 | The Old Dominion |  |
VIII
AN OLD NEIGHBORHOOD IN VIRGINIA
THE old neighborhood in Virginia in which
the writer was born and reared lies "in
the forks of Pamunkey," in Hanover County
—that county of fierce battles—just where the
foothills of the Piedmont melt into the Tidewater
region, about thirty miles to the northwest of
Richmond. The road which used to connect it
with the outer world followed "the ridge" between
two small streams, known as Newfound
River and Little River, which flow into the
Northanna, and with the Southanna make the
historical Pamunkey, and no streams cross it for
a distance of at least twenty-five miles. A few
miles away, on either side, the roads that run
from Richmond to the mountains wind along
other ridges between the rivers, and down these
roads in my boyhood used to go the great covered
wagons, with their jingling bells.
It was one of the many similar neighborhoods
that existed throughout Virginia, each of which
itself. On either side of the main road for ten
miles to the old, gray-brick, colonial church—the
"Fork Church"—with their mansions set back
on hills amid groves of oak, hickory and locust,
and separated so far that no man could "hear
his neighbor's dog bark," lay the plantations of
gentle-people, all of whom were more or less
allied with the gentle-folk of Eastern Virginia,
and more remotely with a portion of the gentry
of England. Farther back on other roads lay
generally a somewhat different class, though there
were gentle-people there, too, while interspersed
among them were the little homesteads of those
who were known as the "poor whites." Some
of these were tidy and well-kept, while others
were mere cabins of the most squalid kind, a sad
testimonial to the evil effects of a slave system
which cut off the free laborer from the opportunity
to work and develop. To some of these
places, among them the writer's home, the title
was that of grants from the English Crown, while
to others it was simply that of an immemorial
possession, dating back to the time when the
region was the frontier.
Among the population may still be found the
traits of frontiersmen with an instinct for woodcraft
and an absence of the commercial instinct;
drove the Indian back to the mountains, which
on clear days may be faintly seen upon the blue
rim of the western horizon.
The region, secluded as it appears, with its
deep forests and its lonely roads, is not lacking
in historical interest. Not far below lie the
birthplaces of Patrick Henry—"the Trumpet of
the Revolution"—and of Henry Clay, "the Millboy
of the slashes." A mile from the writer's
home, on a part of the old Nelson domain which
is still in the family, died General Thomas Nelson,
Jr., a signer of the Declaration of Independence
and commander of Virginia's forces at the
siege of Yorktown, his home, where, learning that
General Washington had ordered his mansion to
be spared if possible, he offered a prize to the
first gunner who should hit it, and, according to
an old tradition, paid it to a young French ensign
named Bernadotte, who later became King of
Sweden. A few miles below is "Scotchtown,"
a quaint, gambrel-roofed house where Dolly
Madison was reared, and where Patrick Henry
for a time made his home, while farther off
towards the lower end of the county lie Mechanicsville,
Cold Harbor, Gaines's Mill, and
many others of the bloody battle-fields of the
campaigns of 1862 and 1864.
When the writer can first remember, few
regions in the world would have appeared less
likely than this to be the scene of historical events.
Set back among the forests, far from the currents
of modern life, and divided from the outside world
by the little streams which for long distances
flowed only a few miles apart; accessible only by
roads which during a considerable part of the year
were well-nigh impassable, the life was as quiet as
though it had been caught in an eddy, and old
habits of thought and old customs of speech and
of life survived for generations, almost without
change. Only one gentleman in the county had
ever crossed the ocean, and not a great many
had ever crossed the Potomac River. The solitary
mail-rider passed up the road twice a week,
and it was a part of the duty of the children to
meet him at the "big gate" and get the mail.
If more or fresher news were wanted, the railway
was only seven miles away and one train
passed noisily each way once every day.
From books, however, the people were familiar
with England, and to a considerable extent
with France and Italy, and, possibly, they were
more interested in the former country than in
any parts of the United States beyond the confines
of Virginia. There was an absence of
wealth in the sense in which the term is understood
better sense of the term in which it is used in
the old liturgy, and a part of the family-prayers
used every morning was, to be granted, "minds
always contented with our present conditions."
The plantations, which contained anywhere
from three hundred to a thousand acres, were in
the main well tilled, and wheat, corn and tobacco
were raised in such quantities that there was
abundance not only for whites and blacks, but for
the constant stream of visitors who enjoyed the
hospitalities of that most hospitable region. If
the time had passed when gentlemen, as in a
former generation, sent their servants out to the
main road to watch for the casual traveller and
invite him in, the latch-string still hung always
outside—literally so at the writer's home—and
the houses were filled to overflowing with those
who, with or without claim, came to partake of
that bounteous entertainment.
Half the life of the boys was spent on pallets
made up on the floor, and at seasons of reunion,
such as Christmas and other festive occasions,
there was scarcely an available spot from garret
to basement which was not utilized. In one family
of which I knew, the master and mistress always
retired at Christmas to the attic, so full was
the house. It was a season so given up to jollity
ran from New Year only to the "Christmas holidays."
Its joys and its sanctities have survived
all the manifold chances and changes of our time,
and every one still knows that "Christmas comes
but once a year."
That this hospitality was not always appreciated
by the guest is illustrated by a story which
the writer used to hear in his youth of one who
after a visit asked the loan of a good horse to
carry him on to his next stopping place, a town
which lay at a considerable distance. The host
accordingly lent him his horse and sent along a
Negro boy to bring the horse back. As, however,
after some days the boy did not return,
some one was sent to hunt him up. The messenger
finding him demanded to know why he
had not returned with the horse.
"'Cause dat gent'man done sell de horse,"
was the reply.
"Well, why didn't you return and say so?"
demanded the messenger.
"Hi! He done sell me, too," said the boy.
But this story, if not apocryphal, certainly
represented the rare exception, for the claims
of hospitality were quite universally recognized,
and any wayfarer, whatever his condition, was
at liberty to put in at the first "big gate" which
gracious entertainment so long as he chose to
remain. The only call upon his purse was that
of paying on his departure a quarter to the servant
who brought his horse, or who handed him
his julep, and unless some of the old letters exaggerate
conditions, these "vales" were not
always easy to meet. Every gentleman was sure
to do this, and the servants were quite likely to
gauge a gentleman by his readiness to follow this
amiable custom. "Mr. Spectator," was as much
a familiar in these households as in those for
which Sir Roger was originally painted. And
there were guests who, like Will Honeyman,
spent their lives in visiting from place to place,
and who, like him, made full return by their
handiness in contributing to the enjoyment of
their friends and entertainers and their readiness
to do them favors in all ways within
their power. There were others who, having
spent the night under some hospitable roof,
found the entertainment so much to their taste
that they spent there the remainder of their
lives. Of one such casual visitor I remember to
have heard that regularly once a year he ordered
his horse and then sadly announced to his host
that he "feared he ought to be leaving." This,
of course, the host naturally "regretted," and
that he would remain longer; on which he regularly
returned his thanks and accepted with
graciousness for another year the renewed invitation.
This was the very forge on which
individuality was wrought.
Here in their homely, rambling country houses,
given to hospitality, lived a race sprung from old
English, Scotch and Huguenot stock, clearly
patterning their lives on Plutarch's characters,
with a tempering of Christianity; simple, sincere,
kindly and content with the blessing of Agar:
neither poverty nor riches.
It seems to have been imagined by the outside
world that in this region the people were less
religious than in some other sections of the
country; but the idea is either erroneous or else
Piety must have reached elsewhere a degree of
which the writer has never seen any sign. They
were, indeed, the most religious people that he
has ever known. In very old times, as we know,
attendance on Religious Service was required
by law there as elsewhere and was enforced by
rigorous penalties; but in our time no such requirement
was needed; every one went to church
by choice or habit. No Puritan Sabbath was
ever spent under more rigorous and rigid regulations
than the Virginia Sunday in old times. All
interdicted as under the blue-laws of a
previous generation. And this rigorous observance
of the Sabbath still remains a characteristic
of the life, after it has been relaxed elsewhere.
As a Northerner not long since observed,
"It seems now to be no longer `Puritan New
England,' but rather `Puritan Virginia.' "
It may illustrate this sentiment to say that even
now in the writer's old home family-prayers are
held three times a day. Indeed, much of the
social life still, as formerly, centres about the
Church. And religion enters into the life of the
people as hardly anywhere else that the writer
has been. He has seen hay-harvest go on in
New England on Sunday as well as on other
days; but has seen in Virginia fields of ripe
tobacco caught and destroyed by a sudden frost
because the owners were not willing to cut on
Sunday.
It may be as was once observed by the writer's
father, that "the Fourth Commandment in our
region was violated not so much by the breaking
of the Sabbath as by breaking the other six days
in the week."
There was but one man in the neighborhood
who was openly an unbeliever, and I remember
that he was looked on by us youngsters with
to death is regarded. By the elders
he was, if reprobated for his tenets, esteemed for
his kindness, and possibly was considered a
proper subject for proselytizing. He not infrequently
came over to spend the day at my old
home, and, as on such occasions, he was sure to
stay over at least one service of family-prayers,
he used to take a paper and retire to the veranda
till what he termed "the superstitious
rites" were over.
Years later the writer fell in with him once
on the cars when he was in extreme old age.
With his long, white hair and beard, he looked
like a hoary old prophet. He at once began to
inquire cordially after the various members of
the family. "The best people in the world;"
he declared them, "but eaten up with superstition."
Finally he asked after one who was a
young clergyman. "I hope he is prospering?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, present my regards to him. Tell him
I say he has selected the best profession."
This began to look as though my grandmother's
prayers were meeting with some answer.
But he continued:
"Yes, he has secured to himself all the necessaries
of life and a great many of the luxuries.
not turn my own attention to the ministry."
And with this final shot he got off the train.
In the matter of education the gentry were
not behind those of the same class in any other
part of America. Nearly all were college-bred
men. As their fathers had been trained at
William and Mary, so they in turn had for the
most part either attended some Northern institution
or else had been educated at Jefferson's
great foundation—the University of Virginia.
Added to this they possessed good libraries;
composed, it is true, of works somewhat antiquated,
but none the less valuable. The gentlemen
nearly all had a fair acquaintance with
Latin, and the ladies with French. And the
one gentleman mentioned as having travelled
abroad had written a translation of the poems of
Ariosto. An admirable classical school, known
simply as, "The Academy," whose fame extended
far beyond the confines of Virginia and drew
students from many other States, existed under
the direction of a noted teacher—Colonel Lewis
Coleman, who subsequently became professor
of Latin at the University of Virginia. Later,
on the outbreak of war, with nearly the entire
faculty and student-body, he went into the army,
and fell at Fredericksburg.
With regard to facilities for the education of
other classes not so much can be said in praise.
There were a number of "old-field" schools in
the county, but they were mainly of that type
which Colonel Richard Malcolm Johnson has so
quaintly and delightfully portrayed in "Dukesborough
Tales," and little education was gotten
from them.
In our old neighborhood, however, was established
a little free school, the only one in the
writer's childhood in that immediate region.
This small seminary, which belonged to the
class known as "old-field" schools, was, as is
still recorded on the painted sign above the door,
established by a bequest made in 1844 by one
Aaron Hall, a small farmer, who left his entire
estate "to educate the children of his poor white
neighbors." In pursuance of his bequest a
number of gentlemen were appointed trustees.
A couple of hewn-log houses were built by "old
Uncle Ralph," and "Carpenter William," the
Negro carpenters from the writer's home, one
for the school-house and the other for the
teacher's dwelling; and there for sixty-odd years
Aaron Hall's beneficence has borne fruit.
The total income was only about $250 per
annum, but so well was the fund invested that
when the writer's father, who was the treasurer,
not a cent in the world, or a dollar's worth of
property, except the two horses ridden by himself
and his servant, the little endowment of
Hall's Free School was not only intact, but had
increased in value. The learning imparted
there was neither very broad nor very deep, but
it served. Small as was its endowment and
indifferent as was its teaching, the school was
a little oasis in that section. The neighborhood
about it showed as clearly the effects of its work
as the sands of Arabia show the marks of a
perennial fountain. The people about it, belonging
largely to the class whom Mr. Lincoln
used to call "the plain people," have the stuff
in them which, when called forth, has made the
Anglo-Saxon race and given it its history. They
have the good old English names—Stanley,
Halloway, Askew, Lowry, West, etc.—and are
pure Anglo-Saxon, with old English traits; speaking
quaint old English. And fine features, and
straight, clean-cut figures are not uncommon,
for they are of good old stock. On the outbreak
of war, they flocked into the army and made excellent
soldiers, and many a small household
to-day counts its sons who died on the battlefield,
or in the hospital.
One of the causes which contributed to keep
has doubtless been its remoteness, or, at
least, the difficulty of access to it from the outside
world.
I once asked an old soldier who had been in
Virginia all during the war, what had struck him
most while in the South, and his instant reply
was, "Mud! Mud! Mud!" It was, indeed, mud.
Mud was at times worth to the South a hundred
thousand men, for it held whole armies back.
It is one of the memories of my childhood;
for we went to church every Sunday irrespective
of weather or of roads, and as "Trinity,"
the nearer of the churches, was four miles off,
and the other, Old Saint Martin's, known as
"the Fork Church," was ten miles away, we
had abundant opportunity to know what mud
means. When the roads became too bottomless
for the ordinary teams, a pair of mules were
hitched on in front of the carriage horses, and we
went "just the same." How people who lived
"on the road" stood such terrible highways is a
wonder of modern life. There were mud-holes
that had lasted for generations.
I once asked an old aunt what was the most
vivid recollection of her childhood, and she
answered promptly, "Being dressed in the carriage
on my way to see my grandmother."
It is said that my grandmother three times
a week took her children in the carriage to see
her old blind mother who lived ten miles off.
Some one explained the illegible handwriting of
another member of the family by the fact that he
had been taught to write in the carriage on these
pious pilgrimages. However this may be, half
of the life of a man was spent "on the road,"
and the roads were so incredibly bad that it
would appear almost impossible that they should
have been tolerated. Yet the standing order
was under all conditions, "Plumb the track."
At that time the road from our old home
to the railway, like many of the Virginia roads,
instead of taking even an approximately direct
course, began by running in quite the opposite
direction, and after a detour of seven miles
reached the railway at a point which was really
less than five miles distant from the starting-point.
And when, as sometimes happened, the bridge
across Little River, on this road, was washed
away, it was necessary in times of high water,
unless one were willing to swim his horse (which
we sometimes did), to make a yet further detour
by Honeyman's Bridge, which made the distance
quite ten miles. Yet, all this time plantation-roads
led through most of the plantations by the
than five miles away.
Now and then efforts were made to get a highroad
"put through" from the back country to the
station; but as often as there appeared a chance
of success, the gentleman who owned the plantation
lying on the railway would get in his carriage
and drive eight or ten miles around by
Trinity Church to visit the worthy farmers whose
places lay on the other side of the river, directly
in the line of the proposed road, and explain to
them how much more important it was for them
to have privacy than to have a public road to the
station which would cut off nearly two-thirds of
the distance.
It was in part, doubtless, this difficulty of
access from the railway and in part the absence
of water on the ridge-road that during the war
forced the armies to march down other roads than
this, and thus gave the neighborhood immunity
from the visitation of the enemy except on an occasional
raid. For, curiously enough, although
the direct track of the armies, Union and Confederate,
during two campaigns, passed across the
county within less than a score of miles of the old
neighborhood, and although the sound of the
guns in almost every battle of McClellan's,
Burnside's and Grant's campaigns was distinctly
lay within three miles of Oakland, and small
bodies of troops belonging to raiding parties,
were from time to time seen on the opposite hills,
as it happened, no Union soldier during the
war put his foot on our plantation. I remember
that this used to be attributed directly to my
grandmother's prayers, but a wag once said that
it was because the raiders were afraid my grandmother
would have prayers for them.
Few persons passing by the quite, little hamlet
of Beaver Dam on the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railway nowadays dream of the fact that the
long, low, massive brick building which serves as
a station and freight-house is more than a commonplace
railway station. Yet, at this point the
old Virginia Central Railroad, the chief highway
of transportation during the war from the rich
regions of southwest Virginia and the Valley of
Virginia to Richmond, ran nearest to Spottsylvania
County, but a few miles away, and thus
offered a continual temptation to the bold
raiders of Hooker and Grant to strike for it by a
dash around Lee's left wing and destroy, if possible,
his chief line of communication. And the
temptation was not always resisted.
Thus it was, that when the writer was a small
boy, at times the glow on the near horizon to the
on the evening sky of the raids around Lee's
army, lying between the Northanna and the
Rappahannock, and of swift dashes for the Confederate
Capital. Three times, as he recalls, this
glow came nearer than the long sickle-like sweep
of the northern sky-line: on the occasions when
Stoneman and Kilpatrick and Sheridan, riding
hard for Richmond, struck the Virginia Central
Railway and burned Beaver Dam Depot. On
such occasions there was always the excitement,
delightful enough to children, of running the
stock and the horses off to the woods for fear they
should be taken, and of hiding the silver. The
custodian of these valuables was almost invariably
some one of the trusted old servants,
and the writer personally never knew of the violation
of such a trust.
Strangely enough, there was always some intimation
beforehand that the raiders were coming,
some vague rumor by the "under-ground railway."
Such occasions were always of intense
interest to the boys, for it was likely to liberate
us from school, and we were given the privilege
of going over to see the soldiers pass. Thus,
vivid memories remain of the raiders and of the
Confederate cavalry which followed them up—it
seemed to us rather slowly—their roads marked
the forests—with an occasional skirmish between
rear and advanced guards, till at the proper point
and time there would be a dash, and then the
Gray line would stretch across the road and block
the way.
On one occasion, at least, the raiders destroyed
at Beaver Dam several days' rations for
Lee's army which had been brought from Richmond
and stored there as a point convenient to
his location in Spottsylvania County, ten miles
away, and secure from just the sort of attack
that destroyed them. It was when Sheridan
made his dash for the Confederate capital in
1864, when Jeb Stuart gave his life to head him
off at the Yellow Tavern, almost in sight of the
spires of Richmond.
The writer well remembers going with the
other boys, white and black, to the station the
following day and the scene that presented itself
—the yawning, fire-scorched walls of the massive
brick structure that had been put up as a storehouse
for the supplies, and the long line of yet
smouldering embers where the sheds had been,
under which the coffee and sugar, flour, meat
and sorghum barrels had been stored. What a
waste it appeared! For flour and meat were
scarce in private homes in that region about 1864
the roads were filled with melted sugar and
grease. The railroad for a quarter of a mile
was a blackened curve, where red rails coiled and
writhed in all sorts of contortions from the fires
built on them. Our object was to collect cartridges
from which to get powder and make shot
for our fowling pieces, which consisted in part of
old abandoned muskets. We were a little shy
of mingling with the Yankees. So, though they
never disturbed us, or did anything worse than
question us and call us "little Johnnies," we
usually kept aloof and looked at them from a
respectful distance.
There had been a little skirmish at Beaver
Dam, and there were stacks of muskets which
had been piled up and burned, covering a considerable
area, while near the fork in the road,
a mile below, were two fresh-made graves; one,
it was rumored, of a young officer of high rank—
it was even whispered of a brigadier—while under
a booth of boughs in a fence-corner lay yet a third
poor fellow, too badly wounded to be moved
even to the nearest house.
Several years later, just after the war, when
the troops were stationed throughout the country,
and the Government was collecting the
remains of its dead soldiers to be interred in the
piloted an officer of the company posted at
Beaver Dam, with his resurrection squad, to the
grave of one of these men who was killed on this
raid. I recall that he offered me a greenback,
which was declined with the design of showing
him that I was a gentleman's son.
The tramp home at night, after following a
raid, was over roads thick and soft with the flour-like
dust made by the march of regiments,
marked by the trail of snakes and other wild
things; through tangles of abatis thrown across
the road to delay the pursuing force and through
woods which were blazing with the fires that
had been started and were sweeping through
the timber. Looking back at it now it was
weird enough, but at the time it seemed only
natural.
At the river, as the bridge was down, we all
"cooned it," that is, crept across a great fallen
tree which stretched from one bank to the other.
I wonder now that we were not afraid, for, loaded
down as we were with cartridges, had any one
of us slipped off in the dark he would have gone
to the bottom like a stone. Fortunately, we
had the courage and unconsciousness of ignorance.
Now and then we would meet some
servant who had been sent out to "look for the
that he might go off with the Yankees.
How the women managed to maintain the
plantations during the war is even yet a mystery.
There were some twenty whites and fifty blacks
on our place, and so clean was the country swept
for the subsistence of the troops that often one
of us boys has ridden behind our mother all day
trying to get bread for next day. I recall one
visit to the old infidel who has been mentioned.
"Madam," he said, in answer to my mother's
application, "I have but two pieces of meat left,
but you shall have one of them." And he called
"Lucy Ann," his cook, and made her get half
his remaining store. Possibly the denial of
Henly Doswell was better than some professions.
It was at this same little station, Beaver Dam,
that Stonewall Jackson disembarked his "foot-cavalry"
from the trains when, having slipped
away from the front of the enemy, he marched to
face McClellan and astound Fitz John Porter,
when he was thought to be held fast in the valley
by Banks and Milroy. And by that station
again, in furtherance of Lee's grand strategy,
he passed as swiftly and as silently but a
few weeks later, with that army, now "long
familiar with the morning star," to slip through
Thoroughfare Gap and strike Pope on the doubly
he was safe below Richmond.
The fame which Stonewall Jackson had already
achieved and the manner in which he was
held by the Southern people at this time is
illustrated by an incident which happened during
this forced march from the victorious fields about
Richmond to the yet more victorious field of
Manassas.
As Jackson with his staff was on this march
riding through the old neighborhood some distance
ahead of his troops, he stopped at a
small homestead on the road near the Fork
Church and asked for water. The good woman
of the house hastily brought a pitcher and
drew a fresh bucket from the well. As the
dusty and travel-stained leader was drinking, a
member of his staff told her who he was. She
said not a word, but when he had finished she
took the pitcher and poured out on the ground
all the water that was left. Then she said to the
others: "Gentlemen, I will fetch you another
vessel, for so long as I live no one else shall
ever drink from this pitcher, which has been consecrated
by the lips of Stonewall Jackson."
The close of the war found the old neighborhood
swept clean of everything.
After the war there was a period of much
land, and that for a time appeared valueless.
One old gentleman expressed something of the
general view when he said to a Federal officer:
"If you had taken our land and left us our
Negroes, we should have been much better off
than we are, for we might have worked or sold
the Negroes, whereas we can neither work the
land, nor sell it."
In fact, it looked for a time as though starvation
were not far off. The servants at first
nearly all left and went to seek their fortunes
either about the camps, or in the cities. They
appeared to feel that it was necessary to go off
to have proof that they were really free. Some
departed boldly with their effects packed in carts,
others slipped away in the night, unable to face
the ordeal of leave-taking. This condition, however,
did not last very long, as for the most part
they soon came back, satisfied by a sharp if brief
experience that they could do better with their
own old masters than with strangers, and either
settled on or near the old plantations.
A tribute to the whole population of the old
neighborhood was paid once in the writer's presence
by that fine old Virginian, ex-Governor
Smith. At the close of the war, a reward of
ten thousand dollars was offered for his apprehension,
half that sum in the whole county, he spent
several months among the people, most of whom
knew him, and many of whom were on the verge
of starvation, with no more fear of being betrayed
than if he had been across the border.
In the time of our dearth at Oakland the first
aid came to us from Mrs. Dupont, of Delaware,
the wife of that gallant Admiral who strove in
vain to seize the Southern coast. The great box
which she sent down contained not only necessaries
which were sadly wanted, but dainties
which were the first that had been seen in that
household within four years. After nearly forty
years my heart always warms at that honored
name.
With the aid of "stay-laws" and under the
spur of necessity an attempt was made for a while
to resurrect the old life, or, at least, to reconstruct
from its fragments something that might a little
resemble it. It cannot, however, be said that the
effort was wholly successful. Just as the "stay-laws"
expired and litigation began for the collection
of old debts, the Reconstruction measures
began to undermine the relation of mutual kindliness
which had ever existed between the old
masters and servants and well-nigh destroyed the
new labor system which had begun to grow up.
One of the writer's memories of Lee's storehouse
at Beaver Dam is of the first election under
the Reconstruction system, where the Negroes
were marshalled by the United States officials
and led up to vote for the first time, while the
whites, disfranchised and angry, stood glowering
and jeering by.
Following upon this there was a period of real
poverty, and, notwithstanding the efforts which
were made, the old plantations which had been
cultivated began to grow up once more in forest.
The writer's father, who had been a major in the
Confederate Army, was a lawyer, and was enabled
by stinting to give his sons the benefit of an
education, while his uncle, who had been a
colonel of artillery, ran the plantation. But on
many of the other plantations the families were
not so fortunate, and until those who had been
children during the war grew up, there was a
period of real hardship. Happily, common misfortune
had increased the feeling of neighborliness.
The old home, like most others, always
open to those who chose to come, had been during
the war an asylum for all the family and friends
who were "refugeeing," and it always continued
an asylum and refuge for the whole connection.
For many years after the war it appeared as
if the old neighborhood were doomed to a constant
"trifling." The young people of the better class
nearly all left and went off elsewhere to seek
their fortune, while it was some time before the
body of the people awoke fully to the opportunities
presented to the small farmer. The
land went down until it got to a point where it
could get no lower, and it still can be bought for
the worth of the timber on it, and in good seasons
may be paid for from a single crop.
The houses were built in a former age with
no reference to railroads and modern conditions;
the lands were poor, markets inaccessible;
and with the new conditions the ability of the
owners to maintain themselves perished and,
after long struggling, they submitted perforce,
and new owners came in and took possession.
These were of the class which, if they made
little, spent nothing—the small-farmer class
which work with their own hands.
One of the handsomest houses in the county
in which I was reared, and which once was the
home of culture, elegance, and princely hospitality,
is now in the possession of a tenant.
Not long since a gentleman passed through the
place and stopped there. A dinner-pot boiled
in the old drawing-room, hung on a spike driven
into a crack in a fine old marble mantel.
Another such house, in a neighboring county,
where I used to visit as a youngster, comes to
my mind. It had been owned for many generations
by the old Virginia family which at that
time still made it one of the most charming
houses in the State. A bevy of lovely girls,
transmitting the traditional beauty of their
mother (which, indeed, though faded with years
and sorrow, still spoke for itself), made it one
of the most popular places in Virginia. The
old flower-garden, filled with old-fashioned
roses, lilacs, hollyhocks, and other flowers in
profusion, stretched wide around it, with walks
and bowers which many lovers blessed, as they
had blessed them, and the horse racks and
stables were never empty of visitors' horses;
whilst within and all about were a sweetness
and charm which have never been surpassed.
A friend whom I first met there told me he was
there not long ago. He found the mansion
divided up and occupied by two or three families
of foreigners, whose women went barefooted,
and whose children sprawled in rags and dirt
about the once polished floors.
There are some who never hear the word
gentleman without thinking it is an insult to
themselves, and who will perhaps say that the
place serves a better use now than in the days
their homes there. This might be so could the
several families not obtain food and shelter elsewhere;
but had the family come by natural
evolution into the first mansion, they would not
have cracked the mantel. When they shall develop,
if they ever develop, they will want marble
mantels uncracked; but it will be long
before they reach that point. Meantime the
families which once occupied these old houses
and used marble mantels have passed away or
gone far off. These are no exceptional cases.
It is easy to find similar instances throughout
the entire South; indeed, it is hard not to find
them.
Of late, however, the people have awakened
and the forests are giving place to well-tilled
fields. The generation that went off after the
war have returned or are returning, some bringing
their sheaves with them, and are building
up once more the waste places. Some of the
old plantations are being restored, while others,
which were once large estates cultivated by slave
labor, are now divided into small farms, cultivated
by their owners. On the former culture
and refinement dwell as of yore, and the steadily
improving schools are awaking the small farmer
to the opportunities at his door.
Thus, "the old neighborhood," as its friends
love to call it, finds itself falling a little into the
movements of modern life, and with a pleasant
and healthful climate, a responsive soil, kindly
manners and old-fashioned ideas, it offers a
haven of rest to whomsoever, after having been
tossed and buffeted by the winds and waves of
varying fortune, may come home to see how
sweet and peaceful life with content may be.
| The Old Dominion | |