Chapter V: Virginia and Its Economy—continued (1)

_Norfolk._—In order to be in time for the train of cars in which I was to leave Petersburg for Norfolk, I was called up at an unusual hour in the morning and provided with an apology for breakfast, on the ground that there had not been time to prepare anything better (though I was charged full time on the bill), advised by the landlord to hurry when I seated myself at the table, and two minutes afterwards informed that, if I remained longer, I should be too late.

Thanks to these kind precautions, I reached the station twenty minutes before the train left, and was afterwards carried, with about fifty other people, at the rate of ten miles an hour, to City-point, where all were discharged under a dirty shed, from which a wharf projected into James River.

The train was advertised to connect here with a steamboat for Norfolk. Finding no steamboat at the wharf, I feared, at first, that the delay in leaving Petersburg and the slow speed upon the road had detained us so long that the boat had departed without us. But observing no disappointment or concern expressed by the other passengers, I concluded the boat was to call for us, and had yet to arrive. An hour passed, during which I tried to keep warm by walking up and down the wharf; rain then commenced falling, and I returned to the crowded shed and asked a young man, who was engaged in cutting the letters G. W. B., with a dirk-knife, upon the head of a tobacco-cask, what was supposed to have detained the steamboat.

“Detained her? there aint no detention to her, as I know on; ’taint hardly time for her to be along yet.”

Another half-hour, in fact, passed, before the steamboat arrived, nor was any impatience manifested by the passengers. All seemed to take this hurrying and waiting process as the regular thing. The women sat sullenly upon trunks and packing-cases, and watched their baggage and restrained their children; the men chewed tobacco and read newspapers; lounged first on one side and then on the other; some smoked, some walked away to a distant tavern; some reclined on the heaps of freight and went to sleep, and a few conversed quietly and intermittently with one another.

The shores of the James River are low and level—the scenery uninteresting; but frequent planters’ mansions, often of considerable size and of some elegance, stand upon the bank, and sometimes these have very pretty and well-kept grounds about them, and the plantations surrounding them are cultivated with neatness and skill. Many men distinguished in law and politics here have their homes.

I was pleased to see the appearance of enthusiasm with which some passengers, who were landed from our boat at one of these places, were received by two or three well-dressed negro servants, who had come from the house to the wharf to meet them. Black and white met with kisses; and the effort of a long-haired sophomore to maintain his dignity, was quite ineffectual to kill the kindness of a fat mulatto woman, who joyfully and pathetically shouted, as she caught him off the gang-plank, “Oh Massa George, is you come back!” Field negroes, standing by, looked on with their usual besotted expression, and neither offered nor received greetings.

_Jan. 10th._—Norfolk is a dirty, low, ill-arranged town, nearly divided by a morass. It has a single creditable public building, a number of fine private residences, and the polite society is reputed to be agreeable, refined, and cultivated, receiving a character from the families of the resident naval officers. It has all the immoral and disagreeable characteristics of a large seaport, with very few of the advantages that we should expect to find as relief to them. No lyceum or public libraries, no public gardens, no galleries of art, and though there are two “Bethels,” no “home” for its seamen; no public resorts of healthful amusement; no place better than a filthy, tobacco-impregnated bar-room or a licentious dance-cellar, so far as I have been able to learn, for the stranger of high or low degree to pass the hours unoccupied by business.

Lieut. Maury has lately very well shown what advantages were originally possessed for profitable commerce at this point, in a report, the intention of which is to advocate the establishment of a line of steamers hence to Para, the port of the mouth of the Amazon. He says—

“Norfolk is in a position to have commanded the business of the
Atlantic sea-board: it is midway the coast. It has a back country
of great facility and resources; and, as to approaches to the
ocean, there is no harbour from the St. John’s to the Rio Grande
that has the same facilities of ingress and egress at all times
and in all weathers. * * * The back country of Norfolk is all that
which is drained by the Chesapeake Bay—embracing a line drawn
along the ridge between the Delaware and the Chesapeake, thence
northerly, including all of Pennsylvania that is in the valley of
the Susquehanna, all of Maryland this side of the mountains, the
valleys of the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James Rivers, with
the Valley of the Roanoke, and a great part of the State of North
Carolina, whose only outlet to the sea is by the way of Norfolk.”

In a letter to the _National Intelligencer_, Oct. 31, 1854, after describing similar advantages which the town possesses, to those enumerated above, Lieut. Maury, who is a Virginian, again says—

“Its climate is delightful. It is of exactly that happy
temperature where the frosts of the North bite not, and the
pestilence of the South walks not. Its harbour is commodious and
safe as safe can be. It is never blocked up by ice. It has the
double advantage of an inner and an outer harbour. The inner
harbour is as smooth as any mill-pond. In it vessels lie with
perfect security, where every imaginable facility is offered for
loading and unloading.” * * * “The back country, which without
portage is _naturally_ tributary to Norfolk, not only surpasses
that which is tributary to New York in mildness of climate, in
fertility of soil, and variety of production, but in geographical
extent by many square miles. The proportion being as _three
to one_ in favour of the Virginia port.” * * * “The _natural_
advantages, then, in relation to the sea or the back country, are
superior, _beyond comparison_, to those of New York.”

There is little, if any exaggeration in this estimate; yet, if a deadly, enervating pestilence had always raged here, this Norfolk could not be a more miserable, sorry little seaport town than it is. It was not possible to prevent the existence of some agency here for the transhipment of goods, and for supplying the needs of vessels, compelled by exterior circumstances to take refuge in the harbour. Beyond this bare supply of a necessitous demand, and what results from the adjoining naval rendezvous of the nation, there is nothing.

_Jan. 18th._—The “Great Dismal Swamp,” together with the smaller “Dismals” (for so the term is used here), of the same character, along the North Carolina coast, have hitherto been of considerable commercial importance as furnishing a large amount of lumber, and especially of shingles for our Northern use, as well as for exportation. The district from which this commerce proceeds is all a vast quagmire, the soil being entirely composed of decayed vegetable fibre, saturated and surcharged with water; yielding or _quaking_ on the surface to the tread of a man, and a large part of it, during most of the year, half inundated with standing pools. It is divided by creeks and water-veins, and in the centre is a pond six miles long and three broad, the shores of which, strange to, say, are at a higher elevation above the sea, than any other part of the swamp, and yet are of the same miry consistency. The Great Dismal is about thirty miles long and ten miles wide, on an average; its area about 200,000 acres. And the little Dismal, Aligator, Catfish, Green, and other smaller swamps, on the shores of Albemarle and Pamlico, contain over 2,000,000 acres.

The swamp belongs to a great many proprietors. Most of them own only a few acres, but some possess large tracts and use a heavy capital in the business. One, whose acquaintance I made, employed more than a hundred hands in getting out shingles alone. The value of the swamp land varies with the wood upon it, and the facility with which it can be got off, from 12½ cents to $10 an acre. It is made passable in any desired direction in which trees grow, by laying logs, cut in lengths of eight or ten feet, parallel and against each other on the surface of the soil, or “sponge,” as it is called. Mules and oxen are used to some extent upon these roads, but transportation is mainly by hand to the creeks, or to ditches communicating with them or the canal.

Except by those log-roads, the swamp is scarcely passable in many parts, owing not only to the softness of the sponge, but to the obstruction caused by innumerable shrubs, vines, creepers, and briars, which often take entire possession of the surface, forming a dense brake or jungle. This, however, is sometimes removed by fires, which of late years have been frequent and very destructive to the standing timber. The most common shrubs are various smooth-leafed evergreens, and their dense, bright, glossy foliage was exceedingly beautiful in the wintry season of my visit. There is a good deal of game in the swamp—bears and wild cats are sometimes shot, raccoons and opossums are plentiful, and deer are found in the drier parts and on the outskirts. The fishing, in the interior waters, is also said to be excellent.

Nearly all the valuable trees have now been cut off from the swamp. The whole ground has been frequently gone over, the best timber selected and removed at each time, leaving the remainder standing thinly, so that the wind has more effect upon it; and much of it, from the yielding of the soft soil, is uprooted or broken off. The fires have also greatly injured it. The principal stock, now worked into shingles, is obtained _from beneath the surface_—old trunks that have been preserved by the wetness of the soil, and that are found by “sounding” with poles, and raised with hooks or pikes by the negroes.

The quarry is giving out, however; and except that lumber, and especially shingles, have been in great demand at high prices of late, the business would be almost at an end. As it is, the principal men engaged in it are turning their attention to other and more distant supplies. A very large purchase had been made by one company in the Florida everglades, and a schooner, with a gang of hands trained in the “Dismals,” was about to sail from Deep Creek, for this new field of operations.

The labour in the swamp is almost entirely done by slaves; and the way in which they are managed is interesting and instructive. They are mostly hired by their employers at a rent, perhaps of one hundred dollars a year for each, paid to their owners. They spend one or two months of the winter—when it is too wet to work in the swamp—at the residence of their master. At this period little or no work is required of them; their time is their own, and if they can get any employment, they will generally keep for themselves what they are paid for it. When it is sufficiently dry—usually early in February—they go into the swamp in gangs, each gang under a white overseer. Before leaving, they are all examined and registered at the Court House; and “passes,” good for a year, are given them, in which their features and the marks upon their persons are minutely described. Each man is furnished with a quantity of provisions and clothing, of which, as well as of all that he afterwards draws from the stock in the hands of the overseer, an exact account is kept.

Arrived at their destination, a rude camp is made; huts of logs, poles, shingles, and boughs being built, usually, upon some places where shingles have been worked before, and in which the shavings have accumulated in small hillocks upon the soft surface of the ground.

The slave lumberman then lives measurably as a free man; hunts, fishes, eats, drinks, smokes and sleeps, plays and works, each when and as much as he pleases. It is only required of him that he shall have made, after half a year has passed, such a quantity of shingles as shall be worth to his master so much money as is paid to his owner for his services, and shall refund the value of the clothing and provisions he has required.

No “driving” at his work is attempted or needed. No force is used to overcome the indolence peculiar to the negro. The overseer merely takes a daily account of the number of shingles each man adds to the general stock, and employs another set of hands, with mules, to draw them to a point from which they can be shipped, and where they are, from time to time, called for by a schooner.

At the end of five months the gang returns to dry land, and a statement of account from the overseer’s book is drawn up, something like the following:—

_Sam Bo to John Doe, Dr._

Feb. 1. To clothing (outfit) $5 00
Mar. 10. To clothing, as per overseer’s account 2 25
Feb. 1. To bacon and meal (outfit) 19 00
July 1. To stores drawn in swamp, as per overseer’s
account 4 75
July 1. To half-yearly hire, paid his owner. 50 00
------
$81 00
_Per Contra, Cr._

July 1. By 10,000 shingles, as per overseer’s
account, 10c 100 00
Balance due Sambo ------ $19 00

which is immediately paid him, and of which, together with the proceeds of sale of peltry which he has got while in the swamp, he is always allowed to make use as his own. No liquor is sold or served to the negroes in the swamp, and, as their first want when they come out of it is an excitement, most of their money goes to the grog-shops.

After a short vacation, the whole gang is taken in the schooner to spend another five months in the swamp as before. If they are good hands and work steadily, they will commonly be hired again, and so continuing, will spend most of their lives at it. They almost invariably have excellent health, as have also the white men engaged in the business. They all consider the water of the “Dismals” to have a medicinal virtue, and quite probably it is a mild tonic. It is greenish in colour, and I thought I detected a slightly resinous taste upon first drinking it. Upon entering the swamp also, an agreeable resinous odour, resembling that of a hemlock forest, was perceptible.

The negroes working in the swamp were more sprightly and straightforward in their manner and conversation than any field-hand plantation negroes that I saw at the South; two or three of their employers with whom I conversed spoke well of them, as compared with other slaves, and made no complaints of “rascality” or laziness.

One of those gentlemen told me of a remarkable case of providence and good sense in a negro that he had employed in the swamp for many years. He was so trustworthy, that he had once let him go to New York as cook of a lumber schooner, when he could, if he had chosen to remain there, have easily escaped from slavery.

Knowing that he must have accumulated considerable money, his employer suggested to him that he might _buy_ his freedom, and he immediately determined to do so. But when, on applying to his owner, he was asked $500 for himself, a price which, considering he was an elderly man, he thought too much, he declined the bargain; shortly afterwards, however, he came to his employer again, and said that although he thought his owner was mean to set so high a price upon him, he had been thinking that if he was to be an old man he would rather be his own master, and if he did not live long, his money would not be of any use to him at any rate, and so he had concluded he would make the purchase.

He did so, and upon collecting the various sums that he had loaned to white people in the vicinity, he was found to have several hundred dollars more than was necessary. With the surplus, he paid for his passage to Liberia, and bought a handsome outfit. When he was about to leave, my informant had made him a present, and, in thanking him for it, the free man had said that the first thing he should do, on reaching Liberia, would be to learn to write, and, as soon as he could, he would write to him how he liked the country: he had been gone yet scarce a year, and had not been heard from.

* * * * *

_Deep River, Jan. 18th._—The shad and herring fisheries upon the sounds and inlets of the North Carolina coast are an important branch of industry, and a source of considerable wealth. The men employed in them are mainly negroes, slave and free; and the manner in which they are conducted is interesting, and in some respects novel.

The largest sweep seines in the world are used. The gentleman to whom I am indebted for the most of my information, was the proprietor of a seine over two miles in length. It was manned by a force of forty negroes, most of whom were hired at a dollar a day, for the fishing season, which usually commences between the tenth and fifteenth of March, and lasts fifty days. In favourable years the profits are very great. In extremely unfavourable years many of the proprietors are made bankrupt.

Cleaning, curing, and packing houses are erected on the shore, as near as they conveniently may be to a point on the beach, suitable for drawing the seine. Six or eight windlasses, worked by horses, are fixed along the shore, on each side of this point. There are two large seine-boats, in each of which there is one captain, two seine-tenders, and eight or ten oarsmen. In making a cast of the net, one-half of it is arranged on the stern of each of the boats, which, having previously been placed in a suitable position—perhaps a mile off shore, in front of the buildings—are rowed from each other, the captains steering, and the seine-tenders throwing off, until the seine is all cast between them. This is usually done in such a way that it describes the arc of a circle, the chord of which is diagonal with the shore. The hawsers attached to the ends of the seine are brought first to the outer windlasses, and are wound in by the horses. As the operation of gathering in the seine occupies several hours, the boat hands, as soon as they have brought the hawsers to the shore, draw their boats up, and go to sleep.

As the wings approach the shore, the hawsers are from time to time carried to the other windlasses, to contract the sweep of the seine. After the gaff of the net reaches the shore, lines attached toward the bunt are carried to the windlasses, and the boats’ crews are awakened, and arrange the wing of the seine, as fast as it comes in, upon the boat again. Of course, as the cast was made diagonally with the shore, one wing is beached before the other. By the time the fish in the bunt have been secured, both boats are ready for another cast, and the boatmen proceed to make it, while the shore gang is engaged in sorting and gutting the “take.”

My informant, who had $50,000 invested in his fishing establishment, among other items of expenditure, mentioned that he had used seventy kegs of gunpowder the previous year, and amused himself for a few moments with letting me try to conjecture in what way villanous saltpetre could be put to use in taking fish.

There is evidence of a subsidence of this coast, in many places, at a comparatively recent period; many stumps of trees, evidently standing where they grew, being found some way below the present surface, in the swamps and salt marshes. Where the formation of the shore and the surface, or the strength of the currents of water, which have flowed over the sunken land, has been such as to prevent a later deposit, the stumps of great cypress trees, not in the least decayed, protrude from the bottom of the sounds. These would obstruct the passage of a net, and must be removed from a fishing-ground.

The operation of removing them is carried on during the summer, after the close of the fishing season. The position of a stump having been ascertained by divers, two large seine-boats are moored over it, alongside each other, and a log is laid across them, to which is attached perpendicularly, between the boats, a spar, fifteen feet long. The end of a chain is hooked to the log, between the boats, the other end of which is fastened by divers to the stump which it is wished to raise. A double-purchase tackle leads from the end of the spar to a ring-bolt in the bows of one of the boats, with the fall leading aft, to be bowsed upon by the crews. The mechanical advantages of the windlass, the lever, and the pulley being thus combined, the chain is wound on to the log, until either the stump yields, and is brought to the surface, or the boats’ gunwales are brought to the water’s edge.

When the latter is the case, and the stump still remains firm, a new power must be applied. A spile, pointed with iron, six inches in diameter, and twenty feet long, is set upon the stump by a diver, who goes down with it, and gives it that direction which, in his judgment, is best, and driven into it by mauls and sledges, a scaffold being erected between the boats for men to stand on while driving it. In very large stumps, the spile is often driven till its top reaches the water; so that when it is drawn out, a cavity is left in the stump, ten feet in depth. A tube is now used, which is made by welding together three musket-barrels, with a breech at one end, in which is the tube of a percussion breech, with the ordinary position of the nipple reversed, so that when it is screwed on with a detonating cap, the latter will protrude within the barrel. This breech is then inserted within a cylindrical tin box, six inches in diameter, and varying in length, according to the supposed strength of the stump; and soap or tallow is smeared about the place of insertion to make it water tight. The box contains several pounds of gunpowder.

The long iron tube is elevated, and the diver goes down again, and guides it into the hole in the stump, with the canister in his arms. It has reached the bottom—the diver has come up, and is drawn into one of the boats—an iron rod is inserted in the mouth of the tube—all hands crouch low and hold hard—the rod is let go—crack!—whoo—oosch! The sea swells, boils, and breaks upward. If the boats do not rise with it, they must sink; if they rise, and the chain does not break, the stump must rise with them. At the same moment the heart of cypress is riven; its furthest rootlets quiver; the very earth trembles, and loses courage to hold it; “up comes the stump, or down go the niggers!”

The success of the operation evidently depends mainly on the discretion and skill of the diver. My informant, who thought that he removed last summer over a thousand stumps, using for the purpose seventy kegs of gunpowder, employed several divers, all of them negroes. Some of them could remain under water, and work there to better advantage than others; but all were admirably skilful, and this, much in proportion to the practice and experience they had had. They wear, when diving, three or four pairs of flannel drawers and shirts. Nothing is required of them when they are not wanted to go to the bottom, and, while the other hands are at work, they may lounge, or go to sleep in the boat, which they do, in their wet garments. Whenever a diver displays unusual hardihood, skill, or perseverance, he is rewarded with whisky; or, as they are commonly allowed, while diving, as much whisky as they want, with money. Each of them would generally get every day from a quarter to half a dollar in this way, above the wages paid for them, according to the skill and industry with which they had worked. On this account, said my informant, “the harder the work you give them to do, the better they like it.” His divers very frequently had intermittent fevers, but would very rarely let this keep them out of their boats. Even in the midst of a severe “shake,” they would generally insist that they were “well enough to dive.”

What! slaves eager to work, and working cheerfully, earnestly, and skilfully? Even so. Being for the time managed as freemen, their ambition stimulated by wages, suddenly they, too, reveal sterling manhood, and honour their Creator.

* * * * *

_Norfolk, Jan. 19th._—The market gardens at Norfolk—which have been profitably supplying New York markets with poor early vegetables, and half-hardy luxuries for several years past—do not differ at all from market gardens elsewhere. They are situated in every direction for many miles from the city, offering a striking contrast, in all respects, to the large, old-fashioned Virginian farms, among which they are scattered.

On one of the latter, of over a thousand acres, a friend told me he had seen the negroes moving long, strawy manure with shovels, and upon inquiry found there was not a dung-fork on the place.

The soil is a poor sandy loam, and manure is brought by shipping from Baltimore, as well as from the nearer towns, to enrich it. The proprietors of the market gardens are nearly all from New Jersey, and brought many of their old white labourers with them. Except at picking-time, when everything possessing fingers is in demand, they do not often employ slaves.

The _Norfolk Argus_ says that, from about the 20th June to the 20th July, from 2,000 to 2,500 barrels of potatoes will be shipped daily from that city to Philadelphia and New York, together with 300 to 500 barrels of cucumbers, musk-melons, etc.

* * * * *

_Norfolk, Jan. 20th._—While driving a chaise from Portsmouth to Deep River, I picked up on the road a jaded-looking negro, who proved to be a very intelligent and good-natured fellow. His account of the lumber business, and of the life of the lumbermen in the swamps, in answer to my questions, was clear and precise, and was afterwards verified by information obtained from his master.

He told me that his name was Joseph, that he belonged (as property) to a church in one of the inland counties, and that he was hired from the trustees of the church by his present master. He expressed contentment with his lot, but great unwillingness to be sold to go on to a plantation. He liked to “mind himself,” as he did in the swamps. Whether he would still more prefer to be entirely his own master, I did not ask.

The Dismal Swamps are noted places of refuge for runaway negroes. They were formerly peopled in this way much more than at present; a systematic hunting of them with dogs and guns having been made by individuals who took it up as a business about ten years ago. Children were born, bred, lived, and died here. Joseph Church told me he had seen skeletons, and had helped to bury bodies recently dead. There were people in the swamps still, he thought, that were the children of runaways, and who had been runaways themselves “all their lives.” What a life it must be! born outlaws; educated self-stealers; trained from infancy to be constantly in dread of the approach of a white man as a thing more fearful than wild cats or serpents, or even starvation.

There can be but few, however, if any, of these “natives” left. They cannot obtain the means of supporting life without coming often either to the outskirts to steal from the plantations, or to the neighbourhood of the camps of the lumbermen. They depend much upon the charity or the wages given them by the latter. The poorer white men, owning small tracts of the swamps, will sometimes employ them, and the negroes frequently. In the hands of either they are liable to be betrayed to the negro-hunters. Joseph said that they had huts in “back places,” hidden by bushes, and difficult of access; he had, apparently, been himself quite intimate with them. When the shingle negroes employed them, he told me, they made them get up logs for them, and would give them enough to eat, and some clothes, and perhaps two dollars a month in money. But some, when they owed them money, would betray them, instead of paying them.

I asked if they were ever shot. “Oh, yes,” he said; “when the hunters saw a runaway, if he tried to get from them, they would call out to him, that if he did not stop they would shoot, and if he did not, they would shoot, and sometimes kill him.

“_But some on ’em would rather be shot than be took, sir_,” he added, simply.

A farmer living near the swamp confirmed this account, and said he knew of three or four being shot in one day.

No particular breed of dogs is needed for hunting negroes: blood-hounds, fox-hounds, bull-dogs, and curs were used,[24] and one white man told me how they were trained for it, as if it were a common or notorious practice. They are shut up when puppies, and never allowed to see a negro except while training to catch him. A negro is made to run from them, and they are encouraged to follow him until he gets into a tree, when meat is given them. Afterwards they learn to follow any particular negro by scent, and then a shoe or a piece of clothing is taken off a negro, and they learn to find by scent who it belongs to, and to tree him, etc. All this the farmer told me. I don’t think dogs are employed in the ordinary “driving” in the swamp, but only to overtake some particular slave, as soon as possible, after it is discovered that he has fled from a plantation. Joseph said that it was easy for the drivers to tell a fugitive from a regularly employed slave in the swamps.

“How do they know them?”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, dey looks _strange_.”

“_Skeared_ like, you know, sir, and kind o’ strange, cause dey hasn’t much to eat, and ain’t decent [not decently clothed], like we is.”

When the hunters take a negro who has not a pass, or “free papers,” and they don’t know whose slave he is, they confine him in jail, and advertise him. If no one claims him within a year he is sold to the highest bidder, at a public sale, and this sale gives title in law against any subsequent claimant.

The form of the advertisements used in such cases is shown by the following, which are cut from North Carolina newspapers, published in counties adjoining the Dismals. Such advertisements are quite as common in the papers of many parts of the Slave States as those of horses or cattle “Taken up” in those of the North:—

WAS TAKEN UP and committed to the Jail of Halifax County, on
the 26th day of May, a dark coloured boy, who says his name is
JORDAN ARTIS. Said boy says he was born free, and was bound out to
William Beale, near Murfreesboro, Hertford County, N.C., and is
now 21 years of age. The owner is requested to come forward, prove
property, pay charges, and take the said boy away, within the time
prescribed by law; otherwise he will be dealt with as the law
directs.

O. P. SHELL, Jailer.

Halifax County, N.C., June 8,1855.

* * * * *

TAKEN UP,

AND COMMITTED to the Jail of New Hanover County, on the 5th of
March, 1855, a Negro Man, who says his name is EDWARD LLOYD. Said
negro is about 35 or 40 years old, light complected, 5 feet 9½
inches high, slim built, upper fore teeth out; says he is a Mason
by trade, that he is free, and belongs in Alexandria, Va., that
he served his time at the Mason business under Mr. Wm. Stuart, of
Alexandria. He was taken up and committed as a runaway. His owner
is notified to come forward, prove property, pay charges, and take
him away, or he will be dealt with as the law directs.

E. D. HALL, Sheriff.

In the same paper with the last are four advertisements of Runaways: two of them, as specimens, I transcribe.

$200 REWARD.

RAN AWAY from the employ of Messrs. Holmes & Brown, on Sunday
night, 20th inst., a negro man named YATNEY or MEDICINE, belonging
to the undersigned. Said boy is stout built, about 5 feet 4 inches
high, 22 years old, and dark complected, and has the appearance,
when walking slow, of one leg being a little shorter than the
other. He was brought from Chapel Hill, and is probably lurking
either in the neighbourhood of that place, or Beatty’s Bridge, in
Bladen County.

The above reward will be paid for evidence sufficient to convict
any white person of harbouring him, or a reward of $25 for his
apprehension and confinement in any Jail in the State, so that I
can get him, or for his delivery to me in Wilmington.

J. T. SCHONWALD.

RUNAWAY

FROM THE SUBSCRIBER, on the 27th of May, his negro boy ISOME. Said
boy is about 21 years of age; rather light complexion; very coarse
hair; weight about 150 lbs.; height about 5 feet 6 or 7 inches;
rather pleasing countenance; quick and easy spoken; rather a
downcast look. It is thought that he is trying to make his way to
Franklin county, N.C., where he was hired in Jan. last, of Thomas
J. Blackwell. A liberal Reward will be given for his confinement
in any Jail in North or South Carolina, or to any one who will
give information where he can be found.

W. H. PRIVETT,

Canwayboro’, S.C.

Handbills, written or printed, offering rewards for the return of runaway slaves, are to be constantly seen at nearly every court-house, tavern, and post-office. The frequency with which these losses must occur, however, on large plantations, is most strongly evidenced by the following paragraph from the domestic-news columns of the _Fayetteville Observer_. A man who would pay these prices must anticipate frequent occasion to use his purchase.

“Mr. J. L. Bryan, of Moore county, sold at public auction, on the
20th instant, a pack of ten hounds, trained for hunting runaways,
for the sum of $1,540. The highest price paid for any one dog was
$301; lowest price, $75; average for the ten, $154. The terms of
sale were six months’ credit, with approved security, and interest
from date.”

The newspapers of the South-western States frequently contain advertisements similar to the following, which is taken from the _West Tennessee Democrat_:—

BLOOD-HOUNDS.—I have TWO of the FINEST DOGS for CATCHING NEGROES
in the Southwest. They can take the trail TWELVE HOURS after
the NEGRO HAS PASSED, and catch him with ease. I live just four
miles southwest of Boliver, on the road leading from Boliver
to Whitesville. I am ready at all times to catch runaway
negroes.—March 2, 1853.

DAVID TURNER.

The largest and best “hotel” in Norfolk had been closed, shortly before I was there, from want of sufficient patronage to sustain it, and I was obliged to go to another house, which, though quite pretending, was shamefully kept. The landlord paid scarcely the smallest attention to the wants of his guests, turned his back when inquiries were made of him, and replied insolently to complaints and requests. His slaves were far his superiors in manners and morals; but, not being one quarter in number what were needed, and consequently not being able to obey one quarter of the orders that were given them, their only study was to disregard, as far as they would be allowed to, all requisitions upon their time and labour. The smallest service could only be obtained by bullying or bribing. Every clean towel that I got during my stay was a matter of special negotiation.

I was first put in a very small room, in a corner of the house, next under the roof. The weather being stormy, and the roof leaky, water was frequently dripping from the ceiling upon the bed and driving in at the window, so as to stand in pools upon the floor. There was no fire-place in the room; the ladies’ parlour was usually crowded by ladies and then friends, among whom I had no acquaintance, and, as it was freezing cold, I was obliged to spend most of my time in the stinking bar-room, where the landlord, all the time, sat with his boon companions, smoking and chewing and talking obscenely.

This crew of old reprobates frequently exercised their indignation upon Mrs. Stowe, and other “Infidel abolitionists;” and, on Sunday, having all attended church, afterwards mingled with their ordinary ribaldry laudations of the “evangelical” character of the sermons they had heard.

On the night I arrived, I was told that I would be provided, the next morning, with a room in which I could have a fire, and a similar promise was given me every twelve hours, for five days, before I obtained it; then, at last, I had to share it with two strangers.

When I left, the same petty sponging operation was practised upon me as at Petersburg. The breakfast, for which half a dollar had been paid, was not ready until an hour after I had been called; and, when ready, consisted of cold salt fish; dried slices of bread and tainted butter; coffee, evidently made the day before and half re-warmed; no milk, the milkman not arriving so early in the morning, the servant said; and no sooner was I seated than the choice was presented to me, by the agitated book-keeper, of going without such as this, or of losing the train, and so being obliged to stay in the house twenty-four hours longer.

Of course I dispensed with the breakfast, and hurried off with the porter, who was to take my baggage on a wheelbarrow to the station. The station was across the harbour, in Portsmouth. Notwithstanding all the haste I could communicate to him, we reached the ferry-landing just as the boat left, too late by three seconds. I looked at my watch; it lacked but twenty minutes of the time at which the landlord and the book-keeper and the breakfast-table waiter and the railroad company’s advertisements had informed me that the train left. “Nebber mine, massa,” said the porter, “dey won’t go widout ’ou—Baltimore boat haant ariv yet; dey doan go till dat come in, sueh.”

Somewhat relieved by this assurance, and by the arrival of others at the landing, who evidently expected to reach the train, I went into the market and got a breakfast from the cake and fruit stalls of the negro-women.

In twenty minutes the ferry-boat returned, and after waiting some time at the landing, put out again; but when midway across the harbour, the wheels ceased to revolve, and for fifteen minutes we drifted with the tide. The fireman had been asleep, the fires had got low, and the steam given out. I observed that the crew, including the master or pilot, and the engineer, were all negroes.

We reached the railroad station about half an hour after the time at which the train should have left. There were several persons, prepared for travelling, waiting about it, but there was no sign of a departing train, and the ticket-office was not open. I paid the porter, sent him back, and was added to the number of the waiters.

The delay was for the Baltimore boat, which arrived in an hour after the time the train was advertised, unconditionally, to start, and the first forward movement was more than an hour and a half behind time. A brakeman told me this delay was not very unusual, and that an hour’s waiting might be commonly calculated upon with safety.

The distance from Portsmouth to Welden, N.C., eighty miles, was run in three hours and twenty minutes—twenty-five miles an hour. The road, which was formerly a very poor and unprofitable one, was bought up a few years ago, mainly, I believe, by Boston capital, and reconstructed in a substantial manner. The grades are light, and there are few curves. Fare, 2¾ cents a mile.

At a way-station a trader had ready a company of negroes, intended to be shipped South; but the “servants’ car” being quite full already, they were obliged to be left for another train. As we departed from the station, I stood upon the platform of the rear car with two other men. One said to the other:—

“That’s a good lot of niggers.”

“Damn’d good; I only wish they belonged to me.”

I entered the car, and took a seat, and presently they followed, and sat near me. Continuing their conversation thus commenced, they spoke of their bad luck in life. One appeared to have been a bar-keeper; the other an overseer. One said the highest wages he had ever been paid were two hundred dollars a year, and that year he hadn’t laid up a cent. Soon after, the other, speaking with much energy and bitterness, said:—

“I wish to God, old Virginny was free of all the niggers.”

“It would be a good thing if she was.”

“Yes, sir; and, I tell you, it would be a damn’d good thing for us poor fellows.”

“I reckon it would, myself.”

* * * * *

When we stopped at Weldon, a man was shouting from a stage-coach, “Passengers for Gaston! Hurry up! Stage is waiting!” As he repeated this the third time, I threw up to him my two valises, and proceeded to climb to the box, to take my seat.

“You are in a mighty hurry, aint ye?”

“Didn’t you say the stage was waiting?”

“If ye’r goin’ ter get any dinner to-day, better get it here; won’t have much other chance. Be right smart about it, too.”

“Then you are not going yet?”

“You can get yer dinner, if ye want to.”

“You’ll call me, will you, when you are ready to go?”

“I shan’t go without ye, ye needn’t be afeard—go ’long in, and get yer dinner; this is the place, if anywar;—don’t want to go without yer dinner, do ye?”

Before arriving at Weldon, a handbill, distributed by the proprietors of this inn, had been placed in my hands, from which I make the following extracts:—

“We pledge our word of honour, as gentlemen, that if the fare at
our table be inferior to that on the table of our enterprising
competitor, we will not receive a cent from the traveller, but
relinquish our claims to pay, as a merited forfeit, for what we
would regard as a wanton imposition upon the rights and claims of
the unsuspecting traveller.

“We have too much respect for the Ladies of our House, to make
even a remote allusion to their domestic duties in a public
circular. It will not however, be regarded indelicate in us
to say, that the duties performed by them have been, and are
satisfactory to us, and, as far as we know, to the public. And we
will only add, in this connection, that we take much pleasure in
superintending both our “Cook-House” and Table in person, and in
administering in person to the wants of our guests.

“We have made considerable improvements in our House of late, and
those who wish to remain over at Weldon, will find, with us, airy
rooms clean beds, brisk fires, and attentive and orderly servants,
with abundance of FRESH OYSTERS during the season, and every
necessary and luxury that money can procure.

“It is not our wish to deceive strangers nor others; and if, on
visiting our House, they do not find things as here represented,
they can publish us to the world as impostors, and the ignominy
will be ours.”

Going into the house, I found most of the passengers by the train at dinner, and the few negro boys and girls in too much of a hurry to pay attention to any one in particular. The only palatable viand within my reach was some cold sweet potatoes; of these I made a slight repast, paid the landlord, who stood like a sentry in the doorway, half a dollar, and in fifteen minutes, by my watch, from the time I had entered, went out, anxious to make sure of my seat on the box, for the coach was so small that but one passenger could be conveniently carried outside. The coach was gone.

“O, yes, sir,” said the landlord, hardly disguising his satisfaction; “gone—yes, sir, some time ago; you was in to dinner, was you, sir—pity! you’ll have to stay over till to-morrow now, won’t you?”

“I suppose so,” said I, hardly willing to give up my intention to sleep in Raleigh that night, even to secure a clean bed and fresh oysters. “Which road does the stage go upon?”

“Along the county road.”

“Which is that—this way through the woods?”

“Yes, sir.—Carried off your baggage did he?—Pity! Suppose he forgot you. Pity!”

“Thank you—yes, I suppose he did. Is it a pretty good road?”

“No, sir, ’taint first-rate—good many pretty bad slews. You might go round by the Petersburg Railroad, to-morrow. You’d overtake your baggage at Gaston.”

“Thank you. It was not a very fast team, I know. I’m going to take a little run; and, if I shouldn’t come back before night, you needn’t keep a bed for me. Good day, sir.”

In about half an hour I overhauled the coach: as I came up, the driver hailed me—

“Hallo! that you?”

“Why did not you wait for me, or call me when you wanted to go, as you promised?”

“Reckoned yer was inside—didn’t look in, coz I asked if ’twas all right, and somebody, this ’ere gentleman here”—[who had got my seat]—“‘Yes,’ says he, ‘all right;’ so I reckoned ’twas, and driv along. Mustn’t blame me. Ortn’t to be so long swallerin’ yer dinner—mind, next time!”

The road was as bad as anything under the name of a road can be conceived to be. Wherever the adjoining swamps, fallen trees, stumps, and plantation fences would admit of it, the coach was driven, with a great deal of dexterity, out of the road. When the wheels sunk in the mud, below the hubs, we were sometimes requested to get out and walk. An upset seemed every moment inevitable. At length, it came; and the driver, climbing on to the upper side, opened the door, and asked—

“Got mixed up some in here then, didn’t ye? Ladies, hurt any? Well, come, get out here; don’t want to stay here all night I reckon, do ye?—Aint nothing broke, as I see. We’ll right her right up. Nary durn’d rail within a thousan’ mile, I don’t s’pose; better be lookin’ roun’; got to get somethin’ for a pry.”

In four hours after I left the hotel at Weldon, the coach reached the bank of the Roanoke, a distance of fourteen miles, and stopped. “Here we are,” said the driver, opening the door.

“Where are we—not in Gaston?”

“Durned nigh it. That ere’s Gaston, over thar; and you jast holler, and they’ll come over arter you in the boat.”

Gaston was a mile above us, and on the other side of the river. Nearly opposite was a house, and a scow drawn up on the beach; the distance across the river was, perhaps, a quarter of a mile. When the driver had got the luggage off, he gathered his reins, and said—

“Seems to me them ther gol-durned lazy niggers aint a goin’ to come over arter you now; if they won’t you’d better go up to the railroad bridge, some of ye, and get a boat, or else go down here to Free Town; some of them cussed free niggers ’ll be glad of the job, I no doubt.”

“But, confound it, driver! you are not going to leave us here, are you? we paid to be carried to Gaston.”

“Can’t help it; you are clus to Gaston, any how, and if any man thinks he’s goin’ to hev me drive him up to the bridge to-night, he’s damnably mistaken, he is, and I aint a goin’ to do it not for no man, I ain’t.”

And away he drove, leaving us, all strangers, in a strange country, just at the edge of night, far from any house, to “holler.”

The only way to stop him was to shoot him; and, as we were all good citizens, and travelled with faith in the protection of the law, and not like knights-errant, armed for adventure, we could not do that.

Good citizens? No, we were not; for we have all, to this day, neglected to prosecute the fellow, or his employers. It would, to be sure, have cost us ten times any damages we should have been awarded; but, if we had been really good citizens, we should have been as willing to sacrifice the necessary loss, as knights-errant of old were to risk life to fight bloody giants. And, until many of us can have the nobleness to give ourselves the trouble and expense of killing off these impudent highwaymen of our time, at law, we have all got to suffer in their traps and stratagems.

We soon saw the “gol-durned lazy niggers” come to their scow, and after a scrutiny of our numbers, and a consultation among themselves, which evidently resulted in the conclusion that the job wouldn’t pay, go back.

When it began to grow dark, leaving me as a baggage-guard, the rest of the coach’s company walked up the bank of the river, and crossed by a railroad bridge to Gaston. One of them afterwards returned with a gang of negroes, whom he had hired, and a large freight-boat, into which, across the snags which lined the shore, we passed all the baggage. Among the rest, there were some very large and heavy chests, belonging to two pretty women, who were moving, with their effects; and, although they remained in our company all the next day, they not only neglected to pay their share of the boat and negro-hire, but forgot to thank us, or even gratefully to smile upon us, for our long toil in the darkness for them.

Working up the swollen stream of the Roanoke, with setting-poles and oars, we at length reached Gaston. When I bought my tickets at the station in Portsmouth, I said, “I will take tickets to any place this side of Raleigh at which I can arrive before night. I wish to avoid travelling after dark.” “You can go straight through to Raleigh, before dark,” said the clerk. “You are sure of that?” “Yes, sir.” On reaching Gaston, I inquired at what time the train for Raleigh had passed: “At three o’clock.”

According to the advertisement, it should have passed at two o’clock; and, under the most favourable circumstances, it could not have been possible for us, leaving Portsmouth at the time we did, to reach Gaston before four o’clock, or Raleigh in less than twenty-eight hours after the time promised. The next day, I asked one of the railroad men how often the connection occurred, which is advertised in the Northern papers, as if it were a certain thing to take place at Gaston. “Not very often, sir; it hain’t been once, in the last two weeks.” Whenever the connection is not made, all passengers whom these railroad freebooters have drawn into their ambush, are obliged to remain over a day, at Gaston; for, as is to be supposed, with such management, the business of the road will support but one train a day.