Upon the Pamunkey, a few miles below Hanover Court House, is New Castle, once a flourishing village, but now a desolation, only one house remaining upon its site.
That is the place where Patrick Henry assembled the volunteers and marched to Williamsburg, for the purpose of demanding a restoration of the powder which Lord Dunmore had removed from the public magazine, or its equivalent in money. Of this I shall hereafter write.
I lodged at Hanover, and, after an early breakfast, departed for Richmond, the rain yet falling. Between three and four miles from Hanover Court House,
I passed the birth-place of Henry Clay. It stands upon the right of the turnpike to Richmond, in the midst of the flat piny region called the slashes of Hanover. * It is a frame building, one story high, with dormer windows, and two large chimneys on the outside of each gable. Here the great statesman was born in 1777. The roads through this desolate region are wretched, abounding in those causeways of logs known as corduroy roads. Within ten miles of Richmond the scenery becomes diversified, and the vicinage of a large town is denoted by the numerous vehicles upon the broad road, consisting chiefly of uncouth market-wagons, drawn by mules, frequently six or eight in a team, as pictured in the sketch below. The negro driver is usually seated upon one of the wheel mules, and without guiding lines, conducts them by the vocal direction of haw and gee. To the eyes of a Northern man looking upon these caravans for the first time, they appear quite picturesque.
I reached Richmond at meridian, (a) where I tarried with esteemed friends for a Dec. 14, 1848. several days.
