Chesapeake

by James A. Michener

  He retired to Devon, living alone in the great house, spending his afternoons wandering aimlessly in the spacious wooded garden designed by his Grandmother Rosalind. The oak grew nobler with each passing decade and in autumn the pyracantha flamed. The hollies were substantial trees now, the females laden with red berries, the males stern and aloof like their master. And in the early summer when the burnt gold of daylilies flooded the banks, Simon believed that no spot in Maryland could be more handsome.

  At such times, when nature was so benevolent, he thought of his missing wife and daughter; his loneliness did not make him bitter, for he understood why Jane Fithian had found rural America so distasteful, but he did sometimes indulge himself in wry amusement: She scorned us. Used to ask how louts like Washington and Jefferson could presume to negotiate with a king. We negotiated.

  He missed Penny. Each year during the long war—nine of them, from 1775 through ’83—he had managed somehow to deliver into England letters of credit upon which his wife and daughter could draw, and all that he received in return had been one silhouette showing a child of five wearing pigtails. He had sent it to Annapolis to be encased in gold, and now it hung on a chain near his bed.

  Often since the end of war he had contemplated quitting Maryland altogether and going to England to live with his family, or perhaps taking them to France, but after consulting by mail with Guy Fithian he rejected that plan, because the factor wrote:

  I can serve you best by frankness. My sister is not entirely herself, despite the fact that we have given her the best care that England can provide. She slips into such furious tirades against the traitors in America that seeing you again would be disastrous. Penny thrives and gives no evidence of following her mother into partial but heartbreaking insanity. She loves you for the money you send each year.

  When he reflected on this painful situation he sometimes thought that he had been taxed too heavily for his patriotism: he had lost his wife, his daughter, his nephew, his fleet and his honor.

  How lonely he became, holding more than two hundred thousand pounds sterling and only God knew how many livres tournois and Spanish doubloons and Portuguese big-joes. Two or three times a year he would entertain at Rosalind’s Revenge, and then boats from all over the Chesapeake would congregate in Devon Creek, and slaves would carry portmanteaus to the big rooms and the two wings would be filled, and forty would sit down to dinner in that splendid dining hall erected by Rosalind Janney Steed, and Simon would preside, listening to the small talk but not engaging in it. Early on the morning of Wednesday, April 15, 1789, a gentleman in uniform named Major Lee hurried down to the dock at Mount Vernon in Virginia, where two rowers were waiting to ferry him across the Potomac River.

  As soon as they deposited him on the Maryland shore he ran to where two other men in military uniform were waiting with fresh horses. Major Lee vaulted into his saddle and set off in a gallop for Annapolis. At every inn or crossroads church where people might be gathered, he called out the exciting news, “General Washington’s to be our President.” Invariably, cheers rose from the listeners, and as he dashed on, Lee could see the Marylanders scattering to inform their neighbors of the good news, indeed, the only news that would have made any sense on that historic day. Who but Washington had the measure of acceptance and skill required to launch the new Constitution?

  At the state house in Annapolis, Major Lee discovered, to his pique, that news of the election had already been disseminated, but he was pleased to observe the cheering crowds who came out to greet him as a messenger who had actually seen Washington at Mount Vernon.

  “He’ll stop by here tomorrow on his way to the capital,” Lee assured his listeners. “He begins his reign as soon as he takes the oath in New York.”

  But Major Lee had not ridden from Mount Vernon in order to converse with the politicians of Annapolis. After congratulating them on the way in which their representatives had helped select the new President, he spurred his horse to the dock, where a pinnace manned by four sailors waited. Jumping in, he directed the men, “Down to Devon Island. Quick.”

  The sailors raised small sails on the two short masts, then sprang a jib forward, but the wind was chancy and even after they had cleared the mole guarding the harbor they made only fitful progress, and nightfall found them drifting aimlessly on the broad expanse of the Chesapeake. Stars appeared occasionally, dim and distant above the flapping canvas, but no wind rose to help them make the crossing.

  At four in the morning Major Lee asked the captain of the pinnace, “Shall we row?” and the captain studied the situation, looking into the darkness in all directions.

  Before committing his men to the ugly chore, he asked, “Will we be sailing north immediately?”

  “We spend only a few hours at Devon. Then north.”

  “Then I won’t ask the men to row out of the calm. The wind will rise.”

  “But when?” Lee asked in the darkness.

  “It will rise,” the officer assured him.

  So Lee fretted through the long night, and at five-thirty, when light was beginning to show in the east, he fell asleep. When he woke, the day was about him and a brisk wind pushed in from the northwest. The captain of the pinnace did not say, “I told you so.” He was satisfied that his men had escaped the job of rowing that heavy boat out of the doldrums.

  It was eight in the morning when the pinnace sighted Devon, and as soon as it entered the creek slaves hailed its arrival, shouting, “Master! Master!” but imparting no specific news. When the pinnace worked its way up to the Steed wharf some thirty persons waited to greet the major, who ignored them, pushed his way through, and ran up to Simon Steed, embracing him. “General Washington sends his regards. He’s to be our new President!”

  A cheer rose from whites and blacks at this reassuring news, and Steed nodded gravely, as if the cheers had been intended for him. To the crowd he said, “How could we have chosen any other?” and they all cheered again.

  Major Lee brought heady news: “The general is crossing from Annapolis to Chestertown and hopes to converse with you there before he proceeds to New York and his new duties.”

  As these words were said, Steed felt a glow of renewed confidence; doubtless the new President had decided upon some position of significance for his Eastern Shore deputy. And as the crowd milled about Major Lee, seeking added information, Steed withdrew, as if in a trance, speculating on what his responsibility might be: I’ve worked with ships all my life and could handle the navy. Or I’d be adequate in some post dealing with commerce or the nation’s money.

  His reverie was broken when Lee tugged on his arm. “The general wants Paxmore and Turlock, too.”

  This diluted sharply the intimacy of the meeting, and Steed asked in some dismay, “Shall we be going in your boat?” and Lee further dampened the excitement by saying, “No, I’m to pick up some others on the way,” and Steed thought to himself: It’s not to be a meeting. It’s a convention.

  “I’ll ready my sloop at once,” he told Lee, who reminded him, “Be sure to fetch Paxmore and Turlock.”

  Simon broke out a small boat and sailed directly to Peace Cliff, where he informed Paxmore of the meeting, and together they sailed to the marshes. At first they had difficulty finding the entrance to the myriad streams that segmented the marsh, but Paxmore remembered certain landmarks that led to Turlock Creek, which they penetrated cautiously, as if trying to avoid an ambuscade. Through the years men along the Eastern Shore had learned to approach this place with care.

  “Halloo!” one of Steed’s sailors called. There was no response.

  “Call again,” Steed ordered, but the slave was reluctant to do anything that might anger those hiding in the marsh. “Give the call!” Steed commanded.

  “Halloo!” the slave trumpeted, and the echo had barely died when a shot rang out. The men in the boat could hear the pellets rip through the dried grass.

  “Stop where you are!” a ghostly voice warned.

 
“Captain Turlock!” Steed called back. “It’s me. Steed.”

  A second shot ripped through the grass and this angered Steed. “Damn it, man! President Washington wants to meet you. In Chestertown.”

  From the marsh a disembodied voice called, “Cap’m Turlock, he ain’t here.”

  “Where is he?” Steed called into the emptiness.

  “On the porch.” And from the grass appeared a lanky youth of nineteen, carrying a musket, a marsh dog at his heel. He wore few clothes, no shoes, no hat. He was a surly waterman, but when he saw Steed his begrimed face broke into a broad smile and he said, “I knowed you at Yorktown.”

  “Did you fight there?”

  “Didn’t fight. Wore my ass off diggin’ trenches.”

  “Where’s Teach?” Steed asked, and the young man led the way through devious trails to the cabin.

  There, barefooted, dressed in patched homespun, scratching his beard, sat the man who had terrorized the Caribbean. “Mr. Steed, it’s good to see you!”

  “President Washington wants us to visit with him in Chestertown.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “We better get movin’,” and the grizzled captain left the porch, spent a few minutes inside the cabin, and reappeared in a passable costume: baggy homespun trousers, heavy shirt woven from flax and cotton, shoes made from muskrat skins and a coonskin hat.

  He showed the Steed slaves a shortcut through the marsh, and within an hour the three men were aboard the sloop, heading northwest for Knapps Narrows, where Steed announced the news to the people of Bay Hundred. Once in the Chesapeake, they sped north for the difficult passage at Kent Narrows, proposing to reach Chestertown at about the same time that Washington would be landing for his overnight stop.

  But bad luck overtook them in the lee of Kent Island; the brisk wind was masked by trees, and a whole afternoon was idled away, with Steed growing more and more impatient. “Can’t you move this boat?”

  “The men could try rowing.”

  “Then get them to rowing.” But this accomplished little, and the day ended with the Choptank men wasting their time at the mouth of the Chester River, while the new President celebrated with friends in Chestertown.

  At dawn the next morning Steed was beside himself with frustration. “Can we get horses?” he asked his captain.

  “No horses, no roads.”

  “Well, damn this wind.”

  It was ten in the morning before the trio reached Chestertown, and as Steed had feared, Washington had left at dawn for Warwick, the next stopping place on the way to New York. Steed asked the innkeeper if three horses could be found, and the man replied, “Washington’s men took ’em all.”

  “Find some!” Steed commanded.

  “Who’s to pay?”

  “I’ll pay.”

  “And who are you?”

  “Simon Steed of Devon.”

  The innkeeper nodded and said, “In that case the farmers may have something.”

  “Get them here.”

  So the innkeeper sent two of his helpers to round up some horses, but the owners came with them, demanding payment in full for the unlikely beasts. They were not for hire. “I’ll buy them,” Steed said, but Levin Paxmore would not allow this. “Thee is charging outrageous prices,” he remonstrated as the two farmers stared at him. “Mr. Steed requires these horses to overtake General Washington ... for a most important meeting.”

  One of the farmers pointed at Teach Turlock and grinned. “He’s goin’ to see Washington?”

  “He is,” Paxmore said quietly. “He was a notable fighter in the late war.”

  “What’s ’is name?”

  “Teach Turlock.”

  The farmers gaped, then began shouting to bystanders, “Hey, this is Teach Turlock!” And they grabbed the captain’s hand, shouting excitedly, “You damned near burned up this bay with the Whisper. Captain Turlock, you were a mighty man.”

  And one of the farmers said, “If you want to rent horses, Turlock, you can sure rent ’em from us,” and the three Choptank men set off in pursuit of their President. At Georgetown they crossed the Sassafras River, galloped north to Cecilton, then followed a mean and dusty road into Warwick, where crowds of farming people clustered at the crossroads.

  “Where’s the general?” Steed asked.

  “He’s stopping at the Heath place.”

  “I saw him ride in,” a woman said reverently, and children shouted, “He’s sleepin’ in that house.”

  In the road, his arms crossed, stood Major Lee, protecting the farmhouse in which his general slept. When Steed rode up, the major indicated that he must dismount and leave his horse behind. “We missed you,” he said.

  “Damned wind.”

  “Yes, it started to die just as we cleared the Narrows.”

  “Slept standing up, cursing the wind,” Steed explained.

  “The general will be pleased you came. He asked for you repeatedly.” At this gratifying news Steed beamed, but what Lee said next deflated him. “The general yearns for a good card game, and when he rises he’ll be eager to play. Catch some sleep on the bench, Steed. He may want to play all night.”

  This kind of visit was not what Simon had envisaged. Indeed, through the long windless night he had rehearsed the topics he wished to discuss with the new President, and card-playing was not one of them. But he was determined to accomplish two goals on this trip: to present himself in the best possible light, and to nail down some assurances as to how the Eastern Shore was to be governed.

  Accordingly, he did not accept the bench offered by the major; instead he carried his canvas bag out to the wash house, where he soaped down, combed, touched himself with perfume and donned fresh clothes. When he was finished he presented the fine figure of a fifty-nine-year-old patriot eager to serve in whatever capacity the new President might determine.

  Washington did not arise till about six-thirty in the evening, at which time Major Lee informed him that the Choptank men had arrived. Without attending to his dress, Washington hurried from his sleeping quarters, saw Steed standing at attention and acknowledged him briefly, then spotted Levin Paxmore, the shipbuilder, and hurried to him. Grasping his fire-scarred hands, Washington said, “What sturdy ships you build.”

  “Four of them ended fighting for the English.”

  “Ah, but the Whisper that fought for us helped determine the battle. Keep your hat, Friend Paxmore. You’ve earned the privilege.”

  He then spotted Captain Turlock and stood before him admiringly, hands on hips, unable to speak. Finally he grasped the waterman by the shoulders, pressed them vigorously and said, “I confess a special fondness for brave men,” and he began to recite some of the adventures Turlock had experienced. “They almost trapped you at St. Eustatius, didn’t they?”

  “They did get my sister ship. That was a sore defeat.”

  “We’ve all had them,” Washington said. “You should be an admiral, sir.”

  “I can’t read or write,” Turlock replied.

  Washington laughed and asked, “What do you plan to do now?”

  “A little fishin’,” Turlock said, and Washington guffawed.

  “Major Lee!” he called in a resounding voice. “Take note of this man, and note him well. The only one in America who doesn’t seek an appointment.” He laughed again, then bowed deeply, adding, “You were most helpful, Captain.”

  Then he returned to Colonel Steed, saying heartily, “Damned glad you overtook us, Steed. I am most hungry for some cards.” And he led the way to a small room which Major Lee had arranged for this night. It contained a table, six chairs, two lamps on high stands and three spittoons. Two planters from the Warwick area had been waiting since five and were eager for the game to start. A Colonel Witherspoon who was riding with Washington took a chair, but when the general and Steed sat down, there remained one empty space.

  “I do like six to a game,” Washington said. “Friend Paxmore, would you take a hand?
”

  “I would not,” the Quaker said.

  “How about Major Lee?” Steed asked.

  “I will not allow him to lose any further,” Washington said.

  Colonel Witherspoon pointed at Captain Turlock. “Do you play?”

  “Some.”

  “Sit down,” and Turlock took the sixth chair. When the first hand was dealt he looked at his cards and muttered, “Jesus Christ!” Washington stopped arranging his cards and stared at the swamp man, and Colonel Witherspoon said reprovingly, “We don’t use oaths, Captain Turlock.”

  “You would if you saw these cards,” Turlock replied, and Washington smiled.

  After the third hand the general said graciously, “Steed, I am gratified to an extent I cannot express that you have seen fit to visit with us. One of my first tasks in New York will-be to ask the Congress to recompense you for your lost ships.”

  “I would be grateful,” Steed said, and then he waited, knowing that this was the moment in which the new President ought to say something about an assignment in the forthcoming government, but nothing was said, and Turlock ruptured the spell by grunting, “Your deal, General.”

  As midnight approached, Major Lee led Levin Paxmore out of the house and onto the roadway, where they talked for some hours, while the locals sat along the road, watching the house where their beloved hero was meeting in high consultation with the leaders of the region. “Gad, how I’d love to be in that game,” Lee confessed.

  “Thee likes cards so much?”

  “I’m a fanatic, but I seem always to lose, and the general’s forbidden me to play.” They walked along the dark road for some minutes, then Lee said, “Of course, he always loses too. But he says the difference is he can afford it.”

  “Does he play so much?”

  “Before the war, almost every night. He kept an account hook of each night’s play, and it shows that he lost heavily. During the war I never saw him play but once. During the cold days at Valley Forge. And of course he lost. He’ll lose tonight, you can be sure of that, and I’ll enter it in the book. Chestertown, lost three pounds, sixteen shillings, nine pence.”