University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

Beginning of a Town—and a Man.

—Shakspeare.

—Gray.

Gentle and courteous reader, or rather readers, (for like
Legion, ye are many that shall read these memoirs;) fair readers—for
the life of Zebediah Spiffard will be read by every

female that can read, (and all read in this our happy land;) this
book will be sought after by the fair sex, inasmuch as it treats
of the gay and the grave—the good and bad—of ladies, and of
those who, next to soldiers, are the delight of ladies; we mean
players; those lively, happy, delightful children of the mimic
world, who present to the minds of youth a picture of enchanting
power, ever varying and ever bright. Kind readers,
of both sexes, we sit down determined to write for your amusement,
(far be it from us to attempt to instruct you,) a faithful
narrative of adventures appertaining to the romance of real life,
from the perusal of which you shall undoubtedly rise as tired in
mind and body, owing to excessive excitement and long continued
gratification, as ever you did from the representation of
a play, or even of an Italian opera. But as we have promised to
begin at the beginning, we must hasten to commence our story.

Zebediah Spiffard was born in the month of October, of the
year 1786, in an obscure but very pleasant village, appertaining
to the truly democratic state of Vermont. His father had been
one of the first settlers, a pioneer, and the village, in accordance
with self-complacency, which makes so great an item in
the account of human happiness, was called “Spiffard Town.”

Squire Spiffard, our hero's father, made the first clearing in
the valley of Long-pond, where he arrived with all his worldly
possessions, (an axe, a yoke of oxen, a wagon, and a wife,)
before a tree had been “felled;” and where he, in a few years,
saw a thriving village, the fruit of his enterprising industry,
spread from his dwelling and surround him; the inhabitants of
which were grateful to the man who had led them to the wilderness,
pointing their way to a land flowing with milk and honey.

His first shelter, a log hut, now (that is, at this second beginning
of our history, and the first beginning of the life of our
hero in 1786,) appertained, or was appended to the neat and
spacious white mansion that sheltered his numerous offspring,
and served as a wash-house, having previously served as a
kitchen, when the present kitchen was the mansion-house.

Such is the progress of a settler in the wilderness, and it is
but a few years since Vermont was such. The log hut is at
first “parlour, kitchen, and hall;” then is erected the log house,
larger, better furnished, and more comfortably plastered with
clay; then the hut becomes the kitchen, and shortly after, (a
saw-mill having been erected on a neighbouring stream,) the
framed and planked mansion arises, the house becomes, in its
turn, the kitchen, while the original germ, the hut, is degraded
to a wash-house or pig-sty.

Instead of looking, as he once did, from the door of his lowly
dwelling, on a thick and almost impenetrable forest, his own
clearing alone giving him a peep at the beautiful sheet of water
he called a pond, Squire Spiffard now saw a long street of comfortable
houses, each with its garden and orchard, while the
spires of the Court-house, the school, and the church, marked
the presence of justice, education, and religion. It is true that
the squire's house, like those of most of his neighbours, was not
finished. The upper story served, however, for bed-chambers
and store-rooms; and below, or on the ground floor, all
looked and was comfortable—including the best bed-chamber
for the ever welcome guest.

So rapid is the progress of Yankee improvement, that by the
time our hero was qualified to appreciate its beauties, the valley
of Long-pond had become a little paradise. We do not mean
a heavenly, but an earthly paradise, with all its concomitant imperfections,
yet possessing that paradisaical feature, youth, with
its bloom and growing perfection; and in spite of the diseases
incident to youth, a total absence of every symptom of decay.

A row of neat white houses, separated from each other by
cultivated enclosures, skirted the level road formed at the foot
of one of those hills that encircled this valley. This road was
on the margin of a lake, which, after the homely manner of our
country, was called a pond; and which presented its sweet
waters to the eye, limpid as those of Lake George, so well
known to those for whom I write.

This lovely sheet of pure water extended for miles in front
of the dwellings occupied by Yankee yeoman, (not farmers of
the soil but proprietors,) serving and delighting their wives, and
swarms of white-headed urchins. The pond gave to the villagers
fish and wild fowl, and afforded the male children opportunities
for exercise in swimming, rowing, sliding, and skaiting.
Between the road and the lake, the comfields and meadows
spread in rich luxuriance; and as you ascended the hill behind
the houses, you were cheered, in the spring, by the fragrance
of the apple blossoms, and in autumn, by fruit of every tint and
flavour. In winter, the hearths blazed with piles of hickory, and
were made to resound with the shouts of gladness by the frequent
husking frolic; when the yellow ears of maize are stript
of their outward dusky covering, and the grain rasped from
the cob, and poured into the basket or bin; while the rustic jest,
or the tale of grandfather's wars with the Indians on Connecticut
river—or father's adventures when opposed to Burgoyne, at
old Tye, Bennington, or Saratoga, mingle with the cracking of

the kisskatomasses, the chesnuts, the butternuts, and walnuts,
and are interrupted by draughts of the precious juice of the crab,
the spitzbergen, and the red-streak, from the orchard—exhaustless
source of innocent exhilaration--the gift of heaven, not yet
converted to a curse by the poison-making still.

It is not our intention to enter into descriptions of the life of
the pioneer on an American settlement; let the reader look to
the pages of Flint, or the inimitable pictures of nature, character,
and manners, in “The Pioneers” of Fennimore Cooper.
We merely wish to give some notion of the place of our hero's
birth, and of those scenes which surrounded his infancy and
boyhood at Spiffard Town; for these scenes of early life are
ever present to the adult, go where he will in after days, and
the impressions from them make part of his character, and influence
his actions, whether as a Ledyard, he explores the
Pacific ocean and the deserts of Africa, or as a Starke or a
Greene leads his brother yeomen to encounter the invader of
home and the homestead. The scenery and scenes of the Valley
of Long-pond, tended to form a part of the character of Zebediah
Spiffard, and therefore appertain to his memoirs.

We have said, that behind the row of houses which formed
the village, was a gently-rising hill, on which bloomed the health-giving
orchard. A few gardens likewise decorated this beautiful
hill, with here and there a grove of the undisturbed native
growth of the soil, giving a touch of the picturesque to what
would otherwise have been too uniform. Do not let it be supposed
that we mean to insinuate that the gardens had too much
regularity, or neatness, or uniformity; for, except the squire's
and the parson's, they exhibited a sufficient portion of luxuriant
negligence about them to avert that charge, and in truth were
many of them more abundant in weeds than in worth. The
church likewise ornamented this favoured hill (which in England
would have been a mountain), and its rustic spire was a
heart-soothing feature in the landscape, whether seen from the
rock which towered above its vane, or from the lake in which
its peace-inspiring image was reflected.

We have given some account of the Adam or first man of
this paradise, by name Jeremiah Spiffard, and by title squire;
but as there never was a paradise without an Eve, or a Zebediah
without a mother, it is incumbent upon us to introduce
the squire's lady, and Zeb's mamma, to the reader. The squire
had brought with him to the wilderness, as we have said, and
we do not like repetitions, but, at the same time, know that they
are very useful to the memories of novel readers, or even the

readers of true histories like this; be that as it may, we have
said, and we repeat, he brought with him to the wilderness a
yoke of oxen, an axe, a wagon, and a wife. Before the thicket
became a paradise—before the swamps on the borders of the
lake became meadows, or the blessed sun had been permitted
to shine upon the earth and dissipate the encumbent fogs and
redundant moisture, poor Mrs. Spiffard died. The husband
was left wifeless, childless, and disconsolate. He had loved his
wife. She was his first love, and perhaps he never loved again.
Marry again he certainly did, or we should never have written
these memoirs of his oldest and lawfully-begotten son.

After bearing up manfully for a time without a help-mate—
after seeing all clear around him—settlers coming in upon his
land as fast as a land-owner could wish—a school-house, a tavern,
and a church built, he paid a visit to Boston, where his
elder brother resided, and in truth his principal business was to
seek a wife. He felt it to be his duty to contribute to the school-house
and church. Under such circumstances the object is
soon found. Some of those who purchased his lands and
brought families into the settlement, said “they thought Squire
Spiffard might have found a wife among their daughters, as fit
for a squire's lady at the Valley of Long-pond, as any he would
be like to find among the fine ladies of Boston.” Perhaps they
were right. We shall see.

An Englishman, Mr. James Atherton, had recently arrived
at the metropolis of Massachusetts, in search of what he had
lost in London—fortune. He was what Shakspeare has called
an “ebbing” man; and has said—

He had run so near the bottom as to touch. He brought with
him a wife and three daughters, two of whom, although, until
the voyage of emigration, they had scarcely been out of the
sound of Bow-bell, and never in the first, or perhaps second,
circles of that country of circles, were nevertheless genteel, and
what is called well-educated; the third was yet a child. A
knowledge of the new world into which their father had brought
them, had not been thought of, as a part of their education.
Their father knew as little of it, except as a mart for merchandise
and a nursery of rebellion. Europeans, then, disdained
such knowledge. They have since been induced to inquire
how it is, that a people of many millions manage to prosper
without the protection of kings or lords, or a national church,
or a standing army; and by what contrivance they render harmless
the hosts of paupers and criminals, which want and worthlessness
drive from the shores of the old world, for refuge in
the new.

The elder daughters of Mr. Atherton had the usual cockney
contempt for all foreigners, especially Yankees; and although
conscious of their father's humiliating necessities, felt themselves
better than any thing in Boston. The oldest of these young ladies,
who was about five-and-twenty, was what is called showy;
nay, she was handsome. Fine, dark, glossy hair, fine teeth,
fine complexion, brilliant eyes, tall person, fashionable dress,
and an animated manner, fascinated the Vermont yeoman; who
would have been despised by the second sister, a more decided
beauty (though very like the first), and perhaps by Louisa, the
oldest of the three, if the prudent father had not given her some
hints which were not to be neglected. In short, Jeremiah Spiffard
married the beautiful English fine lady, and took her to
Spiffard-town, at that time consisting of five houses, a school-house,
tavern, church, and blacksmith's-shop.

What a change was here! From the metropolis of Great
Britain, to a paltry village in Vermont. From a Lord mayor's
ball to a husking frolic. To live in Boston was death to Louisa,
(so she said), what, then, was life in Spiffard-town? Her husband's
good sense and kind behaviour, with handsome furniture
and garniture brought from Boston, made this death in life
somewhat supportable. Then there was some satisfaction in
showing off to the natives, and in being the great lady of the
place. Besides that, during the first year of her residence, she
experienced the fears, hopes, and joys, attending the birth of
our hero. Then came a visit to Boston to see her family, who
were preparing to return, disappointed, to England. They did
return; and Mrs. Spiffard the second, returned to Spiffard-town,
feeling that she was abandoned by all that she held most
valuable in the world: for what, alas! to a London lady, is a
Yankee husband, and a Yankee child, if she is doomed to live
in a Yankee village?

Thus Squire Spiffard had not only got a town lady, but a foreign
lady—a London lady—for a wife. Never let an American
marry an Englishwoman, unless he is willing and resolved
to abandon his country. We say English, because we know
more of them, and think higher of them, than of any other Europeans.
If an American marries in England, and brings his
wife home, it is almost impossible but that domestic misery is

the consequence. No Englishman has a just notion of this
country; and we must not expect better information in the better
sex, who are accustomed to rely for that article too much
upon the stronger. A woman, who, even under the influence
of love, gives up parents and country, will find every disappointment
doubled, and every sorrow aggravated, by the recollection
of what she left behind; and disappointments and sorrows will
come, do what we will. Spiffard had the consolation of knowing
that he did not induce his wife to leave her country; but
then he was the cause that she did not return to it. In short,
he had made a very foolish choice of a wife. Mrs. Spiffard
became a very discontented woman; and not the less so, for
finding that her claims to superiority were resisted or laughed
at by the wives and daughters of the settlers, who rapidly increased
her husband's village; many of whom were, in all the
better part of knowledge, better instructed than the squire's
lady.