CHAPTER I.
April 22d, 1776, I sat off from Charleston for the Cherokee nation, and after riding this day about twenty-five miles, arrived in the evening at Jacksonsburg, a village on Ponpon river. The next day’s journey was about the same distance, to a public house or inn on the road.
The next day, early in the morning, I sat off again, and about noon stopped at a public house to dine. After the meridan heats were abated, proceeding on till evening, I obtained good quarters at a private house, having rode this day about thirty miles. At this plantation I observed a large orchard of the European Mulberry tree (Morus alba) some of which were grafted on stocks of the native Mulberry (Morus rubra); these trees were cultivated for the purpose of feeding silk-worms (phalaena bombyx). Having breakfasted, I sat forward again.
I soon entered a high forest, continuing the space of fifteen miles to the Three Sisters, a public ferry on Savanna River: the country generally very level; the soil a dark, loose, fertile mould, on a stratum of cinereous-coloured tenacious clay; the ground shaded with its native forests, consisting of the great Black Oak, Quercus tinctoria, Q. rubra, Q. phellos, Q. prinos, Q. hemispherica, Juglans nigra, J. rustica, J. exaltata, Magnolia grandiflora, Fraxinus excelsior, Acer rubrum, Liriodendron tulipifera, Populus heterophylla, Morus rubra, Nyssa sylvatica, Platanus occidentales, Tilia, Ulmus campestris, U. subiser, Laurus sassafras, L. Borbonia, Ilex aquifolium, Fagus sylvatica, Cornus Florida, Halesia, Æsculus pavia, Sambucus, Callicarpa, and Stewartia malachodendron, with a variety of other trees and shrubs. This ancient sublime forest, frequently intersected with extensive avenues, vistas and green lawns, opening to extensive savannas and far distant Rice plantations, agreeably employs the imagination, and captivates the senses by their magnificence and grandeur.
The gay mock-bird, vocal and joyous, mounts aloft on silvered wings, rolls over and over, then gently descends, and presides in the choir of the tuneful tribes.
Having dined at the ferry, I crossed the river into Georgia: on landing and ascending the bank, which was here a North prospect, I observed the Dirca palustris, growing six or seven feet high. I rode about twelve miles further through Pine forests and savannas. In the evening I took up my quarters at a delightful habitation, though not a common tavern. Having ordered my horse a stable and provender, and refreshed my spirits with a draught of cooling liquor, I betook myself to contemplation in the groves and lawns. Directing my steps towards the river, I observed in a high Pine forest on the border of a savanna, a great number of cattle herded together, and on my nearer approach discovered it to be a cow pen: on my coming up I was kindly saluted by my host and his wife, who I found were superintending a number of slaves, women, boys and girls, that were milking the cows. Here were about forty milch cows and as many young calves; for in these Southern countries the calves run with the cows a whole year, the people milking them at the same time. The pen, including two or three acres of ground, more or less, according to the stock, adjoining a rivulet or run of water, is enclosed by a fence: in this enclosure the calves are kept while the cows are out at range: a small part of this pen is partioned off to receive the cows, when they come up at evening; here are several stakes drove into the ground, and there is a gate in the partition fence for a communication between the two pens. When the milkmaid has taken her share of milk, she looses the calf, who strips the cow, which is next morning turned out again to range.
I found these people, contrary to what a traveller might, perhaps, reasonably expect, from their occupation and remote situation from the capital or any commercial town, to be civil and courteous: and though educated as it were in the woods, no strangers to sensibility and those moral virtues which grace and ornament the most approved and admired characters in civil society.
After the vessels were filled with milk, the daily and liberal supply of the friendly kine; and the good wife, with her maids and servants, were returning with it to the dairy; the gentleman was at leisure to attend to my enquiries and observations, which he did with complaisance, and apparent pleasure. On my observing to him that his stock of horned cattle must be very considerable to afford so many milch cows at one time, he answered, that he had about fifteen hundred head: “my stock is but young, having lately removed from some distance to this place; I found it convenient to part with most of my old stock and begin here anew; Heaven is pleased to bless my endeavours and industry with success even beyond my own expectations.” Yet continuing my interrogatories on this subject: your stock I apprehend must be very profitable, being so convenient to the capital and sea port, in affording a vast quantity of bees, butter and cheese, for the market, and must thereby contribute greatly towards your emolument: “yes, I find my stock of cattle very profitable, and I constantly contribute towards supplying the markets with beef, but as to the articles of butter and cheese, I make no more than what is expended in my own houshold, and I have a considerable family of black people, who, though they are slaves must be fed, and cared for: those I have were either chosen for their good qualities, or born in the family, and I find from long experience and observation, that the better they are fed, clothed and treated, the more service and profit we may expect to derive from their labour: in short, I find my stock produces no more milk, or any article of food or nourishment, than what is expended to the best advantage amongst my family and slaves.”
He added, come along with me towards the river bank, where I have some men at work squaring Pine and Cypress timber for the West India market; I will show you their day’s work, when you will readily grant that I have reason to acknowledge myself sufficiently gratified for the little attention bestowed towards them. At yonder little new habitation near the bluff on the banks of the river, I have settled my eldest son; it is but a few days since he was married to a deserving young woman.
Having at length arrived near the high banks of the majestic Savanna, we stood at the timber landing: almost every object in our progress contributed to demonstrate this good man’s system of economy to be not only practicable but eligible, and the slaves appeared on all sides as a crowd of witnesses to justify his industry, humanity and liberal spirit.
The slaves comparatively of a gigantic stature, fat and muscular, mounted on the massive timber logs; the regular heavy strokes of their gleaming axes re-echoed in the deep forests; at the same time contented and joyful the sooty sons of Afric forgeting their bondage, in chorus sung the virtues and beneficence of their master in songs of their own composition.
The log or timber landing is a capacious open area, the lofty pines[46] having been felled and cleared away for a considerable distance round about, near an almost perpendicular bluff or steep bank of the river, rising up immediately from the water to the height of sixty or seventy feet. The logs being dragged by timber wheels to this yard, and landed as near the brink of this high bank as possible with safety, and laid by the side of each other, are rolled off and precipitated down the bank into the river, where being formed into rafts, they are conducted by slaves down to Savanna, about fifty miles below this place.
Having contemplated these scenes of art and industry, my venerable host in company with his son, conducted me to the neat habitation which is situated in a spacious airy forest, a little distance from the river bank, commanding a comprehensive and varied prospect; an extensive reach of the river in front, on the right hand a spacious lawn or savanna, on the left the timber yard, the vast fertile low lands and forest on the river upwards, and the plantations adjoining. A cool evening arrived after a sultry day. As we approach the door conducted by the young man, his lovely bride arrayed in native innocence and becoming modesty, with an air and smile of grace and benignity, meets and salutes us! what a Venus! what an Adonis! said I in silent transport; every action and feature seem to reveal the celestial endowments of the mind: though a native sprightliness and sensibility appear, yet virtue and discretion direct and rule. The dress of this beauteous sylvan queen was plain but clean, neat and elegant, all of cotton and of her own spinning and weaving.
Next morning early I sat forward prosecuting my tour. I pursued the high road leading from Savanna to Augusta for the distance of one hundred miles or more, and then recrossed the river at Silver Bluff, a pleasant villa, the property and seat of G. Golphin, esquire, a gentleman of very distinguished talents and great liberality, who possessed the most extensive trade, connections and influence, amongst the South and South-West Indian tribes, particularly with the Creeks and Chactaws, of whom I fortunately obtained letters of recommendation and credit to the principal traders residing in the Indian towns.
Silver Bluff is a very celebrated place. It is a considerable height upon the Carolina shore of the Savanna river, perhaps thirty feet higher than the low lands on the opposite shore, which are subject to be overflowed in the spring and fall. This steep bank rises perpendicularly out of the river, discovering various strata of earth; the surface for a considerable depth is a loose sandy loam, with a mixture of sea shells, especially ostreæ; the next stratum is clay, then sand, next marl, then clays again of various colours and qualities, which last insensibly mix or unite with a deep stratum of blackish or dark slate coloured saline and sulphureous earth, which seems to be of an aluminous or vitriolic quality, and lies in nearly horizontal lamina or strata of various thickness. We discovered bellemnites, pyrites, marcasites and sulphureous nodules, shining like brass, some single of various forms, and others conglomerated, lying in this black slaty-like micaceous earth; as also sticks, limbs and trunks of trees, leaves, acorns and their cups, all transmuted or changed black, hard and shining as charcoal; we also see animal substances, as if petrified, or what are called sharks’ teeth, (dentes charchariæ) but these heterogeneous substances or petrifactions are the most abundant and conspicuous where there is a looser kind of earth, either immediately upon this vast stratum of black earth, or in the divisions of the laminæ. The surface of the ground upon this bluff, extends a mile and an half or two miles on the river, and is from an half mile to a mile in breadth, nearly level, and a good fertile soil, as is evident from the vast Oaks, Hickory, Mulberry, Black walnut and other trees and shrubs, which are left standing in the old fields which are spread abroad to a great distance, and discover various monuments and vestiges of the residence of the ancients, as Indian conical mounts, terraces, areas, &c. as well as remains or traces of fortresses of regular formation, as if constructed after the modes of European military architects, and are supposed to be ancient camps of the Spaniards who formerly fixed themselves at this place in hopes of finding silver.
But perhaps Mr. Golphin’s buildings and improvements will prove to be the foundation of monuments of infinitely greater celebrity and permanency than either of the preceding establishments.
The place which at this day is called fort Moore, is a stupendous bluff, or high perpendicular bank of earth, rising out of the river on the Carolina shore, perhaps ninety or one hundred feet above the common surface of the water, and exhibits a singular and pleasing spectacle to a stranger, especially from the opposite shore, or as we pass up or down the river, presenting a view of prodigious walls of party-coloured earths, chiefly clays and marl of various colours, as brown, red, yellow, blue, purple, white, &c. in horizontal strata, one over the other.
Waiting for the ferry boat to carry me over, I walked almost round the under side of the bluff, betwixt its steep wall and the water of the river, which glided rapidly under my feet. I came to the carcase of a calf, which the people told me had fallen down from the edge of the precipice above, being invited too far by grass and sweet herbs, which they say frequently happens at this place. In early times, the Carolinians had a fort, and kept a good garrison here as a frontier and Indian trading post, but Augusta superceding it, this place was dismantled, and since that time, which probably cannot exceed thirty years, the river hath so much encroached upon the Carolina shore, that its bed now lies where the site of the fort then was; indeed some told me that the opposite Georgia shore, where there is now a fine house and corn field, occupies the place.
The site of Augusta is perhaps the most delightful and eligible of any in Georgia for a city. An extensive level plain on the banks of a fine navigable river, which has its numerous sources in the Cherokee mountains, a fruitful and temperate region, whence after roving and winding about those fertile heights, they meander through a fertile hilly country, and one after another combine in forming the Tugilo and Broad rivers, and then the famous Savanna river; thence they continue near an hundred miles more, following its meanders and falls over the cataracts at Augusta, which cross the river at the upper end of the town. These falls are four or five feet perpendicular height in the summer season when the river is low. From these cataracts upwards, this river with all its tributaries, as Broad river, Little river, Tugilo, &c. is one continued rapid, with some short intervals of still water, navigable for canoes. But from Augusta downwards to the ocean, a distance of near three hundred miles by water, the Savanna uninterruptedly flows with a gentle meandring course, and is navigable for vessels of twenty or thirty tons burthen to Savanna, where ships of three hundred tons lie in a capacious and secure harbour.
Augusta thus seated at the head of navigation, and just below the conflux of several of its most considerable branches, without a competitor, commands the trade and commerce of vast fruitful regions above it, and from every side to a great distance; and I do not hesitate to pronounce as my opinion, will very soon become the metropolis of Georgia.[47]
I chose to take this route up Savanna river, in preference to the straight and shorter road from Charleston to the Cherokee country by fort Ninety Six, because by keeping near this great river, I had frequent opportunities of visiting its steep banks, vast swamps and low grounds, and had the advantage without great delay, or deviating from the main high road, of observing the various soils and situations of the countries through which this famous river pursues its course, and of examining the various productions, mineral, vegetable and animal; whereas had I pursued the great trading path by Ninety-Six, I should have been led over a high, dry, sandy and gravelly ridge, and a great part of the distance an old settled or resorted part of the country, and consequently void of the varieties of original or novel productions of nature.
Before I leave Augusta, I shall recite a curious phenomenon, which may furnish ample matter for philosophical discussion to the curious naturalists. On the Georgia side of the river, about fifteen miles below Silver Bluff, the high road crosses a ridge of high swelling hills of uncommon elevation, and perhaps seventy feet higher than the surface of the river. These hills, from three feet below the common vegetative surface, to the depth of twenty or thirty feet, are composed entirely of fossil oyster shells, internally of the colour and consistency of clear white marble; the shells are of an incredible magnitude, generally fifteen or twenty inches in length, from six to eight wide and two to four in thickness, and their hollows sufficient to receive an ordinary man’s foot; they appear all to have been opened before the period of petrefaction, a transmutation they seem evidently to have suffered; they are undoubtedly very ancient or perhaps antideluvian. The adjacent inhabitants burn them to lime for building, for which purpose they serve very well; and would undoubtedly afford an excellent manure when their lands require it, these hills being now remarkably fertile. The heaps of shells lie upon a stratum of yellowish sandy mould, of several feet in depth, upon a foundation of soft white rocks that has the outward appearance of free-stone, but on strict examination is really a testaceous concrete or composition of sand and pulverised sea shells; in short, this testaceous rock approaches near in quality and appearance to the Bahama or Bermudian white rock.
These hills are shaded with glorious Magnolia grandiflora, Morus rubra, Tilia, Quercus, Ulmus, Juglans, &c. with aromatic groves of fragrant Callicanthus Floridus, Rhododendron ferrugineum, Laurus Indica, &c. Æsculus pavia, Cornus Florida, Azalea coccinea, Philadelphus inodorous and others; but who would have expected to see the Dirca palustris and Dodecathean meadea grow in abundance in this hot climate! it is true they are seen in the rich and deep shaded vales, between the hills and North exposure; but they attain to a degree of magnitude and splendour never seen in Pennsylvania.
[46] Pinus palutstris, Linn. the long leaved Pitch Pine, or yellow Pine.
[47] A few years after the above remark, the seat of government was removed from Savanna to Augusta.