I will now mention Mount Pleasant, the home of the Meades, of Virginia. This was at one time a very beautiful estate, on the west bank of what is now known as Smith's Creek, and is the southern branch of the Nansemond river. Long before the revolution this place was settled, and at the time very large vessels could navigate the creek as far as Mount Pleasant, it then being a wide and deep river, and I have been told that a direct foreign trade was carried on with that place. A grave yard can be seen at Mount Pleasant which is very singular, and has some curiously inscribed tomb stones in it of persons who died there many years ago. By the ruthless hand of time many of the tombs were mutilated, and it may be that little is left of them. I had the inscriptions of some of them, but gave them to a gentleman from Westmoreland county, Virginia. He wanted them on account of their singularity, and he being an antiquarian he said they would be quite an acquisition to his cabinet of curiosities. It is highly probable that Mount Pleasant was settled long before the Dismal Swamp was known or heard of, and I doubt if any one thought that there could be found such a place as really was existing, and having hid in its dark foliage such a beautiful place as Lake Drummond. The first great enterprise that was commenced in Suffolk after the surrender, was the building of the railroad of the Suffolk Lumber Company, which runs from Suffolk to Asher, in Gates county, North Carolina, where is the home of the Hon. C. A. Whaley. As soon as the road was completed as far as Whaleyville, in Nansemond county, Va., a town soon sprung up, and a mercantile business was commenced, which for time paralyzed business in Suffolk. It stopped the channel through which flowed the life-blood of the town from where it started. This road is owned by Governor Eliew Jackson, Co. & Brothers, of Maryland, and has from its commencement done a heavy business. It has been ably managed by W. M. Whaley, Esq., and Mr. D. B. Cannon. Whether it has been of any great good to Suffolk is a question that we are not prepared to answer, though the land holders through which it has passed have been benefitted. It brought their pine timber into market, which otherwise would have remained a primeval forest and a dead expense to its owners. The sale of it to Jackson & Co. has cleared many of debt, and to that extent the road has been a benefit. The company has bought large landed possessions in Alabama and Georgia, and will soon move their field of operations to those points. The quantity of wood and timber that has been transported over the road is incredible. To say the least of Jackson & Brothers they started a spirit of enterprise, which, to some extent, has been a benefit. New ideas have been infused into the minds of our people, and instead of keeping their capital locked up they have invested it in various directions for the improvement and benefit of trade, thereby causing