The Memories of Fifty Years Part 34

This man built upon his own property, on Gravier Street, fronting St.

Charles, and immediately across Gravier Street from the St. Charles Hotel, a church for Dr. Clapp, in which his congregation worshipped for many years. When the hotel was built, and business began crowding around this locality, it became necessary to remove his church. Again, Mr. Luro built for him a church, in a more private and eligible position, on the corner of Julia and St. Charles streets, and donated it to the pastor and congregation of the Gravier Street Church. Here Mr. Clapp continued his ministry during the remaining time of his residence in New Orleans.

He found with the cultivated and intelligent of New Orleans an approval of his teachings and example. The consequence was, and is, the entire absence of sectarian dissensions, and a social intercourse between all, resulting in a united effort for the common good, and the maintenance of moral sentiments and moral conduct--the basis and source of true and triumphant religion.

"The deeds that men do, live after them." Of no man can this be more truly said than of Dr. Clapp. Through every phase of society his example and teachings continue to live; and every virtuous and intelligent man in the community of Dr. Clapp's ministry, in New Orleans, conspires to continue the effect of them.

In no community on earth is there a greater diversity of nationalities, than in that of New Orleans, where every sect of religionists is to be found. All pursue the worship of G.o.d after their own manner of belief, exciting no jealousies, heart-burnings, or hatreds. All agree that a common end is the aim of all, and that a common destiny awaits mankind.

In the pursuits of life, and the duties of time, nothing of religious intolerance enters. A man's opinions upon that subject are his own, and for these he is responsible to G.o.d only. His neighbor respects his prejudices and feelings, and appreciates him according to his conduct toward his fellow-man, and the discharge of his duties to society.

Good follows the honest discharge of the duties of his vocation, from every moral and religious teacher, if he is sincere and earnest, whether Jew or Christian. An intelligent and virtuous community appreciates this, and encourages such efforts as advance and sustain public morals and social harmony. How such a man is esteemed in New Orleans, a recent instance is ample ill.u.s.tration. A distinguished Jewish Rabbi, long a resident minister of his faith in that city, was called, to minister in a synagogue in the city of New York. His walk and his work had been upright and useful. The good of all denominations were unwilling to give up so good and so useful a man.

In the true spirit of pure religion, a large committee, appointed by a meeting of the citizens from among every sect, composed of the leading and most influential men of the city, waited upon him, and influenced him to remain among them, and continue his vocation and pious usefulness in the field where he had labored so long and so efficiently.

To the teachings of Dr. Clapp, much of this toleration is due. This tone of feeling is the offspring of enlightenment, the enemy of bigotry. His mission completed, he retired for health and quiet to a point from which he could contemplate the results of his labors. He saw that they were good, and felt his whole duty had been done. In the fulness of years he awaited the coming of the hour when, released from his prison-house and freed from earth, he should go to his reward. It came, and ere the spirit was plumed for its final flight, he asked that its wornout casket should be carried and deposited by those he loved in life, in the city of his adoption and love; where, in death, the broken community of life should be restored. This was done, and now with them he sleeps well.

Memory turns sadly back to many, now no more, who were compeers of Dr.

Clapp, and to New Orleans, as New Orleans was; but to none with more melancholy pleasure than to Alexander Barrow and E.D. White. These were both natives of the city of Nashville, Tennessee. Both came to New Orleans in early life: White, with his father when a child, and Barrow, when a young man. White was left an orphan when quite young, in Attakapas, where his father lived, and with very limited means. He struggled on in the midst of a people whose very language was alien to his own, and managed to acquire a limited education, with which he commenced the study of the law, the profession of his father. When admitted to practice, he located at Donaldsonville, in the Parish of Ascension, where he rose rapidly to distinction. Appointed subsequently to a judgeship in New Orleans, he removed there to reside. This appointment he did not continue to hold for any length of time, his popularity being such as to point him out as a fit person to contest with Mr. Livingston the seat in Congress then filled by the latter. In this contest he was successful, and continued to represent the district until he was chosen Governor. He filled this chair for the const.i.tutional period of four years, and immediately upon the expiration of his term, he was again elected to Congress. He continued to represent the district until the treachery of a family, numerous and ignorant, yet influential with their ignorant, uneducated neighbors, caused him to be beaten. They succeeded subsequently in placing one of their family in his place, only to show the triumph of folly and stupidity over worth and intelligence. Yet this cross of an Irish renegade upon an Acadian woman was a fit representative of a large majority of his const.i.tuents.

The climate of Washington operated injuriously upon his const.i.tution.

Long accustomed to that of Louisiana, it failed to resist the terrible winter-climate of Washington, and he found his health broken. He returned to his plantation, on the Bayou La Fourche, where he lingered for a year or more, and died, in the meridian of life, leaving a young and interesting family.

Governor White was a man of great eccentricity of character, but with a ripe intellect, and a heart overflowing with generous emotions and tenderness. He loved his kind, and his life was most unselfishly devoted to their service. Like all who have for any time made her their home, he loved Louisiana first of all things. He was too young when coming from his native land to remember it, and his first attachment was for the soil of his adoption. He was reared in the midst of the Creole population of the State; spoke French and Spanish as his mother-tongue, and possessed the confidence and affection of these people in a most remarkable degree.

Governor White was a pa.s.senger on board the ill-fated steamer Lioness, in company with many friends, among whom were Josiah S. Johnston, (the elder brother of A. Sidney Johnston, who fell at the battle of Shiloh,) and Judge Boyce, of the District Court. Josiah S. Johnston was, at the time, a Senator in Congress. Some miles above the mouth of Red River, and in that stream, the boat blew up, many of the pa.s.sengers being killed, among whom was Judge Johnston. Governor White was terribly burned, and by many it was thought this led to his death.

His disease was bronchitis, which supervened soon after this terrible disaster. The steamer had in her hold considerable powder. This, it was said at the time, was ignited by the mate of the boat, who had become enraged from some cause with the captain. The body of Judge Johnston was never found. The boat was blown to atoms, with the exception of the floor of the ladies' cabin. The upper works were all demolished. This floor was thrown, it seemed almost miraculously, intact upon the water. There were some six or eight ladies on board, who were saved on this floor. When the smoke had lifted sufficiently to permit a night view--for it was night--Governor White and Judge Boyce were seen swimming near this floor of the wreck. White was burned terribly in the face and on the hands, and was blinded by this burning. The ladies were in their night-clothes; but what will not woman do to aid the distressed, especially in the hour of peril? One of the most accomplished ladies of the State s.n.a.t.c.hed from her person her _robe de chambre_, and, throwing one end to the struggling Governor, called to him to reach for it, and with it pulled him to the wreck, and kindly, with the aid of others, lifted him on. The same kind office was performed for Boyce, and they were saved. Though a stranger to the Governor, this great-hearted woman tore into strips her gown, and kindly did the work of the Good Samaritan, in binding up the wounds of one she did not know, had never before seen, and to whose rank and character she was equally a stranger; and when she was floating upon a few planks, at the mercy of the waters, and surrounded by interminable forests covering the low and mucky sh.o.r.es of Red River for many miles, where human foot had rarely trod, and human habitation may never rest--one garment her only covering, and all she could hope for, until some pa.s.sing steamer should chance to rescue them, or until she should float to the river's mouth, and find a human habitation.

She, too, is in the grave, but the memory of this act embalms her in the hearts of all who knew her. Blessed one!--for surely she who blessed all who came within her sphere, and only lived to do good, must in eternity and for eternity be blest, like thousands of others who have ministered in kindness for a day, and then went to the grave--in thy youth and loveliness thou wert exhaled from earth: like a storm-stricken flower in the morning of its bloom, wilted and dead, the fragrance of thy virtues is the incense of thy memory!

It was long before Governor White was fully restored to sight. No public man, and especially one so long in public life, ever enjoyed more fully the confidence of his const.i.tuents than Edward Dougla.s.s White. His private character was never impeached, even in the midst of the most excited political contests, nor did the breath of slander ever breathe upon his fair fame, from his childhood to the grave.

I am incompetent to write of Alexander Barrow as his merits deserve.

In him all that was n.o.ble and all that was respectable was most happily combined. A n.o.ble and commanding person, a manly and intellectual face, an eye that bespoke his heart, a soul that soared in every relation of life above everything that was little or selfish, a ripe and accurate judgment, a purpose always honorable and always open, without concealment or deceit, and an integrity pure and unsullied as the ether he breathed, an affectionate father, a devoted husband, a firm and unflinching friend through every phase of fortune--in fine, every element which makes a man united in Alexander Barrow. Dear reader, if I seem extravagant in these words, pardon it to me. When seventy winters have pa.s.sed over your head, and you turn back your memory upon all that has pa.s.sed, recalling the incidents and the friends of life, and you remember those which have transpired with him you loved best and trusted most, and remember that he was always true, never capricious, always wise, never foolish, always sincere, never equivocal, and who never failed you in the darkest hours of adversity, but was always the same to you in kindness, forbearance, and devotion, remember such was ever to me Alexander Barrow, and forgive this wild outpouring of the heart to the virtues of the friend, tried so long, and loved so well. For more than twenty years he has been in his grave; but in all that time no day has ever pa.s.sed that Alick has not stood before me as he was when we were young and life was full of hope. His blood with mine mingles in the veins of our grandchildren. O G.o.d! I would there were nothing to make this a painful memory.

Barrow served some years in the Legislature of the State, and was thence transferred to the United States Senate, where, after a service of six years, he died, in the prime of his manhood. Those who remember the speech of Hannegan, and the attempt of Crittenden, who, under the deep sorrow of his heart, sank voiceless and in tears to his chair--the feeling which filled and moved the Senate when paying the last tribute to his dead body, coffined and there before them in the Senate chamber--may know how those estimated the man who knew him best. Friend of my heart, farewell! We soon shall meet, with vernal youth restored, to endure forever.

There was another, Walter Brashear, our intimate friend for long years. He went to eternity after a pilgrimage of eighty-eight years in the sunshine and shadows of this miserable world. He was a native of the city of Philadelphia, but with his parents went to Kentucky, when a boy. These soon died, and Walter was left an orphan and poor, then but a boy. After attending a common neighborhood school in the County of Fayette, near Lexington, one year, he found it necessary to find support in some employment. Walking the streets of Lexington in search of this, the breeze blew to his feet a fragment of newspaper, which he picked up and read from curiosity. Here he found an advertis.e.m.e.nt inviting those who had ginseng for sale, to call. He knew there was plenty of this root to be found in portions of Kentucky, and determined immediately to embark in the speculation of searching for it and sending it to Philadelphia. He labored a.s.siduously, and soon had acquired a considerable sum of money for those times, 1801. He employed several hands to a.s.sist him the ensuing season, and after forwarding the root collected, found there was no longer any market for it in Philadelphia. Suspecting the person to whom he had previously sold was deceiving him, in order to drive a profitable bargain with him, he determined to go himself with his venture to China. This he did, and, making so handsome a business of it, he returned and immediately went to work to procure a much larger amount for another venture. This he likewise accomplished, but was less fortunate than before, though he made some money. He was now twenty-one years of age, and had been twice to China; but had not contracted much love for commerce or voyaging upon the sea. He married soon after his return, read medicine, and commenced the practice of it in Kentucky. Forming an intimacy with Mr. Clay, they soon became close friends, being nearly of the same age, and very like in character.

After some years' residence in Kentucky as a physician, he determined on emigrating to Louisiana, and embarking in the business of sugar-planting. Purchasing Belle Isle, an island off the coast of Attakapas, he removed his family there about 1824. He was successful in his new vocation; but not liking an island residence, where he was twenty miles from a neighbor, he purchased a residence upon Berwick's Bay, and a portion of Tiger Island, which was immediately opposite, and there made a new plantation, which is now the site of Brashear City. At this place he lies buried, by his children, all of whom, save one daughter, are there with him.

For many years he was a member of the Legislature of the State of his adoption, an honest and efficient one, of fine abilities, and great will. He usually triumphed in what he undertook. His fine social qualities attached to him many friends. His devotion to them was unflinching, and he rather preferred to fight for these than play with any others. His courage was truly chivalrous, and he is remembered by all who knew him, and yet live, as the man who never felt the sensation of fear.

An unfortunate difficulty with a neighbor, Dr. Tolls, brought on a personal rencontre. His antagonist was known to be brave and physically powerful; but in this affair, Brashear, after receiving a number of blows, wrested away his enemy's cane, and would soon have had the better of the fight, but persons interposing prevented it.

"Doctor," said Brashear, "this is not the way for gentlemen to settle their difficulties. As soon as I can bind up my head, which you have battered pretty severely, I shall be in the street armed. If you are as brave a man as your friends claim you to be, you will meet me there prepared to fight me as a gentleman."

"In forty minutes from this time, if you please," said his enemy.

At the appointed time and place they met, each with his friend, and each armed. When they had approached within ten paces, Brashear stopped and said, "Are you ready?" Being answered in the affirmative, "Then fire, sir; I scorn to take the first fire." Dr. Tolls did so, and, missing him, stood and received Brashear's ball through both thighs, and fell. There was no surgeon in town, and the wounds were bleeding profusely, when Brashear went to him, and proposed to dress the wounds. Tolls stuttered badly, and replied, "I-I-I'll d-d-die first." "I can do no more," said Brashear, and, bowing, left the ground.

This chivalry of character characterized him in everything. Fond of amus.e.m.e.nt, he indulged himself in hunting and innocent sports, when and where he was always the life of the party. Energetic and restless in his nature, he could not bear confinement, and, when a member of the Legislature, he was more frequently to be found walking rapidly to and fro in the lobby of the House than in his seat. To sit still and do nothing was impossible to him. A hundred anecdotes might be related of him, all ill.u.s.trative of his lofty courage, and daring, and his utter contempt of danger. A n.o.ble and generous spirit was ever manifested by him, in every relation of life. His frankness and liberal hospitality, his kindness to his slaves, and his generosity to the poor, endeared him to his neighbors, who live to feel that his void can never be filled.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

GRADUAL EXTINCTION OF THE RED MAN.

LINE CREEK FIFTY YEARS AGO--HOPOTHLAYOHOLA--McINTOSH--UNDYING HATRED-- A BIG POWWOW--Ma.s.sACRE 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.

I have been to-day, the 23d of August, over the same spot I wandered over this day fifty years ago. What changes have supervened it is difficult to realize. This was then a dense, unsettled wilderness. The wild deer was on every hill, in every valley. Limpid streams purled rippling and gladly along pebbly beds, and fell babbling over great rocks. These alone disturbed the profound silence, where solitude brooded, and quiet was at home. These wild forests extended west to Line Creek, then the dividing line between the Indian possessions and the newly acquired territory now const.i.tuting the State of Alabama.

Upon this territory of untamed wilderness there wandered then fifty thousand Indians, the remnant of the mighty nation of Muscogees, who one hundred and thirty years ago welcomed the white man at Yamactow, now Savannah, and tendered him a home in the New World. Fifty years ago he had progressed to the banks of the Ocmulgee, driving before him the aboriginal inhabitant, and appropriating his domains. Here for a time his march was stayed. But the Indian had gone forward to meet the white man coming from the Mississippi to surround him, the more surely to effect his ultimate destruction and give his home and acres to the enterprise and capacity of the white man.

Wandering through these wilds fifty years ago, I did not deem this end would be so soon accomplished. Here now is the city and the village, the farm-house and extended fields, the railroads and highways, and hundreds of thousands of busy men who had not then a being. The appurtenances of civilization everywhere greet you: many of these are worn and mossed over with the lapse of time and appear tired of the weight of wasting years. The red men, away in the West, have dwindled to a mere handful, still flying before the white man, and shrinking away from his hated civilization.

Is this cruel and sinful--or the silent, mysterious operation of the laws of nature? One people succeeds another, as day comes after day, and years follow years. Upon this continent the Indian found the evidences in abundance of a preceding people, the monuments of whose existence he disregards, but which, in the earth-mounds rising up over all the land, arrest the white man's attention and wonder. He inquires of the Indian inhabitant he is expelling from the country, Who was the architect of these, and what their signification? and is answered: We have no tradition which tells; our people found them when they came, as you find them to-day. These traditions give the history of the nations now here, and we find in every Southern tribe that they tell of an immigration from the southwest.

The Muscogee, Natchez, Choctaw, and Chickasaw, all have the history of their flying from beyond the Mississippi, and from the persecutions of superior and more warlike nations, and resting here for security, where they found none to molest them, and only these dumb evidences of another people, who once filled the land, but had pa.s.sed away.

When the white man came, he found but one race upon the two continents. Their type was the same and universal, and only these mounds to witness of a former race. Ethnology has discovered no other.

All the remains of man indicate the same type, and there remains not a fossil to record the existence of those who reared these earth-books, which speak so eloquently of a race pa.s.sed away.

How rapidly the work of demolition goes on! Will a century hence find one of the red race upon this continent? Certainly not, if it shall accomplish so much as the century past. There is not one for every ten, then; and the tenth remaining are now surrounded on all sides, and, being pushed to the centre, must perish.

They are by nature incapable of that civilization which would enable them to organize governments and teach the science of agriculture.

They were formed for the woods, and physically organized to live on flesh. The animals furnishing this were placed with them here, and the only vegetable found with them was the maize, or Indian corn. The white man was organized to feed on vegetables, and they were placed with him in his centre of creation, and he brought them here, and with himself acclimated them, as a necessity to his existence in America.

No effort can save the red man from extermination that humanity or Christianity may suggest. When deprived of his natural food furnished by the forest, he knows not nor can he be taught the means of supplying the want. The capacities of his brain will not admit of the cultivation necessary to that end. And as he has done in the presence of civilization, he will know none of its arts; and receiving or commanding none of its results, he will wilt and die.

Here, on the very spot where I am writing, is evidence in abundance of the facts here stated. Every effort to civilize and make the nomadic Indian a cultivator of the earth--here has been tried, and within my memory. Missionary establishments were here, schools, churches, fields, implements, example and its blessings, all without effect.

Nothing now remains to tell of these efforts but a few miserable ruins; nothing in any change of character or condition of the Indian.

And here, where fifty years ago, with me, he hunted the red deer and wild turkey for the meat of his family and the clothing of himself and offspring--to-day he would be a curiosity, and one never seen by half the population which appropriates and cultivates the soil over which he wandered in the chase. His beautiful woods are gone; the green corn grows where the green trees grew, and the bruised and torn face of his mother earth muddies to disgust, with her clay-freighted tears, the limpid streams by which he sat down to rest, and from which he drank to quench his thirst from weariness earned in his hunt for wild game, which grew with him, and grew for him, as nature's provision. The deer and the Indian are gone. The church-steeple points to heaven where the wigwam stood, and the mart of commerce covers over all the s.p.a.ce where the camp-fires burned. The quarrels of Hopothlayohola and McIntosh are history now, and the great tragedy of its conclusion in the death of McIntosh is now scarcely remembered.

True to his hatred of the Georgians, Hopothlayohola, in the recent war, away beyond the Mississippi, arrayed his warriors in hostility to the Confederacy, and, when numbering nearly one hundred winters, led them to battle in Arkansas, against the name of his hereditary foe, and hereditary hate--McIntosh; and by that officer, commanding the Confederate troops, was defeated, and his followers dispersed. Since that time, nothing has been known of the fate of the old warrior-chief.

It had been agreed between the United States and Georgia, and the famous Yazoo Company, in order to settle the difficulties between the two latter, that the United States should purchase, at a proper time, from the Indian proprietors, all the lands east of the Chattahoochee and a line running from the west bank of that stream, starting at a place known as West Point, and terminating at what is known as Nickey Jack, on the Tennessee River. The increase of population, and the constant difficulties growing out of the too close neighborhood of the Indians, induced the completion of this agreement. Commissioners on the part of the Government were appointed to meet commissioners or delegations from the Indians, to treat for the sale of their lands within the limits of the State of Georgia. McIntosh favored the sale, Hopothlayohola opposed it. As a chief, McIntosh was second to his great antagonist in authority, and, in truth, to several other chiefs.

But he was a bold man, with strong will, fearless and aggressive, and he a.s.sumed the power to sell. In the war of 1812-15, he had sided with the Americans, Hopothlayohola with the English; and leading at least half the tribe, McIntosh felt himself able to sustain his authority.

The commissioners met the Indian delegation at the Indian Springs, where negotiations were commenced by a proposition placed before the chiefs, and some days given for their consideration of it. Their talks or consultations among themselves were protracted and angry, and inconclusive. Every effort was made to induce Hopothlayohola to accede to the proposition of McIntosh. The whites united in their efforts to win his consent to sell: persuasions, threats, and finally large bribes were offered, but all availed nothing. Thus distracted and divided, they consumed the time for consultation, and met the white commissioners to renew the strife, in open council with these. Each chief was followed to this council by the members of his band, sub-chiefs, and warriors. McIntosh announced his readiness to sell, and sustained his position with reasons which demonstrated him a statesman, and wise beyond his people.

"Here in the neighborhood of the whites," he said, "we are subject to continual annoyance and wrong. These have continued long, and they have dwarfed our mighty nation to a tribe or two, and our home to one-tenth of its original dimensions. This must go on if we remain in this proximity, until we shall be lost, and there will be none to preserve our traditions. Let us sell our lands, and go to the proffered home beyond the Great River. Our young men have been there: they have seen it, and they say it is good. The game is abundant; the lands are broad, and there is no sickness there." Turning to Hopothlayohola, who stood, with dignified and proud defiance in his manner, listening, he proceeded: "Will you go and live with your people increasing and happy about you: or will you stay and die with them here, and leave no one to follow you, or come to your grave, and weep over their great chief? Beyond the Great River the sun is as bright, and the sky is as blue, and the waters are as clear and as sweet as they are here. Our people will go with us. We will be one, and where we are altogether, there is home. To love the ground is mean; to love our people is n.o.ble. We will cling to them--we will do for their good; and the ground where they are will be as dear to us as this, because they will be upon it, and with us.

"The white man is growing. He wants our lands. He will buy them now.

By and by he will take them, and the little band of our people left will wander without homes, poor and despised, and be beaten like dogs.

We must go to a new home, and learn like the white man to till the earth, grow cattle, and depend on these for food and life. Nohow else can many people live on the earth. This makes the white man like the leaves; the want of it makes the red men weak and few. Let us learn how to make books, how to make ploughs, and how to cultivate the ground, as the white man does, and we will grow again, and again become a great people. We will unite with the Cherokee, the Choctaw, and the Seminole, and be one people. The Great Spirit made us one people. Yes, we are all the children of one family: we are the red men of the Great Spirit, and should be one people for strength and protection. We shall have schools for our children. Each tribe shall have its council, and all shall unite in great council. They will be wise through learning as the white man is, and we shall become a great State, and send our chiefs to Congress as the white man does. We shall all read, and thus talk, as the white man does, with the mighty dead who live in books; and write and make books that our children's children shall read and talk with, and learn the counsels of their great fathers in the spirit-land. This it is which makes the white man increase and spread over the land. In our new home he promises to protect us--to send us schools and books, and teach our children to know them; and he will send us ploughs, and men to make them, and to teach our young men how to make them.

"The plough will make us corn for bread, for the strength of the body; the books will be food for the head, to make us wise and strong in council. Let us sell and go away, and if we suffer for a time, it will be better for our children. You see it so with the white man; shall we not learn from him, and be like him?"

When he had concluded his talk, it was greeted in their own peculiar manner by his followers as good. Hopothlayohola, the great red chief, turning from McIntosh as if disdaining him, addressed the commissioners of the Government: