The South-West, by a Yankee. In Two Volumes. Volume 2

by J. H. Ingraham

Grand Gulf, about forty-five miles above Natchez, on the Mississippi, situated on a natural terrace, receding to a wooded crescent of hills on the north and east, and just above a dangerous eddy which gives the name to the town, is the third town of commercial importance in the state. It was settled five years ago, and the present year about forty-five thousand bales of cotton were shipped from this port. It contains about nine hundred inhabitants. A rail-road is projected to Port Gibson eight miles back from the river, and to the interior, which will benefit both places. Within sight of the village, and a short distance above it, is the only cliff of rocks in this region. Mississippians and Louisianians should do pilgrimage there. In the vicinity of this town Aaron Burr surrendered to General Mead, and the detachment ordered out to arrest him.

Rodney is a pleasant town twenty miles above Natchez, on the river. It is a place of commercial importance, and ships annually many thousand bales of cotton. Its inhabitants are enterprising and intelligent.

Warrenton, nine miles below Vicksburg, is the only other village between Natchez and the latter place.

The most important settlement south of Natchez is Woodville, a beautiful village, built around a square, in the centre of which is a handsome court-house. Various streets diverge from this public square, and are soon lost in the forests, which enclose the village. There are some eminent lawyers who reside here, and the neighbourhood is one of the wealthiest and most polished in the state. Governor Poindexter resided till recently at a neat country seat a short ride from Woodville, striking only for its quiet cottage-like beauty. Dr. Carmichael, president of the board of medical censors of this state, and formerly a surgeon in the revolutionary army, and the late Governor Brandon, reside also in the neighbourhood, but still more distant in the country. One of the most eminent lawyers of this place is a native of Portland, who has also distinguished himself as an occasional contributor to the annuals. One of the first lawyers in Vicksburg, if not in the state, is a native of Maine, and a graduate of Bowdoin. He is this year a candidate for congress; though with that juvenility, which characterises southern athlete in every intellectual arena, he scarcely yet numbers thirty summers.

There are three churches in Woodville; a Methodist, Episcopalian, and Baptist. A weekly paper is published here, conducted with talent and editorial skill. The court-house, which is a substantial and handsome structure of brick, contains a superior clock. A market-house and a gaol are also numbered among the public buildings. There is a branch of the Planters' bank here, and an academy for boys and another for girls, established within a mile of the village, are excellent schools. Woodville is about eighteen miles from the Mississippi. Its port is Fort Adams, formerly mentioned. A rail-road is in contemplation, between Woodville and St. Francisville, La. twenty-nine miles distant, on the river, which will render the communication easy and rapid to New-Orleans. This village contains about eight hundred inhabitants, and is one of the healthiest in Mississippi. During a period of eighteen months—according to Mr. Vose, to whose accurate and elaborate researches I am indebted for much of my information upon the topography of this state—out of one hundred and forty-four men, of whom he kept an account for that length of time, only three died, and two of these were killed.

Fayette, a very neat and pleasant village, containing a handsome court-house and church, is twenty-five miles east of Natchez. It is the most rural and New-England like village, except Port Gibson, in the state. Meadville, to the south, is a small retired place, containing a post-office.

Kingston, on the road from Natchez to Woodville, originally settled by a colony from New-Jersey, is a small village, containing a church, post-office, two or three stores, and several dwelling-houses. This and Pinckneyville, a few miles south of Woodville, the latter merely a short street, lined by a few dwelling-houses and stores, are the only places south of Natchez, besides those already mentioned, of any importance. The site of White Apple village, the capital of the Natchez tribe, and the residence of "Great Sun," chief of the chiefs of that interesting nation, is pointed out to the traveller, on the river road to Woodville from Natchez. A few mounds, with the usual remains of spear and arrow heads, beads, and broken pottery only exist, to mark the spot. Fragments of gold lace and Spanish weapons have been found in the neighbourhood, with many other traces of the march of the Spanish army through this country.

I will conclude my long letter with an allusion to the only remaining place of any importance.—About eighteen miles to the east of Woodville are the "Elysian Fields!" "Shade of Achilles," you exclaim, "are the Elysü Campi of thy ghostly wanderings discovered in a Mississippian forest?" Nevertheless they are here, and the great problem is solved. Some have placed these regions in the sun, some in the moon, and others in the middle region of the air; and others again in the centre of the earth, in the vicinity of Tartarus, and probably in the neighbourhood of the "incognita terra" of Capt. Symmes. By many, and this was the vulgar opinion, they were supposed to lie among the Canary isles: but, march of mind! more modern and wiser heads have discovered their position nearly on the confines of Louisiana and Mississippi. Here the traveller will behold beautiful birds with gorgeous plumage—for splendidly enamelled birds enrich, with their brilliant dyes, the forests of the south—and his ear will drink in the sweetest melody from the feathered myriads—such as would have tempted even "pius Æneas" to linger on his way: but this, alas! is all that his imagination will recognize of Elysium. Trojan chiefs he will find metamorphosed into Mandingo negroes, who, in lieu of managing "war-horses," and handling arms, are guiding, with loud clamour, the philosophic mule, or wielding the useful hoe. Nymphs gathering flowers, "themselves the fairer," he will find changed into Congo sylphs, whose zoneless waists plainly demonstrate the possibility of the quadrature, who with skilful fingers gather the milk-white cotton from the teeming stalks. A few buildings, of an ordinary kind, and a post-office, surrounded by cotton fields and woods, make up the sum of this celestial abode for departed heroes.

FOOTNOTE:

[14] Henry Vose, Esq., of Woodville.