By the time Kitty had pompadoured her hair, and donned her paviered print gown, all the parish bells were ringing for joy. From Georgia to Maine bells were sounding; peals of liberty and peace filled the air with prayers and praise and service to God took up the glad hour and over and over the refrain was sung "Cornwallis is taken! Cornwallis is taken."
Ah, dear Kitty, and quaint little tableau of the long ago, five generations coming and going, in whose veins beats your loyal blood still listen and tremble and glow with pride at your legend of the siege of Yorktown, and better still, sweetest of all the long agone ancestors more than five nations, indeed every nation honors and makes low obeisance to the stars and the stripes. "Old glory! long may she wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."
CHAPTER FIRST.
"Thinkest thou existence doth depend on time?
It doth; but actions are our epochs."
In 1784 or 85, Mr. Carlton, who had his home on the Mataponi River, moved with his family to Georgia.
After Cornwallis had delivered his sword to Washington, a little group of emigrants might have been seen at Yorktown; among them the families of Edmund Byne and Robert Carlton.
Out in the blue harbour the nifty little brig "Nancy" lay, all sails spread ready to embark to Savannah, Ga.
These two above named gentlemen, took passage with their families, servants and household goods, and they were said to be persons of sincere, and devoted piety, full of hope and courage. They expected to reach Savannah in three days.
However, contrary winds set in, and the brig daring not hug the treacherous coasts of the Carolinas sped far out to sea amid a terrific storm. She drifted for weeks at the mercy of the waves, until the passengers almost despaired of seeing land. If in our prologue, we saw a pretty, and partly imaginary picture of Katherine Carlton, known as Kitty, for she it is now eighteen years of age, we see her again and in true historical facts receive her account of long ago, of the peril. Thus reads her account: "One time it seemed as if the end had come. 'Twas night. The passengers were lying in their berths enduring as well as they could the dangers of the hour, when suddenly the ship careened, seemingly falling on its side. It was then the voice of one of those pious men was heard amidst the howling winds 'Lord help us up,' and straightway the ship was set upright and the danger was passed."
The little party after landing on our beautiful south Georgia coast, sweet with golden jasmines, and long moss on the beautiful braided live oak, proceeded up the country, in true emigrant fashion, in wagons.