USA > Virginia > A history of the valley of Virginia, 1st ed > Part 30
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 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37
23+
374
SPORTS.
years, was furnished with a small rifle and shot-pouch. He then became a fort soldier, and had his port-hole assigned him. Hunting squirrels, turkeys and rac- coons, soon made him expert in the use of his gun.
Dancing was the principal amusement of our young. people of both sexes. Their dances, to be sure, were of the simplest forms,-three and four handed reels and jigs. Country dances, cotillons and minuets, were unknown. I remember to have seen, once or twice, a dance which was called "the Irish trot :" but I have long since forgotten its figure.
Shooting at marks was a common diversion among the men, when their stock of ammunition would allow it, which however was far from being always the case. The present mode of shooting off- hand was not then in practice: it was not considered as any trial of the value of a gun, nor indeed as much of a test of the skill of a marksman. Their shooting was from a rest, and at as great a distance as the length and weight of the barrel of the gun would throw a ball on a horizon- tal level. Such was their regard to accuracy, in those sportive trials of their rifles, and of their own skill in the use of them, that they often put moss, or some other soft substance on the log or stump from which they shot, for fear of having the bullet thrown from the mark, by the spring of the barrel. When the rifle was held to the side of a tree for a rest, it was pressed against it as lightly as possible for the same reason.
Rides of former times were different from those of modern date: few of them carried more than forty-five bullets to the pound, and bullets of a less size were not thought sufficiently heavy for hunting or war.
Dramatic narrations, chiefly concerning Jack and the Giant, furnished out young people with another source of amusement during their leisure hours. Many of those tales were lengthy, and embraced a considerable range of incident. Jack, always the hero of the story, after encountering many difficulties, and performing many great achievements, came off conqueror of the
375
SPORTS.
Giant. Many of these stories were tales of knight-er- rartry, in which case some captive virgin was released from captivity and restored to her lover.
These dramatic narrations concerning Jack and the Giant bore a strong resemblance to the poems of Ossian, the story of the Cyclops and Ulysses in the Odyssey of Homer, and the tale of the Giant and Great-heart in the Pilgrim's Progress, and were so arranged as to the different incidents of the narration, that they were easi- ly committed to memory. They certainly have been handed down from generation to generation from time immemorial. Civilization has indeed banished the use of those ancient tales of romantic heroism; but what then? It has substituted in their place the novel and romance.
It is thus that in every state of society the imagina- tion of man is eternally at war with reason and truth. That fiction should be acceptable to an unenlightened people is not to be wondered at, as the treasures of truth have never been unfolded to their mind; but that a civilized people themselves should, in so many instan- ces, like barbarians, prefer the fairy regions of fiction to the august treasures of truth, developed in the sciences of theology, history, natural and moral philosophy, is truly a sarcasm on human nature. It is as much as to say, that it is essential to our amusement, that, for the time being, we must suspend the exercise of reason, and submit to a voluntary deception.
Singing was another but not very common amuse- ment among our first settlers. Their tunes were rude enough to be sure. Robin Hood furnished a number of our songs; the balance were mostly tragical, and were denominated "love songs about murder." As to cards, dice, backgammon, and other games of chance, we knew nothing about them. These are amongst the blessed gifts of civilization.
23į
:
376
CHAPTER XXVIII,
Witchcraft.
I shall not be lengthy on this subject. The belief in witchcraft was prevalent among the early settlers of the western country. To the witch was ascribed the tre- mendous power of inflicting strange and incurable dis- cases, particularly on children-of destroying cattle by shooting them with hair balls, and a great variety of other means of destruction-of inflicting spells and curses on guns and other things-and lastly, of chang- ing men into horses, and after bridling and saddling them, riding them in full speed over hill and dale to their frolicks and other places of rendezvous. More ample powers of mischief than these cannot well be imagined.
Wizards were men supposed to possess the same mischievous power as the witches; but it was seldom exercised for bad purposes. The power of the wizards was exercised almost exclusively for the purpose of counteracting the malevolent influence of the witches of the other sex. I have known several of those witch- masters, as they were called, who made a public pro- fession of curing the diseases inflicted by the influence of witches; and I have known respectable physicians, who had no greater portion of business in the line of their profession, than many of those witch-masters had in theirs.
The means by which the witch was supposed to in- flict diseases, curses and spells: I never could learn. They were occult sciences, which no one was supposed to understand excepting the witch herself, and no won- der, as no such arts ever existed in any country.
The diseases of children, supposed to be inflicted by witchcraft, were those of the internal dropsy of the
377
WITCHCRAFT.
brain, and the rickets. The symptoms and cure of these destructive diseases were utterly unknown in former times in this country. Diseases which could neither be accounted for nor cured, were usually as- cribed to some supernatural agency of a malignant kind.
For the cure of the diseases inflicted by witchcraft, the picture of the supposed witch was drawn on a stump or piece of board, and shot at with a bullet con- taining a little bit of silver. This bullet transferred a painful and sometimes a mortal spell on that part of the witch corresponding with the part of the portrait struck by the bullet. Another method of cure was that of getting some of the child's water, which was closely corked up in a vial and hung up in a chimney. This complimented the witch with a stranguary, which last- ed as long as the vial remained in the chimney. The witch had but one way of relieving herself from any spell inflicted on her in any way, which was that of borrowing something, no matter what, of the family to which the subject of the exercise of her witchcraft be- longed.
I have known several poor old women much sur- prised at being refused requests which had usually been granted without hesitation, and almost heart bro- ken when informed of the cause of the refusal.
When cattle or dogs were supposed to be under the influence of witchcraft, they were burnt in the forehead by a branding iron, or when dead, burned wholly to ashes. This inflicted a spell upon the witch which could only be removed by borrowing as above sta'ed.
Witches were often said to milk the cows of their neighbors. This they did by fixing a new pin in a new towel for each cow intended to be milked. This towel was hung over her own door, and by means of certain incantations. the milk was extracted from the fringes of the towel after the manner of milking a cow. "This happened when the cows were too poor to give much milk.
378
WITCHCRAFT.
The first German glass-blowers in this country drove the witches out of their furnaces by throwing living puppies into them.
The greater or less amount of belief in witchcraft, necromancy and astrology, serves to show the relative amount of philosophical science in any country. Ig- norance is always associated with superstition, which, presenting an endless variety of sources of hope and fear, with regard to the good or bad fortunes of life, keep the benighted mind continually harassed with groundless and delusive, but strong and often deeply distressing impressions of a false faith. For this disease of the mind there is no cure but that of philosophy. This science shows to the enlightened reason of man, that no effect whatever can be produced in the physical world without a corresponding cause. This science an- nounces that the death bell is but a momentary morbid motion of the nerves of the car, and the death watch the noise of a bug in the wall, and that the bowling of the dog, and the croaking of the raven, are but the natural languages of the beast and fowl, and no way prophetic of the death of the sick. The comet, which used to shake pestilence and war from its fiery train, is now viewed with as little emotion as the movements of Jupiter and Saturn in their respective orbits.
An eclipse of the sun, and an unusual freshet of the Tiber, shortly after the assassination of Julius Cesar by Cassius and Brutus, threw the whole of the Roman empire into consternation. It was supposed that all the gods of heaven and earth were enraged, and about to take revenge for the murder of the emperor ; but since the science of astronomy foretells in the calendar the time and extent of the eclipse, the phenomenon is not viewed as a miraculous and portentons, but as a com- mon and natural event.
That the pythoness and wizard of the Hebrews. the monthly southsayers, astrologers and prognosticators of the Chaldeans, and the sybils of the Greeks and Ro- mans, were mercenary impostors, there can be no doubt.
..
379
WITCHCRAFT.
To say that the pythoness, and all others of her class, were aided in their operations by the intervention of familiar spirits, does not mend the matter; for spirits, whether good or bad, possess not the power of life and death, health and disease, with regard to man or beast. Prescience is an incommunicable attribute of God, and therefore spirits cannot foretell future events.
'The afflictions of Job, through the intervention of Satan, were miraculous. The possessions mentioned in the New Testament, in all human probability, were maniacal diseases, and if, at their cures, the supposed evil spirits spoke with an audible voice, these events were also miraculous, and effected for a special purpose. But from miracles, no general conclusions can be drawn with regard to the divine government of the world.
The conclusion is, that the powers professed to be exercised by the occult science of necromancy and other other arts of divination, were neither more nor less than impostures.
Among the Hebrews, the profession of arts of divina- tion was thought-deserving of capital punishment, be- cause the profession was of Pagan origin, and of course incompatible with the profession of theism, and a theo- cratic form of government. These jugglers perpetrated a debasing superstition among the people. They were also swindlers, who divested their neighbors of large sums of money and valuable presents without an cqui- valent.
On the ground then of fraud alone, according to the genius of the criminal codes of ancient governments, the offense deserved capital punishment.
But is the present time better than the past with re- gard to a superstitious belief in occult influences ? Do no traces of the polytheism of our forefathers remain among their christian descendants ? This inquiry must. be answered in the affirmative. Should an almanac- maker venture to give out the christian calendar with- out the column containing the signs of the zodiac, the
380
WITCHCRAFT.
calendar would be condemned as being totally defi- cient, and the whole impression would remain on his hands.
But what are those signs? They are the constella- tions of the zodiac, that is, clusters of stars, twelve in number, within and including the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. These constellations resemble the animals after which they are named. But what influence do these clusters of stars exert on the animal and the plant ? C'ertainly none at all ; and yet we have been taught that the northern constellations govern the di- visions of living bodies alternately from the head to the reins, and in like manner the southern from the reins to the feet. The sign then makes a skip from the feet to Aries, who again assumes the government of the head, and so on.
About half of these constellations are friendly divin- ities, and exert a salutary influence on the animal and the plant. The others are malignant in their temper, and govern only for evil purposes. They blast during their reign the seed sown in the earth, and render medicine and the operations of surgery unsuccessful.
We have read of the Hebrews worshiping the hosts of heaven whenever they relapsed into idolatry ; and these same constellations were the hosts of heaven which they worshiped. We, it is true, make no of- fering to these hosts of heaven, but we give them our faith and confidence. We hope for physical benefits from those of them whose dominion is friendly to our interests, while the reign of the malignant ones is an object of dread and painful apprehension.
Let us not boast very much of our science, civiliza- tion, or even christianity, while this column of the relics of paganism still disgraces the christian calendar.
I have made these observations with a view to dis- credit the remnants of superstition still existing among us. While dreams, the howling of the dog, and the croaking of a raven, are prophetic of future events, we are not good christians. While we are dismayed
.
381
MORALS.
at the signs of heaven, we are for the time being pa- gans. Life has real evils enough to contend with, with- out imaginary ones.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Morals.
In the section of the country where my father lived, there was, for many years after the settlement of the country, "neither law nor gospel." Our want of le- gal government was owing to the uncertainty whether we belonged to the state of Virginia or Pennsylvania. The line which at present divides the two states, was not run until some time after the conclusion of the re- volutionary war. Thus it happened, that during a long period of time we knew nothing of courts, law- yers, magistrates, sherifs or constables. Every one was therefore at liberty "to do whatever was right in his own eyes."
As this is a state of society which few of my readers have ever witnessed, I shall describe it as minutely as I can, and give in detail those moral maxims which in a. great degree answered the important purposes of muni- cipal jurisprudence.
In the first place, let it be observed that in a sparse population, where all the members of the community are well known to each other, and especially in a time of war, where every man capable of bearing arms 13 considered highly valuable as a defender of his coun- try, public opinion has its full effect, and answers the purposes of legal government better than it would in a dense population and in time of peace.
Such was the situation of our people along the fron- tiers of our settlements. They had no civil, military
382
MORALS.
or ecclesiastical laws, at least none that were enforced ; and yet "they were a law unto themselves," as to the leading obligations of our nature in all the relations in which they stood to each other. The turpitude of vice and the majesty of moral virtue were then as apparent as they are now, and they were then regarded with the same sentiments of aversion of respect which they in- spire at the present time. Industry in working and hunting, bravery in war, candor, honesty, hospitality, and steadiness of deportment, received their full re- ward of public honor and public confidence among our rude forefathers, as well as among their better instruct- ed and more polished descendants. The punishments which they inflicted upon offenders by the imperial court of public opinion, were well adapted for the re- formation of the culprit, or his expulsion from the community.
The punishment for idleness, lying, dishonesty, and ill fame generally, was that of "hating the offender out," as they expressed it. This mode of chastisement was like the atimea of the Greeks. It was a public expression, in various ways, of a general sentiment of indignation against such as transgressed the moral max- ims of the community to which they belonged, and commonly resulted either in the reformation or banish- ment of the person against whom it was directed.
At house-raisings, log-rollings and harvest-parties, ev- ery one was expected to do his duty faithfully. A per- son who did not perform his share of labor on these oc- casions was designated by the epithet of "Lawrence," or some other title still more opprobrious; and when it came to his turn to require the like aid from his neigh- bors, the idler soon felt his punishment in their refusal to attend to his calls.
Although there was no legal compulsion to the per- formance of military duty; yet every man of full age and size was expected to do his full share of public ser- vice. If he did not do so, he was " hated out as a cow- ard." Even the want of any article of war equipments,
383
MORALS.
such as ammunition, a sharp flint, a priming wire, a scalping knife or tomahawk, was thought highly dis- graceful. A man, who without a reasonable cause fail- ed to go on a scout or campaign when it came to his turn, met with an expression of indignation in the coun- tenances of all his neighbors, and epithets of dishonor were fastened upon him without mercy:
Debts, which make such an uproar in civilized life, were but little known among our forefathers at the early settlement of this country. After the depreciation of the continental paper they had no money of any kind; every thing purchased was paid for in produce or labor. A good cow and calf was often the price of a bushel of alum salt. If a contract was not punctually fulfilled, the credit of the delinquent was at an end.
Any petty theft was punished with all the infamy that could be heaped on the offender. A man on a cam- paign stole from his comrade a cake out of the ashes in which it was baking. He was immediately named " the Bread-rounds." This epithet of reproach was bandied about in this way. When he came in sight of a group of men, one of them would call, "Who comes there ??? Another would answer, " The Bread-rounds." If any one meant to be more serious about the matter. he would call out, " Who stole a cake out of the ashes !" Another replied by giving the name of the man in full. To this a third would give confirmation by exclaiming, "That is true and no lie." This kind of "tongue- lashing" he was doomed to bear for the rest of the cam- paign, as well as for years after his return home.
If a theft was detected in any of the frontier settle- ments, a summary mode of punishment was always re- sorted to. The first settlers, as far as I knew of them, hid a kind of innate or hereditary detestation of the crime of theft, in any shape or degree. and their maxim was that "a thief must be whipped." If the theft was of "something of some value, a kind of jury of the neigh- borhood, after hearing the testimony, would condemn the culprit to Moses's law, that is, to forty stripes save
'384
MORALS.
one. If the theft was of some small article, the offen- der was doomed to carry on his back the flag of the United States, which then consisted of thirteen stripes. In either case, some able hands were selected to execute the sentence, so that the stripes were sure to be well laid on.
This punishment was followed by a sentence of exile. He then- was informed that he must decamp in so many days and be scen there no more on penalty of having the number of his stripes doubled.
For many years after the law was put in operation in the western part of Virginia, the magistrates them- selves were in the habit of giving those who - were brought before them on charges of small thefts, the liberty of being sent to jail, or taking a whipping. The latter was commonly chosen, and was immediately in- flicted, after which the thief was ordered to clear out.
In some instances stripes were inflicted ; not for the punishment of an offense, but for the purpose of ex- torting a confession from suspected persons. This was the torture of our carly times, and no doubt sometimes very unjustly inflicted.
If a woman was given to tattling and slandering her neighbors, she was furnished by common consent with a kind of patent right to say whatever she pleased, without being believed. Her tongue was then said to be harmless, or to be no scandal.
With all their :udeness, these people were given to hospitality, and freely divided their rough fare with a neighbor or stranger, and would have been offended at the offer of pay. In their settlements and forts, they lived. they worked. they fought and feasted, or suffered together, in cordiol harmony. They were warm and i onstant in their friendships. On the other hand they were revengetui in their resentments ; and the point of lionor sometimes ted to personal combats. If one man called another a liar, he was considered as having given a challenge which the person who received it must ac- cept, or be deemed a coward, and the charge was genc-
385
MORALS.
rally answered on the spot with a blow. If the injured person was decidedly unable to fight the aggressor, he might get a friend to do it for him. The same thing took place on a charge of cowardice, or any other dis- honorable action. A battle must follow, and the person who made the charge must fight either the person against whom he made it, or any champion who chose to espouse his cause. Thus circumstanced, our people in early times were much more cautious of speaking evil of their neighbors than they are at present.
Sometimes pitched battles occurred, in which time, place, and seconds were appointed beforehand. I re- member having seen one of those pitched battles in my father's fort, when a boy. One of the young men knew very well beforehand that he should get the worst of the battle, and no doubt repented the engage- ment to fight ; but there was no getting over it. The point of honor demanded the risk of battle. He got his whipping ; they then shook hands, and were good friends afterwards.
- The mode of single combat in those days was dan- gerous in the extreme. Although no weapons were used, fists, teeth and feet were employed at will; but above all, the detestable practice of gouging, by which eyes were sometimes put out, rendered this mode of fighting frightful indeed. It was not, however, so destructive as the stiletto of an Italian, the knife of a Spaniard. the small sword of the Frenchman, or the pistol of the American or English duelist.
Instances of seduction and bastardy did not frequent- ly happen in our carly times. I remember one in- stance of the former, in which the life of the man was pur in jeopardy by the resentment of the family to which the girl belonged. Indeed, considering the chi- valrous temper of our people, this crime could not then take place without great personal danger from the bro- thers or other relations of the victims of seduction, fa- mily honor being then estimated at a high rate.
386
SLAVERY.
I do not recollect that profane language was much more prevalent in our early times than at present.
Among the people with whom I was conversant, there was no other vestige of the christian religion than a faint observance of Sunday, and that merely as a day of rest for the aged and a play-day for the young.
The first christian service I ever heard was in the Garrison church in Baltimore county, in Maryland, 'where my father had sent me to school. I was then about ten years old. The appearance of the church, the windows of which were Gothic, the white surplice of the minister, and the responses in the service, over- whelmed me with surprise. Among my school-fellows in that place, it was a matter of reproach to me that I was not baptized, and why ? Because, as they said, I had no name. Such was their notion of the efficacy of baptism.
CHLAPTER XXX.
Slavery.
I will give some of my early impressions on seeing the cruelties exercised on slaves and convict servants in the state of Maryland.
If some of my readers should complain of the in- troduction of too great a portion of my own history, and that of my family, into this work, I trust I shall not be considered blamable for giving the narrative of the horrid cruelties exercised upon slaves and servants which I was doomed to witness in my early years, to- gether with the lasting impressions which the view of these tortures made upon my infant mind.
On the death of my mother, which happened when I was about eight years old, my father sent me under
337
SLAVERY.
the care of a relation to Maryland, for the purpose of being sent to school.
When arrived there, I was in a new world. I had left the backwoods behind me. I had exchanged its rough manners and poor living, for the buildings, plen- ty and polish of civilized life. Every thing I saw and heard confounded me. I learnt, after some time, that there were rich and poor masters, slaves and convicts ; and I discovered that the poor servants and convicts were under entire subordination to their masters, I saw that the slaves and convicts lived in filthy hovels called kitchens, and that they were poor, ragged and dirty, and kept at hard labor; while their masters and fami- lies lived in large houses, were well clothed and fed, and did as they pleased. The reason of this difference in the condition of men and women of the same race of beings, I could not comprehend.
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.