USA > Virginia > Augusta County > Augusta County > History of Augusta County, Virginia > Part 7
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Wounds were healed with slippery elm bark, flaxseed, &c.
Rheumatism was treated with the oil of rattlesnakes, geese, wolves, bears, raccoons, ground-hogs, polecats, &c.
Coughs and pulmonary consumptions with syrups made with maple sugar and the bark of the wild cherry, etc.
Charms and incantations were also used for the cure of many diseases,. and these were practiced by the whites as well as the red men.
Erysipelas was circumscribed by the blood of a black cat. Hence there was scarcely a black cat to be seen whose ears and tail had not been fre- quently cut off for a contribution of blood.
Blood-letting and draughts of warm water were as popular in all cases of fever as with Dr. Sangrado. Under this system of medicine, the reader will not be surprised to learn that many of the pioneers perished, that the extreme salubrity of the climate and the robust constitutions of the people alone prevented the population from being decimated.
It is by no means certain that their condition would have been improved. by the presence of such practitioners as then drove their trade east of the Mountains. In an act passed by the Burgesses for regulating the fees of. " the practisers of physic," it recites that " the practice is commonly in the hands of surgeons, apothecaries, or such as have only served apprentice- ships to these trades, who often prove very unskillful, and yet demand excessive fees and prices for their medicines, which is a grievance, danger- ous and intolerable evil."
It was no more all work and no play with the pioneers, than with Jack of the proverb. Every manly exercise was cultivated. Boys were taught
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to box and use the cudgel and to draw the bow. At the age of ten or twelve years, they were supplied with firearms, in the use of which they became experts, and aided, not only in supporting the family, but in the public defence. The boys became so skilled in imitating the noise of every bird and beast, that they could decoy any of the tenants of the for- ests within reach of their rifles. In throwing the tomahawk, another of their sports, they acquired the skill of the savages, and. would strike down an enemy with unerring aim at twenty to thirty paces. No athletic sport was neglected, such as running, jumping, pitching (the quoits), wrestling, boxing, but all sports were practiced which tended to make them quick of eye, fertile in expedients, strong of hand, active of foot, and fearless in exe- cution.
To bar out the schoolmaster was one of the customs of the boys, kept up to within the writer's school days, when he has more than once engaged in the sport. About a week before Easter and Christmas, the larger scholars would meet in the night to bar out the master. On his arrival at the school-room, he would take in the situation and endeavor to force his way in, but finding his efforts unavailing, he would proceed to negotiate, and would enter into an agreement to give the scholars holiday at Easter week and between Christmas and New Year's. Sometimes he would agree to give a gallon of some beverage and a lot of gingerbread on Christmas day, and play a game of corner ball with his pupils on the occasion. The terms being understood and agreed upon, the doors would be unbarred, and the duties of the school would be resumed.
It was customary for the ladies to meet at each other's houses usually at three in the afternoon, an hour after dinner, when all the busy occupations of the day were over. These were called " quilting parties," and the ladies presented themselves with their work-bags upon their arms, and work and conversation began together. Gossip, of course, constituted the staple of their conversation. What else was there in these retired societies but the domestic detail of household anecdote and the tattle of the settlement ? At five, sassafras tea was brought in, accompanied by a handsome collation, consisting of pastry, fruits, creams and sweetmeats, and often of cold fowl and meats. This substantial kind of refreshment is not found unacceptable after an early dinner, and with the perspective of a solid supper. Pio- neers have keen appetites arising from their robust health and the bracing mountain air. Among the heads of families, who had children married, there were regular days-generally once a week-when all the offsprings assembled at the father's or grandfather's house for dinner. There was something respectable, and even affecting, in these patriarchal meetings ; they seemed a means of drawing closer those ties of consanguinity which are the best refuge against human ills, in which the purest affections of the heart mingle themselves with the wants and weakness of our nature, guid-
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ing, with watchful tenderness, the wanderings of youth, and supporting, with unwearied care, the feebleness of age.
The evenings were devoted to amusement, to social pleasure, to friend- ship, to some object that cheers or soothes the heart. Music and dancing were both practiced, adding much to the general happiness by lessening the laborious monotony of their lives. The round dance of the present, so much praised by poets and denounced by preachers, was not then known. Upon the young the beneficial effects of both music and dancing were apparent, particularly of music which is so well adapted to softening the manners and humanizing the feelings. The young people were intro- duced in the evenings, and entertained strangers with their songs, the girls often singing the airs of the countries beyond the seas which their parents had left, never to see again, the boys accompanying them on the flute, flageolet or violin. The cultivation of a taste for music and poetry pro- bably led to descanting in the wild style of the rude minstrels of the Mid- dle Ages. The souls of these children of the woods quickly took fire at the beauties of poetry, and the most important benefits of poetry were thus produced, by promoting a repugnance to everything mean and igno- ble; by the study of nature in the purity of her poetical forms; by the in- nocent, and at the same time agreeable, direction which the pursuits of taste impart to the idler propensities of the mind ; by the influence of gen- erous and pathetic verse, in keeping open those hearts which are in danger of being choked with the cares of business. The influence of poetry can be seen in the eloquence of such men as Patrick Henry and Rev. Samuel Davies. Music and dancing were, therefore, considered an essential part of their education, and the old field school-houses were the academies where they practiced both. History was in this repeating herself, for, from the earliest ages, music has been much in use. The ancients attached vast importance to it, and ascribed the malignity, brutality and irreligion of some of the peoples of antiquity to their absolute neglect of it. In the days of Laban, music was much used in Mesopotamia, where he resided, since, among other reproaches he makes to his son-in-law, Jacob, he com- plains that, by his precipitate flight, he had put it out of his power to con- duct him and his family " with mirth and with songs, with tabret and with harp."-[Gen., cxxxi, v. 27.]
On both sides of the Blue Ridge mountain, the amusements of the peo- ple were such as might be expected in a rural society ; and in Eastern Virginia they were those of a people of considerable wealth and compara- tively slight education. Horse-racing and racing balls were the events, and fox-hunting, cock-fighting, drinking and card-playing the regular pas- times. In the Virginia Gazette for October, 1737, we read : "We have advice from Hanover county that on St. Andrew's day there are to be horse-races and several other diversions for the entertainment of ladies
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and gentlemen, at the old field, near Capt. John Brickerton's, in that county, the substance of which is as follows-viz .: It is proposed that 20 horses or mares do run around a three miles' course for a prize of £5.
" That a hat of the value of 20 shillings be cudgelled for, and that after the first challenge made, the drums are to beat every quarter of an hour for three challenges round the ring, and none to play with their left hand.
" That a violin be played for by 20 fiddlers ; no person to have the liberty to play unless he bring a fiddle with him. After the prize is won they are all to play together, and each a different tune, and to be treated by the company.
" That 12 boys of 12 years of age do run 112 yards for a hat of the cost of 12 shillings.
" That a flag be flying on said day 30 feet high.
" That a handsome entertainment be provided for the subscribers and their wives ; and such of them as are not so happy as to have wives may treat any other lady.
" That Drums, Trumpets, Hautboys, &c., be provided to play at said entertainment.
" That after dinner the Royal health, His Honor, the Governor's, &c., are to be drunk.
" That a Quire of ballads be sung for by a number of Songsters, all of them to have liquor sufficient to clear their wind-pipes.
" That a pair of shoe buckles be wrestled for by a number of brisk young men.
" That a pair of handsome shoes be danced for.
" That a pair of handsome silk stockings, of one Pistole value, be given to the handsomest young country maid that appears in the field ; with many other whimsical and comical diversions too numerous to mention.
"And as this mirth is designed to be purely innocent and void of offence, all persons resorting there are desired to behave themselves with decency and sobriety, the subscribers being resolved to discountenance all immor- ality with the utmost rigor."
These were rough, honest English sports, and prevailed everywhere in Eastern Virginia. At all the county towns, east of the mountains, fairs were held at regular intervals, accompanied by sack and hogshead races, greased poles, and bull-baiting. In fine weather, barbecues in the woods, when oxen, pigs and fish were roasted, were frequent, and were much en- joyed by all, ending usually, among the lower classes, with much intoxica- tion. Another great source of delight was the cock-fight. The small farmers assembled at the taverns to play billiards and drink. The monthly sessions of the courts filled the towns with a miscellaneous crowd. The people were not much given to reading or the sister art of writing. Gov. Spotswood remarked on one occasion, in an official reply to some remon-
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strance of the House of Burgesses: "I observe that the grand ruling party in your house has not furnished chairmen of two of your standing committees who can spell English or write common sense, as the griev- ances under their own hand-writing will manifest."
FOLK LORE.
The progress of science has convinced mankind that the material uni- verse is everywhere subject to fixed and immutable laws. In the infancy and less mature state of human knowledge it was otherwise, and man was constantly disposed to refer many of the appearances, with which he was conversant, to the agency of invisible intelligence; sometimes under the influence of good, but oftener of malignant disposition. Omens and portents told these men of good or ill fortune. These superstitions pre- vailed, to a vast extent, among our English ancestors. Queen Elizabeth consulted Dr. John Dee, an astrologer, respecting a lucky day for her coronation; James I employed much of his time in the study of witch- craft and demology, and in 1664, Sir Matthew Hale caused two old women to be hanged upon a charge of unlawful communion with infernal spirits. A belief in such supernatural agency has existed in all ages and coun- tries-among the Jews, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, down to within recent times.
The history of mankind, therefore, will be very imperfect, and our knowledge of the operations and eccentricities of the mind lamentably deficient, unless we take into our view what has occurred under this head. The supernatural appearances, with which our ancestors conceived them- selves perpetually surrounded, must have had a strong tendency to cherish and keep alive the powers of the imagination, and to penetrate those who witnessed, or expected such things, with an extraordinary sensi- tiveness. But whatever were their advantages or disadvantages, at any rate it is good for us to call up in review things which are now passed away, but which once occupied a large share of the thoughts and attention of our ancestors, and in a great degree tended to modify their characters and dictate their resolutions. Vast numbers of persons have been sacrificed as witches in different ages and countries, and stringent laws once existed against dealers in witchcraft in Virginia. As late as 1705, Grace Sherwood was punished in Virginia for witchcraft. An able jury of ancient women was impannelled, and, after search, reported " that she was not like them, nor any other woman."
The witch was, by our ancestors, supposed to be a woman who had formed a contract, signed with her blood, with a mighty and invisible spirit, the great enemy of man, and to have sold herself, body and soul, to everlasting perdition for the sake of gratifying, for a short term of years, her malignant passions against those who had been so unfortunate as to give her offence. They considered such a crime as atrocious above
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all others, and regarded the witch with inexpressible abhorence. The witch was thought to possess the power of inflicting strange and incurable diseases, particularly on children ; of destroying cattle by shooting them with hair balls ; of inflicting spells and curses on guns and other things, and of changing human beings into horses, and, after bridling and sadling . them, riding them, full speed, over hill and dale, to their places of meet- ing. The wizard, or man witch, was supposed to possess the same am- ple powers of mischief, but to exercise his powers, for the most part, to counteract the malevolent influence of the witches. These wizards, or witch-masters, as they were commonly called, went about exercising their art, and many of these impostors were smart enough to make a good liv- ing, without work, out of their calling ; were pure and unadulterated hypo- crites.
All incurable diseases were ascribed to the supernatural agency of a malignant witch, such as epileptic and other fits, dropsy of the brain rickets, &c. For the cure of 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 containing a little bit of silver. This bullet transferred a painful and sometimes mortal spell on that part of the witch corresponding with the part of the portrait struck by the bullet. Another method was to get some of the child's water, which was closely corked up in a vial, and hung up in a chimney. This inflicted the witch with stranguary, which lasted as long as the vial remained in the chimney. The witch could only relieve herself from a spell inflicted on her by borrowing something, no matter what, of the family to which the subject of her witch-craft belonged. Such family was never in a hurry to accommodate her with a loan.
When cattle or dogs were bewitched, they were burnt on the forehead by a branding-iron, or, when dead, burnt to ashes. When disease and pestilence prevailed, fires were lit to ward off both. This was, doubtless, a relic of an older custom, when an animal was offered as a burnt sacrifice to appease the wrath of the gods. If an animal was infected by murrain, the diseased part was cut out while the beast was alive, and solemnly burnt in a bonfire. To the modern scientific mind, these would seem wise precautions to hinder the spread of infection. Any one who knows the rural mind, even at the present day, will be quite sure that the precaution was magical, not sanitary. Witches were often said to milk the cows of their neighbors. This they did by fixing a 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.
The first German glass-blowers, in America, drove witches out of their furnaces by throwing in live puppies.
Bewitched persons sometimes vomited quantities of crooked pins ; the
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palms of their hands were turned outwards, and, if they spoke, it was not in their own voice, but that of the devil, by whom they were possessed-at least, they were said to do so. Such were some of the extravagant fancies of our forefathers, and may afford us a salutary lesson.
At many remote points on the Western frontier, similar settlements to the one we have described on Lewis creek were made by a like class of immigrants. The same virtues of hospitality, of disinterested kindness, prevailed in all these backwoods communities, and were, in some measure, the result of their situation. Unselfish and liberal, these pioneers sought no recompense but the approval of their own consciences, and it has been well said that the greater part of mankind might derive advantage from the contemplation of their virtues. Such were those majestic men of the frontier-the men of 1732-1776-1812-whose souls grew like the shadows of the mountain ridge they walked beneath. "wild, above rule or art, rugged, but sublime !"
The first settlers of Augusta were, for the most part, the descendants, paternally or maternally, of the ancient Caledonians, who boasted that they had never been subjected to the law of any conqueror. They be- longed to various Highland clans, and were strongly imbued with the pre- judices, feelings, sentiments, &c., of their peculiar clans. One of the cir- cumstances connected with their condition as followers of a chieftain was, that every clan bore the name of their hereditary chief, and were sup- posed to be allied to him, in different degrees, by the ties of blood. This kindred band, or admitted claim of a common relationship, led to a freedom: of intercourse highly flattering to human pride, and communicated to the: vassal Highlanders a sentiment of conscious dignity and a sense of natural equality. And every individual sought to show his attachment to his: leader as the head of his family. This feeling strongly exhibited itself in the Augusta colony, which, from intermarriages, soon assumed something of the character of a numerous and increasing family. The poorest preserved with pride the facts of this consanguinity, and whatever the distinctions of. rank that may have arisen from the unequal acquisition of wealth, they mutually respected themselves and each other. The haughty backwoods- man yielded a cheerful obedience to the head of the clan or colony, whom they regarded somewhat as a father, and who may be supposed to have- exercised among them the authority of a judge in peace, and of a leader" in time of war.
Such, briefly, was the colony of Augusta from 1732 to 1745, and a more interesting spectacle of undisturbed felicity, quiet progress, rotwithstand- ing the primitive condition of the community, and the roughing inci- dent to their remoteness from commercial centres, it would be difficult to imagine or describe. Of luxury, there was little or none, unless it might be termed a luxury to be without want, without beggars, and without the
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enervating diseases which attend on idleness and opulence. There were no diamonds or pearls, but plenty cf bright eyes and rosy cheeks ; no shimmering silks or brilliantly colored velvets and satins, resplendent with gold and silver lace, but plenty of woollen stuffs, recommended by their warmth and healthfulness; no theatres, operas, fancy balls, saloons, or their attendant licentiousness, but plenty of fun and frolic. When we consider the condition of the people, and their fertile, salubrious and beau- tiful country ; that they married and :multiplied, and their virtue, instead of degenerating, was confirmed by time, and the more they increased the more examples they furnished to animate succeeding generations, one feels how impossible it is to describe the happiness of this fortunate peo- ple. Could they be other than the favored of Heaven? They who recognized God in everything, and constantly approached him with grati- tude and veneration. Religion cooperated with nature to soften and pol- ish their manners. Nature left but little unfinished ; that little, religion completed.
The brief foregoing account of the manners and customs of the colony will hold good, generally, up to and long after the Revolution.
EXCERPTS FROM THE RECORDS, ANA, ETC.
The profession of the law seems to have been as popular in Augusta a hundred and twenty-five years ago as now. Though five attorneys ob- tained a licence to practice in December, 1745, at the February term, 1746, less than three months from the organization of the county, five more gen- tlemen of wig and gown fraternity qualified to practice in the courts, namely : John Newport, Obediah Merriot, Ben. Pendleton, Jno. Nicholas, and Wm. Wright.
These professional gentlemen soon began to wrangle in a too charac- teristic way, and the court, at the same term, was driven to make the fol- lowing order, viz : "That any attorney interrupting another at the bar, or speaking when he is not employed, forfeit five shillings."
That the manners of the bar were not over refined may be inferred from a fine imposed upon the leader of the circuit, Gabriel Jones, at the May term, 1746, of five shillings, for swearing. His profanity was indulged in before the court, and doubtless directed to one of his legal rivals.
The fees of lawyers in the county and inferior courts were, as estab- lished by act of 1753, for an opinion or advice, ten shillings ; in any suit at common law, or petition, fifteen shillings ; in all chancery suits, real, mixt or personal actions, thirty shillings ; on a petition for a small debt, seven shillings and six pence ; and a fine of £50 was levied for any violation of these prices. A shilling was of the value of sixteen and two-thirds cents. Attorneys were not likely to grow fat on such moderate fees, but could live well, if they got plenty of them. For we see the court, March, 1746, established the following rates for ordinaries, and from the scale we infer that they were very ordinary indeed : "For a hot diet, well dressed, nine pence ; a cold diet, six pence; lodging, with clean sheets, three pence ; stabling and fodder for the night, six pence; rum, the gallon, nine shil- lings ; whiskey, six shillings ; claret, the quart, five shillings."
Many of these early colonial lawyers were doubtless lawyers only in
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name-men not versed in the laws, but picking up a support as commis- sioners in chancery, conveyancers, paper shavers, or usurers and specu- lators, who, deriving a knowledge of the troubles of parties from their po- sition, availed themselves of it to make a good turn for themselves.
The early records abound with proofs of the morality of our ancestors, their determination to uphold religion, law and order. At the May term, 1746, the court ordered Edward Boyle to be put in the stocks for two hours and fined twenty shillings for damning the court and swearing four oaths in their presence. All through the records appear cases of persons fined for swearing, fornication. adultery, drunkenness, and other offences, and in August, 1747, the sheriff was ordered to make a duckiug-stool for the use of the county, according to the law of 1705.
The ancient laws of Virginia declared that the court in every county shall cause to be set up near the court-house a pillory, pair of stocks, a whipping-post and a ducking-stool, in such place as they shall think con- venient, which, not being set up within six months after the date of this act, the said court shall be fined five thousand pounds of tobacco.
The corporal punishments inflicted upon criminals consisted of the pil- lory, the stocks, the whipping-post and the ducking-stool. Each of these is described below, for the benefit of those who are unacquainted with those relics of barbarism.
The pillory is one of the most ancient corporeal punishments in En- gland, France, Germany, and other countries. As early as 1275, by a statute of Edward I, it was enacted that every stretch-neck, or pillory, should be made of convenient strength, so that execution might be done upon offenders without peril to their bodies. The pillory consisted of a wooden frame, erected on a stool, with holes and folding boards for the admission of the head and hands. The heroes of the pillory have not been the worst class of men, for we find that a man by the name of Leigh- ton, for printing his Zion's Plea against Prelacy, was fined {10,000, de- graded from the ministry, pilloried, branded, and whipped through the city of London, in 1637, besides having an ear cropped and his nostrils slit. The length of time the criminal stood in and upon the pillory was determined by the Judge.
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