MY DEAR CHILDREN: - Being at leisure now, after many years of pleasant work in helping your Father to raise a large family of boys and girls, I sit down in this dear old room, with the faces of those I love smiling down upon me from the picture frames on the wall, and the perfume of sweet flowers coming through the lattice door, to recall some recollections of old times in Dixie.
First stands out in bold relief the delightful plantation life at Woodlawn. This phase of society is a thing of the past, and I grieve that you will never know the tender tie that existed between mistress and servant. To the credit of the colored people be it said that during the Civil War, when on plantation after plantation the mansions were occupied only by wives and daughters, not a disloyal act or word ever occurred.
One of the first things I remember was when a little girl of four, seated on a pillow in front of my father, a pale dark man, riding through the corn fields, watching the cotton and corn unfold, and grow beneath our warm Southern sun. Most of the plantations had names according to the owner. Our plantation, named Woodlawn, consisted of four thousand acres, and was beautifully situated between a river and creek. Our man Tony would row us for hours, winding up and down this beautiful stream and around an island covered with dense foliage, and on which there was plenty of small game. . . .
LETTER III
DEAR CHILDREN: - In going from Woodlawn to Hermitage, the road ran along the river bank for miles, the embankment was very low, and the water often flowed into the road sometimes making it impassable.
I was always afraid of the water. I remember the only punishment my Father ever gave me was for crying in crossing a mountain stream on an ever memorable journey of three weeks in a carriage to the Virginia Springs. . . .
Fort Barnwell is named for an old fort built about 1712 to protect our people from the Indians, and named for Colonel Barnwell of South Carolina.
The Indians committed many depredations, among others, shooting a Mr. Stevenson, who, with his wife and baby, was standing in the door of his little home. As a child I made frequent visits to this moss-covered old fort and picked up shot and shell.
General Simpson and his father General John Simpson of Pitt County were strong supporters of the Church of England. After the war this church became very unpopular, people naturally connecting it with the church of England.
At this early day the question of slavery was agitated. I quote from the will of your Great Grand father, Rev. Wm. P. Biddle, written in 1820:
"I will that Isabel, Owen and Lillie be made and set free the first court after January. Isabel belonged to my Grandfather and lived with him a faithful servant and has greatly assisted me. Lillie nursed me and belonged to my parents; I desire her to be free. At the end of five years I desire Eli to be free, for there are few such servants for faithfulness and merit. I wish all my other servants to be hired out for ten years, after which time I will that all who are now twenty-one years of age shall be free, except Lewis and Wiley - then I will that all the balance shall be hired out for ten years from that time, which brings the year 1847; then I most earnestly wish that all shall be free. I wish that in this, and the former freeing they may be tendered to the Colonization Society of Virginia, they shall be settled in the most eligible place in Africa or in the South West of our continent. I will that all of twenty-one years of age shall receive from my estate six months' education.". . .
LETTER IV
DEAR CHILDREN: - My Father's health began to fail very soon after I was born and the physicians advised a trip to the Green Briar White Sulphur Springs in Virginia. How well I remember the journey there, though only four years old; it took three weeks to make it and we went in our own carriage. John Brimage, a bright little man, was our driver. Buck and Rock, our sturdy horses, took us safely along and we arrived there one lovely evening in June. In a short while Father began to decline rapidly, and on the 6th of July, 1845, passed away. I followed the path up the lonely mountain side and he was laid away under a big oak tree, where the bleak winds of winter and the soft breezes of summer keep up a sacred vigil. I have so much desired to visit this hallowed spot, but the changes which this cruel war has made has prevented that and much else I desired to do. We had a tomb stone hauled in a wagon from Richmond. I mention this that you may see how difficult transportation was in those days.
I want you to understand, dear children that a self- made man is the noblest work of God; your Grandfather was very unhappy when a little boy, his stepfather was cruel to him, so although but ten years of age, he ran away from home. You can imagine how well he succeeded, when I tell you that at the age of eighteen, he was sent in charge of a large sailing vessel to the West Indies. This same vessel ran the blockade successfully and brought out a cargo of rum and molasses, which netted his employer many thousands of dollars.
Mr. Lovejoy, whose name is well known, throughout the South, was brought here through the instrumentality of your Grandfather, the little boy of whom I have been telling you; afterwards, he moved to Raleigh, through the influence of your other Grandfather, John H. Bryan, whose eight sons he prepared for Chapel Hill. And now I return to Woodlawn for a while. The house was situated about the middle of the plantation and was approached by a long, straight avenue of pines for a mile or two. How beautiful were the long drives up and down! There were so many successions of interest on a plantation. The drives to the landing where large flats were being filled with cotton and corn for market, such fun driving the gin horses round and round, and rolling down huge hills of cotton seed, and watching the looms weave thick, strong cloth for winter use. What a jolly time was hog killing, the delicious hams put up by a receipt handed down from father to son and quite equal to the Smithfield. The great pots of boiling lard with a bay leaf thrown in for perfume, several huge blocks of wood in the yard and fat smiling mammies with red bandannas on their heads singing sweet old negro melodies, and chopping up sausage meat. . . .
Christmas, what a time of good cheer! the most delightful season of the whole year. The turpentine hands came home then, with plenty of money in their pockets, made from extra work. . . . How cunning I thought the little darkey babies, what a privilege to sit in old Aunt Rachel's cabin, and rock the cradles - first one and then another; the mothers brought them to be taken care of while they were in the fields. The two big oak trees, the well from which water was being drawn, the cool pleasant lane, in which the little darkies and dogs played, were much more enjoyable than the present-day sports of the negro. Sometimes on the streets now I meet a darkey to whom I have given a name. This very afternoon I had a very gracious bow from "Edward Stanley." I learned to sew by making the babies I had named clothes, and I am not ashamed even now of my sewing. This era of sewing machines has in a great measure ruled out the old- fashioned hem-stitching, over-casting, herin boning, darning and so on. . . .
LETTER V
DEAR CHILDREN: - When I was a little girl at Woodlawn, six years old, I had a teacher, Miss Wallingford, from Lowell, Mass. She came to us in poor health and great distress of mind; her lover had either died or deserted her. She was treated with great kindness; our seamstress was put to work making garments for her; she was helped in many ways and her grateful letters continued to come for some years after her return to Lowell.
In the dear old Dixie days, and before that, company was considered a great treat, the best room, best food and heartiest welcome awaited them. I have the tenderest recollections of "Auld Lang Syne." The old-fashioned house in which I was born with the low windows opening on a broad veranda with steps into the flower garden, in the center of which stood a huge fringe tree, roses and bright flowers clustered around. Then a gate into the vegetable garden, Oh! what vegetables, fruits and berries, we had in succession month by month. There were goose-berry and currant bushes, two large asparagus beds, and everything in such perfect order.
Our cook, Rachel, whose equal in preparing savory dishes I have never seen, was fond of imbibing too freely of "mountain rye" at times, and such fun I had in placing a big black doll in the path of the kitchen to hear her clap her hands and cry, "De debil is gwine to git me sho!" Later when the poor old woman was an inmate of the Poor House, I sent her a weekly allowance of coffee and sugar.
When Amy, my black mammy died, I was sent for, and mingled my tears along with the dusky mourners about her coffin. In great contrast indeed, to this one day just after my return home after the close of the war and during that awful reconstruction period, I was walking along quietly on Broad street, when a fat buxom mulatto wench came up to me, and shaking her fist in my face ordered me off the side-walk. I quickly looked up and seeing no white person visible, and the streets full of negroes, as a church had just emptied itself into the streets, I stepped aside into the gutter and went home. I will not tell what I thought on that occasion.
We left the low country in the summer and remained until frost, which generally took place in October, and oh! what fun the three days going to the hills was. The railroad was not built through the western part of the State, so the people of the tidewater section went to Hillsboro, Oxford, Warrenton, Jones and Shocco Springs. Old Frank Johnson's band discoursed sweet music. Frank was a slave who hired his time from his master, and with half a dozen sons equally musical, was known and sought after throughout the middle of the State. It took us three days to make the journey from our home to Shocco Springs. I got awfully tired and restless being shut up in a close carriage for that length of time, but we had regular places to stop on our way to and fro, and the noon-day stop by the side of a shady tree on the roadside was restful. . . .
Last winter, while spending a few days with a cousin of mine, I met at church a friend who belonged to the days of my childhood, and who brought back so vividly those journeys up and down the country. She told me her history since I had met her, which is so interesting that I write it here for your benefit. Not long before the Civil War she married a young Doctor and lived happily and comfortably on a large farm with their slaves. One colored boy, who went with the Doctor on his round of professional visits, was especially attached to them. When Sherman's bummers came along, they were drunken and unmanageable and ordered the negroes to leave the place, which they all did but this boy; he refused and the bummers ordered him to be shot. Preparations were made to carry out this order; he was placed in position, when my friend ran and put her body in front of him and told these lawless creatures that they would have to shoot her also. They finally left without performing the threat. In a few years the Doctor died, the negro went North to seek his fortune, and the widow, feeling no security in the country, moved into a town to live. The boy became quite prosperous and finally opened a men's furnishing shop in Boston. He returned South, bought the old plantation and offered it to his mistress for her life time. He asked her to visit his city, offering to entertain her at any hotel, and he sends her a check every three months.
Our faithful servant, Hollen, was without an equal in my opinion. She was a most beautiful seamstress; there was nothing in the way of fine work she could not do. I have known her to be a week in making a pair of pantlettes for me, "ladder stitch," and herin bone always being used to put the insertion together. She said, "I do not feel free unless I go North" - I advised her to go and she secured a home with a Mr. and Mrs. White, at Chepachet, R.I. They were, as many others at that time, interested in asking how the negroes were treated by their owners in slavery times. So on long winter nights Hollen would regale them with tales of our plantation life, and their surprise was great when they found how kind we were to the slaves. No subject has ever been so misrepresented as has this one. I corresponded with Mrs. White and when my oldest boy went to Bingham School, I sent her his picture in uniform; she showed the picture to Mr. White, and a few days after I received a letter from him offering to adopt my son and do a good part by him, as he was childless and wealthy. I was much pleased but I had given up too much to give up my boy also.
Quite a noted colored man was Arthur Simmons, who served as janitor of the "White House" through the term of four Presidents. He belonged to Mr. Attmore, of New Bern, North Carolina, . . . You can imagine how my meeting him at Washington some years ago brought up many recollections of the past. My son was with me and Arthur could not do enough to make our visit interesting. In passing through several of the rooms we met a gentleman who proved to be the Secretary of War, Alger. After our departure, he said to Arthur "Who was that lady and gentleman who seemed glad to see you and to whom you were so very polite?" Arthur told him with much gusto, and Mr. Alger replied, "We Northern people must have misunderstood the friendly relation that existed between master and slave."
LETTER IX
MY DEAR CHILDREN: - The winter of '61 was a most anxious one, we did not know what would be the result of so much political agitation. In the meantime, work was continued at Woodlawn. Soon we heard news that Fort Sumpter had fallen, then people began to talk of war and went to raising companies and regiments. New Bern, being in an exposed position, it was thought best for as many women and children as could leave to do so. In March, '62 the battle of New Bern occurred and such a time of confusion and trouble! We had had extra dinners prepared, expecting to feed the Confederate soldiers. Instead of that, there was a perfect panic and stampede, women, children, nurses, and baggage getting to the depot any way they could. Our home and hundreds of others were left with the dinners cooking, doors open and everything to give our Northern friends a royal feast, which I understand they thoroughly enjoyed. . . .
I will remark here, that when we returned home at the close of the war, we found our beautiful and valued farm an abandoned plantation, even the cedar trees that divided the fields, had been cut down, the nice comfortable negro cabins had been dismantled, as also the barns and outhouses, the old Colonial brick dwelling, made of bricks from England, was razed to the ground. Houses, cattle, sheep, of course, gone, and an apple orchard of choice apples destroyed.
The refugees, as a general thing, were not cordially received by the up-country people. We went to several places before finally settling, to Greensboro, Lexington, and lastly to a tiny farm four miles from Raleigh. The house was a log cabin, with a shed and low upstairs room, but we were very thankful to get to this place; it was a haven of rest. My beautiful boy had left me ere this, succumbing to an attack of fever. He was buried with another baby boy in a corner of the cemetery at Greensboro. We have never been able to find his little body to this day. We soon collected comforts about us at this country place, had a nice garden, plenty of milk and butter. My Mother's room, under the roof, partook of her presence, the white table was covered with snow-white dimity, the four windowpanes had a muslin curtain, her wrapper and slippers were near, and on a stand by the bed, were her well-worn Bible and Hymnal. Many a pleasant hour I spent with her there, her sweet individuality pervading every space. She had nothing left but her prayers, which were offered to God three times a day, and always in the gloaming. We had constant communication with Raleigh, the news of terrible battles in which our nearest and dearest were wounded or killed, kept us very unhappy. It was hard to get provisions, everything that could be spared was sent to the army. Both your Grandmothers were kept busy. For the soldiers, we cut up carpets for blankets, and sent blankets also, and used comfortable knitting socks in their place; boxes went off every day filled with necessary things for our boys.
I made a good deal of money of which I was very proud. I had several suits of brown woolen goods for gentlemen's wear made in my own loom. I had a present of a number of bolts of yellow homespun from the Rockfish factory, which I exchanged to great advantage. I made neckties and other fancy things and sold them, and often had several thousand dollars of Confederate money in my purse. I cut up a Marshal sash and made money out of that. I had a shoe last and made my little daughter many pairs of shoes out of goat skins, bound with ribbon.
One night, we had quite an experience in our country home. My Mother came from her room above and said there were strange noises in the yard, the negroes were singing "Hurrah! Hurrah! We are free! We are free!" We sprang out of bed very much frightened, dressed ourselves, made a fire in the huge chimney place and anxiously waited for what was to come. We peeped out of the narrow window, and there, sure enough, were many negroes singing and dancing around the fire, with every demonstration of joy, and every little while we heard the fife and drum. Our feelings cannot be described. I looked at my daughter sleeping so peacefully in her crib and thought that before morning the last of my race would be swept away; at my patient invalid Mother, what a death for her to die! and perhaps that very night, none of us would be left to tell the tale. But the night of horror wore on - and the morning dawned peaceful and bright with no evidence of the mortal agony we had endured. We found that the negroes had been having an unusual time with some of the neighboring people and the supposed drum and fife was the creaking of the well bucket. . . .