The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the SouthwestSparks, W. H. (William Henry)
History
The Memories of Fifty Years: Containing Brief Biographical Notices of Distinguished Americans, and Anecdotes of Remarkable Men; Interspersed with Scenes and Incidents Occurring during a Long Life of Observation Chiefly Spent in the Southwest
Sparks, W. H. (William Henry)
Georgia -- History -- 1775-1865; Southwest, Old -- History; United States -- Biography
phase of the moon and the day General Washington captured Cornwallis;
as also the day on which Washington died. Her reverence for the memory
of my grandfather was idolatry. His cane hung with his hat just where
he had habitually placed them during his latter days. His saddle and
great sea-chest were preserved with equal care, and remained
undisturbed from 1798 to 1817, precisely as he left them. I ventured
to remove the cane upon one occasion; and, with a little negro or two,
was merrily riding it around in the great lumber-room of the house,
where scarcely any one ever went, when she came in and caught me. The
pear-tree sprouts were immediately put into requisition, and the whole
party most mercilessly thrashed. From that day forward the old
buckhorn-headed cane was an awful reminder of my sufferings. She was
careful not to injure the clothing of her victims, and made her
appeals to the unshielded cuticle, and with a heavy hand for a small
woman.
It was an ill-fashioned but powerfully-built house, and remains a
monument to this day of sound timber and faithful work, braving time
and the storm for eighty-two years. It was the first framed house
built in the county, and I am sure, upon the poorest spot of land
within fifty miles of where it stands. Here was born my uncle,
Robertus Love, who was the first white child born in the State west of
the Ogeechee River.
Colonel Love, my grandfather, was eccentric in many of his opinions,
and was a Puritan in religious faith. Oliver Cromwell was his model of
a statesman, and Praise-God Barebones his type of a Christian. While
he was a boy his father married a second time, and, as is very
frequently the case, there was no harmony between the step-mother and
step-son. Their jarrings soon ripened into open war. To avoid
expulsion from the paternal roof he "bundled and went." Nor did he
rest until, in the heart of the Cherokee nation of Indians, he found a
home with Dragon Canoe, then the principal warrior of the nation, who
resided in a valley amid the mountains, and which is now Habersham
County. With this chief, who at the time was young, he remained some
four years, pursuing the chase for pleasure and profit. Thus
accumulating a large quantity of peltries, he carried them on
pack-horses to Charleston, and thence went with them to Europe. After
disposing of his furs, which proved profitable, he wandered on foot
about Europe for some eighteen months, and then, returning to London,
he embarked for America.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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