Various

“ The busy steamers plying these waters to carry the produce of the plantations to the markets of Baltimore and Washington leave the Potomac from time to time to lose themselves in its tortuous tributaries. Cape on cape recedes to unfold new and unexpected depths of loveliness; little harbors sit low on the tidal waters backed by wooded bluffs, behind which lie the rich plantations of Northumberland and Westmoreland. A soft-spoken race of easy-going Virginians haunts the landing-places. ”

“ In the midst of the enterprise and activity that mark the Baltimore of to-day, visitors frequently come across old landmarks that stand out distinctly as reminders of the earlier and more leisurely days of the city’s history. ”

“ In spite, therefore, of the rolling years, and of civil war, and emancipation, the Northern Neck of Virginia is in many respects much what it was when George Washington and Light Horse Harry Lee were born a month apart in the quaint and lovely old Westmoreland of the year 1732. The visitor to Mount Vernon comes away with a strong impression of Washington, the local magnate and world-wide hero. But Mount Vernon, in spite of its tomb and its relics, many of them actually used and handled by Washington himself, can hardly give one the eighteenth century atmosphere. ”

“ Talbot sit every week day evening and weave plain and pattern goods in silk, linen and cotton, on the looms and in the fashions of two centuries ago.
They do it partly for amusement and partly to satisfy an increasing demand for such goods as our grandmothers wove, among people with so much money that it is really doing them a service to separate them from some of it. They have what is probably the only hand loom establishment in this State, a practical exposition of the spread and possibilities of the modern arts and crafts movement. ”

“ The telephone, indeed, has brought these people into tenuous communication with the modern world, but he that looks out upon the sea-like flood of the Potomac from the mouth of one of its many navigable tributaries in the Northern Neck can hardly persuade himself that the capital of 80,000,000 people lies less than a hundred miles up stream. Washington the man seems vastly more real and present than Washington the city. ”

“ Just across the Potomac from Washington’s birthplace is old Catholic Maryland of the Calvert Palatinate, settled almost exactly a century before his birth, and still rich in the names and traditions of that earlier time. The great width of the separating flood makes one shore invisible from the other, and the only means of communication are either the local sailing craft or the steamers that weave from side to side of the river and lengthen the voyage from Baltimore to Washington to a matter of thirty hours. ”

“ When we recall that the doctrine found millions of believers in the most civilized centers of the world, and for a time seriously paralyzed business in London, New York and Philadelphia, we will not wonder that with the people then living in the dreary solitudes of Dallas, such a doctrine found ready listeners and willing believers almost everywhere. ”

“ In some places the fig is cultivated, and within the shadow of the birthplace monument is a dense colony of young fig shoots which have sprung and resprung after every severe winter for perhaps more than a century and a half. The steep bank of Bridges Creek to the southeast of the monument is lined with cherry trees that to this day bear excellent fruit, to be had merely for the picking. One gathers from all the surroundings of the place a strong sense of the dignity and simplicity that mark plantation life in Virginia. ”

“ When a boy I used to see flocks that extended as far as the eye could reach, from end to end, and these long strings or waves of birds would pass over so closely following each other that sometimes two or three flocks could be seen at once, and some days they were almost constantly flying over, and the noise of their wings was not unlike the sound of a high wind blowing through a pine wood. ”

“ The crops are also those of the earlier century. The monument itself stands in the midst of a waving wheat field, and acres of Indian corn rustle green and rich as they must have rustled in the first hot summer of George Washington’s infancy.
The reality of it all is increased by the bodily presence of Washington’s own kin, men and women bearing his name, the descendants of his collateral relatives. A little boat rocking at anchor off the wharf at Wakefield is the fishing dory of Lawrence Washington, commonly called “Lal” Washington by his neighbors. He is a man of substance and dignity. ”

“ Before the invention of the lucifer match, the matter of keeping fire in a house, especially in winter time, was one of extreme importance in that sparsely settled country. Everyone burned wood then, about there, and fire was kept over night by covering a few “live coals” with ashes in the fireplace. Sometimes this failed, and then, if no flint and punk were at hand, some member of the family had to go to the nearest neighbor, probably a mile or more away, and bring fire. It is not difficult to imagine their sufferings during the winters in this respect. ”

“ Communication between Maryland and Virginia was almost as easy in Washington’s day, for the steamboats have an annoying habit of neglecting many miles of one shore or the other, and there are days when no steamer crosses the stream. A man living in one of the little harbors of the Northern Neck, being in a hurry to travel northward, found his most expeditious mode of travel to be a drive of seventy miles to a railway at Richmond. ”

“ Shut in thus, the people of the Northern Neck have nursed their traditions and held hard by their old family names, so that the visiting stranger, if he have any touch of historic instinct, finds himself singularly moved with a sense of his nearness in time to George Washington and his contemporaries. ”

“ A good woman weaver can weave about four yards of linen a day, or about five yards of wool a day, on such looms as these. The Hearthside Loom takes orders for pattern work on original patterns, and its work has already proved popular among people who are able to buy goods made to last. In addition to the two large looms, Mr. Talbot has a small ribbon loom that is even older than the larger ones, while the trade-mark of the establishment is a reproduction of a hand loom small enough to be held in one hand, and hardly bigger than a large shingle. ”

“ That never-to-be-forgotten rain of fire must have been frightfully impressive even to the most scientific man who could best understand the causes which produced it. It has no parallel in recorded history, and one can quite readily understand how such an interpretation of the holy prophecies, following immediately such a fiery manifestation in the heavens, should find easy believers. ”

“ In fact there are but few such establishments in this country. In the mountains of Kentucky hand weaving is still practiced, and the products of the mountaineers, handled through a semi-public institution, have a ready sale. In Massachusetts such goods are also selling. Mr. and Mrs. Talbot first thought of the possibilities of remunerative trade when they found a demand for hand weaving among friends who saw the results of their work of three hours every evening—from seven to ten o’clock—on the one loom with which they began work. ”

“ The British destroyed the house during the Revolutionary War, but the cornerstone was found and opened not many years ago, and some of its treasures of old English money were placed in the cornerstone of the Masonic lodge at Kinsale, another charming little Virginia harbor. It is at Lodge that the maker of canceling dies for the Post Office Department, exiled from Washington because of the climate, has for nearly twenty years carried on his business with the aid of country youths trained for the purpose. ”

“ Every planter who will can maintain his pound net in the shallows of the Potomac or one of [Pg 263] its tributaries, and all along the lower course of the stream the planter may secure his own oysters almost without leaving the shore. The dainties that filled colonial larders in Washington’s youth are still the food of the region—oysters and clams, soft-shell crabs, wild duck, geese, and swan in winter, and a bewildering variety of fish. ”

“ Thus ended the fight of Diamond Island; a fight which, if attended with better success, might have perhaps hastened the surrender of Burgoyne, and resulted in other advantages to the American arms. As it was, however, the British line of communication on Lake George was not broken, while the American leaders took good care to prevent this failure [Pg 272] from reaching the public ear through the press. Thus Colonel Brown’s reports to General Lincoln remained unpublished. They have now been brought out to be put on permanent record, as interesting material for American history. ”

“ It has been truly said that a country is poor indeed when it is so poor that dried apples become a luxury. Before the days of cheap sugar and canned fruits, dried apples and cider apple sauce, the latter made of apples boiled to a pulp in cider, were luxuries and necessities both in many places besides ours. Apples were always abundant and cheap in Dallas. In fact, when the forests are cleared away, apple trees are found to spring up spontaneously in some places, and only need a little trimming and protection to become good orchards. ”

“ IN THE AMERICAN COLONIES BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR, WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO CONDITIONS IN THE ROYAL COLONY OF NEW YORK.
CHAPTER IV (Continued)
THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS IN NEW YORK
The administration of Governor George Clinton is very important on the side of Constitutional growth, since it is now that the General Assembly for the first time clearly enunciates the principles of self-government and the right not only to vote the taxes but to determine the ways in which the money shall be expended. ”

“ On the 25th day of November, 1862, the very day set by General Pope, Major-General Halleck ordered a general court-martial for the trial of Major-General Fitz-John Porter, and on that same day he made his official report of the battle in which he certified to Pope’s efficiency, as the latter had demanded in those uncanny letters. And on the 5th day of December, Major-General Pope declared under oath:
“This is all I have yet done”: i. e., “in my official reports of the operations of the army, to set forth all the facts as they transpired on the field. I have not preferred charges against him. ”

“ Mr. Adams endeavors to establish as a fixed fact in Massachusetts history that Weymouth as a permanent European settlement antedated Boston by at least six years; and, moreover, that this fact has singular historical interest. That it was a struggle for possession between two forms of civilization and of religious faith; one being ecclesiastical and feudal, the other theological and democratic; the fate of the two settlements during the earlier and crucial period depending not on events in Massachusetts, but upon a struggle for supremacy going on in England. ”

“ Washington was born on a lonely plantation in Westmoreland County, bordering the beautiful Bridges Creek, within sight of the Potomac. At Colonial Beach, two or three miles across the mouth of Monroe Creek, also in Westmoreland County, stands a house in good repair, which is declared to have been the residence of Light Horse Harry Lee before he removed to Fairfax County. ”

“ It was now the twilight hour, and in the maple woods the Indian boys were watching their fires and the women were bringing in the sap from the surrounding trees. The time for making sugar was almost gone, and the well-filled mocucks, which might be seen in all the wigwams, [Pg 275] testified that the yield had been abundant. The hearts of the old women beat in thankfulness, and the young men and maidens were already beginning to anticipate the pleasures of wedded life and those associated with the sweet summer time. ”

“ Young Kendall knew then that Jamestown was still in being. So he wrote a letter to his father and entrusted it to the Indian to be delivered at Jamestown, paying him for the service one gay woolen blanket. Father and son thus came into communication, but the son remained at Bell Haven, and from him are descended the Kendalls of the Northern Neck.
The whole region teems with traditions of Washington. Down in Northumberland County, the lovely little harbor of Lodge is named from the fact that here stood the Masonic lodge that Washington used to attend. ”

“ On August 30, while Pope was fighting the second Bull Run battle in Virginia, the Confederate Major-General, E. Kirby Smith, was fighting the battle of Richmond, Ky. In his report to General Braxton Bragg, Smith says:
“The enemy’s loss during the day is about 1400 killed and wounded, and 4000 prisoners. Our loss is about 500 killed and wounded. General Miller was killed, General Nelson wounded, and General Manson taken prisoner. The remnant of the Federal force in Kentucky is making its way, utterly demoralized and scattered, to the Ohio. General Marshall is in communication with me. ”

“ Many remained true to the new life, and became useful and prominent members of the church and community. It cannot be successfully denied that many were reached and reformed at those meetings whose consciences never could have been touched by any milder form of preaching. ”

“ Then they procured another loom in Johnston, the town from which the first one came, and set that up beside the one Mr. Talbot had bought as a curiosity. Now they have hired a Swede woman to come to work at the loom during the day. In Sweden all the girls are still taught in the country districts to operate a hand loom, and this woman has not been in this country long enough to forget what she was taught as a girl.
Mr. Talbot believes in old things. It is said by friends that there [Pg 279] is nothing modern in his house except the present members of the family. ”