USA > Georgia > Ten years on a Georgia plantation since the war > Part 11
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14
At Savannah I was hospitably enter- tained by my friend Mr. L., whose house I well remembered, from having received great hospitality there four years ago ; the beauti- ful garden of camelias was full of bloom, just as it was when I last visited it. Having
258
APPENDIX.
accomplished my commissions, bought mules and ploughs, and had a long interview with the very troublesome Custom-house officers, and having, moreover, recovered my dear old retriever ' Toby,' who had been a pas- senger on board the steamer 'Darien,' and had made great friends with all the officers and crew, I thought I would try going home by rail, so I started at four P.M. on Tuesday for the station, or depôt (as it is called in this country), of the Atlantic Gulf R. R. Here I took a ticket for Jessup, a junction on the road, where I had to change on to the Brunswick and Albany R. R., and took ticket for No. 1, which I reached at ten P.M. I was assured by a gentleman on board the cars (whom afterwards I found to be an inte- rested party) that I should find excellent accommodation at No. 1 ; but No. I proved not to be quite AI. It was situated in the middle of the pine forest, which stretches away inland for thousands of miles. A few wooden shanties belonging to the negroes
APPENDIX. 259
showed that it was inhabited. To one of these shanties we, i.e., three fellow-passengers (who had been beguiled into stopping there by our accommodating friend) and self, were guided by a small darkey with a lantern. We found the wooden erection was a store, where rice, potatoes, corn, calico, and whisky were dealt out to the negroes who inhabited those parts. The store was full of these gentry making their purchases, and enjoying themselves with dancing and sing- ing to the tune of a fiddle. A large log fire burnt at one end of the store, and round this we gathered, waiting to be shown to our apartments for the night. After about an hour had elapsed, a boy came with a light to show us the way; he first led us outside the house, and then up a ladder which seemed to lead to a hayloft, but which really led to two roughly boarded rooms, not any better than lofts, which were supplied with beds, and not a single other article of furniture, the washing apparatus (which consisted of one small tin
260
APPENDIX.
basin) being placed in the passage between the two rooms. Being an old traveller and well acquainted with the customs of the country, I immediately took possession of the smallest room, and took my dog ' Toby' in with me, thus effectually guarding against any other companion in my room. The other chamber, which was a large one with two beds, I left to my three fellow-travellers. This may have appeared selfish ; but chacun pour soi is my motto when travelling in unknown regions and with unknown friends. I found the bed comfortable, although the room was roughly put together, the lights from the store below shining through the chinks of the floor, and the sounds of music and revelry being very distinct. As I was pretty well tired by my journey, however, I soon went fast asleep, regardless of the music below me or the letting off of fireworks outside ; and at six o'clock next morning was up and got the first wash in the tin basin, after which I knocked at my fellow-travellers' door
261
APPENDIX.
and awakened them. After a substantial breakfast of wild venison and eggs and bacon, we set off in a two-horse vehicle through the pine forest, to a place called Hammersmith landing, about seven miles distant, where we found a very small steamer about the size of a fishing punt, waiting to convey passengers to Darien, eight miles off. As it had to pass the head of our Island, I persuaded the captain and crew (who were one and the same person), to land me at a convenient spot, and after a walk of two miles across the Island, I reached my house at II A.M., having accomplished the return journey in nineteen hours. I may add that the results of my shopping were satisfactory, and that the Christmas tree exhibited in the new barn gave great delight to old and young among the coloured inhabitants of Butler's Island.
262
APPENDIX.
No. 4.
RICE-CULTIVATION.
Dear E-, -You would perhaps like to know something about the cultivation of that most useful of grains which forms the chief staple of food for a vast number of people in India and China, and through lack of which, alas ! so many of our fellow-subjects in the Indian Empire are suffering so terribly. I will therefore endeavour in this letter to give you some idea of the way we cultivate rice . on Butler's Island. A plantation is not our idea of a plantation in England, i.e. a pleasant grove of trees : and a rice plantation is cer- tainly not a particularly attractive-looking place to the casual visitor, as the best land for the purpose is the flattest, in order that a plentiful supply of water may be flowed upon it at different seasons of the year. It consists for the most part of land redeemed
.
APPENDIX. 263
from the pine marshes, and a great deal of trouble it must have cost those bold pio- neers of civilisation who originally undertook the task. Forests had to be cut down, marshes drained, and a high embankment thrown up round the whole plantation, before anything could be done. Like the inhabi- tants of Holland, we depend upon our dykes for our livelihood, and the chief expense in connection with such property is keeping up the banks and clearing the canals and drains every year; if this were neglected for two or three years, the plantation would relapse into its original uncivilised state, and become once more a desolate marsh, fit only for wild duck, snipe, frogs, water snakes, and mud turtle to live in. Hence the reason that, since the war, owing to want of capital and labour, much of the country in the Southern States has returned to its normal condition, and that whereas formerly, in six of the Southern States, 186,000,000 bushels of rice were sent to market, in 1870 only 72,000,000 were
264
APPENDIX.
raised. The original planters having been completely ruined by the war, the planting in many cases has been carried on by negroes on their own account in small patches. As the Agricultural Commissioner, in his report, has lately stated-' The rice-planters were driven from the Carolina and Georgia shores during the war, labour was in a disorganised and chaotic state, production had almost ceased, and at its close, dams, flood-gates, canals, mills, and houses were either dilapi- dated or destroyed, and the power to compel the labourers to go into the rice-swamps utterly broken. The labourers had scattered, gone into other businesses, and those obtain- able would only work for themselves on a share contract. Many of the proprietors were dead, and more absentees, and inexperienced men from the North or elsewhere assumed their places. The rice-fields had grown up in weeds or tangled shrubbery, the labour of separation was discouraging, and the work of cultivation greatly increased, giving unexpected gravity
APPENDIX. 265
to the accidents and contingencies of the season.'
This picture is by no means overdrawn, and even now, in our own neighbourhood, there is scarcely a planter whose plantation is not mortgaged, and whose crop is not the property of his factor who has advanced him money to plant with. They plant on suffer- ance, and live from hand to mouth as best they can. And now, to return to the subject of planting, operations may be said to com- mence towards the end of the fall, after the first frost, i.e. about November. The fields are first burnt off, that is to say, the dry grass, rice stubble, and reeds are in this man- ner cleared off ; the ploughs are then put in, and the ditches and drains are cleaned out and the banks made up. The work of ditch- cleaning and banking is now generally done by gangs of Irishmen, who come down from the North each winter, and do the work admirably.
I ought, perhaps, to explain more fully
T
266
APPENDIX.
the configuration of a rice plantation. Round the whole of it, as I have said, a high bank is thrown up, to protect it from high tides and freshets or floods ; the land within this em- bankment is divided off into fields by check- banks and face ditches, and each field, which is about twenty acres in size, is subdivided by smaller ditches, called quarter drains. Through the length and breadth of the plan- tation generally run two or three canals, which serve to drain the Island, and also to convey the flats, or large flat-bottomed boats for harvesting the rice. Well, the land having been burnt off, ploughed, and ditched, the harrows are put on in early spring, and the seed is planted in time, if possible, for the first high tides in March. As soon as the seed is sown, the water is let on to the fields, and kept on eight or ten days to sprout the rice ; this is called the first flow. About three weeks afterwards the second flow is put on, and kept on from ten to thirty days, and upon the length of this second flow there is a great
APPENDIX. 267
diversity of opinion amongst the planters, some being for keeping it on as long as thirty days, in order to kill the grass and weeds, and others not keeping it on half that time, for fear of weakening the rice. The third or harvest flow is put on about the end of June, and kept on until the middle of August, when the crop is ready for harvesting : and this is work which can only be done by negroes, as owing to the swampy state of the fields and the great heat of the sun, the malarious at- mosphere makes it dangerous for any white man to stay a single night on the plantation. The crop being harvested, nothing remains but to thresh it and send it to market. The threshing is done by a steam thresher, in much the same way as grain is threshed in England. It is generally, however, sent to the factor in rough, i.e. with the husk on, and is pounded in large mills at Savannah or Charleston, and is then ready for sale. The great enemies of the rice-planter are volunteer and freshets ; the first of these is the scattered seed of the rice,
T 2
268 APPENDIX.
which becomes a very disagreeable weed, and is very difficult to eradicate ; the second the floods, which come down from the hilly country in spring and autumn, and put the plantations under water, and the planters to much inconvenience. We have just had one of these visitors-fortunately, not a very serious one ; still it has prevented our doing any work for about a fortnight, and made some of the fields look like a vast lake.
With regard to our own labour on the plantation, we had at the beginning of the year seven Irishmen for ditching and bank- ing, at two dollars per day; an English car- penter and blacksmith, at two and a half each ; six English labourers, at one and a half each; two coloured carpenters, at one and a half; and about eighty negroes, full hands, three-quarter hands, half hands, and quarter hands, rating at twenty-four, eighteen, twelve, nine, and six dollars per month ; added to which we have a trunk-minder (to
.
APPENDIX. 269
look after the trunks or locks which shut out the water from the ditches), a cow and sheep- minder, an ostler, a flatman, and a boatman. This seems to be a large staff for the cultiva- tion of 500 acres; but we do not find it enough, as most of the negro hands are women and children, and the men do as little work as they can. We have fifteen mules for ploughing, harrowing, and drilling, and our wagons are large flats or punts with which the harvest is got in, whilst boats of various sizes do duty for light carts and carriages.
We have just leased a neighbouring island to an energetic young planter, who has brought down thirty Chinamen to work it. It remains to be seen whether they will do the work better than the negroes-they could not do it much worse. Our two small islands now represent the four quarters of the globe, as we have inhabitants on them from Europe, Asia, Africa, and America ; and as for different sects, there are the fol-
270
APPENDIX.
lowers of Confucius and of John Wesley, besides Roman Catholics, English Episco- palians, American Episcopalians, Baptists, and I know not what besides. The Es- tablished Church on the Island is Anglo- American Episcopalian, and there are no church rates. Last Sunday I had an excellent congregation in our new little church, some of the neighbours from the other plantations coming over to attend service. We expect a visit from Bishop Beckwith, our Diocesan, shortly.
The reason why the middle or sprout flow used to be about ten davs and is now often thirty days, is because labour was plentiful, and all the grass or weeds could be picked out by hand. Now, owing to want of hands, water is kept on a long time in order to kill the grass, and so save trouble of picking. It is thought, however, by many, that the rice is weakened by being kept so long under water. In old times four to five acres was planted to the hand; now,
APPENDIX. 271
ten acres and more are planted, so that we have only half the number of hands to plant the same quantity. Machinery has been introduced since the war, to take the place of hand-labour, so we have drills, horse-hoes, and carts as substitutes for hand-sowing, picking, and toating, i.e. carry- ing in baskets on the head. Much more might be done by machinery, but capital is wanted in the South to invest in it. Two and a half bushels of rice are planted to the acre, yielding thirty to fifty bushels per acre.
P.S .- We have just heard that a great ' freshet' is coming down from the up country to visit us. A telegram has been received to that effect ; and it takes ten to fifteen days for it to travel the 500 miles. Although we have plenty of notice, we can do nothing to keep out the unwelcome visitor, and next week the whole Island may be under water, and all agricultural operations brought to a standstill at the most important season of the
272
APPENDIX.
year. British farmers may be thankful that they have not 'freshets' to overwhelm them, and negro labourers to vex and harass them. J. W. L.
No. 5. ST. SIMON'S ISLAND.
Through torrid tracts with fainting steps they go,
Where mild Altama murmurs to their woe, Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day,
Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling,
Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around, Where at each step the stranger fears to wake The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake.
Deserted Village.
Dear E-, A pleasant picture this of our country down here : but then Goldsmith never visited it himself, and was rather fond of drawing upon his imagination. In all probability he got some account of the wild, Altama(ha) from General Oglethorpe
APPENDIX. 273
(the friend of Dr. Johnson), who resided for some time at Frederica, on St. Simon's Island, when he was Governor of Georgia. It is a base libel on the beautiful island, and would not have done much to have encour- aged emigration of the agricultural labourer of these days, under the fostering care of the great general. St. Simon's has witnessed many changes since the day when Oglethorpe first settled at Frederica in 1739, and called that wild spot after Frederick, son of George II. Charles Wesley accompanied him, and acted as his chaplain and secretary, while his brother, the great John, took up his abode at Savannah as Rector of Christ Church, the only incumbency he ever held. Both brothers were unfortunate in this first missionary en- terprise of theirs. The reception of John at Savannah was most hearty, and the enthu- siasm with which he began his work was great ; but, alas! the enthusiasm on both sides soon passed away, and John Wesley found himself in difficulties with his people ; some say on
274
APPENDIX.
account of an unfortunate love affair ; others, on account of his rigid adherence to what were termed his High Church views, and because he refused to administer the Holy Communion to the chief magistrate's niece. Whatever was the cause, he left Savannah after twenty-two months' residence, and thus ended, rather ingloriously, his mission to Georgia. He was succeeded in his work by his friend, the great Whitefield, whose labours there were more successful. Charles Wesley was not much more fortunate at Frederica : he found enemies there who tried, and suc- ceeded for a time, in setting Oglethorpe against his chaplain and secretary, and by whom he was treated with such harshness that he left Georgia about six months after, and resigned his offices. The old oak is still to be seen at Frederica under which Charles Wesley is said to have preached the gospel. In justice to Oglethorpe it must be stated that he soon after found out that he had been deceived, and sent Charles Wesley a ring in
APPENDIX. 275
token of his friendship. There is a good deal that is interesting in connection with the Wesleys' brief residence in Georgia which I have not space to write about, and I have only alluded to them in connection with St. Simon's. Frederica was in these early days a rival of Savannah, and was fortified, and the residence of the Governor of Georgia. Now it has two or three nigger shanties and one white man's tumble-down house. The remains of the fortifications are still to be seen, and the situation is a pretty one, on the banks of the Sound. A great battle was fought by Oglethorpe at St. Simon's against the Spaniards in 1742, when the latter were defeated with considerable loss. The scene of action is marked by a place called ' Bloody Marsh.' In later times St. Simon's was the resort of many wealthy families, who had fine houses, beautiful grounds, and flourishing cotton plantations, where the famous Sea Island cotton was raised to perfection. Fine hard shell roads were made from one end of the Island
276
APPENDIX.
to the other (a distance of about twelve miles), and the gentlemen used to meet at their club- house to play at quoits and billiards, &c., or to arrange for a deer hunt or fishing excursion.
Great hospitality was shown, and open house was kept for all comers, whilst picnics and regattas were constantly taking place. The late disastrous civil war changed all this. The fine houses have fallen to decay or been burnt down; the grounds neglected and grown over with weeds; the plantations left, with a few exceptions, to the negroes ; olive groves choked up with undergrowth ; stately date-palms ruthlessly burnt down by negroes to make room for a small patch of corn, when there were hundreds of acres, untilled, close at hand ; a few solitary white men eking out an existence by growing fruit trees and cab- bages, by planting small patches of cotton or corn, by hunting deer, or by selling whisky to the negroes. 'Sic transit gloria ' (Si) mondi. I made an excursion to St. Simon's,
APPENDIX. 277
in company with a gentleman whose father used to have a fine house and large planta- tion there before the war. We started in our plantation boat from Butler's Island at six A.M., and rowed down the Altamaha to St. Simon's, a distance of about fourteen miles. After crossing Altamaha Sound, we entered Hampton River, which is really an arm of the sea, separating Little St. Simon's Island from its larger namesake. On our way we shot ducks, and an alligator that was slumbering on the marsh. How the monster did plunge and whisk its scaly tail about; but a charge of buckshot on the top of the rifle-bullet quieted him, and my companion boldly pulled him into the boat by the tail, where he lay quietly enough, although, I must say, I did not feel quite comfortable with such a fellow passenger, as I thought he might possibly revive, and take a piece out of my calf; but he had taken too many lead pills for that. We saw many of his comrades about, who were very shy of letting us come too near
278
APPENDIX.
them'; we also heard the old bull-alligators roaring like fat bulls of Basan on every side.
The first place we disembarked at was Hampton Point, where our land lay, and where formerly were a flourishing cotton plan- tation, a good plantation-house, negro houses built of tabby (a compost of oyster shells and mortar), a hospital, and other buildings con- nected with a well-regulated plantation. The residence was burnt down two years ago, the other houses are rapidly falling into ruin, and the sole occupants now of this part of the Island are old Uncle John and old Mum Peggy, a venerable couple who were faithful servants in the old times, and who have now reached the allotted term of man's existence, and remain as pensioners on the place. Uncle John has a fine face and a very pleasent manner, and is altogether about the best specimen I know of a faithful old negro, who has served his master well on earth, and is prepared to meet the great Master of all men hereafter. As for the place, I was delighted
APPENDIX. 279
with it: fine old evergreen oaks, with the long grey moss hanging from the branches like the hoary beard of some venerable patri- arch ; peach, wild plum, and orange trees in abundance, and in full blossom ; semi-tropical vegetation and beautiful wild flowers, espe- cially the yellow jessamine, which twines itself in matted clusters amongst the tangled and luxuriant vegetation ; whilst flitting about were many-coloured butterflies, and the beau- tiful red cardinal bird. The Point juts out between the Hampton River and a creek which runs up about two miles into the interior, and which looks like another river, and along both rivers is a narrow strip of sandy beach. What would not, I thought, some of the wealthy capitalists give to trans- port this spot to the old country, to form a magnificent park for some modern palatial mansion ; and here Uncle John and old Mum Peggy have it all to themselves. About a mile inland from the shore stands another of the old family houses, now nearly in ruins,
280
APPENDIX.
which is approached on every side by dark avenues of fine ilex, or evergreen oaks.
After wandering about the place for some time, we started in our boat for Canon's Point, which is a mile distant, and separated from Hampton by the above-mentioned creek, the two points forming, as it were, a swallow-tail to the island. At Canon's Point stands what must once have been a very fine three-storeyed frame mansion, with a verandah running all round, and having a large portico on each side of it, whilst round it were vestiges of pretty grounds and gardens, which had once been tastefully laid out ; stately date-palms reared their lofty heads above the portico, and oleanders and other flowering shrubs were dotted about. My companion, I then discovered for the first time, had not been to his old home for sixteen years. What a change it must have seemed to him from the days when that home was the scene of unbounded hospi- tality, and full of merry children. There,
APPENDIX. 281
amongst the tall grass and weeds, he could still make out the little garden which was the children's own, and from which he was able to dig up some roses and bulbs to carry away as a memento. There, on the old oak near the house, used to hang the swing on which the young ones were wont to amuse themselves ; and there actually was the old negro woman, who used to be a faithful servant in the family, 'old Rina,' and was not she delighted to see ' Massa James' once more; and would not she do everything to make us comfortable in the old deserted house, although it had not a scrap of furni- ture in it ; and did she not send 'heaps of howd-y' to all the members of his family ?
Leaving my friend to recall bygone days amidst the scenes of his childhood, I attached myself to old Rina, and went off with her to the kitchen to see about dinner. She did not much like my interfering with the culinary department ; but one dish I was determined to superintend myself, and it was
U
282
APPENDIX.
to be a ' surprise agréable ' for my companion. Our bill of fare (I cannot give it all in French) was 'Scotch broth,' cold beef, duck, potatoes, hominy, rice, and last, but not least, my dish, which I shall call ‘filet de queue de l'alligator à la Altamaha,' and very good I assure you it was. I had heard that the tail of the alligator was considered a delicacy, but had never met with anyone who had actually tasted it, so I determined to judge for myself. I cut a small piece off and cooked it in butter, with plenty of pepper and salt. I will venture to say that if it had been served up in a Paris restaurant, with spinach sauce, epicures would have taken it for 'filet de veau aux épinards.' The meat was whiter than veal, and quite tender. Al- together we made an excellent repast, and afterwards slept soundly on the hard boards of the chief apartment. Next morning we were up early, and after a good meal of hominy and poached eggs, started off, in a mule cart belonging to one of the negroes, to
APPENDIX. 283
the other end of the Island, about twelve miles distant. The road, which was an old shell one, was tolerably good (quite as good as most of the roads which are to be found anywhere down South), and lay for the most part through primeval woods, which formed an arched avenue, and protected us from the heat of the sun. Here and there on the road were cleared spaces, where the negroes were lazily tilling the soil in a rough sort of manner for their own benefit. Many of them left their ploughs and came to us to have a shake of the hands with 'Massa James.' At St. Clair we stopped to have a look at the ruins of the house once occupied by General Oglethorpe, and which was diffi- cult to find owing to the vegetation that had grown up all round it. We also stopped at a place called the Village, where stood a house belonging to my friend, and which was then occupied by two white men and their families, who seemed to get their chief living out of deer hunting. Here there were more
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.