We set out on March 11, 1747, George William Fairfax and I, with two servants and a led horse, loaded with a pack and such baggage as could not be carried in saddle-bags. I was at this time ill, not having recovered from an attack of the ague; but the action of the horse and the feeling of adventure helped me, so that in a day or two I left off taking of Jesuits’ bark, and was none the worse.
I have now before me the diary I kept as a lad of near sixteen years. It was not so well kept as it was later, but already in it I discover with interest that it turns to practical matters, like the value of the land and what could be produced on it.
As we were soon joined by my old master in surveying, James Genn, I learned a great deal more of his useful art, and usually earned a doubloon a day, but sometimes six pistoles. Although the idea of daily wages was unpleasant to Virginians of my class, I remember that it made me feel independent, and set a sort of value upon me which reasonably fed my esteem of myself, which was, I do believe, never too great.
Our journey was without risks, except the rattlesnakes, and the many smaller vermin which inhabited the blankets in the cabins of the squatters.
I remember with pleasure the evening when I first saw the great fertile valley after we came through Ashby’s Gap in the Blue Ridge. The snows were still melting, and on this account the streams were high and the roads the worst that could ever be seen, even in Virginia. The greatness of the trees I remember, and my surprise that the Indians should have so much good invention in their names, as when they called the river of the valley the Shen-an-do-ah—that is, the Daughter of the Stars; but why so named I never knew.
In this great vale were the best of Lord Fairfax’s lands. Near to where this stream joins the Potomac were many clearings, of which we had to make surveys and insist on his lordship’s ownership. Here were no hardships, and much pleasure in the pursuit of game, especially wild turkeys. I learned to cook, and how to make a bivouac comfortable, and many things which are part of the education of the woods. Only four nights did I sleep in a bed, and then had more small company than I liked to entertain.
I copy here as it was wrote by me, a lad of sixteen, what we saw on a Wednesday. It might have been better spelled.
At evening we were agreeably surprised by ye sight of thirty odd Indians coming from war with only one scalp. We gave them some liquor, which, elevating their spirits, put them in ye humour of dancing. They seat themselves around a great fire, and one leaps up as if out of a sleep, and runs and jumps about ye ring in a most comicle manner; afterward others. Then begins there musicians to play and to beat a pot half full of water, with a deer-skin tied tight over it, and a gourd with some shott in it to rattle, and piece of a horse tail tied to it to make it look fine.
The Dutch, then of late come in from Pennsylvania, I found an uncouth people, who, having squatted, as we say, on lands not their own, hoped to acquire cheap titles. They were merry and full of antic tricks. I talked with some by an interpreter and heard them say they cared not who were the masters, French or English, if only they were let to farm their lands. This amazed me, who was brought up to despise the French as frog-eating folk, and, indeed, this indifference of the Dutch became a matter of concern when we had a war with the French.
After one night in a Dutch cabin I liked better a bearskin and the open air, for it was not to my taste to lie down on straw—very populous—or on a skin with a man, wife, and squalling babies, like dogs and cats, and to cast lots who should be nearest the fire.