The long, grey moss that softly swings
In solemn grandeur from the trees,
Like mournful funeral draperies,—
A brown-winged bird that never sings.
********
Albert Bigelow Paine.
O Magnet-South! O glistening perfumed South! my South!
O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!
O dear to me my birth-things—all moving things and the trees where I was born—the grains, plants, rivers,
Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands or through swamps.
********
O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!
The cactus guarded with thorns, the laurel-tree with large white flowers,
The range afar, the richness and barrenness, the old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss,
The piney odor and the gloom, the awful natural stillness (here in these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive has his conceal'd hut;)
********
The mocking bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon, singing through the moonlit night,
The humming bird, the wild turkey, the raccoon, the opossum;
A Kentucky corn-field, the tall, graceful, long-leav'd corn, slender, flapping, bright green, with tassels, with beautiful ears each well-sheath'd in its husk;
O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs, I can stand them not, I will depart;
O to be a Virginian where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!
O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee and never wander more.
Walt Whitman.
SEVEN: THROUGH THE SUNNY SOUTH
LXXV
THREE OLD CHURCHES IN CHARLESTON,
SOUTH CAROLINA
ST. MICHAEL'S, ST. PHILIP'S, AND THE HUGUENOT CHURCH,
RELICS OF COLONIAL DAYS
The oldest church building in Charleston, South Carolina, St. Michael's Protestant Episcopal Church, is a relic of three wars. At the beginning of the Revolution the rector and the vestry disagreed; the rector was a loyalist and most of the members were patriots. Accordingly the rector resigned. Later the beautiful tower, which is unlike any other church tower in America, was painted black, lest it become a guiding beacon to the British fleet. Unfortunately the black tower against the blue sky proved a better guide than a white tower would have been.
The clear-toned bells, which were cast in London in 1757, were taken from the tower when the British evacuated the city in 1782, and were sold in London as spoils of war. Fortunately a Mr. Ryhiner, once a merchant in Charleston, learned of this, bought them, and sent them to Charleston as a business venture.
When the bells were landed on the wharf from the brig Lightning, on November 20, 1783—according to Johnson's "Traditions of Charleston"—"the overjoyed citizens took possession, and hurried them up to the church and into the steeple, without thinking that they might be violating a private right." In June, 1785, Mr. Ryhiner asked for payment for the bells. Later a subscription was ordered to pay the merchant.
During the British occupation of the city horses were stabled in the church, and the lead roof was removed, for use in bullet making.
In 1811 and 1812 the church figured in the second war with Great Britain. The vestry, whose patriotism was as great as ever, opened the building more than once for meetings of the citizens who wished to consider what they could do to help their country in the impending conflict.
During the Civil War the bells were taken to Columbia, to be cast into cannon. Fortunately they were not used for this purpose, but during Sherman's march to the sea they were burned and broken into small pieces. A friend of the church in London, on learning of the disaster, searched records of the bell-founders till he learned who had cast the bells. These records told the proportions of metal used and the sizes of the bells. Then the Londoner wrote to Charleston and asked that the fragments be sent to him. When these were received in London they were recast in the original moulds, which were discovered by an old employee. The cost of recasting the bells and restoring them to their places in the steeple was $7,723, of which sum the City Council contributed $3,000; $2,200, the charge made for import duty, was later returned to the church by special Act of Congress.
For nearly twenty years after the receipt of these new-old bells, they were used to sound fire-alarms, as well as for calling to the services of the church.
The venerable building has suffered from fire, wind, and earthquake, as well as from war. In 1825 a cyclone damaged the spire and the roof, and in 1886 earthquake cracked the walls, destroyed a portion of the tower, and did so much further damage that a Charleston paper spoke of it as the "saddest wreck of all." At first it was feared that the building would have to be demolished, but repairs were found to be possible at a cost of $15,000.
The structure dates from 1752, when Governor Glenn of South Carolina laid the corner stone. The cost was $32,775.87.
St. Michael's parish was set off in 1751 from St. Philip's parish. The first St. Philip's Church was burned in 1681 or 1682. A second church was opened in 1723. This famous building survived until 1835, in spite of wars and fires. The building was saved during the fire of 1796 by a slave who climbed to the tower and threw to the ground a burning brand. As a reward the vestry purchased his freedom. But during the great fire of February 15, 1835, the edifice was destroyed.
The old church had been so much a part of the life of the city and was so thoroughly identified with the history of the country, that the citizens rejoiced when the decision was reached to rebuild it in practically every detail like the original, with the addition of a chancel and spire.
Older than either St. Philip's or St. Michael's, as an organization, is the Huguenot Church of Charleston. The early records of the congregation were destroyed in the fire of 1740, though the building was saved. This first building was blown up during the fire of 1796, in a vain effort to stay the progress of the conflagration. A second building followed in 1800, and the present building was erected in 1828, when English displaced the French language in the services.
Many of the early members became famous in history. The tablets erected to their memory are so numerous that the Huguenot Church might well dispute with St. Philip's Church the title, "The Westminster of South Carolina."
Pringle House
Photo by H. P. Cook
PRINGLE HOUSE, CHARLESTON, S. C.
LXXVI
THE HOUSE OF REBECCA MOTTE, CHARLESTON,
SOUTH CAROLINA
THE SPARTAN MATRON WHO HELPED BURN HER OWN
PROPERTY
Charleston, South Carolina, was only about thirty years old when the Englishman, Robert Brewton, and the Huguenot exile, John de la Motte, took up their residence there. In 1758 Robert Brewton's daughter Rebecca married Jacob Motte, grandson of the Huguenot.
Three daughters came to the Motte home, and the family lived quietly until the outbreak of the Revolution. In 1775 Mrs. Motte's brother, Miles Brewton, sailed for England with his family, intending to leave them with relatives there while he returned to Charleston for the service of his country. But the vessel was lost, and was never heard from again. His Charleston house on King Street, which was built about 1765, became the property of his sister.
When the war broke out, Mrs. Motte, knowing that it was impossible for her husband to become a soldier because of his failing health, decided to do her part for her country. Fortifications were to be built, and many laborers were needed, so she sent to her plantation for all the able-bodied men; these she placed at the disposal of those in charge of the work of defence.
She had her reward when, first in 1776, and again in 1779, the British forces were unable to secure possession of the town. The third attempt, made by Sir Henry Clinton in 1780, was successful. For nearly three years the town was in the enemy's control. The Motte house was made headquarters by Clinton and his staff. The Mottes were crowded into a small room, while the British lived in comfort in the large apartments. Mrs. Motte divided her time between her invalid husband, her timid daughters, and the invaders. It was her custom to preside at the long dinner table, but the young ladies were never allowed to appear in the presence of the officers.
A reminder of the presence of the unwelcome guests is still to be seen on the marble mantel in one of the rooms—a caricature of Clinton scratched on the polished surface, evidently with a diamond point. In the same room the women of Charleston—who were accustomed to go about the streets in mourning, during the period of the occupation—presented a petition to Lord Rawdon, asking for the pardon of Isaac Hayne, a patriot who had been condemned for some infraction of the regulations of the invaders. Their petition for clemency was in vain, though it was emphasized by the presence of Hayne's two little children.
After the death of Mr. Motte, in January, 1781, Mrs. Motte and her daughters secured permission to leave Charleston that they might return to the family plantation on the Congaree, thirty or forty miles from Columbia. They were disappointed in their desire to be alone, for it was not long till the English decided to build on the estate one of their long line of military stations. Earthworks were thrown up around the house, which became known as Fort Motte. Again the family were crowded into a few rooms, while officers occupied the remainder.
After a time Mrs. Motte was asked to retire to a small house on the plantation, a rough structure, covered with weather-boards, unplastered and only partially lined. At first it seemed that there was no place here to conceal the silverware brought from Fort Motte. How the difficulty was solved has been told in "Worthy Women of Our First Century":
"Some one suggested that the unfinished state of the walls of their sitting-room afforded a convenient hiding place; and they set to work to avail themselves of it. Nailing tacks in the vacancy between the outer and inner boarding, and tying strings around the various pieces of silver, they hung them along the inner wall. Shortly afterwards a band of marauders did actually invade the premises; and one more audacious than the others jumped on a chair and thrust his bayonet into the hollow wall, saying he would soon find what they had come in search of; but, rapping all along on the floor within the wall, he did not once strike against anything to reward bad perseverance."
After a time General Marion and Colonel Lee led up troops for the siege of Fort Motte. Fearing that British reinforcements were on the way, they decided they must make an attack at once. The best way seemed to be to set fire to the main building. The American leaders, knowing that this was the home of Mrs. Motte, took counsel with her. "Do not hesitate a moment," was the prompt reply of the patriotic woman. Then she added, "I will give you something to facilitate the destruction." So saying, she handed to General Lee a quiver of arrows from the East Indies which, so she had been told by the ship captain who brought them to Charleston, would set on fire any wood against which they were thrown.
Two of the arrows were fired from a gun without result, but the third set fire to the shingles of the house. The efforts of the garrison to extinguish the flames were in vain, and before long the fortress was surrendered to the patriots. In later years, when Mrs. Motte was praised for her part in the siege, she was accustomed to say, "Too much has been made of a thing that any American woman would have done."
After the war Mrs. Motte returned to the house in Charleston. The daughters married, and numerous grandchildren played in the rooms where the British officers lived during the occupation of Charleston. The youngest of these granddaughters lived in the house in 1876, when the story of Rebecca Motte was written for the Women's Centennial Executive Committee.
During her last years in the old mansion, Mrs. Motte was proudly pointed out to visitors to the city. One of her great-grandchildren said that at the time "she was rather under-sized and slender, with a pale face, blue eyes, and grey hair that curled slightly under a high-crowned ruffled mob-cap. She always wore a square white neckerchief pinned down in front, tight sleeves reaching only to the elbow, with black silk mittens on her hands and arms; a full skirt with huge pockets, and at her waist a silver chain, from which hung her pin-cushion and scissors and a peculiarly bright bunch of keys."
The body of this gracious patriot was buried in old St. Philip's Church, another of the Revolutionary landmarks of the Palmetto City.
The mansion which she made famous should be called the Brewton House, or the Motte House. But a Motte married an Alston, and an Alston married a Pringle, and so many families of the latter name have been associated with the place that their name is popularly given to it.
Independent Church
Photo furnished by Rev. Rockwell S. Brank, Savannah
INDEPENDENT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SAVANNAH, GA.
LXXVII
THE INDEPENDENT CHURCH, SAVANNAH,
GEORGIA
FOR WHICH KING GEORGE II MADE A LAND GRANT
When George II, of his "special Grace, certain knowledge and meer motion," gave a deed for a lot in Savannah, "in our province of Georgia," he declared that it was "for the use and benefit of such of our loving subjects ... as are or shall be professors of the Doctrines of the Church of Scotland, agreeable to the Westminster Confession of Faith." The further stipulation was made that the annual rent, if demanded, should be "one pepper corn."
The date of the grant was January 16, 1756, and within the three years allowed for the erection of the building a brick structure was ready for the use of the Independent Presbyterian Church. The church was independent in fact as well as in name. There was at first no presbytery in Georgia with which it could unite, and when a presbytery was organized, this independent relation continued.
The first pastor was Rev. John Joachim Zubly, who came to the Colonies from Switzerland. He remained with the church until 1778, and became a prominent figure among the patriots of the early years of the Revolution. When the first Provincial Congress of Georgia met in Savannah, July 4, 1775, it adjourned, immediately after organization, to the Independent Church, where Dr. Zubly preached a sermon for which he received the public thanks of Congress.
The London Magazine for January, 1776, contained an impassioned appeal for the Colonies, which was signed by Dr. Zubly. The editor stated that the communication was printed at the request of "an old correspondent," who signed himself "O." It is supposed that this correspondent was General James E. Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia. A few months later Dr. Zubly went to Philadelphia, as a member of the second Continental Congress. He had also been a member of the first Congress in 1774.
During the siege of Savannah by the British the church building was badly injured by British cannon, in spite of the fact that it was used as a hospital. Later the British used the church as barracks. A visitor who entered the city in 1784 said that he found the church in a ruinous condition. It was promptly repaired, however, and services were resumed.
But there was another pastor in the pulpit. In 1778 Dr. Zubly resigned, probably because, for some strange reason, he deserted the Colonies and made known his allegiance to Great Britain.
Fire destroyed the original building in 1796, and a fine new church was built. Twenty-one years later the rapidly increasing congregation made necessary a much larger structure. The new church was modelled after St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, London, and more than two years were required for its construction. The cost was $96,108.67½, a large sum for that day in a town of ten thousand people. Although the middle aisle was eleven feet wide and each of the side aisles four and a half feet wide, there were seatings for 1,350 people. The beautifully proportioned steeple was 223 feet high. The day after the dedication a local paper said that "for grandeur of design and nature of execution, we presume this church is not surpassed by any in the United States." Many architectural writers have told rapturously of the wonders of this building.
President James Monroe and his suite, as well as many other distinguished visitors, were reverent worshippers in the church on the day of dedication.
Lowell Mason, who was organist of the church from 1815 to 1827, composed the popular melody to which Bishop Heber's missionary hymn, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," is usually sung. This melody was first played by him for the Sunday school of the church, whose organization dates from 1804.
Dr. S. K. Axson, the grandfather of Ellen Axson, the first wife of President Woodrow Wilson, was pastor of the church from 1857 to 1889. The Wilson marriage ceremony was performed by Dr. Axson in the manse of the church.
All Savannah mourned when, on April 6, 1889, firebrands tossed by the wind lodged on a cornice of the graceful steeple, too high to be reached. Soon the old church was in ruins. But the city resolved that the historic church must be restored. A new building was erected which is an exact reproduction of the former church. To it, as to its predecessors, ecclesiastical architects go on pilgrimage as a part of their education.
One of the old customs still continued in the church is the assembling of the communicants at a table which is laid the entire length of the broad aisle, as well as in the transept aisle.
The Cabildo
Photo by Ph. B. Wallace
THE CABILDO, NEW ORLEANS, LA.
LXXVIII
THE CABILDO OF NEW ORLEANS
WHICH SAW THE TRANSFER OF LOUISIANA TO THE
UNITED STATES
When Count Alejandro O'Reilly, Irish Lieutenant-General of Spain, entered New Orleans on July 24, 1769, he came as the avenger of the disorders that followed the transfer of Louisiana to Spain by the Treaty of Paris. After putting to death some of the leaders in the revolt, he reorganized the civil government. Among other innovations he instituted the Cabildo as the law-making body for the province, to take the place of the French superior council. The meeting place was a building on the Place d'Armes. In this square, on the coming of O'Reilly, the flag of France had been displaced by that of Spain as Aubrey said, "Gentlemen, by order of the King, my master, I absolve you from your oath of fidelity and obedience to his most Christian majesty." The Spanish and French officers then had gone together to the cathedral, next door to the meeting place of the Cabildo.
The original building occupied by the Cabildo was destroyed in the fire of 1788, when, in less than five hours, eight hundred and sixteen buildings were burned. The loss, amounting to three million dollars, was a blessing in disguise, for it cleared the ground for the reconstruction of the city under the leadership of Don Andres Almonaster y Roxas, who was a member of the Cabildo. He had become rich since his arrival with the Spaniards, and he had a vision of a city glorified through his wealth.
First he built a schoolhouse, a church, and a hospital. On one side of the church he built a convent; on the other side he erected a new town hall, the Cabildo. The walls—which are as sturdy to-day as in 1795—are of brick, half the thickness of the ordinary brick. Shell lime was used for the mortar. Originally the Cabildo was two stories in height, with a flat roof; the mansard roof was added in 1851. At the same time the open arches of the second story loggia that corresponded to the arcade on the ground floor were closed, that there might be more room for offices.
For eight years more the Cabildo continued its sessions under Spanish rule. Then came the news that Louisiana had been transferred by Spain to France. Great preparations were made for the ceremonies that were to accompany the lowering of the Spanish flag and the raising of the French colors in the square before the Cabildo. Then the prefect Laussat was thunderstruck by the coming of word that Napoleon had appointed a Commission not only to receive the colony from Spain but also to give it into the hands of the United States, to whom the vast territory had been sold.
The first transfer took place on November 30, 1803. The official document was signed in the Sala Capitular, the hall where the Cabildo met, and was read from the centre gallery. Then the tricolor of France replaced the flag of Spain.
December 20, 1803, was the date of the transfer to the United States. The American Commission met the French Commission in the Sala Capitular of the HÔtel de Ville, or City Hall, as the French called the Cabildo. Governor Claiborne received the keys of the city, and the tricolor on the flagstaff gave way to the Stars and Stripes. A vast company of citizens watched the ceremonies, listened to the addresses, and looked at the American troops in the square, as well as at the French soldiers who were to have no further power in the province.
Grace King, in "New Orleans, the Place and the People," tells what followed:
"When, twenty-one days before, the French flag was flung to the breeze, for its last brief reign in Louisiana, a band of fifty old soldiers formed themselves into a guard of honor, which was to act as a kind of death watch to their national colors. They stood now at the foot of the staff and received in their arms the Tricolor as it descended, and while the Americans were rending the air with their shouts, they marched silently away, their sergeant bearing it at their head. All uncovered before it; the American troops, as they passed, presented arms to it. It was carried to the government house, and left in the hands of Laussat."
During the years since that momentous transfer the Cabildo has continued to be the centre of historical interest in New Orleans. In 1825 Lafayette was quartered here. In 1901 President McKinley was received in the building. In 1903 the Centennial of the Louisiana Purchase was observed in the Sala Capitular, which had been for many years the meeting place of the State Supreme Court. The great hall is almost as it was when the Cabildo of Don Almonaster met there.
Since 1910 the Cabildo, in common with the Presbytere, the old Civil District Court, a building of nearly the same age and appearance, located on the other side of the Cathedral, has been the Louisiana State Museum. The curios are shown in a large hall on the ground floor. Among these is the flag used by General Jackson at the battle of New Orleans.
From this hall of relics a door leads to a courtyard, which is lined by tiers of gloomy cells. Stocks and other reminders of the old Spanish days are in evidence.
The old Place d'Armes is now called Jackson Square. On either side are the Pontalba buildings, which were erected by the daughter of Don Andres Almonaster y Roxas, who inherited millions from her generous father. On the spot where the Stars and Stripes were raised in 1803 is the statue to General Jackson, the victor of the battle of New Orleans, to which the same public-spirited woman was a large contributor.
The tomb of Don Andres is shown in the Cathedral he gave to the people, by the side of the Cabildo which he built for the city he loved.
LXXIX
THE ALAMO, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
"THERMOPYLÆ HAD HER MESSENGER OF DEFEAT:
THE ALAMO HAD NONE"
Early in the eighteenth century the Spaniards built in Texas, then a part of Mexico, a number of staunch structures that were designed to serve not only as chapels but also as fortresses. The mission that at length became known as the Alamo was first built on the Rio Grande in 1710, and during the next forty-seven years was rebuilt four times in a new location, before it was given a final resting-place at San Antonio, on the banks of the Alazan River. There it was called Alamo, or Poplar Church. Though the Alamo was begun in 1744, it was not completed until 1757.
For nearly eighty years there was nothing specially notable about the building. Then came the events that made the name famous.
In 1832 Sam Houston was sent to Texas by President Jackson to arrange treaties with the Indians for the protection of settlers on the border. Just at this time settlers in Texas, which was then a part of the state of Coahuila, were seeking equal privileges with the other Mexican states. Most of the settlers had come from the United States, and they hoped that in time Texas might become a part of that country.
On February 13, 1833, Houston wrote to President Jackson that the time was ripe for getting hold of the country. Less than three months later he was asked to serve as a delegate to a constitutional convention, which demanded from Mexico the organization of the territory into states, and was made the chairman of the committee which drew up for the proposed states a constitution based on that of the United States. Stephen F. Austin, who has been called "The Father of Texas," went to Mexico City with the petition. But he was imprisoned, and the request of Texas was denied by Santa Anna, president of Mexico.
Later, when the colonists attempted to defend themselves against the Indians and other lawbreakers, the demand was made that they give up their arms.
The organization of a provincial government followed in 1834, and Houston was chosen commander-in-chief of the army. The brief war with Mexico was marked by a number of heroic events, chief of which was the defence of the Alamo, where a small force of Texans resisted more than ten times the number of Mexicans.
When the army of Santa Anna approached San Antonio, on February 22, 1836, one hundred and forty-five men, under the leadership of Colonel James Bowie and Lieutenant-Colonel William B. Travis, retired within the church fortress. For nearly two weeks these heroic men defended themselves, and the enemy did not gain entrance until every one of them was killed.
The details of the heroic struggle were not known until 1860, when Captain R. M. Potter printed an account in the San Antonio Herald, in which he had patiently pieced together the reports that came to him through those whom he regarded most dependable among the besiegers, and from one who was an officer in the garrison until within a few days of the assault.
Within the walls a well had been dug on the very day the Mexican Army entered the town. Thus a plentiful supply of water supplemented the store of meat and corn for the defenders.
A message sent out by Colonel Travis on the night of March 3 told of the events of the first days of the siege:
"With a hundred and forty-five men I have held this place ten days against a force variously estimated from 1,500 to 6,000, and I shall continue to hold it till I get relief from my countrymen, or I will perish in the attempt. We have had a shower of bombs and cannon-balls continually falling among us the whole time, yet none of us have fallen."
Santa Anna led a final assault on March 6. Scaling ladders, axes, and fascines were to be in the hands of designated men. Five columns were to approach the wall just at daybreak.
At the first onset Colonel Travis was killed and breaches were made in the walls. The outer walls and batteries were abandoned, and the defenders retired to the different rooms within.
"From the doors, windows, and loopholes of the several rooms around the area the crack of the rifle and the hiss of the bullet came fierce and fast; as fast the enemy fell and recoiled in his first efforts to charge. The gun beside which Travis fell was now turned against the buildings, as were also some others, and shot after shot was sent crashing through the doors and barricades of the several rooms. Each ball was followed by a storm of musketry and a charge; and thus room after room was carried at the point of the bayonet, when all within them had died fighting to the last. The struggle was made up of a number of separate and desperate combats, often hand to hand, between squads of the garrison and bodies of the enemy. The bloodiest spot about the fort was the long barrack and the ground in front of it, where the enemy fell in heaps."
David Crockett was among those who were killed in one of the rooms. He had joined the defenders a few days before the beginning of the siege.
The chapel was the last point taken. "Once the enemy in possession of the large area, the guns could be turned to fire into the door of the church, only from fifty to a hundred yards off. The inmates of the last stronghold fought to the last, and continued to fire down from the upper works after the enemy occupied the floor. Towards the close of the struggle Lieutenant Dickenson, with his child in his arms, or, as some accounts say, tied to his back, leaped from the east embrasure of the chapel, and both were shot in the act. Of those he left behind him the bayonet soon gleaned what the bullet had left; and in the upper part of that edifice the last defender must have fallen."
This final assault lasted only thirty minutes. In that time the defenders of Texas won immortal fame. Four days before, the Republic of Texas had been proclaimed. Those who fell in the Alamo were hailed the heroes of the struggle. "Remember the Alamo!" was the battle cry of the war for independence that was waged until the Mexican Army was routed at San Jacinto, April 21, 1836.
On the capitol grounds at Austin, Texas, stands a monument to the heroes of the Alamo, with the inscription: "ThermopylÆ had her messenger of defeat; the Alamo had none."
Photo by Wiles, Nashville
THE HERMITAGE, NASHVILLE, TENN.
LXXX
THE HERMITAGE, NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
ANDREW JACKSON'S RETREAT IN THE INTERVALS OF
HIS PUBLIC SERVICE
Andrew Jackson was a pioneer. From North Carolina he crossed the mountains to what was then the Western District. He was a lawyer, but he wanted to be a farmer also. His first land purchase was made in 1791. This land was lost in the effort to pay the debts of another.
The second effort at farming was more successful. This was begun in 1804, when he bought a tract of some twenty-eight thousand acres, six thousand acres of which he retained permanently as the Hermitage plantation. From the beginning he showed that he had a genius for farming. Crops were large, and his wealth grew rapidly, until he became the wealthiest man in all that country. After a few years he became famous as a breeder of race horses. He owned a track of his own not far from the mansion.
For fifteen years Mr. and Mrs. Jackson lived in a log cabin. But they maintained a large establishment. They had their slaves, and they drove in a carriage drawn by four horses. And they entertained royally. Jackson's biographer, James Parton, tells of a Nashville lady who said that she had often been at the Hermitage "when there were in each of the four available rooms not a guest merely, but a family, while the young men and solitary travellers who chanced to drop in disposed themselves on the piazza, or any other shelter about the house."
The log house was still the plantation-house when General Jackson's neighbors gathered to welcome him home as the victor of New Orleans. In the response he gave to their greeting he made a prophecy:
"Years will continue to develop our inherent qualities, until, from being the youngest and the weakest, we shall become the most powerful nation in the universe."
General Jackson was popular with all in the neighborhood of the plantation. To his slaves he was a hero. To his wife he was devoted. Parton says that he always treated her as if she was his pride and glory. And words can faintly describe her devotion to him. She also was popular among the servants; her treatment of them was courteous in the extreme. A visitor to the Hermitage told of being present at the hour of evening devotions. Just before these began the wife of the overseer came into the room. Mrs. Jackson rose and made room for her on the sofa. One of the guests expressed her surprise to a lady sitting next her. "That is the way here," the lady whispered, "and if she had not done it, the General would."
Peter Cartwright, the famous pioneer preacher, told in his Autobiography an incident that revealed the General's nature. Cartwright was preaching, when the pastor of a church, who was with him in the pulpit, leaned forward and whispered, "General Jackson has just come in." The outspoken preacher replied, so that every one could hear: "What is that if General Jackson has come in? In the eyes of God he is no bigger than any other man!" After the service Jackson told Mr. Cartwright of his hearty approval of the sentiment.
That there might be more room for entertaining passing strangers like Mr. Cartwright, as well as hosts of friends, Jackson began to build The Hermitage in 1819, of brick made on the plantation. When this house was burned in 1836, a new house was built on the old foundation, and with the same general plan. The building has the rather unusual length of 104 feet. Six pillars support the roof in front and in rear.
Between the building of the first house and its successor came most of Jackson's political career. During this period also was the visit of General Lafayette. On this occasion the Frenchman, recognizing the pair of pistols which he had given to Washington in 1778, said that he had a real satisfaction in finding them in the hands of one so worthy of possessing them. "Yes, I believe myself to be worthy of them," Jackson began his reply, in words that seemed far less modest than the conclusion proved them; for he added: "if not for what I have done, at least for what I wished to do, for my country."
The Hermitage never seemed the same place to Jackson after the death of his wife, on December 22, 1828, only a few days after his first election to the presidency.
Two years after his final return from Washington, after attending service at the little Presbyterian church on the estate, he begged the pastor, Dr. Edgar, to return home with him. The pastor was unable to accept, but promised to be on hand early in the morning. All night the General read and prayed. Next morning, when Dr. Edgar came, he asked to be admitted to the Church.
Parton says that from this time to the end of his life "General Jackson spent most of his leisure hours in reading the Bible, Biblical commentaries, and the hymn-book, which last he always pronounced in the old-fashioned way, hime-book. The work known as 'Scott's Bible' was his chief delight; he read it through twice before he died. Nightly he read prayers in the presence of his family and household servants."
Soon after he united with the Church, the congregation wished to choose him to the office of elder. "No," he said, "I am too young in the Church for such an office. My countrymen have given me high honors, but I should esteem the office of ruling elder in the Church of Christ a far higher honor than any I have ever received."
For six years he continued to be an unofficial member of the church. Then, on June 8, 1845, he said to those who had gathered about his death-bed: "I am my God's. I belong to Him. I go but a short time before you, and I want to meet you all, white and black, in heaven."
Less than two months before his death, when the President and Directors of the National Institute proposed that an imported sarcophagus in their possession be set apart for his last resting-place, he declined, because he wished to lie by the side of his wife, in the garden of The Hermitage.
Until 1888 Andrew Jackson, Jr., and after his death, his widow occupied the house, during the last thirty-two years of this period as caretakers for the State, which had bought the property for $48,000. Since 1889 the mansion and twenty-five acres of ground have been cared for by the Ladies' Hermitage Association.
Ashland
Photo by E. C. Hall
ASHLAND, LEXINGTON, KY.
LXXXI
ASHLAND, LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY
THE HOME OF HENRY CLAY FOR FORTY-SIX YEARS
Henry Clay's mother, having married Captain Henry Watkins, moved from Hanover, Virginia, to Woodford County, Kentucky, in 1792. As soon as the future statesman was admitted to practice in the Virginia Court of Appeals, he decided to follow her. Accordingly, in November, 1797, he became a resident of Lexington. Three years later the Kentucke Gazette, the first paper published west of the mountains, told of "an eloquent oration" that was "delivered by Henry Clay, Esquire."
The year before the young lawyer received this flattering notice he married Lavinia Hart, of Lexington. Seven years were spent in rented quarters, but in 1806 he purchased an estate about a mile and a half from town.
Clay took the keenest pleasure in the estate. Once he wrote to a friend:
"I am in one respect better off than Moses. He died in sight of and without reaching the Promised Land. I occupy as good a farm as any he would have found had he reached it, and 'Ashland' has been acquired not by hereditary descent but by my own labor."
However, it was only at intervals that the proud owner was able to enjoy Ashland. After 1803 the longest period of residence was six years, and this was toward the close of his life.
The management of the property was largely in the hands of Mrs. Clay, and the prosperity of the plantation was proof of her capability. From Washington he wrote frequently of things he would like to see done. He was especially interested in blooded stock which he secured in the East and abroad. Once he wrote proudly of the fact that there were on the estate specimens of "the Maltese ass, the Arabian horse, the Merino and Saxe Merino sheep, the English Hereford and Durham cattle, the goat, the mule and the hog." His race horses were famous, and he delighted to handle them himself. He also liked to feed the pigs, even when he was an old man.
There were many slaves at Ashland, and they were all attached to their master. His will provided for their emancipation, under wise conditions. Once, when a friend bequeathed him twenty-five slaves, he sent them to Liberia, by way of New Orleans.
Harriet Martineau, who visited Ashland in 1835, told of her pleasant impression of the place and its owner:
"I stayed some weeks in the house of a wealthy landowner in Kentucky. Our days were passed in great luxury, and the hottest of them very idly. The house was in the midst of grounds gay with verdure and flowers, in the opening month of June, and our favorite seats were the steps of the hall, and chairs under the trees. From there we could watch the play of the children on the grass plot, and some of the drolleries of the little negroes.... There were thirty-three horses in the stables, and we roved about the neighboring country accordingly...."
As the years passed visitors flocked to Ashland in ever-increasing numbers. Many of them were politicians, but more were plain people who were devoted to Clay and could not understand why the country refused to elect him President. In 1844, during his longest period of continuous residence at Ashland, he received word of the disappointing result of the election. After a few days, when he was walking on the turnpike near the house, he was startled by a woman who, on passing him, burst into tears. When he asked her why she wept, she said:
"I have lost my father, my husband, and my children, and passed through other painful trials; but all of them together have not given me so much sorrow as the late disappointment of your friends."
A story is also told of a bride and groom who visited Ashland on the day the news of defeat was received. The journey was continued down the Mississippi River. On the boat the groom was taken seriously ill. The physician who was called to attend him was puzzled to define the ailment until the bride said that the cause was the defeat of Henry Clay. The old doctor threw his arms about the patient's neck and cried, "There is no cure for a complaint like that."
The sting of defeat was forgotten one day in 1845. Mr. Clay was in his bank in Lexington, prepared to pay a part of the indebtedness that had all but swamped him, so that he felt he might have to sacrifice Ashland. The bank told him that about $50,000 had been deposited in the bank by his friends from all parts of the country, enough to pay all his debts. He never knew the names of the generous friends who had made possible the retention of the property.
He thought he was to spend the remainder of his days at home, and that he would die there in peace. One day he said, in an address in Lexington, "I felt like an old stag which has been long coursed by the hunters and the hounds, through brakes and briars, and over distant plains, and has at last returned to his ancient lair to lay himself down and die."
Again in 1848 he tasted defeat, though on this occasion it was in the nominating convention, not in the election. In the trying days that followed he was sustained by his Christian faith. He had been baptized in the parlor at Ashland on June 22, 1847. The reality of his religious convictions was seen one day by what he said to a company of friends who had been talking in a despairing manner of the future of the country. Pointing to the Bible on the table, he said, "Gentlemen, I do not know anything but that Book which can reconcile us to such events."
In 1849 Clay was sent to the United States Senate because the legislature of Kentucky felt that he was needed to help in the solution of questions raised by the Mexican War. He spent three years in Washington, then died in the midst of his work. After a journey that showed what a place he had won in the hearts of the people, his body was taken to Lexington. The catafalque lay in state in Ashland over one night. Next day the body was buried near Lexington.
His son, James B. Clay, who purchased the estate at auction, tore down the house because of its weakened foundations, but rebuilt it of the same materials, on the old site, and on almost the identical plans. Both outside and inside the mansion has practically the appearance of the original.
Before the Civil War Ashland was purchased by the State College, but in 1882 it became the property of Major Henry Clay McDowell, whose widow lived there for many years. She was the daughter of Henry Clay, Jr., whose death at the Battle of Buena Vista was a sore blow to one who was always a fond father.
Whitley's Station
Photo by Miss M. E. Sacre, Stanford, Ky.
SPORTSMAN'S HALL, WHITLEY'S STATION, KY
LXXXII
SPORTSMAN'S HALL, WHITLEY'S STATION, KENTUCKY
THE HOME OF THE MAN WHO KILLED TECUMSEH
"Then, Billy, if I was you, I would go and see!"
Thus replied Esther Whitley of Augusta, Virginia, to her husband William Whitley, when, early in 1775, he had told her that he had a fine report of Kentucky, and that he thought they could get their living in the frontier settlements with less hard work than was required in Virginia.
Whitley took his wife at her word. Two days later, with axe and plow and gun and kettle, he was on his way over the mountains. Daniel Boone had not yet marked out the Wilderness Road that was to become the great highway of emigration from Virginia to Kentucky. At first his only companion was his brother-in-law, George Clark, but on the way seven others joined the party.
During the next six years he was one of the trusted pioneers at Boonesborough and Harrod's Fort, two stations on the Wilderness Road. When he had a house ready for his wife, he returned to Virginia, and brought her to Kentucky. It is said that she was the third white woman to cross the Cumberland Mountains, Mrs. Daniel Boone and her daughter being the first and second. The claim has been made that their daughter, Louisa, who was born in Boonesborough, was the first white child born in the present limits of Kentucky.
Louisa was perhaps four years old when Whitley removed to the vicinity of Crab Orchard, the famous assembling place for parties about to take the dangerous journey back to Virginia. Two miles from the settlement he built Whitley's Fort. In 1788 he felt able to build for his growing family the first brick house in Kentucky. The brick were brought from Virginia, and the man who laid the brick was given a farm of five hundred acres for his services. The windows were placed high above the ground to prevent the Indians from shooting in at the occupants. The window-glass was carried across the mountains in pack-saddles. The stairway had twenty-one steps, and on these steps were carved the heads of thirteen eagles to represent the original thirteen Colonies. The doors were made of wood, elaborately carved, and were in two layers, a heavy sheet of iron being placed between these. The old-time leather hinges are still in use.
The owner laid out on his property the first race track in Kentucky, and he called his house Sportsman's Hall. In its walls scores of settlers found refuge in time of danger. Famous men sat with Mr. and Mrs. Whitley at their hospitable table, among these being Daniel Boone, George Rogers Clark, and General Harrison.
Until his death at the battle of the Thames in 1813 Whitley was one of the chief defenders of the settlers against the Indians. On his powder horn he cut the lines:
William Whitley, I am your horne,
The truth I love, a lie I scorne,
Fill me with the best of powder,
I'll make your rifle crack the louder.
See how the dread, terrifick ball
Makes Indians blench at Toreys fall,
You with powder I'll supply
For to defend your liberty.
One day in 1785 a messenger came to Whitley's Fort with the tidings that Indians had captured a mother and her babe, after killing three older children. Mr. Whitley was not at home, but Mrs. Whitley sent for him. In the meantime she collected a company of twenty rescuers. On his return Whitley placed himself at their head, pursued the Indians, and rescued the prisoners.
The title Colonel was given to Whitley in 1794, when he commanded the Nickerjack expedition against the Tennessee Indians, who had been conducting foraging expeditions into Kentucky. The march was conducted with such secrecy and despatch that the enemy were taken by surprise, and were completely routed.
The last of his campaigns took place in Canada against the British, French, and Indians in 1813. Many claim that before he received his mortal wound in the battle of the Thames, he fired the shot that killed Tecumseh, the chief who had given so much trouble to the settlers of Kentucky and Indiana. Others say that the shot was fired by a Colonel Johnson.
The body of the Indian fighter rests in an unknown grave hundreds of miles from the territory he helped to wrest from the Indians, but the brick house he built near Crab Orchard is still one of the historic buildings of Kentucky.
White Haven
Photo furnished by Albert Wenzlick
WHITE HAVEN, ST. LOUIS
LXXXIII
WHITE HAVEN, NEAR ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI
WHERE ULYSSES S. GRANT COURTED JULIA DENT
Immediately after Ulysses Simpson Grant graduated from West Point, he was sent to Jefferson Barracks, at St. Louis. His military duties were not so arduous that he was unable to accept the invitation of Fred Dent, a former roommate at West Point, to go with him to the Dent homestead on the Gravois Road, four miles from the Barracks.
The young second lieutenant did not have to be urged to repeat his visit. In fact he went so often that the road between the Barracks and the Dent farm became as familiar to him as his old haunts on the banks of the Hudson. He did not meet Julia Dent at first, for she was absent at school, but he found enough attraction in a sister to make him a frequent visitor.
Then came the eventful day when he met seventeen-year-old Julia. The courtship was by no means a long-drawn-out affair; the young people were engaged before Grant was ordered to the Mexican border, though the fact was not announced until his return to St. Louis in May, 1845. The marriage took place in August, 1848, after the close of the Mexican War.
For some years Mrs. Grant was a soldier's wife. Grant took her with him to Detroit, but he left her at her old home in St. Louis when he was transferred to the Pacific Coast. In 1853 he accepted a commission as captain, which he soon resigned, determining to return to the East. Several unfortunate speculations had left him without funds, and he was indebted to a friend in San Francisco for transportation.
"I rejoined my family to find in it a son whom I had never seen, born while I was on the Isthmus of Panama," Grant said in his "Personal Memoirs." "I was now to commence, at the age of thirty-two, a new struggle for our support. My wife had a farm near St. Louis, to which we went, but I had no means to stock it. A house had to be built also. I worked very hard, never losing a day because of bad weather, and accomplished the object in a moderate way."
After working as a farm laborer for a time, he built a cabin on sixty acres given to Mrs. Grant by her father. "Hardscrabble," as he called the four-room log house, was the home of the Grant family for several years. This cabin, which was on the grounds of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis, and White Haven, must both be counted homes of the family at this period. Fred, Nellie, and Jesse Grant were all born in White Haven.
Ready money was scarce, but the father of a growing family felt the necessity of providing for their wants. "If nothing else could be done I would load a cord of wood on a wagon and take it to the city for sale," he wrote in his Memoirs. "I managed to keep along very well until 1858, when I was attacked by fever and ague. I had suffered very severely and for a long time from the disease while a boy in Ohio. It lasted now over a year, and, while it did not keep me in the house, it did interfere greatly with the amount of work I was able to perform. In the fall of 1858 I sold out my stock, crops and farming utensils at auction, and gave up farming."
The family remained at White Haven for a time, and Grant tried to make a living in the real estate business. His partner was a cousin of Mrs. Grant. The income of the business was not sufficient for two families, so he soon gave up the attempt. "He doesn't seem to be just calculated for business, but an honester, more generous man never lived," was the remark of one who knew him at this time.
In the meantime he had taken his family to St. Louis. He made one further attempt to support them there. Learning that there was a vacancy in the office of county engineer, he applied for the position, but the appointment was to be made by the members of the county court, and he did not have sufficient influence to secure it. So the move to Galena, Illinois, in May, 1860, became necessary. There, in the leather business, he earned but eight hundred dollars a year. And he had a family of six to feed.
A year later he responded to the call of President Lincoln, and began the army service that made him famous.
White Haven was built in 1808 by Captain John Long, who had won his title during the Revolution. Later the house and three hundred acres of the original farm were sold to Frederick Dent, who, at one period, had ninety slaves in the slave quarters still to be seen at the rear of the house.
Through Mrs. Grant the entire property came into the possession of General Grant. At the time of the failure of Grant & Ward, the farm was pledged to William H. Vanderbilt, who sold it to Captain Fuller H. Conn of St. Louis. Captain Conn disposed of it in a number of parcels. One of these, containing fifteen acres and the old homestead, was purchased by Albert Wenzlick, who makes his summer home in the house where Ulysses S. Grant met Julia Dent.
