His brother Andrew, however, had probably already made his arrangements to go to America, and, having got unsettled, found it not so easy to sink back into his former life; therefore, after some hesitation, he and the three Crawfords, one of whom was the husband of his wife’s sister, took ship for Charleston.
Upon his coming to North Carolina, it seems that Andrew Jackson was too poor to buy land. Instead, therefore, of locating in the Waxhaws Settlement, where most of the immigrants from Carrickfergus had bought homes, he went to Twelve-mile Creek, a branch of the Catawba.
Here he was seven miles distant from the Waxhaws Settlement, and was face to face with the gigantic task of carving out a farm from the wilderness.
The historian, the orator, the painter, have been eager in the duty of blazoning the deeds of our pioneer missionaries, law-makers and soldiers. The names of these heroes live, and deserve to live, in letters of light upon the records of our country. But, to our pioneer farmers, justice has never been done. Theirs was a combat calling for every soldierly trait of John Smith and Miles Standish. The patient courage which swung the axe, in the depths of primeval woods, was no less heroic than the bravery which made the musket conquer. The toil of the warrior’s march was slight by comparison with the homely, but exhausting, work of preparing the soil for the sowing of seed. The arrows of the red men were not more deadly to the soldier than were the fevers which rose from the swamps and pulled down the settler as he struggled to open out his farm.
In the South, in the East, in the West, the story of the pioneer plowman of America is one of dauntless courage, of quiet heroism. He found the New World a wilderness and he has well-nigh made it a garden. His axe, his spade, his hoe, his plow, his muscle, his brain, his very heart and soul have all been enlisted in the work; and never once have his lips uttered the craven’s plea for “Protection.” Never once has he gone to the doors of legislation begging special favors. Never once has he lied to government and people for the purpose of securing a selfish advantage at the expense of his fellowman.
No. He has not only not demanded of the government either Protection or Privilege, but he has submitted—yes, for one hundred years he has submitted!—to be robbed of a portion of his annual produce in order that our Infant Industry Capitalists should be able to build up the corporate power which now, in the form of Trusts, dominates the Republic and secures the lion’s share of all the wealth created in every field of industry.
Like many another pioneer of the American wilderness, Andrew Jackson found the task too hard. He died under the strain. The impression which his famous son had as to the immediate cause of his death was that he ruptured a blood vessel in the handling of a heavy log.
The body of the hero who had fallen in the fight for his wife and little ones—the fight to make a home for them in the wilderness—was buried in the graveyard of the Waxhaw Settlement church. In after years, when efforts were made to identify the spot it could not be done.
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According to local tradition, there was held at the cabin-home of the dead man the grewsome “wake” which was customary among the Irish in the Old Country. Relatives from the Waxhaw settlement came out to Jackson’s “clearing,” when they learned that he was no more; and, after preparing the body for burial, their grief gradually wore itself out, and the whiskey-jug became the ruling factor of the occasion. As lamentation gave place to revelry, it is said that “the corpse came in for his share of the refreshments.” What this may mean, each reader shall judge for himself.