Gee's Bridge. Capture of Colonel Gee. A Yankee Overseer. Passage of the Roanoke into Carolina. goal was Gee's Bridge over the Meherrin River, which I expected to reach by three o'clock in the afternoon, but a divergence into a wrong road for the space of three or four miles, delayed my arrival there until sunset. Nor was delay the only vexation, for, to regain the right road, I had to wheel and face the driving storm until I was thoroughly drenched. In this condition I was obliged to travel a red clay road four miles after crossing the Meherrin, to obtain lodging for the night. Gee's Bridge was a rickety affair, and was used only when the Meherrin, which is similar in volume and current to the Nottaway, was too much swollen to allow travelers to ford it. On its southern side, the road ascends at an angle of forty-five degrees, and, to make it passable, is filled with small bowlders near the bridge, and logs laid transversely up the steeper portion. For the use of this bridge, the stones and logs, the traveler is taxed a " levy" at the top of the hill by the overseer of Gee's plantation. At dark Lreached the house of Dr. Gregory, who entertains strangers, and under his comfortable roof I rested, after a most wearisome day's travel for man and horse. The doctor was absent, and I passed an hour after supper with his overseer, an intelligent young man from New London, Connecticut. He had peddled wooden clocks through that region, and having sold many on credit, he settled there eight years before to collect his dues. He hired himself as an overseer, and there he yet remained, full of faith that he would ultimately collect all that was due to him. From him I obtained a good deal of information respecting the husbandry of Lower Virginia; the sum of his testimony was, "The people seem to try how soon they can wear out the soil, and then abandon it." GEE'S BRIDGE. 1848. The storm was over in the morning, a and a cold, bracing air came from the north. a Dec. 28, Ice skimmed the surface of the pools by the road side, and all over the red earth the exhalations were congealed into the most beautiful creations of frost-work I ever beheld. There were tiny columns an inch in height, with gorgeous capitals like tree-tops, their branches closely intertwined. These gave the surface the appearance of a crust of snow. Art, in its most delicate operations, never wrought any thing half so wonderful as that little forest, created within the space of an hour, and covering tens of thousands of acres. The road was wretched, and it was almost two hours past meridian when I reached St. Tammany, on the Roanoke, a small post station in Mecklenburg county, about eighty miles from Petersburg, and about thirty below the confluence of the Dan and Staunton. The Roanoke is here almost four hundred yards wide, with an average depth of about thirteen feet, and a strong current. I crossed upon a bateau, propelled by means of a pole worked by a single stout negro. When the stream is much swollen, three or four men are necessary to manage the craft, and even then there is danger. After ascending the southern bank, the road passes over a marsh of nearly half a mile, and then traverses among gentle hills. Two has been girdled, though its leaves fall, is good timber for three or four years; but a tree attacked by these worms loses all vitality at once, and in twelve or fourteen months is useless for timber purposes. It rapidly decays, and falls to the ground. I was informed that in some instances, where pines constituted the chief value of plantations, this blight had caused the owners to abandon them. 1 Mr. Gee, I was informed, is a descendant of Colonel Gee, who commanded a militia regiment when the British invaded Virginia. He resided further down, between the Meherrin and the Nottaway, and was captured by Colonel Simcoe's cavalry while that officer was securing the fords of the river for the passage of Cornwallis's army. "We proceeded," says Simcoe, "with the utmost expedition, to the Nottaway River, twenty-seven miles from Petersburg, where we arrived early the next morning. The bridge had been destroyed, which was easily repaired, and Major Armstrong was left with the infantry. The cavalry went on to Colonel Gee's, a rebel militia officer. He attempted to escape, but was secured, and, refusing to give his parole, was sent prisoner to Major Armstrong."-Journal, page 207. The Roanoke is formed by the junction of the Dan and Staunton Rivers, near the south boundary of Virginia, and flows into the head of Albemarle Sound. It is navigable to the falls, at Halifax, seventy-five miles, for small vessels. Cotton Fields. Route of Greene's Retreat. Journey toward Hillsborough. Tobacco Culture. miles from the river I passed some fields of cotton not yet garnered, and the wool, escaped from the bolls, looked like patches of snow upon the shrubs. These were the first cotton plantations I had seen. I was surprised to learn that the cotton harvest may begin in September, and yet, at the close of December, much, here and elsewhere at the South, was in the fields, and injured by exposure to the taints produced by rains. Better husbandry seemed to prevail on this side of the Roanoke, and neat farm-houses gave the country a pleasing appearance of thrift. I was now on one of the great routes of travel from Central Virginia.to Hillsborough, the seat of the Provincial Congress at the opening of the war of the Revolution. It was also the great route of emigration from Virginia when the wilderness upon the Yadkin was first peopled by white men. I had intended to follow the track of Greene and his army while retreating before Cornwallis in the spring of 1781, but in so doing I should omit other places of paramount interest. That track lay between forty and fifty miles northwest of my route to Hillsborough. The pine forests now became rare, and the broken country was diversified by well-cultivated plantations, and forests of oaks, chestnuts, gum, and a few catalpas. Toward evening I arrived at Nut Bush Post Office, in Warren county (formerly a part of Granville), a locality famous in the annals of that state as the first place in the interior where a revolutionary document was put forth to arouse the people to resist the government.' The postmaster (John H. Bullock, Esq.) owned a store and an extensive tobacco plantation there. Under his roof I passed the night, in the enjoyment of the most cordial hospitality, and was warmly pressed to spend several days with him, and join in the seasonable sports of turkey and deer hunting in the neighboring forests. But, eager to complete my journey, I declined, and the next morning, notwithstanding another strong northeast gale was driving a chilling sleet over the land, I left Nut Bush, and pushed on toward Oxford. The staple production of this region appears to be tobacco; and drying-houses and presses composed the principal portion of the outbuildings of the plantations." On the sixth of June, 1765, when the news of the passage of the Stamp Act reached the interior of the province, a paper was circulated at Nut Bush, entitled, "A Serious Address to the Inhabitants of the County of Granville, containing a brief Narrative of our Deplorable Situation and the Wrongs we suffer, and some necessary Hints with respect to a Reformation." This paper had for its epigraph the following line: "Save my country, heavans, shall be my last." The paper was prepared by an illiterate man, but it was so forcibly and clearly expressed that it had a powerful effect on the people.-Martin, ii., 197; Caruthers's Life of Caldwell, 107. sown. 2 To the Northern reader a brief general description of the tobacco culture may not be uninteresting. The ground for germinating the seed is prepared by first burning a quantity of wood over the space to be This process is to destroy all the roots of plants that may be in the soil. The ashes are then removed, and the earth is thoroughly digged and raked until it is like a bed in a garden prepared for seed. The tobacco-seed (which appears like mustard-seed) is then mixed with wood-ashes and strown in drills a few inches apart. This is generally done in February. When the plants are grown two or three inches in height, they are taken up and transplanted into little hillocks in the fields. This is done at about the first of May. From that time the crop demands unceasing attention. These plants will grow about a foot high within a month after the transplanting. They are then topped; the suckers and lower leaves are pruned off, and about twice a week they are cleaned from weeds and the large and destructive worms which infest them. They attain their full growth in about six weeks after the first pruning, and begin to turn brown—an evidence of ripening. As fast as they ripen they are cut and gathered into the barns or drying-houses. This operation commences about the first of September. The plants, after being cut, are left upon the ground to sweat for a night, and then taken to cover. There they are hung up separately to dry for four or five weeks. The tobacco-houses are made as open as possible, for the circulation of air, but so as to avoid the rain. When sufficiently dry, the plants are taken down and dampened with water, to prevent their crumbling. They are then laid upon sticks, and covered up close to sweat for a week or two longer. The top part of the plant is the best, the bottom the poorest for commerce. When thus prepared, the leaves are stripped from the stalk, and pressed hard into boxes or hogsheads for market. LEVER PRESS. The presses used in the tobacco districts are of two kinds; one is a lever, the fulcrum being two rude upright posts. The hogshead or box is placed near the posts. The smaller end of the lever is forked, or has a slot, through which passes another upright stick with a series of holes. Weights are attached to that end. and as it is gradually brought down Williamsburg and Oxford. Tar River. Fording Streams. The Princely Domain of Mr. Cameron. I passed through the little village of Williamsborough, at two o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived at Oxford at dark. The latter is a pleasant village of some five hundred inhabitants, situated near the center of Granville county, and its seat of justice. It is a place of considerable business for an inland town; but my favorable impressions, after an hour's inspection before breakfast on the morning after my arrival, were marred by the discovery of relics of a more barbarous age, standing upon the green near the jail. They were a pillory and a whipping-post, the first and only ones I ever saw. I was told by a resident that the more enlightened people of the town were determined to have them removed, and it is to be hoped that those instruments for degradation no longer disfigure the pretty little vil lage of Oxford. a Dec. 1848. The morning of the thirtietha was clear and warm, after a night of heavy rain. I left Oxford early, resolved to reach Hillsborough, thirty-six miles distant, at evening. But the red clay roads, made doubly bad by the rain, impeded my progress, and I was obliged to stop at the house of a Yankee planter, four miles short of Hillsborough. In the course of the day, I forded several considerable streams, all of them much swollen, and difficult of passage, for a stranger. The Flat Creek, near Oxford, a broad and shallow stream, was hub-deep, and gave me the first unpleasant experience of fording. A few miles further on, I crossed the Tar River, over a long and substantial bridge. This is a rapid stream, and now its muddy and turbulent waters came rushing like a mountain-torrent, bearing large quantities of drift-wood in the midst of its foam.' Soon after crossing the Tar, I forded a small tributary called the Cat Tail Creek. It was not more than two rods wide, but was so deep that the water dashed into my wagon, and the current lifted it from the ground, for a moment. The Knapp-of-Reeds was broader, and but a little less rapid and dangerous; and when, at three o'clock, I crossed the Flat River, I came very near being "swamped." A bridge spanned the stream, but the ground on either side is so flat that, during floods, the river overflows its banks and expands into a lake. I reached the bridge without difficulty, but, when leaving it, found the way much impeded by drift-wood and other substances that came flowing over the banks. Charley was not at all pleased with these frequent fordings, and the masses of drift alarmed him. While my wagon-hubs were under water, and he was picking his way carefully over the submerged stones, a dark mass of weeds and bushes came floating toward him. He sheered suddenly, and for a moment the wagon was poised upon two wheels. I was saved from a cold bath by springing to the opposite side, where my weight prevented its overturning, and we were soon safe upon firm land. This was the last contest with the waters for the day, for the next stream (the Little River) was crossed by a bridge, a good distance above the less rapid current. Between the Flat and the Little Rivers, and filling the whole extent of four miles, was the immense plantation of Mr. Cameron, a Scotch gentleman. This plantation extends parallel with the rivers, a distance of fifteen miles, and covers an area of about sixty square miles. It is well managed, and yields abundant crops of wheat, corn, oats, cotton, tobacco, potatoes, and other products of the Northern and Middle States. One thousand negroes were upon it, under the direction of several overseers. Its hills are crowned with fine timber, and I observed several large flocks of sheep and herds of cattle upon the slopes. It is probably the largest landed estate in the Carolinas, perhaps in the Union. it is secured by a strong pin to the upright post. The other and more efficient presses have a wooden or iron screw for leverage, like the cider presses of the North, or the common standing presses in manufactories. These are more expensive, and are used only on plantations of considerable extent. The tobacco plant, when full grown, is four or five feet in height. The stalk is straight, hairy, and very clumsy. The leaves grow alternately, are of a faded yellowish green, and are very large toward the lower part of the plant. There is scarcely a vegetable on the face of the earth more really nauseous and filthy in taste and the effects of use, than tobacco, and yet hundreds and thousands of the most fertile acres of our country are devoted to the cultivation of this noxious weed, which is good for none, but injurious to many, where millions of bushels of nutritive grain might be raised. The Tar is about one hundred and eighty miles long. At the town of Washington, toward the coast, it expands, and is called Pamlico River, and flows into Pamlico Sound. Night at a Yankee's Farm house. Arrival at Hillsborough. Early Settlements in North Carolina. It was very dark when I reached the dwelling of Mr. Bacon (a farmer from Connecticut), four miles from Hillsborough, a small, neat, and comfortable log-house. Furniture and food were of the most humble kind, but cheerful contentment made the inmates rich. The thankful grace at table, and the prayer and praise of family worship afterward, gave light to that dwelling, where deep affliction was coming on apace. A daughter of fourteen years (one of nine children), who sat wrapped in a blanket in the corner of the huge fire-place, was wasting with consumption. She was a beautiful child, and her mother spoke of her piety, her tenderness, and sweet affection, until emotion pressed her lips into silence. She was the picture of patient suffering.. "Around her brow, as snow drop fair, The glossy tresses cluster, Nor pearl nor ornament was there, And faith and hope beamed in her eye; SARAH JOSEPHA HALE Ere this her body doubtless reposes in the orchard, by the side of that of her little brother who had gone before. He The next day was the Sabbath. Leaving Mr. Bacon's at dawn, I rode into Hillsborough' in time for breakfast and comfortable quarters at the Union Hotel, where I spent the day before a glowing wood fire. On Monday morning I called upon the Reverend James Wilson, D.D., with a letter of introduction, and to his kind courtesy I am much indebted. accompanied me to places of interest in the town, and gave me all the information I desired concerning the history of the vicinity. Before noticing these strictly local matters, let us open the records of North Carolina, and take a brief general view of the history of the state, from its settlement until the war of the Revolution commenced. The principal discoveries on the coast of the Carolinas have already been noticed in the introduction to this work and in the account of the first efforts at settlement in Virginia, by which it appears that to North Carolina belongs the honor of having had the first English settlement in America, within its domain. We will now consider, briefly, the progress of settlement below the Nansemond and Roanoke. We have seen the difficulties which attended the first explorations of the Roanoke, and the abandonment of the Carolina coast after the failure of Raleigh's expeditions. Notwithstanding a fertile region was here open for the labor and enterprise of the English, who were rapidly populating Virginia along the banks of the Powhatan and other large streams, yet no permanent settlement appears to have been attempted south of the Dismal Swamp, until nearly fifty years after the building of Jamestown. As early as 1609, the country on Nansemond River, on the southern frontier of Virginia, had been settled; and in 1622, Porey, then Secretary of Virginia, and a man of great courage and perseverance, penetrated the country southward to the Chowan River. The kindness of the natives, and the fertility and beauty of the country, were highly extolled by Porey, and new desires for extending settlements southward were awakened. The vigilance with which the Spaniards watched the coast below Cape Fear, and the remembrance of their cruelty in exercising their power at an earlier day against the French in Florida, doubtless caused hesitation on the part of the English. But persecution during the administration of Berkeley, at length drove some of Virginia's best children from her household, and they, with others who were influenced by lower motives than a desire for religious liberty, began the work of founding a new state. New England, also, where persecution was not a stranger, contributed essential aid in the work. 1 Hillsborough was laid out in 1759 by W. Childs, and was first called Childsburg, in honor of the then Attorney General of the province. Its name was afterward changed to Hillsborough, in compliment, according to Martin (ii., 104), to the Earl of Hillsborough, the Secretary of State for the colonies. The Chowan is formed by the union of Nottaway, Meherrin, and Blackwater Rivers, which flow from Virginia into Albemarle Sound, a little north of the mouth of the Roanoke. First Charter of North Carolina. Early Settlements on the Chowan and Cape Fear. Planters from Barbadoes. a March 24. In 1630, a patent was granted to Sir Robert Heath for the whole of the country extending from Virginia, southward, over six degrees of latitude, to the rather indefinite boundary of Florida, then in possession of the Spaniards. The region was named Carolina in Ionor of the sister of Charles the First, of that name. Heath was unable to fulfill the conditions of his charter, and it was forfeited before any settlements were made. In 1663, Charles the Second granted a charter to a company, among whom were General George Monk (the Duke of Albemarle), Lord Clarendon, Sir George Carteret, Lord Ashley Cooper (afterward Earl of Shaftesbury), Lord Berkeley, and his brother Sir William, the governor of Virginia. The region under this grant extended from the thirty-sixth de gree to the River San Matheo in Florida, now the St. John's. Ten years earlier than this, a permanent settlement had been formed upon the northern banks of the Chowan. Roger Green, an energetic man, led a company across the wilderness from the Nansemond to the Chowan, and settled near the present village of Edenton.b There they flourished; and in the same year, when the charter was granted to Clarendon and his associates, a government, under William Drummond, a Scotch Presbyterian, was established over that little territory. In honor of the Duke of Albemarle, it was called Albemarle County Col b 1653. ony. In 1662, George Durant purchased from the Indians the Neck, which still bears his name;' and the following year George Cathmaid received a large grant of land, for having settled sixty-seven persons south of the Roanoke. Two years later, it being discovered that the settlement on the Chowan was not within the limits of the charter, Charles extended the boundaries of that instrument, so as to include northward the region to the present Virginia line, southward the whole of the present Carolinas and Georgia, and extending westward, like all of that monarch's charters, to the Pacific Ocean. These charters were liberal in the concession of civil privileges, and the proprietors were permitted to exercise toleration toward non-conformists to the Church of England, if it should be thought expedient. Great encouragement was offered to immigrants, from home, or from the other colonies, and settlements steadily increased. € 1665. In 1661 some New England adventurers entered Cape Fear River,' purchased a tract of land from the Indians on Old Town Creek, about half way between Wilmington and Brunswick, and planted a settlement there. The Virginians looked upon them as rivals, for the latter claimed a right to the soil, having settled prior to the grant to Clarendon and his associates. Difficulties arose. A compromise was proposed, but the New Englanders were dissatisfied. The colony did not prosper; the Indians lifted the hatchet against them, and in less than three years the settlement was abandoned. Two years later,c several planters from Barbadoes purchased of the Indians a tract of land, thirty-two miles square, near the abandoned settlement. They asked of the proprietaries a confirmation of their purchase, and a separate charter of government. All was not granted, yet liberal concessions were made. Sir John Yeamans, the son of a cavalier, and then a Barbadoes planter, was, at the solicitation of the purchasers, appointed their governor. His jurisdiction was from Cape Fear to the San Matheo (the territory now included in South Carolina and Georgia), and was called Clarendon county. The same year the Barbadoes people laid the foundation of a town on the south bank of the Cape Fear River. It did not flourish, and its site is now a subject for dispute. Settlements now began to increase south of the Roanoke; and as the proprietors of Albemarle county saw, in anticipation, a powerful state within the limits of their fertile ter It is said that Durant's Neck has the honor of having furnished the first seed for the Timothy Grass which is in such high repute among farmers. Among the first settlers was a Quaker named Timothy somebody, who observed the grass growing wild, and supposed it would be good for cultivation. He sent some of the seed to his friends in England, who, having found the grass to be valuable, called it Timothy Grass, in honor of their friend in Carolina.-Caruthers's Life of Caldwell, page 52. A Bible brought from England by Durant (and probably the first brought into North Carolina) is now in the library of the Historical Society of North Carolina, at Chapel Hill. The Cape Fear is formed by a union of the Haw and Deep Rivers, about one hundred and twenty-five miles northwest from Wilmington, and enters the Atlantic a little more than twenty miles below that city Ꮓ II. |