University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
A BACK-WOODS-MAN.

Young.

Many lingering months rolled heavily away
without restoring tranquillity to the widowed
breast of Willoughby. But he had sworn never
to complain, and not a murmur escaped his lips.
He, however, avoided all society; and a settled
gloom, not entirely untinctured with superstition,
pervaded his mind. He felt a void which nothing
on earth could supply. His only solace was in the
caresses of his children; and his only remaining
wish, to see them educated and happy, and then

to join his Amelia in those blissful regions where
the anguish of parting could be felt no more. His
infant son engrossed his most particular attention;
but the singular circumstances of his birth being
ever present in his imagination, kept alive and
cherished those reflections which were most detrimental
to his peace. He could not help considering
him as connected with some extraordinary
destiny, in the contemplation of which, he often
detected himself absorbed in the reverie of romance;
so entirely wrapt in a vision of the future,
as to forget the occurrences which were passing
around him. The luxuriant wilds of Miami occasionally
obtruded on his fancy, and the phenomenon
of a speaking corpse was not wanting to
finish the picture.

The recurrence of one sentiment, however,
would, at times, absorb every other in his bosom;
and that one was his eternal gratitude to Washington.
In reflecting that this god-like man had been
the patron of his youth, and the arbiter of his
fortune, he could almost forget his domestic affliction.
The token of his friendship, his inestimable
sword, was religiously preserved, as the richest
legacy he could bequeath a son, evidently destined
by Heaven to wield it with success in the sacred
cause of freedom. He had already bestowed
on him the name of that illustrious hero, and
fondly hoped that the gift might be accompanied
by a portion of his spirit. As he pressed the infant
in his arms, he would breathe a mental prayer
that he might be modelled from the pattern of human
perfection whose name he bore. “Make
him but the successful champion of his country's
rights, and it is all the earthly blessing I ask for
my son.” This unqualified veneration for a human

being, was a pardonable weakness in Willoughby,
if we take into consideration the peculiar
circumstances that created it, with which the
reader is already acquainted.

But a new affliction awaited him, which for a
time diverted the current of his reflections into a
different channel. The small-pox broke out in
the neighbourhood, and before the anxious parent
could give that terrible disorder its most favorable
chance, by innoculation, his two eldest daughters
again enjoyed the caresses of their angel
mother. Amelia and George recovered.

Willoughby did not become a misanthrope; but
he now determined to adopt a plan which he had
occasionally contemplated, viz. that of bidding an
eternal adieu to the busy haunts of civilization,
and immuring himself, for the remainder of his
life, in the western wilderness. Not as a hermit;
but as a Grecian philosopher, with an unfrequented
grove for his academy, and his darling
children his only pupils. He had always dreaded
the contagion of vicious example to the young
and inexperienced mind; and at this time all the
vices of the old world were daily imported into the
new, accompanied with their pernicious and enervating
luxuries. He readily foresaw, that if this
growing evil continued, the rising generation
would prove but weak and puny representatives
of their heroic fathers, the champions of American
freedom. He lamented that it was not in his
power to prevent so great a national calamity,
but wished at any rate to save his own son, by
snatching him in season from the sphere of contagion,
and placing him beyond the reach of its
influence. The loss of two lovely daughters
fixed this wavering resolution. He had not forgotten

the romantic scenes on the southern border
of lake Erie; and in that delightful region, though
then arrayed in the wildest garb of nature, he
determined to fix his future residence. Accordingly,
having procured from government the requisite
patent, sold his paternal estate, and placed
his children under the temporary protection of
their maternal uncle, he took possession of his
wild retreat in the following spring. A few hardy
laborers, procured for the purpose, under his
tasteful and judicious direction, soon converted a
portion of this wilderness into a beautiful garden,
and literally “caused the desart to blossom as the
rose.” In less than two years a neat rural mansion
was erected on the charming spot, finished in
a style of cottage elegance, and bountifully supplied
with every domestic comfort—save the
greatest. It stood on a gentle declivity, not half
a mile from the shore of the lake, and about the
same distance from the river Cayahoga. This
beautiful spot abounded with fruit of the most delicious
kind, and in the most luxuriant quantity.
It was in the centre of a grove of black and white
mulberry trees, interspersed with chesnuts, cherries,
plumbs, and the custard apple. At a little
distance was a forest of sycamore, whose
lofty branches were entwined with grape-vines,
and beneath whose shade reposed the wild deer
and game of various descriptions. Turkeys,
geese, ducks, and swans, were visible in every
direction; and the woods were vocal with their
feathered tenants. This paradisical retreat the
major denominated Mulberry-grove, by which
appellation it still continues to be distinguished,
though most of the trees have disappeared.

A maiden sister, about two years younger than
himself, his two children, a female domestic, and
two or three laborers, composed the whole of
Willoughby's household. This sister had been
disappointed, in a most tender attachment, by
the death of her lover, who fell on Bunker-hill,
gallantly fighting for his country's freedom. The
idea of a second engagement was sacrilege to her
first and only love, and she therefore determined
to remain a vestal for life. She wished to retire
from society, and could think of no situation so
congenial to her present taste, as the rural retreat
of her disabled brother, whom she loved with
true sisterly affection, and whose voluntary solitude
she wished to solace by her tender assiduities.

In the education of his children, his rural occupations,
and the society of his sister, the grief
of Willoughby gradually wore away. But it had
imparted a perpetual cast of melancholy, a sombre
tint to his character and deportment, that rendered
both peculiarly interesting. His principal
recreations were hunting and fishing; the former,
however, could be but partially enjoyed, from
the loss of his hand. Books, of which he had a
valuable selection, occupied the evening, and
the writing a journal of his military career, was
his morning amusement. Though not liberally
educated, he was an accomplished English scholar;
and, since his misfortune, had acquired the
art of writing an elegant character with his left
hand. It is to this journal I am indebted for the
facts here recorded.

He had valuable correspondents, in various
parts of the United States, with whom he continued
an epistolary communication, among whom

were several members of the general government,
and gentlemen of distinction in the army
and navy. Thus was “solitude sweetened” by
friendship, though uninterrupted by the presence
of friends. Gardening was a science for which
he had a great predilection, and no inconsiderable
taste; at any rate, there are few at this day
which exhibit a more happy combination of utile
cum dulce, than that which flourished under the
direction of Major Willoughby.

In this manner lived our modern recluse, if not
happy, at least contented; cultivating, by turns,
the fertile soil without, and the susceptible minds
within. Two of the most perfect of all human
beings, in his estimation, were selected for his
models, and his greatest desire was to form his
children like them: To make his daughter a second
Amelia—his son another Washington. He
still continued to enjoy the friendship and confidence
of that patriot and hero, until death terminated
his earthly career of glory and usefulness;
when, at the age of sixty-eight, he passed into
that permanent state of existence where virtue is
sure to meet its eternal reward.