sometimes removed by fires, which
of late years have been frequent and very destructive to the standing
timber. The most common shrubs are various smooth-leafed evergreens,
and their dense, bright, glossy foliage was exceedingly beautiful in
the wintry season of my visit. There is a good deal of game in the
swamp—bears and wild cats are sometimes shot, raccoons and opossums are
plentiful, and deer are found in the drier parts and on the outskirts.
The fishing, in the interior waters, is also said to be excellent.
Nearly all the valuable trees have now been cut off from the swamp.
The whole ground has been frequently gone over, the best timber
selected and removed at each time, leaving the remainder standing
thinly, so that the wind has more effect upon it; and much of it,
from the yielding of the soft soil, is uprooted or broken off. The
fires have also greatly injured it. The principal stock, now worked
into shingles, is obtained _from beneath the surface_—old trunks that
have been preserved by the wetness of the soil, and that are found by
“sounding” with poles, and raised with hooks or pikes by the negroes.
The quarry is giving out, however; and except that lumber, and
especially shingles, have been in great demand at high prices of late,
the business would be almost at an end. As it is, the principal men
engaged in it are turning their attention to other and more distant
supplies. A very large purchase had been made by one company in the
Florida everglades, and a schooner, with a gang of hands trained in the
“Dismals,” was about to sail from Deep Creek, for this new field of
operations.
The labour in the swamp is almost entirely done by slaves; and the
way in which they are managed is interesting and instructive. They
are mostly hired by their employers at a rent, perhaps of one hundred
dollars a year for each, paid to their owners. They spend one or two
months of the winter—when it is too wet to work in the swamp—at the
residence of their master. At this period little or no work is required
of them; their time is their own, and if they can get any employment,
they will generally keep for themselves what they are paid for it.
When it is sufficiently dry—usually early in February—they go into the
swamp in gangs, each gang under a white overseer. Before leaving, they
are all examined and registered at the Court House; and “passes,” good
for a year, are given them, in which their features and the marks upon
their persons are minutely described. Each man is furnished with a
quantity of provisions and clothing, of which, as well as of all that
he afterwards draws from the stock in the hands of the overseer, an
exact account is kept.
Arrived at their destination, a rude camp is made; huts of logs,
poles, shingles, and boughs being built, usually, upon some places
where shingles have been worked before, and in which the shavings have
accumulated in small hillocks upon the soft surface of the ground.
The slave lumberman then lives measurably as a free man; hunts, fishes,
eats, drinks, smokes and sleeps, plays and works, each when and as much
as he pleases. It is only required of him that he shall have made,
after half a year has passed, such a quantity of shingles as shall
be worth to his master so much money as is paid to his owner for his
services, and shall refund the value of the clothing and provisions he
has required.
No “driving” at his work is attempted or needed. No force is used to
overcome the indolence peculiar to the negro. The overseer merely takes
a daily account of the number of shingles each man adds to the general
stock, and employs another set of hands, with mules, to draw them to a
point from which they can be shipped, and where they are, from time to
time, called for by a schooner.
At the end of five months the gang returns to dry land, and a statement
of account from the overseer’s book is drawn up, something like the
following:—
_Sam Bo to John Doe, Dr._
Feb. 1. To clothing (outfit) $5 00
Mar. 10. To clothing, as per overseer’s account 2 25
Feb. 1. To bacon and meal (outfit) 19 00
July 1. To stores drawn in swamp, as per overseer’s
account 4 75
July 1. To half-yearly hire, paid his owner. 50 00
------
$81 00
_Per Contra, Cr._
July 1. By 10,000 shingles, as per overseer’s
account, 10c 100 00
Balance due Sambo ------ $19 00
which is immediately paid him, and of which, together with the proceeds
of sale of peltry which he has got while in the swamp, he is always
allowed to make use as his own. No liquor is sold or served to the
negroes in the swamp, and, as their first want when they come out of it
is an excitement, most of their money goes to the grog-shops.
After a short vacation, the whole gang is taken in the schooner to
spend another five months in the swamp as before. If they are good
hands and work steadily, they will commonly be hired again, and
so continuing, will spend most of their lives at it. They almost
invariably have excellent health, as have also the white men engaged in
the business. They all consider the water of the “Dismals” to have a
medicinal virtue, and quite probably it is a mild tonic. It is greenish
in colour, and I thought I detected a slightly resinous taste upon
first drinking it. Upon entering the swamp also, an agreeable resinous
odour, resembling that of a hemlock forest, was perceptible.
The negroes working in the swamp were more sprightly and
straightforward in their manner and conversation than any field-hand
plantation negroes that I saw at the South; two or three of their
employers with whom I conversed spoke well of them, as compared with
other slaves, and made no complaints of “rascality” or laziness.
One of those gentlemen told me of a remarkable case of providence and
good sense in a negro that he had employed in the swamp for many years.
He was so trustworthy, that he had once let him go to New York as cook
of a lumber schooner, when he could, if he had chosen to remain there,
have easily escaped from slavery.
Knowing that he must have accumulated considerable money, his employer
suggested to him that he might _buy_ his freedom, and he immediately
determined to do so. But when, on applying to his owner, he was asked
$500 for himself, a price which, considering he was an elderly man, he
thought too much, he declined the bargain; shortly afterwards, however,
he came to his employer again, and said that although he thought his
owner was mean to set so high a price upon him, he had been thinking
that if he was to be an old man he would rather be his own master, and
if he did not live long, his money would not be of any use to him at
any rate, and so he had concluded he would make the purchase.
He did so, and upon collecting the various sums that he had loaned to
white people in the vicinity, he was found to have several hundred
dollars more than was necessary. With the surplus, he paid for his
passage to Liberia, and bought a handsome outfit. When he was about
to leave, my informant had made him a present, and, in thanking him
for it, the free man had said that the first thing he should do, on
reaching Liberia, would be to learn to write, and, as soon as he could,
he would write to him how he liked the country: he had been gone yet
scarce a year, and had not been heard from.
* * * * *
_Deep River, Jan. 18th._—The shad and herring fisheries upon the sounds
and inlets of the North Carolina coast are an important branch of
industry, and a source of considerable wealth. The men employed in them
are mainly negroes, slave and free; and the manner in which they are
conducted is interesting, and in some respects novel.
The largest sweep seines in the world are used. The gentleman to whom
I am indebted for the most of my information, was the proprietor of
a seine over two miles in length. It was manned by a force of forty
negroes, most of whom were hired at a dollar a day, for the fishing
season, which usually commences between the tenth and fifteenth of
March, and lasts fifty days. In favourable years the profits are very
great. In extremely unfavourable years many of the proprietors are made
bankrupt.
Cleaning, curing, and packing houses are erected on the shore, as
near as they conveniently may be to a point on the beach, suitable
for drawing the seine. Six or eight windlasses, worked by horses, are
fixed along the shore, on each side of this point. There are two large
seine-boats, in each of which there is one captain, two seine-tenders,
and eight or ten oarsmen. In making a cast of the net, one-half of it
is arranged on the stern of each of the boats, which, having previously
been placed in a suitable position—perhaps a mile off shore, in front
of the buildings—are rowed from each other, the captains steering, and
the seine-tenders throwing off, until the seine is all cast between
them. This is usually done in such a way that it describes the arc
of a circle, the chord of which is diagonal with the shore. The
hawsers attached to the ends of the seine are brought first to the
outer windlasses, and are wound in by the horses. As the operation of
gathering in the seine occupies several hours, the boat hands, as soon
as they have brought the hawsers to the shore, draw their boats up, and
go to sleep.
As the wings approach the shore, the hawsers are from time to time
carried to the other windlasses, to contract the sweep of the seine.
After the gaff of the net reaches the shore, lines attached toward the
bunt are carried to the windlasses, and the boats’ crews are awakened,
and arrange the wing of the seine, as fast as it comes in, upon the
boat again. Of course, as the cast was made diagonally with the shore,
one wing is beached before the other. By the time the fish in the bunt
have been secured, both boats are ready for another cast, and the
boatmen proceed to make it, while the shore gang is engaged in sorting
and gutting the “take.”
My informant, who had $50,000 invested in his fishing establishment,
among other items of expenditure, mentioned that he had used seventy
kegs of gunpowder the previous year, and amused himself for a few
moments with letting me try to conjecture in what way villanous
saltpetre could be put to use in taking fish.
There is evidence of a subsidence of this coast, in many places, at a
comparatively recent period; many stumps of trees, evidently standing
where they grew, being found some way below the present surface, in
the swamps and salt marshes. Where the formation of the shore and the
surface, or the strength of the currents of water, which have flowed
over the sunken land, has been such as to prevent a later deposit, the
stumps of great cypress trees, not in the least decayed, protrude from
the bottom of the sounds. These would obstruct the passage of a net,
and must be removed from a fishing-ground.
The operation of removing them is carried on during the summer, after
the close of the fishing season. The position of a stump having been
ascertained by divers, two large seine-boats are moored over it,
alongside each other, and a log is laid across them, to which is
attached perpendicularly, between the boats, a spar, fifteen feet long.
The end of a chain is hooked to the log, between the boats, the other
end of which is fastened by divers to the stump which it is wished
to raise. A double-purchase tackle leads from the end of the spar to
a ring-bolt in the bows of one of the boats, with the fall leading
aft, to be bowsed upon by the crews. The mechanical advantages of the
windlass, the lever, and the pulley being thus combined, the chain is
wound on to the log, until either the stump yields, and is brought to
the surface, or the boats’ gunwales are brought to the water’s edge.
When the latter is the case, and the stump still remains firm, a
new power must be applied. A spile, pointed with iron, six inches in
diameter, and twenty feet long, is set upon the stump by a diver, who
goes down with it, and gives it that direction which, in his judgment,
is best, and driven into it by mauls and sledges, a scaffold being
erected between the boats for men to stand on while driving it. In very
large stumps, the spile is often driven till its top reaches the water;
so that when it is drawn out, a cavity is left in the stump, ten feet
in depth. A tube is now used, which is made by welding together three
musket-barrels, with a breech at one end, in which is the tube of a
percussion breech, with the ordinary position of the nipple reversed,
so that when it is screwed on with a detonating cap, the latter will
protrude within the barrel. This breech is then inserted within a
cylindrical tin box, six inches in diameter, and varying in length,
according to the supposed strength of the stump; and soap or tallow is
smeared about the place of insertion to make it water tight. The box
contains several pounds of gunpowder.
The long iron tube is elevated, and the diver goes down again, and
guides it into the hole in the stump, with the canister in his arms.
It has reached the bottom—the diver has come up, and is drawn into
one of the boats—an iron rod is inserted in the mouth of the tube—all
hands crouch low and hold hard—the rod is let go—crack!—whoo—oosch! The
sea swells, boils, and breaks upward. If the boats do not rise with
it, they must sink; if they rise, and the chain does not break, the
stump must rise with them. At the same moment the heart of cypress is
riven; its furthest rootlets quiver; the very earth trembles, and loses
courage to hold it; “up comes the stump, or down go the niggers!”
The success of the operation evidently depends mainly on the
discretion and skill of the diver. My informant, who thought that he
removed last summer over a thousand stumps, using for the purpose
seventy kegs of gunpowder, employed several divers, all of them
negroes. Some of them could remain under water, and work there to
better advantage than others; but all were admirably skilful, and this,
much in proportion to the practice and experience they had had. They
wear, when diving, three or four pairs of flannel drawers and shirts.
Nothing is required of them when they are not wanted to go to the
bottom, and, while the other hands are at work, they may lounge, or go
to sleep in the boat, which they do, in their wet garments. Whenever
a diver displays unusual hardihood, skill, or perseverance, he is
rewarded with whisky; or, as they are commonly allowed, while diving,
as much whisky as they want, with money. Each of them would generally
get every day from a quarter to half a dollar in this way, above the
wages paid for them, according to the skill and industry with which
they had worked. On this account, said my informant, “the harder the
work you give them to do, the better they like it.” His divers very
frequently had intermittent fevers, but would very rarely let this keep
them out of their boats. Even in the midst of a severe “shake,” they
would generally insist that they were “well enough to dive.”
What! slaves eager to work, and working cheerfully, earnestly, and
skilfully? Even so. Being for the time managed as freemen, their
ambition stimulated by wages, suddenly they, too, reveal sterling
manhood, and honour their Creator.
* * * * *
_Norfolk, Jan. 19th._—The market gardens at Norfolk—which have been
profitably supplying New York markets with poor early vegetables, and
half-hardy luxuries for several years past—do not differ at all from
market gardens elsewhere. They are situated in every direction for many
miles from the city, offering a striking contrast, in all respects,
to the large, old-fashioned Virginian farms, among which they are
scattered.
On one of the latter, of over a thousand acres, a friend told me he
had seen the negroes moving long, strawy manure with shovels, and upon
inquiry found there was not a dung-fork on the place.
The soil is a poor sandy loam, and manure is brought by shipping
from Baltimore, as well as from the nearer towns, to enrich it. The
proprietors of the market gardens are nearly all from New Jersey,
and brought many of their old white labourers with them. Except at
picking-time, when everything possessing fingers is in demand, they do
not often employ slaves.
The _Norfolk Argus_ says that, from about the 20th June to the 20th
July, from 2,000 to 2,500 barrels of potatoes will be shipped daily
from that city to Philadelphia and New York, together with 300 to 500
barrels of cucumbers, musk-melons, etc.
* * * * *
_Norfolk, Jan. 20th._—While driving a chaise from Portsmouth to Deep
River, I picked up on the road a jaded-looking negro, who proved to be
a very intelligent and good-natured fellow. His account of the lumber
business, and of the life of the lumbermen in the swamps, in answer to
my questions, was clear and precise, and was afterwards verified by
information obtained from his master.
He told me that his name was Joseph, that he belonged (as property)
to a church in one of the inland counties, and that he was hired
from the trustees of the church by his present master. He expressed
contentment with his lot, but great unwillingness to be sold to go on
to a plantation. He liked to “mind himself,” as he did in the swamps.
Whether he would still more prefer to be entirely his own master, I did
not ask.
The Dismal Swamps are noted places of refuge for runaway negroes.
They were formerly peopled in this way much more than at present; a
systematic hunting of them with dogs and guns having been made by
individuals who took it up as a business about ten years ago. Children
were born, bred, lived, and died here. Joseph Church told me he had
seen skeletons, and had helped to bury bodies recently dead. There
were people in the swamps still, he thought, that were the children of
runaways, and who had been runaways themselves “all their lives.” What
a life it must be! born outlaws; educated self-stealers; trained from
infancy to be constantly in dread of the approach of a white man as a
thing more fearful than wild cats or serpents, or even starvation.
There can be but few, however, if any, of these “natives” left. They
cannot obtain the means of supporting life without coming often either
to the outskirts to steal from the plantations, or to the neighbourhood
of the camps of the lumbermen. They depend much upon the charity or
the wages given them by the latter. The poorer white men, owning small
tracts of the swamps, will sometimes employ them, and the negroes
frequently. In the hands of either they are liable to be betrayed to
the negro-hunters. Joseph said that they had huts in “back places,”
hidden by bushes, and difficult of access; he had, apparently, been
himself quite intimate with them. When the shingle negroes employed
them, he told me, they made them get up logs for them, and would give
them enough to eat, and some clothes, and perhaps two dollars a month
in money. But some, when they owed them money, would betray them,
instead of paying them.
I asked if they were ever shot. “Oh, yes,” he said; “when the hunters
saw a runaway, if he tried to get from them, they would call out to
him, that if he did not stop they would shoot, and if he did not, they
would shoot, and sometimes kill him.
“_But some on ’em would rather be shot than be took, sir_,” he added,
simply.
A farmer living near the swamp confirmed this account, and said he knew
of three or four being shot in one day.
No particular breed of dogs is needed for hunting negroes:
blood-hounds, fox-hounds, bull-dogs, and curs were used,[24] and one
white man told me how they were trained for it, as if it were a common
or notorious practice. They are shut up when puppies, and never allowed
to see a negro except while training to catch him. A negro is made to
run from them, and they are encouraged to follow him until he gets
into a tree, when meat is given them. Afterwards they learn to follow
any particular negro by scent, and then a shoe or a piece of clothing
is taken off a negro, and they learn to find by scent who it belongs
to, and to tree him, etc. All this the farmer told me. I don’t think
dogs are employed in the ordinary “driving” in the swamp, but only
to overtake some particular slave, as soon as possible, after it is
discovered that he has fled from a plantation. Joseph said that it was
easy for the drivers to tell a fugitive from a regularly employed slave
in the swamps.
“How do they know them?”
“How do you mean?”
“Oh, dey looks _strange_.”
“_Skeared_ like, you know, sir, and kind o’ strange, cause dey hasn’t
much to eat, and ain’t decent [not decently clothed], like we is.”
When the hunters take a negro who has not a pass, or “free papers,”
and they don’t know whose slave he is, they confine him in jail, and
advertise him. If no one claims him within a year he is sold to the
highest bidder, at a public sale, and this sale gives title in law
against any subsequent claimant.
The form of the advertisements used in such cases is shown by the
following, which are cut from North Carolina newspapers, published in
counties adjoining the Dismals. Such advertisements are quite as common
in the papers of many parts of the Slave States as those of horses or
cattle “Taken up” in those of the North:—
WAS TAKEN UP and committed to the Jail of Halifax County, on
the 26th day of May, a dark coloured boy, who says his name is
JORDAN ARTIS. Said boy says he was born free, and was bound out to
William Beale, near Murfreesboro, Hertford County, N.C., and is
now 21 years of age. The owner is requested to come forward, prove
property, pay charges, and take the said boy away, within the time
prescribed by law; otherwise he will be dealt with as the law
directs.
O. P. SHELL, Jailer.
Halifax County, N.C., June 8,1855.
* * * * *
TAKEN UP,
AND COMMITTED to the Jail of New Hanover County, on the 5th of
March, 1855, a Negro Man, who says his name is EDWARD LLOYD. Said
negro is about 35 or 40 years old, light complected, 5 feet 9½
inches high, slim built, upper fore teeth out; says he is a Mason
by trade, that he is free, and belongs in Alexandria, Va., that
he served his time at the Mason business under Mr. Wm. Stuart, of
Alexandria. He was taken up and committed as a runaway. His owner
is notified to come forward, prove property, pay charges, and take
him away, or he will be dealt with as the law directs.
E. D. HALL, Sheriff.
In the same paper with the last are four advertisements of Runaways:
two of them, as specimens, I transcribe.
$200 REWARD.
RAN AWAY from the employ of Messrs. Holmes & Brown, on Sunday
night, 20th inst., a negro man named YATNEY or MEDICINE, belonging
to the undersigned. Said boy is stout built, about 5 feet 4 inches
high, 22 years old, and dark complected, and has the appearance,
when walking slow, of one leg being a little shorter than the
other. He was brought from Chapel Hill, and is probably lurking
either in the neighbourhood of that place, or Beatty’s Bridge, in
Bladen County.
The above reward will be paid for evidence sufficient to convict
any white person of harbouring him, or a reward of $25 for his
apprehension and confinement in any Jail in the State, so that I
can get him, or for his delivery to me in Wilmington.
J. T. SCHONWALD.
RUNAWAY
FROM THE SUBSCRIBER, on the 27th of May, his negro boy ISOME. Said
boy is about 21 years of age; rather light complexion; very coarse
hair; weight about 150 lbs.; height about 5 feet 6 or 7 inches;
rather pleasing countenance; quick and easy spoken; rather a
downcast look. It is thought that he is trying to make his way to
Franklin county, N.C., where he was hired in Jan. last, of Thomas
J. Blackwell. A liberal Reward will be given for his confinement
in any Jail in North or South Carolina, or to any one who will
give information where he can be found.
W. H. PRIVETT,
Canwayboro’, S.C.
Handbills, written or printed, offering rewards for the return of
runaway slaves, are to be constantly seen at nearly every court-house,
tavern, and post-office. The frequency with which these losses must
occur, however, on large plantations, is most strongly evidenced by the
following paragraph from the domestic-news columns of the _Fayetteville
Observer_. A man who would pay these prices must anticipate frequent
occasion to use his purchase.
“Mr. J. L. Bryan, of Moore county, sold at public auction, on the
20th instant, a pack of ten hounds, trained for hunting runaways,
for the sum of $1,540. The highest price paid for any one dog was
$301; lowest price, $75; average for the ten, $154. The terms of
sale were six months’ credit, with approved security, and interest
from date.”
The newspapers of the South-western States frequently contain
advertisements similar to the following, which is taken from the _West
Tennessee Democrat_:—
BLOOD-HOUNDS.—I have TWO of the FINEST DOGS for CATCHING NEGROES
in the Southwest. They can take the trail TWELVE HOURS after
the NEGRO HAS PASSED, and catch him with ease. I live just four
miles southwest of Boliver, on the road leading from Boliver
to Whitesville. I am ready at all times to catch runaway
negroes.—March 2, 1853.
DAVID TURNER.
The largest and best “hotel” in Norfolk had been closed, shortly before
I was there, from want of sufficient patronage to sustain it, and I was
obliged to go to another house, which, though quite pretending, was
shamefully kept. The landlord paid scarcely the smallest attention to
the wants of his guests, turned his back when inquiries were made of
him, and replied insolently to complaints and requests. His slaves were
far his superiors in manners and morals; but, not being one quarter in
number what were needed, and consequently not being able to obey one
quarter of the orders that were given them, their only study was to
disregard, as far as they would be allowed to, all requisitions upon
their time and labour. The smallest service could only be obtained by
bullying or bribing. Every clean towel that I got during my stay was a
matter of special negotiation.
I was first put in a very small room, in a corner of the house, next
under the roof. The weather being stormy, and the roof leaky, water was
frequently dripping from the ceiling upon the bed and driving in at the
window, so as to stand in pools upon the floor. There was no fire-place
in the room; the ladies’ parlour was usually crowded by ladies and then
friends, among whom I had no acquaintance, and, as it was freezing
cold, I was obliged to spend most of my time in the stinking bar-room,
where the landlord, all the time, sat with his boon companions, smoking
and chewing and talking obscenely.
This crew of old reprobates frequently exercised their indignation upon
Mrs. Stowe, and other “Infidel abolitionists;” and, on Sunday, having
all attended church, afterwards mingled with their ordinary ribaldry
laudations of the “evangelical” character of the sermons they had heard.
On the night I arrived, I was told that I would be provided, the next
morning, with a room in which I could have a fire, and a similar
promise was given me every twelve hours, for five days, before I
obtained it; then, at last, I had to share it with two strangers.
When I left, the same petty sponging operation was practised upon me as
at Petersburg. The breakfast, for which half a dollar had been paid,
was not ready until an hour after I had been called; and, when ready,
consisted of cold salt fish; dried slices of bread and tainted butter;
coffee, evidently made the day before and half re-warmed; no milk, the
milkman not arriving so early in the morning, the servant said; and
no sooner was I seated than the choice was presented to me, by the
agitated book-keeper, of going without such as this, or of losing the
train, and so being obliged to stay in the house twenty-four hours
longer.
Of course I dispensed with the breakfast, and hurried off with the
porter, who was to take my baggage on a wheelbarrow to the station. The
station was across the harbour, in Portsmouth. Notwithstanding all the
haste I could communicate to him, we reached the ferry-landing just
as the boat left, too late by three seconds. I looked at my watch; it
lacked but twenty minutes of the time at which the landlord and the
book-keeper and the breakfast-table waiter and the railroad company’s
advertisements had informed me that the train left. “Nebber mine,
massa,” said the porter, “dey won’t go widout ’ou—Baltimore boat haant
ariv yet; dey doan go till dat come in, sueh.”
Somewhat relieved by this assurance, and by the arrival of others at
the landing, who evidently expected to reach the train, I went into
the market and got a breakfast from the cake and fruit stalls of the
negro-women.
In twenty minutes the ferry-boat returned, and after waiting some time
at the landing, put out again; but when midway across the harbour, the
wheels ceased to revolve, and for fifteen minutes we drifted with the
tide. The fireman had been asleep, the fires had got low, and the steam
given out. I observed that the crew, including the master or pilot, and
the engineer, were all negroes.
We reached the railroad station about half an hour after the time at
which the train should have left. There were several persons, prepared
for travelling, waiting about it, but there was no sign of a departing
train, and the ticket-office was not open. I paid the porter, sent him
back, and was added to the number of the waiters.
The delay was for the Baltimore boat, which arrived in an hour after
the time the train was advertised, unconditionally, to start, and the
first forward movement was more than an hour and a half behind time. A
brakeman told me this delay was not very unusual, and that an hour’s
waiting might be commonly calculated upon with safety.
The distance from Portsmouth to Welden, N.C., eighty miles, was run in
three hours and twenty minutes—twenty-five miles an hour. The road,
which was formerly a very poor and unprofitable one, was bought up a
few years ago, mainly, I believe, by Boston capital, and reconstructed
in a substantial manner. The grades are light, and there are few
curves. Fare, 2¾ cents a mile.
At a way-station a trader had ready a company of negroes, intended to
be shipped South; but the “servants’ car” being quite full already,
they were obliged to be left for another train. As we departed from the
station, I stood upon the platform of the rear car with two other men.
One said to the other:—
“That’s a good lot of niggers.”
“Damn’d good; I only wish they belonged to me.”
I entered the car, and took a seat, and presently they followed, and
sat near me. Continuing their conversation thus commenced, they spoke
of their bad luck in life. One appeared to have been a bar-keeper; the
other an overseer. One said the highest wages he had ever been paid
were two hundred dollars a year, and that year he hadn’t laid up a
cent. Soon after, the other, speaking with much energy and bitterness,
said:—
“I wish to God, old Virginny was free of all the niggers.”
“It would be a good thing if she was.”
“Yes, sir; and, I tell you, it would be a damn’d good thing for us poor
fellows.”
“I reckon it would, myself.”
* * * * *
When we stopped at Weldon, a man was shouting from a stage-coach,
“Passengers for Gaston! Hurry up! Stage is waiting!” As he repeated
this the third time, I threw up to him my two valises, and proceeded to
climb to the box, to take my seat.
“You are in a mighty hurry, aint ye?”
“Didn’t you say the stage was waiting?”
“If ye’r goin’ ter get any dinner to-day, better get it here; won’t
have much other chance. Be right smart about it, too.”
“Then you are not going yet?”
“You can get yer dinner, if ye want to.”
“You’ll call me, will you, when you are ready to go?”
“I shan’t go without ye, ye needn’t be afeard—go ’long in, and get yer
dinner; this is the place, if anywar;—don’t want to go without yer
dinner, do ye?”
Before arriving at Weldon, a handbill, distributed by the proprietors
of this inn, had been placed in my hands, from which I make the
following extracts:—
“We pledge our word of honour, as gentlemen, that if the fare at
our table be inferior to that on the table of our enterprising
competitor, we will not receive a cent from the traveller, but
relinquish our claims to pay, as a merited forfeit, for what we
would regard as a wanton imposition upon the rights and claims of
the unsuspecting traveller.
“We have too much respect for the Ladies of our House, to make
even a remote allusion to their domestic duties in a public
circular. It will not however, be regarded indelicate in us
to say, that the duties performed by them have been, and are
satisfactory to us, and, as far as we know, to the public. And we
will only add, in this connection, that we take much pleasure in
superintending both our “Cook-House” and Table in person, and in
administering in person to the wants of our guests.
“We have made considerable improvements in our House of late, and
those who wish to remain over at Weldon, will find, with us, airy
rooms clean beds, brisk fires, and attentive and orderly servants,
with abundance of FRESH OYSTERS during the season, and every
necessary and luxury that money can procure.
“It is not our wish to deceive strangers nor others; and if, on
visiting our House, they do not find things as here represented,
they can publish us to the world as impostors, and the ignominy
will be ours.”
Going into the house, I found most of the passengers by the train
at dinner, and the few negro boys and girls in too much of a hurry
to pay attention to any one in particular. The only palatable viand
within my reach was some cold sweet potatoes; of these I made a slight
repast, paid the landlord, who stood like a sentry in the doorway, half
a dollar, and in fifteen minutes, by my watch, from the time I had
entered, went out, anxious to make sure of my seat on the box, for the
coach was so small that but one passenger could be conveniently carried
outside. The coach was gone.
“O, yes, sir,” said the landlord, hardly disguising his satisfaction;
“gone—yes, sir, some time ago; you was in to dinner, was you, sir—pity!
you’ll have to stay over till to-morrow now, won’t you?”
“I suppose so,” said I, hardly willing to give up my intention to sleep
in Raleigh that night, even to secure a clean bed and fresh oysters.
“Which road does the stage go upon?”
“Along the county road.”
“Which is that—this way through the woods?”
“Yes, sir.—Carried off your baggage did he?—Pity! Suppose he forgot
you. Pity!”
“Thank you—yes, I suppose he did. Is it a pretty good road?”
“No, sir, ’taint first-rate—good many pretty bad slews. You might
go round by the Petersburg Railroad, to-morrow. You’d overtake your
baggage at Gaston.”
“Thank you. It was not a very fast team, I know. I’m going to take a
little run; and, if I shouldn’t come back before night, you needn’t
keep a bed for me. Good day, sir.”
In about half an hour I overhauled the coach: as I came up, the driver
hailed me—
“Hallo! that you?”
“Why did not you wait for me, or call me when you wanted to go, as you
promised?”
“Reckoned yer was inside—didn’t look in, coz I asked if ’twas
all right, and somebody, this ’ere gentleman here”—[who had got
my seat]—“‘Yes,’ says he, ‘all right;’ so I reckoned ’twas, and
driv along. Mustn’t blame me. Ortn’t to be so long swallerin’ yer
dinner—mind, next time!”
The road was as bad as anything under the name of a road can be
conceived to be. Wherever the adjoining swamps, fallen trees, stumps,
and plantation fences would admit of it, the coach was driven, with a
great deal of dexterity, out of the road. When the wheels sunk in the
mud, below the hubs, we were sometimes requested to get out and walk.
An upset seemed every moment inevitable. At length, it came; and the
driver, climbing on to the upper side, opened the door, and asked—
“Got mixed up some in here then, didn’t ye? Ladies, hurt any? Well,
come, get out here; don’t want to stay here all night I reckon, do
ye?—Aint nothing broke, as I see. We’ll right her right up. Nary durn’d
rail within a thousan’ mile, I don’t s’pose; better be lookin’ roun’;
got to get somethin’ for a pry.”
In four hours after I left the hotel at Weldon, the coach reached the
bank of the Roanoke, a distance of fourteen miles, and stopped. “Here
we are,” said the driver, opening the door.
“Where are we—not in Gaston?”
“Durned nigh it. That ere’s Gaston, over thar; and you jast holler, and
they’ll come over arter you in the boat.”
Gaston was a mile above us, and on the other side of the river. Nearly
opposite was a house, and a scow drawn up on the beach; the distance
across the river was, perhaps, a quarter of a mile. When the driver had
got the luggage off, he gathered his reins, and said—
“Seems to me them ther gol-durned lazy niggers aint a goin’ to come
over arter you now; if they won’t you’d better go up to the railroad
bridge, some of ye, and get a boat, or else go down here to Free Town;
some of them cussed free niggers ’ll be glad of the job, I no doubt.”
“But, confound it, driver! you are not going to leave us here, are you?
we paid to be carried to Gaston.”
“Can’t help it; you are clus to Gaston, any how, and if any man thinks
he’s goin’ to hev me drive him up to the bridge to-night, he’s damnably
mistaken, he is, and I aint a goin’ to do it not for no man, I ain’t.”
And away he drove, leaving us, all strangers, in a strange country,
just at the edge of night, far from any house, to “holler.”
The only way to stop him was to shoot him; and, as we were all good
citizens, and travelled with faith in the protection of the law, and
not like knights-errant, armed for adventure, we could not do that.
Good citizens? No, we were not; for we have all, to this day, neglected
to prosecute the fellow, or his employers. It would, to be sure,
have cost us ten times any damages we should have been awarded; but,
if we had been really good citizens, we should have been as willing
to sacrifice the necessary loss, as knights-errant of old were to
risk life to fight bloody giants. And, until many of us can have the
nobleness to give ourselves the trouble and expense of killing off
these impudent highwaymen of our time, at law, we have all got to
suffer in their traps and stratagems.
We soon saw the “gol-durned lazy niggers” come to their scow, and after
a scrutiny of our numbers, and a consultation among themselves, which
evidently resulted in the conclusion that the job wouldn’t pay, go back.
When it began to grow dark, leaving me as a baggage-guard, the rest of
the coach’s company walked up the bank of the river, and crossed by a
railroad bridge to Gaston. One of them afterwards returned with a gang
of negroes, whom he had hired, and a large freight-boat, into which,
across the snags which lined the shore, we passed all the baggage.
Among the rest, there were some very large and heavy chests, belonging
to two pretty women, who were moving, with their effects; and, although
they remained in our company all the next day, they not only neglected
to pay their share of the boat and negro-hire, but forgot to thank us,
or even gratefully to smile upon us, for our long toil in the darkness
for them.
Working up the swollen stream of the Roanoke, with setting-poles and
oars, we at length reached Gaston. When I bought my tickets at the
station in Portsmouth, I said, “I will take tickets to any place this
side of Raleigh at which I can arrive before night. I wish to avoid
travelling after dark.” “You can go straight through to Raleigh, before
dark,” said the clerk. “You are sure of that?” “Yes, sir.” On reaching
Gaston, I inquired at what time the train for Raleigh had passed: “At
three o’clock.”
According to the advertisement, it should have passed at two o’clock;
and, under the most favourable circumstances, it could not have been
possible for us, leaving Portsmouth at the time we did, to reach Gaston
before four o’clock, or Raleigh in less than twenty-eight hours after
the time promised. The next day, I asked one of the railroad men how
often the connection occurred, which is advertised in the Northern
papers, as if it were a certain thing to take place at Gaston. “Not
very often, sir; it hain’t been once, in the last two weeks.” Whenever
the connection is not made, all passengers whom these railroad
freebooters have drawn into their ambush, are obliged to remain over a
day, at Gaston; for, as is to be supposed, with such management, the
business of the road will support but one train a day.
The route by sea, from Baltimore to Portsmouth, and thence by these
lines, is advertised as the surest, cheapest, and most expeditious
route to Raleigh. Among my stage companions, were some who lived
beyond Raleigh. This was Friday. They would now not reach Raleigh till
Saturday night, and such as could not conscientiously travel on Sunday,
would be detained from home two days longer than if they had come the
land route. One of them lived some eighty miles beyond Raleigh, and
intended to proceed by a coach, which was to leave Saturday morning.
He would probably be now detained till the following Wednesday, as the
coach left Raleigh but twice a week.
The country from Portsmouth to Gaston, eighty miles, partly in
Virginia, and partly in North Carolina, is almost all pine forest, or
cypress swamp; and on the little land that is cultivated, I saw no
indication of any other crop than maize. The soil is light and poor.
Between Weldon and Gaston there are heavier soils, and we passed
several cotton fields, and planters’ mansions. On the low, flat lands
bordering the banks of the Roanoke, the soil is of the character of
that of James River, fine, fertile, mellow loam; and the maize crop
seemed to have been heavy.
Gaston is a village of some twenty houses, shops, and cabins, besides
the railroad storehouses, the hotel, and a nondescript building, which
may be either a fancy barn, or a little church, getting high. From the
manner in which passengers are forced, by the management of the trains
arriving here, to patronize it, the hotel, I presume, belongs to the
railroad companies. It is ill-kept, but affords some entertainment
from its travesty of certain metropolitan vulgarities. I was chummed
with a Southern gentleman, in a very small room. Finding the sheets
on both our beds had been soiled by previous occupants, he made a row
about it with the servants, and, after a long delay, had them changed;
then observing that it was probably the mistress’s fault, and not
the servants’, he paid the negro, whom he had been berating, for his
trouble.
Among our inside passengers, in the stage-coach, was a free coloured
woman; she was treated in no way differently from the white ladies.
My room-mate said this was entirely customary at the South, and no
Southerner would ever think of objecting to it. Notwithstanding which,
I have known young Southerners to get very angry because negroes were
not excluded from the public conveyances in which they had taken
passage themselves, at the North; and I have always supposed that
when they were so excluded, it was from fear of offending Southern
travellers, more than anything else.[25]
Sitting near some men lounging on the river-bank, I took notes of the
following interesting information, delivered in a high-keyed, blatant
drawl:—
“The best medicine there is, is this here Idee of Potasun. It’s
made out of two minerals; one on ’em they gets in the mountains of
Scotland—that’s the Idee; the other’s steel-filings, and they mixes
them eschemically until they works altogether into a solid stuff like
saltpetre. Now, I tell you that’s the stuff for medicine. It’s the best
thing a man can ever put into his self. It searches out every narve in
his body.”
The train by which we were finally able to leave Gaston arrived the
next day an hour and a half after its advertised time. The road was
excellent and the speed good, a heavy U rail having lately been
substituted for a flat one. A new equipment of the road, throughout, is
nearly complete. The cars of this train were very old, dirty, and with
dilapidated and moth-eaten furniture. They furnished me with a comfort,
however, which I have never been able to try before—a full-length
lounge, on which, with my overcoat for a pillow, the car being warmed,
and unintentionally well ventilated, I slept soundly after dark. Why
night-trains are not furnished with sleeping apartments, has long
been a wonder to me. We have now smoking-rooms and water-closets on
our trains; why not sleeping, dressing, and refreshment rooms? With
these additions, and good ventilation, we could go from New York to
New Orleans, by rail, without stopping: as it is, a man of ordinary
constitution cannot go a quarter that distance without suffering
serious indisposition. Surely such improvements could not fail to be
remunerative, particularly on lines competing with water communication.
The country passed through, so far as I observed, was almost entirely
covered with wood; and such of it as was cultivated, very unproductive.
The city of Raleigh (old Sir Walter), the capital of North Carolina,
is a pleasing town—the streets wide, and lined with trees, and many
white wooden mansions, all having little court-yards of flowers and
shrubbery around them. The State-house is, in every way, a noble
building, constructed of brownish-gray granite, in Grecian style. It
stands on an elevated position, near the centre of the city, in a
square field, which is shaded by some tall old oaks, and could easily
be made into an appropriate and beautiful little park; but which, with
singular negligence, or more singular economy (while $500,000 has been
spent upon the simple edifice), remains in a rude state of undressed
nature, and is used as a hog-pasture. A trifle of the expense, employed
with doubtful advantage, to give a smooth exterior face to the blocks
of stone, if laid out in grading, smoothing, and dressing its ground
base, would have added indescribably to the beauty of the edifice. An
architect should always begin his work upon the ground.
It is hard to admire what is common; and it is, perhaps, asking too
much of the citizens of Raleigh, that they should plant for ornament,
or even cause to be retained about such institutions as their Lunatic
Asylum, the beautiful evergreens that crowd about the town; but can any
man walk from the Capitol oaks to the pine grove, a little beyond the
Deaf and Dumb Institution, and say that he would not far rather have
the latter than the former to curtain in his habitation? If he can in
summer, let him try it again, as I did, in a soft winter’s day, when
the evergreens fill the air with a balsamic odour, and the green light
comes quivering through them, and the foot falls silently upon the
elastic carpet they have spread, deluding one with all the feelings of
spring.
The country, for miles about Raleigh, is nearly all pine forest,
unfertile, and so little cultivated, that it is a mystery how a town of
2,500 inhabitants can obtain sufficient supplies from it to exist.
The public-house at which I stayed was, however, not only well
supplied, but was excellently well kept, for a house of its class, in
all other respects. The landlord superintended his business personally,
and was always attentive and obliging to his guests; and the servants
were sufficiently numerous, intelligent, and well instructed. Though
I had no acquaintances in Raleigh, I remained, finding myself in
such good quarters, several days. I think the house was called “The
Burlinghame.”
After this stay, rendered also partly necessary for the repair of
damages to my clothing and baggage on the Weldon stage, I engaged a
seat one day on the coach, advertised to leave at nine o’clock for
Fayetteville. At half-past nine, tired of waiting for its departure,
I told the agent, as it was not ready to start, I would walk on a
bit, and let them pick me up. I found a rough road—for several miles
a clayey surface and much water—and was obliged to pick my way a good
deal through the woods on either side. Stopping frequently, when I
came to cultivated land, to examine the soil and the appearance of the
stubble of the maize—the only crop—in three different fields I made
five measurements at random, of fifty feet each, and found the stalks
had stood, on an average, five feet by two feet one inch apart, and
that, generally, they were not over an inch in diameter at the butt. In
one old-field, in process of clearing for new cultivation, I examined
a most absurd little plough, with a share not more than six inches
in depth, and eight in length on the sole, fastened by a socket to a
stake, to which was fitted a short beam and stilts. It was drawn by one
mule, and its work among the stumps could only be called scratching. A
farmer told me that he considered twenty-five bushels of corn a large
crop, and that he generally got only as much as fifteen. He said that
no money was to be got by raising corn, and very few farmers here
“made” any more than they needed for their own force. It cost too much
to get it to market, and yet sometimes they had to buy corn at a dollar
a bushel, and waggon it home from Raleigh, or further, enough not
having been raised in the country for home consumption. Cotton was the
only crop they got any money for. I, nevertheless, did not see a single
cotton-field during the day. He said that the largest crop of corn that
he knew of, reckoned to be fifty bushels to the acre, had been raised
on some reclaimed swamp, while it was still so wet that horses would
mire on it all the summer, and most of it had been tended entirely with
hoes.
After walking a few miles, the country became more flat, and was
covered with old forests of yellow pine, and, at nine miles south of
Raleigh, there were occasionally young long-leaved pines: exceedingly
beautiful they are while young, the colour being more agreeable than
that of any other pine, and the leaves, or “straw,” as its foliage is
called here, long, graceful, and lustrous. As the tree gets older, it
becomes of a stiffer character and darker colour.
I do not think I passed, in ten miles, more than half a dozen
homesteads, and of these but one was at all above the character of a
hut or cabin. The same remarkable appearance of listlessness, which
I had noticed so often in Virginia, characterized the men who stood
leaning against the logs of the hovels. They blinked at me as I passed,
as if unable to withdraw their hands from their pockets to shade their
eyes. Every dwelling sent its pack of curs to meet me, and as often as
they opened cry, a woman, with a pipe in her mouth, would come to the
door and call me off; the men and boys blinking on in rest and silence.
A little after one o’clock I reached “Banks’s,” a plantation where
the stage horses are changed, eleven miles from Raleigh. Here I waited
nearly an hour, till the coach arrived, when, fresh horses having been
put on, I took an outside seat.
“There ain’t a man in North Car’lina could drive them horses up the
hills without a whip,” said the driver. “You ought to get yesef a whip,
massa,” said one of the negroes. “Durnation! think I’m going to buy
whips! the best whip in North Car’lina wouldn’t last a week on this
road.” “Dat’s a fac—dat ar is a fac; but look yeah, massa, ye let me
hab yer stick, and I’ll make a whip for ye; ye nebber can make Bawley
go widout it, no how.” The stick was a sapling rod, of which two or
three lay on the coach top; the negro fastened a long leather thong to
it. “Dah! ye can fetch old Bawley wi’ dat.” “Bawley” had been tackled
in as the leader of the “spike team;” but, upon attempting to start, it
was found that he couldn’t be driven in that way at all, and the driver
took him out and put him to the pole, within reach of the butt of his
stick, and another horse was put on the lead.
One negro now took the leader by the head, and applied a stick
lustily to his flanks; another, at the near wheeler, did the same;
and the driver belaboured Bawley from the box. But as soon as they
began to move forward, and the negro let go the leader’s head, he
would face about. After this had been repeated many times, a new plan
of operations was arranged that proved successful. Leaving the two
wheelers to the care of the negroes, the driver was enabled to give
all his attention to the leader. When the wheelers started, of course
he was struck by the pole, upon which he would turn tail and start for
the stable. The negroes kept the wheelers from following him, and the
driver with his stick, and another negro with the bough of a tree,
thrashed his face; he would then turn again, and, being hit by the
pole, start ahead. So, after ten minutes of fearful outcry, we got off.
“How far is it to Mrs. Barclay’s?” a passenger had asked. “Thirteen
miles,” answered a negro; “but I tell ’ou, massa, dais a heap to be
said and talk ’bout ’fore ’ou see Missy Barclay’s wid dem hosses.”
There was, indeed.
“Bawley—_you!_ Bawley—Bawley! wha’ ’bout?—ah!”
“_Rock!_ wha’ you doin’?—(durned sick horse—an’t fit to be in a stage,
nohow).”
“Bawley! you! g’up!”
“Oh! you dod-rotted Bob—_Bob!_—(he don’t draw a pound, and he an’t a
gwine to)—_you_, Bob!—(well, he can’t stop, can he, as long as the
wheelers keep movin’?) Bob! I’ll break yer legs, you don’t git out the
way.”
“Oh, Bawley!—(no business to put such a lame hoss into the stage.)
Blamnation, Bawley! Now, if you stop, I’ll kill you.”
“Wha’ ’bout, Rock? Dod burn that Rock! You stop if you dare! (I’ll be
durned to Hux if that ’ere hoss arn’t all used up.)”
“You, _Bob!_ get out de way, or I’ll be——.”
“Oh! d’rot yer soul, Bawley—y’re gwine to stop! G’up! G’up! _Rock!_ You
all-fired ole villain! Wha’ ’bout? (If they jus’ git to stoppin’, all
hell couldn’t git the mails through to-night.)”
After about three miles of this, they did stop. The driver threw the
reins down in despair. After looking at the wheels, and seeing that we
were on a good piece of road, nothing unusual to hinder progress, he
put his hands in his pockets, and sat quietly a minute, and then began,
in a business-like manner, to swear, no longer confining himself to the
peculiar idiomatic profanity of the country, but using real, outright,
old-fashioned, uncompromising English oaths, as loud as he could yell.
Then he stopped, and after another pause, began to talk quietly to the
horses:
“You, Bob, you won’t draw? Didn’t you git enough last night? (I jabbed
my knife into his face twice when we got into that fix last night;”
and the wounds on the horse’s head showed that he spoke the truth.) “I
swar, Bob, if I have to come down thar, I’ll cut your throat.”
He stopped again, and then sat down on the foot-board, and began to
beat the wheelers as hard and as rapidly as possible with the butt of
his stick. They started, and, striking Bob with the pole, he jumped and
turned round; but a happy stroke on “the raw” in his face brought him
to his place; and the stick being applied just in time to the wheelers,
he caught the pole and jumped ahead. We were off again.
“Turned over in that ’ere mire hole last night,” said the driver.
“Couldn’t do anythin’ with ’em—passengers camped out—thar’s were they
had their fire, under that tree; didn’t get to Raleigh till nine
o’clock this mornin’. That’s the reason I wern’t along after you any
sooner—hadn’t got my breakfast; that’s the reason the hosses don’t draw
no better to-day, too, I s’pose. _You_, Rock!—_Bawley!_—BOB!”
After two miles more, the horses stopped once more. The driver now
quietly took the leader off (he had never drawn at all), and tied him
behind the coach. He then began beating the near wheeler, a passenger
did the same to Bawley—both standing on the ground—while I threw off
my overcoat and walked on. For a time I could occasionally hear the
cry, “Bawl-Rock!” and knew that the coach was moving again; gradually I
outwalked the sound.
The road was a mere opening through a forest of the long-leafed
pine; the trees from eight to eighteen inches in diameter, with
straight trunks bare for nearly thirty feet, and their evergreen
foliage forming a dense dark canopy at that height, the surface of the
ground undulating with long swells, occasionally low and wet. In the
latter case, there was generally a mingling of deciduous trees and
a watercourse crossing the road, with a thicket of shrubs. The soil
sandy, with occasionally veins of clay; the latter more commonly in the
low ground, or in the descent to it. Very little grass, herbage, or
underwood; and the ground covered, except in the road, with the fallen
pine-leaves. Every tree, on one, two, or three sides, was scarified
for turpentine. In ten miles, I passed half a dozen cabins, one or two
small clearings, in which corn had been planted, and one turpentine
distillery, with a dozen sheds and cabins clustered about it.
In about an hour after I left the coach, the driver, mounted on Bob,
overtook me: he was going on to get fresh horses.
After dark, I had some difficulty in keeping the road, there being
frequent forks, and my only guide the telegraph wire. I had to cross
three or four brooks, which were now high, and had sometimes floated
off the logs which, in this country, are commonly placed, for the
teamsters, along the side of the road, where it runs through water. I
could generally jump from stump to stump; and, by wading a little at
the edges in my staunch Scotch shooting-boots, get across dry-shod.
Where, however, the water was too deep, I always found, by going up or
down stream, a short way, a fallen trunk across it, by which I got over.
I met the driver returning with two fresh horses; and at length,
before eight o’clock, reached a long one-story cabin, which I found to
be Mrs. Barclay’s. It was right cheerful and comforting to open the
door, from the dark, damp, chilly night, into a large room, filled
with blazing light from a great fire of turpentine pine, by which two
stalwart men were reading newspapers, a door opening into a background
of supper-table and kitchen, and a nice, stout, kindly-looking,
Quaker-like old lady coming forward to welcome me.
As soon as I was warm, I was taken out to supper: seven preparations of
swine’s flesh, two of maize, wheat cakes, broiled quails, cold roast
turkey, coffee, and tea.
My bed-room was a house by itself, the only connection between it and
the main building being a platform, or gallery, in front. A great fire
burned here also in a broad fire-place; a stuffed easy-chair had been
placed before it, and a tub of hot water, which I had not thought to
ask for, to bathe my weary feet.
And this was a piny-woods stage-house! But genius will find its
development, no matter where its lot is cast; and there is as much
genius for inn-keeping as for poetry. Mrs. Barclay is a Burns in her
way, and with even more modesty; for, after twenty-four hours of the
best entertainment that could be asked for, I was only charged one
dollar. I paid two dollars for my stage-coach privileges—to wit, riding
five miles and walking twenty-one.
At three o’clock in the morning, the three gentlemen that I had
left ten miles back at four o’clock the previous day, were dragged,
shivering in the stage-coach, to the door. They had had no meal since
breakfasting at Raleigh; and one of them was now so tired that he could
not eat, but dropt prone on the floor before the fire and slept the
half-hour they were changing horses, or rather resting horses, for no
relay was left.
I afterwards met one of the company in Fayetteville. Their night’s
adventure after I left them, and the continued cruelty to the horses,
were most distressing. The driver once got off the box, and struck the
poor, miserable, sick “Rock” with a rail, and actually knocked him
down in the road. At another time, after having got fresh horses, when
they, too, were “stalled,” he took them out of the harness and turned
them loose, and, refusing to give any answer to the inquiries of the
passengers, looked about for a dry place, and laid down and went to
sleep on the ground. One of the passengers had then walked on to Mrs.
Barclay’s, and obtained a pair of mules, with which the coach was
finally brought to the house. The remainder kindled a fire, and tried
to rest themselves by it. They were sixteen hours in coming thirty
miles, suffering much from cold, and without food.
The next day I spent in visiting turpentine and rosin works, piny-wood
farms, etc., under the obliging guidance of Mrs. Barclay’s son-in-law,
and in the evening again took the coach. The horses were better than
on the previous stage: upon my remarking this to the driver, he said
that the reason was, that they took care of this team themselves (the
drivers); on the last stage the horses were left to negroes, who would
not feed them regularly, nor take any decent care of them. “Why, what
do you think?” said he; “when I got to Banks’s, this morning, I found
my team hadn’t been fed all day; they hadn’t been rubbed nor cleaned,
nary durned thing done to ’em, and thar the cussed darkey was, fast
asleep. Reckon I didn’t gin him a wakin’ up!”
“You don’t mean the horses that you drove up?”
“Yes, I do, and they hadn’t a cussed thing to eat till they got back to
Barclay’s!”
“How was it possible for you to drive them back?”
“Why, I don’t suppose I could ha’ done it if I’d had any passengers:
(you _Suze_!) shall lose a mail again to-night, if this mare don’t
travel better, (durn ye, yer ugly, I believe). She’s a good mare—a heap
of go in her, but it takes right smart of work to get it out. _Suze!_”
So we toiled on, with incessant shouting, and many strange piny-wood
oaths, and horrid belabouring of the poor horses’ backs, with the
butt-end of a hickory whip-stalk, till I really thought their
spinal-columns must break. The country, the same undulating pine
forest, the track tortuous among the trees, which frequently stood so
close that it required some care to work between them. Often we made
detours from the original road, to avoid a fallen tree, or a mire-hole,
and all the time we were bouncing over protruding roots and small
stumps. There was but little mud, the soil being sand, but now and
then a deep slough. In one of these we found a waggon, heavily laden,
stuck fast, and six mules and five negroes tugging at it. With our help
it was got out of the way, and we passed on. Soon afterwards we met
the return coach, apparently in a similar predicament; but one of the
passengers, whom I questioned, replied: “No, not stalled, exactly, but
somehow _the horses won’t draw_. We have been more than three hours
coming about four miles.”
“How is it you have so many balky horses?” I asked the driver.
“The old man buys ’em up cheap, ’cause nobody else can do anything with
’em.”
“I should not think you could do much with them, either—except to kill
them.”
“Well, that’s what the old man says he buys ’em for. He was blowing me
up for losing the mail t’other night; I told him, says I, ‘You have to
a’most kill them horses, ’fore you can make ’em draw a bit,’ says I.
‘Kill ’em, damn ’em, kill em, then; that’s what I buy ’em for,’ says
he. ‘I buy ’em a purpose to kill; that’s all they are good for, ain’t
it?’ says he. ‘Don’t s’pose they’re going to last for ever, do ye?’
says he.”
We stopped once, nearly half an hour, for some unexplained reason,
before a house on the road. The door of the house was open, an enormous
fire was burning in it, and, at the suggestion of the driver, I went
in to warm myself. It was a large log-cabin, of two rooms, with beds
in each room, and with an apartment overhead, to which access was had
by a ladder. Among the inmates were two women; one of them sat in the
chimney-corner smoking a pipe, and rocking a cradle; the other sat
directly before the fire, and full ten feet distant. She was apparently
young, but her face was as dry and impassive as a dead man’s. She was
doing nothing, and said but little; but, once in about a minute, would
suddenly throw up her chin, and spit with perfect precision into the
hottest embers of the fire. The furniture of the house was more scanty
and rude than I ever saw before in any house, with women living in it,
in the United States. Yet these people were not so poor but that they
had a negro woman cutting and bringing wood for their fire.
It must be remembered that this is a long-settled country, having been
occupied by Anglo-Saxons as early as any part of the Free States, and
that it is the main road between the capital of North Carolina and its
chief sea-port.
There is nothing that is more closely connected, both as cause and
effect, with the prosperity and wealth of a country, than its means
and modes of travelling, and of transportation of the necessities and
luxuries of life. I saw this day, as I shall hereafter describe, three
thousand barrels of resin, worth a dollar and a half a barrel in New
York, thrown away, a mere heap of useless offal, because it would
cost more to transport it than it would be worth. There was a single
waggon, with a ton or two of sugar, and flour, and tea, and axes, and
cotton cloths, unable to move, with six mules, and five negroes at work
upon it. Raleigh is a large distributing post-office, getting a very
heavy mail from the North; here was all that is sent by one of its
main radii, travelling one day two miles an hour, the next four miles,
and on each occasion failing to connect with the conveyances which we
pay to scatter further the intelligence and wealth transmitted by it.
Barbarous is too mild a term to apply to the manner in which even this
was done. The improvidence, if not the cruelty, no sensible barbarian
could have been guilty of.
Afterwards, merely to satisfy my mind (for there is a satisfaction in
seeing even scoundrelism consistently carried out, if attempted at all
in a business), I called on the agent of the line at Fayetteville,
stated the case, and asked if any part of what I had paid for my
passage would be returned me, on account of the disappointment and
delay which I had suffered from the inability of the proprietor to
carry out his contract with me. The impudence of the suggestion, of
course, only created amusement; and I was smilingly informed that the
business was not so “lucky” that the proprietor could afford to pay
back money that he had once got into his hands. What I had seen was
regarded by no one, apparently, as at all unusual.
At one of the stations for changing horses, an old coloured man was
taken into the coach. I ascertained from him that he was a blacksmith,
and had been up the line to shoe the horses at the different stables.
Probably he belonged (poor fellow!) to the man who bought horses to be
killed in doing his work. After answering my inquiries, he lay down
in the bottom of the coach, and slept until we reached Fayetteville.
The next time we changed, the new driver inquired of the old one what
passengers he had. “Only one gentleman, and old man Ned.”