This chronicle, however, is not of the "neighborhoods", for they were known,
or may be known by any who will take the trouble to plunge boldly in
and throw themselves on the hospitality of any of the dwellers therein.
It is rather of the unknown tract, which lay vague and undefined in between
the several neighborhoods of the upper end. The history of the former
is known both in peace and in war: in the pleasant homesteads which lie
on the hills above the little rivers which make down through the county
to join the great river below, and in the long list of those who fell
in battle, and whose names are recorded on the slabs set up by their comrades
on the walls of the old Court House. The history of the latter, however,
is unrecorded. The lands were in the main very poor and grown up in pine,
or else, where the head-waters of a little stream made down
in a number of "branches", were swampy and malarial. Possibly it was
this poverty of the soil or unwholesomeness of their location,
which more than anything else kept the people of this district
somewhat distinct from others around them, however poor they might be.
They dwelt in their little cabins among their pines,
or down on the edges of the swampy district, distinct both from
the gentlemen on their old plantations and from the sturdy farmer-folk
who owned the smaller places.
Pages:
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162