A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland

by Laura S. Haviland

And I saw by the starting tear that she would feel quite hurt if I refused her, and accepted her gift.

As we steamed down the river I saw many little hillocks where were buried the fallen soldiers who left their northern homes with high hopes of saving the nation's life from the hand of treason. Here they fell long before Richmond was taken. We passed Burmuda Hundred and City Point, upon which stood General Grant's headquarters. Next came Harrison's Landing, near President Harrison's birth-place, an ancient appearing building situated upon a high bluff.

At Wilson's Landing and Clarmount Landing there was a high bank, upon which lived one of the wealthiest men in the State of Virginia, William Allen, who adopted the name of his father-in-law for the sake of his immense wealth. William Allen, sen., had no son, but an only daughter, and he offered his entire estate to any young man whom his daughter might be pleased to accept, if he would assume his name; he cared not how poor he might be, if he was only respectable. The daughter had many suitors, but at length a young man won this bride and adopted the whole name—William Allen. At the death of the father-in-law he came into possession of thirteen plantations and over four thousand slaves. All these plantations were managed by overseers. One man told me he had seen him take a keg of gold and silver coins down to the sand-bank, with a company of his comrades, on a holiday spree, and when they were all thoroughly drunk he would take up a handful of gold and silver pieces, throw them in the sand, and tell them to scramble, and he that got the most was the best fellow. He, with the rest, "scrambled," as he called it. William Allen declared that the Yankees had robbed him of fifty thousand dollars worth of negroes under ten years of age, and more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of slaves above that age.

At twelve o'clock we landed at Jamestown. In this old, dilapidated place were yet standing brick walls of three old buildings open to the birds and the bats. The brick of these half-torn down buildings were transported from England more than two hundred years ago. I saw a piece of a marble slab from the graveyard dated 1626, broken in pieces by soldiers for relics. We were soon met by the ambulance-driver, and he took us through a nice field of wheat owned by William Allen, just referred to, who was one of our passengers to the ancient city of Williamsburg. Here was a large insane asylum, built of imported bricks from England, with a marble front, erected, by Lord Bottetourt, governor of the colony. It was founded in 1688. The tower was ninety-six feet high, and the number of inmates one hundred and one, forty-two of whom were colored. Robert M. Garrett was the physician and superintendent. This is the oldest institution of the kind in the Union. In the front yard of this asylum stands, in life-size, the statue of Lord Bottetourt. As we were passing through the apartments we listened to a very sweet voice singing a hymn. Said my guide, "Mr. Scott is singing for you. He is General Winfield Scott's nephew. He bet both of his plantations that the Confederates would succeed in this war, and when Richmond fell he became insane and was brought here two weeks ago."

I was shown an old brick church in which was a colored school of one hundred and ninety-six scholars, taught by Miss Barton, of Connecticut, and a gentleman from Michigan. Here I found myself at home at once. There were here, previous to the late war, two institutions of learning—the William and Mary College at one end of the main street, and at the other, three and a quarter miles distant, the female seminary. The college was burned in the war of 1776, again in the war of 1812, and, for the third time, a few months before I was there. There was no school now in the female seminary, and it looked as if waiting for repairs. Here is the old ivy-bound church in which George Washington was married. The bricks of this building were also brought from England. This town was the capital of tins State previous to its removal to Richmond.

I walked nearly two miles to Fort Magruder, where I found a colored school of one hundred and fifty-eight members, taught by Maggie Thorpe and Martha Haines, of New York, under the auspices of the Society of Friends. To accommodate men and women who could not leave their work during the day they opened a night school, and had fifty of that class. Half of these did not know their letters when their school opened in February, and could then read quite fluently in the second and third readers. A few miles further there was another school of thirty scholars who had made commendable progress.

The teachers informed me that there were many very old people on the oldest plantation near King's Mill, who needed help. I was furnished with an ambulance, in which I took a bale of bedding and clothing, and went from cabin to cabin to visit twenty-seven aged people, from sixty to a hundred and five years of age. After learning their most urgent needs, I selected supplies for each. When I expressed my surprise at seeing the old plantation with such a grove of woods, Uncle Bob Jones, the oldest of them all, said:

"Missus, all dat woods on dat side I helped clar off when firs' woods was thar, beech, maple an' linn wood, only now an' agin a pine. Den we work it till it wore out, an' wouldn't noffin grow on it, an' we lef it to grow up to dose pines you see."

"Is this possible?" I said. "I saw men chopping sawmill logs as I came through that wood."

"Yes, missus," he answered; "shure's you are bo'n, my sweat lies dar under dem big tree roots. My Milla an' me was married when we's chillen, an' we's had a good many chillen, but de Lo'd knows whar da's gone to; da sole down de riber, many, many year ago. But we prayed to Lo'd Jesus to take keer on 'em all dese years, an' we'll go home to glory soon."