The Memories of Fifty Years | Page 3

CHAPTER XXII
. THE ROMANCE CONTINUED.

Father Confessor--Open Confession--The Unread Will--Old Tony's
Narrative--Squirrel Shooting--The Farewell Unsaid--Brothers-in-Law--
Farewell Indeed

CHAPTER XXIII
. WHEN SUCCESSFUL, RIGHT; WHEN NOT, WRONG.
Territorial
Mississippi--Wilkinson--Adams--Jefferson--Warren--Claiborne--Union
of the Factions--Colonel Wood--Chew--David Hunt--Joseph
Dunbar--Society of Western Mississippi--Pop Visits of a Week to
Tea--The Horse "Tom" and his Rider--Our Grandfathers' Days--An
Emigrant's Outfit--My Share--George Poindexter--A Sudden Opening
of a Court of Justice--The Caldwell and Gwinn Duel--Jackson's
Opposition to the Governor of Mississippi

CHAPTER XXIV
. THE SILVER-TONGUED ORATOR.
John A. Quitman--Robert J. Walker--Robert H. Adams--From a
Cooper-Shop to the United States Senate--Bank Monopoly--Natchez
Fencibles--Scott in Mexico--Thomas Hall--Sargent S.
Prentiss--Vicksburg--Single-speech Hamilton--God-inspired
Oratory--Drunk by Absorption--Killing a Tailor--Defence of Wilkinson

CHAPTER XXV
. A FINANCIAL CRASH.
A Wonderful Memory--A Nation Without Debt--Crushing the National
Bank--Rise of State Banks--Inflated Currency--Grand Flare-up--Take
Care of Yourself--Commencing Anew--Failing to Reach an Obtuse
Heart--King Alcohol does his Work--Prentiss and Foote--Love Me,
Love my Dog--A Noble Spirit Overcome--Charity Covereth a
Multitude of Sins

CHAPTER XXVI

. ACADIAN FRENCH SETTLERS.
Sugar _vs._ Cotton--Acadia--A Specimen of Mississippi French Life--
Bayou La Fourche--The Great Flood--Theological Arbitration--A
Rustic Ball--Old-Fashioned Weddings--Creoles and Quadroons--The
Planter--Negro Servants--Gauls and Anglo-Normans--Antagonism of
Races

CHAPTER XXVII
. ABOLITION OF LICENSED GAMBLING.
Baton Rouge--Florida Parishes--Dissatisfaction--Where there's a Will,
there's a Way--Storming a Fort on Horseback--Annexation at the Point
of the Poker--Raphignac and Larry Moore--Fighting the
"Tiger"--Carrying a Practical Joke too Far--A Silver Tea-Set

CHAPTER XXVIII
. THREE GREAT JUDGES.
A Speech in Two Languages--Long Sessions--Matthews, Martin, and
Porter --A Singular Will--A Scion of '98--Five Hundred Dollars for a
Little Fun with the Dogs--Cancelling a Note

CHAPTER XXIX
. AMERICANIZING LOUISIANA.
Powers of Louisiana Courts--Governor William C.C. Claiborne--Cruel
O'Reilly--Lefrenier and Noyan Executed--A Dutch Justice--Edward
Livingston--A Caricature of General Jackson--Stephen Mazereau--A
Speech in Three Languages--John R. Grymes--Settling a Ca.
Sa.--Batture Property--A Hundred Thousand Dollar Fee

CHAPTER XXX
. DIVISION OF NEW ORLEANS INTO MUNICIPALITIES.
American Hotel--Introduction of Steamboats--Faubourg St.
Mary--Canal Street--St. Charles Hotel--Samuel J. Peters--James H.

Caldwell--Fathers of the Municipality--Bernard Marigny--An Ass--A.B.
Roman

CHAPTER XXXI
. BLOWING UP THE LIONESS.
Doctor Clapp--Views and Opinions--Universal Destiny--Alexander
Barrow --E.D. White--Cross-Breed, Irish Renegade, and Acadian--A
Heroic Woman--The Ginseng Trade--I-I-I'll D-d-die F-f-first

CHAPTER XXXII
. GRADUAL EXTINCTION OF THE RED MAN.
Line Creek Fifty Years Ago--Hopothlayohola--McIntosh--Undying
Hatred--A Big Pow-wow--Massacre of the
McIntoshes--Nehemathla--Onchees--The Last of the Race--A Brave
Warrior--A White Man's Friendship--The Death-Song--Tuskega; or,
Jim's Boy

CHAPTER XXXIII
. FUN, FACT, AND FANCY.
Eugenius Nesbitt--Washington Poe--Yelverton P. King--Preparing to
Receive the Court--Walton Tavern, in Lexington--Billy Springer, of
Sparta--Freeman Walker--An Augusta Lawyer--A Georgia
Major--Major Walker's Bed--Uncle Ned--Discharging a Hog on His
Own Recognizance --Morning Admonition and Evening Counsel--A
Mother's Request-- Invocation--Conclusion

THE MEMORIES OF FIFTY YEARS.

CHAPTER I
.
REVOLUTIONARY TRADITIONS.
MIDDLE GEORGIA--COLONEL DAVID LOVE--HIS

WIDOW--GOVERNOR DUNMORE-- COLONEL
TARLETON--BILL CUNNINGHAM--COLONEL FANNIN--MY
GRANDMOTHER'S BIBLE--SOLOMON'S MAXIM
APPLIED--ROBERTUS LOVE--THE INDIAN WARRIOR--
DRAGON CANOE--A BUXOM LASS--GENERAL
GATES--MARION--MASON L. WEEMS--
WASHINGTON--"BILLY CRAFFORD."
My earliest memories are connected with the first settlement of Middle
Georgia, where I was born. My grandparents on the mother's side, were
natives of North Carolina; and, I believe, of Anson county. My
grandfather, Colonel David Love, was an active partisan officer in the
service of the Continental Congress. He died before I was born; but my
grandmother lived until I was seventeen years of age. As her oldest
grandchild, I spent much of my time, in early boyhood, at her home
near the head of Shoulderbone Creek in the county of Green. She was a
little, fussy, Irish woman, a Presbyterian in religion, and a very strict
observer of all the duties imposed upon her sect, especially in keeping
holy the Sabbath day. All her children were grown up, married, and, in
the language of the time, "gone away." She was in truth a lone woman,
busying herself in household and farming affairs. With a few negroes,
and a miserably poor piece of land, she struggled in her widowhood
with fortune, and contrived, with North Carolina frugality and industry,
not only to make a decent living, but to lay up something for a rainy
day, as she phrases it. In her visits to her fields and garden, I ran by her
side and listened to stories of Tory atrocities and Whig suffering in
North Carolina during the Revolution. The infamous Governor
Dunmore, the cruel Colonel Tarleton, and the murderous and thieving
Bill Cunningham and Colonel Fannin, both Tories, and the latter
natives to the soil, were presented graphically to me in their most
hateful forms. In truth, before I had attained my seventh year, I was
familiar with the history of the partisan warfare waged between Whig
and Tory in North and South Carolina, from 1776 to 1782, from this
good but garrulous old lady. I am not so certain she was good: she had
a temper of her own, and a will and a way of her own;