Here, where virtue is feeble and villany strong,
'Tis the cause, not the fate of a cause, that is glorious."
The inviting character of the soil and climate induced (as soon as a settled form of government promised protection) rapid emigration to the country. This came from every part of the United States. Those coming from the same State usually located as nearly as practicable in the same neighborhood, and to this day many of these are designated by the name of the country or State from which they came. There are in the County of Jefferson two neighborhoods known to-day as the Maryland settlement and the Scotch settlement, and the writer has many memories—very pleasant ones, too—of happy hours in the long past spent with some of nature's noblemen who were inhabitants of these communities.
Who that has ever sojourned for a time in this dear old county, does not remember the generous and elegant hospitality of Colonel Wood, Joseph Dunbar, and Mr. Chew; nor must I forget that truly noble-hearted man, David Hunt, the founder of Oakland College, whose charitable munificence was lordly in character, but only commensurate with his soul and great wealth. It seems invidious to individualize the hospitality of this community, where all were so distinguished; but I cannot forbear my tribute of respect—my heart's gratitude—to Wood and Dunbar. I came among these people young and a stranger, poor, and struggling to get up in the world. These two opened their hearts, their doors, and their purses to me; but it was not alone to me. Should all who have in like circumstances been the recipients of their generous and unselfish kindnesses record them as I am doing, the story of their munificent generosity and open, exalted hospitality would seem an Eastern romance.
They have been long gathered to their fathers; but so long as any live who knew them, their memories will be green and cherished. In this neighborhood was built the first Protestant Episcopal Church in the State, and here worshipped the Woods, Dunbars, MacGruders, Shields, Greens, and others composing the settlement. The descendants of these families still remain in that neighborhood, where anterior to the late war was accumulated great wealth. The topography of the country is beautifully picturesque with hills and dales, and all exceedingly fertile. These hills are a continuation of the formation commencing at Vicksburg, and extending to Bayou Sara. They are peculiar, and seem to have been thrown over the primitive formation by some extraordinary convulsion, and are of a sandy loam. No marine shells are found in them; but occasionally trees and leaves are exhumed at great depths. No water is found in this loam by digging or boring; but after passing through this secondary formation, the humus or soil of the primitive is reached—the leaves and limbs of trees superincumbent on this indicating its character—then the sand and gravel, and very soon water, as in other primitive formations. These hills extend back from the river in an irregular line from ten to fifteen miles, and are distinguished by a peculiar growth of timber and smaller shrubs.
The magnolias and poplars, with linn, red oak, and black walnut, are the principal trees. There is no pine, but occasionally an enormous sassafras, such as are found in no other section on this continent. There is no stone, and no running water except streams having their rise in the interior, passing through these hills to their debouchment into the river. The entire formation is a rich compost, and in great part soluble in water; this causes them to wash, and when not cultivated with care, they cut into immense gullies and ravines. They are in some places almost mountainous in height and exceedingly precipitous. They are designated at different localities by peculiar names—as the Walnut Hills, Grand Hills, Petit Gulf Hills, Natchez Hills, and St. Catherine Hills. In primitive forest they presented a most imposing appearance.
Large and lofty timber covered from base to summit these hills, increasing their grandeur by lifting to their height the immense vines found in great abundance all over them. The dense wild cane, clothing as a garment the surface of every acre, went to the very tops of the highest hills, adding a strange feature to hill scenery. The river only approaches these hills in a few places and always at right angles, and is by them deflected, leaving them always on the outer curve of the semicircle or bend in the stream. From these points and from the summit of these cliffs the view is very fine, stretching often in many places far up and down the river and away over the plain west of the river, which seems to repose upon its lap as far as the eye can view. The scene is sombre, but grand, especially when lighted by the evening's declining sun. The plain is unbroken by any elevation: the immense trees rise to a great height, and all apparently to the same level—the green foliage in summer strangely commingling with the long gray moss which festoons from the upper to the lower limbs, waving as a garland in the fitful wind; and the dead gray of the entire scene in winter is sad and melancholy as a vast cemetery. There is a gloomy grandeur in this, which is only rivalled by that of the sea, when viewed from a towering height, lazily lolling in the quiet of a summer evening's calm.
To encounter the perils of a pioneer to such a country required men of iron nerve. Such, with women who dared to follow them, to meet and to share every danger and fearlessly to overcome every obstacle to their enterprise, coming from every section of the United States, formed communities and introduced the arts and industry of civilization, to subdue these forests and compel the soil to yield its riches for the use of man. From these had grown a population, fifty years ago, combining the daring and noble traits of human character which lie at the base of a grand and chivalrous civilization. Such men were the leaders and controllers of the society at that time, assuming a uniform and homogeneous character throughout the western portion of the State. The invasion of New Orleans had endangered this section, and to a man they rallied to meet the foe. More than half the male population of that portion of the State were at New Orleans and in the trenches on the memorable 8th of January, 1815. Their conduct upon that occasion was distinguished, and won from General Jackson high commendation. The charge of the Mississippi cavalry, commanded by General Thomas Hinds, the General, in his report of the battle, said, excited the admiration of one army and the astonishment of the other.
This campaign brought together the younger portion of the male population of the State, and under such circumstances as to make them thoroughly to know each other. These men were the prominent personages of the State forty years ago, and they formed the character of the population and inspired the gallantry and chivalry of spirit which so distinguished the troops of Mississippi in the late unfortunate civil war—in all, but in none so conspicuously, in this spirit and nobleness of soul and sentiment, as in the characters of Jefferson Davis and John A. Quitman—foremost to take up arms in the war with Mexico, resigning high positions for the duties of the soldier, to follow the flag, and avenge the insults of a presumptuous foe.
The society of Western Mississippi, forty years ago, was distinguished above any other in the Union, for a bold, generous, and frank character, which lent a peculiar charm. It was polished, yet it was free and unreserved, full of the courtesies of life, with the rough familiarity of a coarser people. The sports of the turf were pursued with enthusiastic ardor. The chase for the fox and the red deer pervaded almost universally the higher walks of life. The topography of the country was such as to make these, in the fearless rides they compelled, extremely hazardous, familiarizing their votaries with danger and inspiring fearlessness and daring. Almost every gentleman had his hunting steed and kennel of hounds; and at the convivial dinner which always followed the hunt, he could talk horse and hound with the zest of a groom or whipper-in, and at the evening soirée emulate D'Orsay or Chesterfield in the polish of his manners and the elegance of his conversation. This peculiarity was not alone confined to the gentlemen. The ladies were familiar with every household duty, and attended to them: they caught from their husbands and brothers the open frankness of their bearing and conversation, a confident, yet not a bold or offensive bearing in their homes and in society, with a polished refinement and an elevation of sentiment in all they said or did, which made them to me the most charming and lovely of their sex—and which made Mississippi forty years ago the most desirable place of rural residence in the Union.