CHAPTER X.--The End and After the War.
The General Assembly of the new Commonwealth, made up of the delegatesof the Fifth Virginia Colonial Convention, met at Williamsburg, October7, 1776.
To Donald McDonald and his friends, the most important pendinglegislation involved the old religious contentions, this time waged byDissenters, who, finding themselves in the majority, demanded theenactment of laws effectively severing church and state; and repealingall existing revenue measures for the support of the Established Church.Their fight was led by Jefferson, a member of the Established Church,who was much more an advocate of severance of church and state than achurchman. The opposition was led by Edmund Pendleton and John Page.
Donald McDonald, Lewis Craig and Charles Marshall were present asDissenter lobbyists; while several rich planters and a couple of bishopsargued and pleaded with the members and before committees that theproposed measures were not only attacks upon the church but anassailment of the Protestant faith.
As liberalism and equality were at the time in the saddle, the advocatesof severance were successful. Laws were passed removing all civildisabilities because of religious belief; placing all sects upon thesame footing and taxing only Conformists for the support of Conformistchurches.
Emboldened by their successes, the advocates of equal rights introducedbills abolishing entails and the existing statute of descent. Under theEnglish law of primogeniture, bolstered by local statutes since theorganization of the colony, the family plantation had descended to theeldest son, the law prohibiting its sale or encumbrance. All such lawswere attacked and repealed, upon the ground that they established andmaintained an aristocracy.
As this legislative action placed all freeholders upon the same footing,civil and religious, Donald McDonald's long continued labors inWilliamsburg were at an end and he and his fellow laborers returnedhome.
There, he was made to feel that he was an old man. All able-bodied menof the community were away; either in the new State militia or theContinental Line service. He, however, was still able to preach, andmost effectively, to the women, the children and his more or lessafflicted comrades among the men.
Nothing was talked of but the war. Patriotism fired every heart. All athome were making the supreme sacrifice; eating insufficient bread; goingwith the minimum clothing; doing with the least bedding, and in otherways denying themselves in order that those in the field might havetheir share of the scanty store. Though each soldier had left homeproperly equipped, as months went by this outfit became rags and thearmy had no fresh supplies to issue. It rent the hearts of those at hometo hear that their soldiers were forced to march barefooted in the snowand live for weeks on the scantiest allowance.
The sacrifice made by those at home, coupled with most material aid fromthe French, enabled the Colonial armies finally to entrap and capturethe army of Lord Cornwallis; which surrendered on the 19th day ofOctober, 1781. The victory was decisive; it freed Virginia of all alienforces and virtually ended the Revolutionary war.
Early in 1782 the old British Ministry was replaced by an anti-warministry headed by the Marquis of Rockingham; and orders were issued toall British forces in America to discontinue hostilities. September 3,1783, Great Britain, by treaty, recognized the independence of theThirteen Colonies.
For some unknown reason the forts of the Northwest Territory were notsurrendered until 1795. This retention aggravated the desultory warfarebetween the settlers and the Indians in the Western Country. Thesettlers claimed that the Indians were encouraged in their acts ofviolence by the commanders of the forts.
The spring and summer after the battle of Yorktown were busy days on theplantation. Colonel Campbell, who had resigned his commission,supervised and helped with the work of clearing the briars andundergrowth and putting in the spring crops. He was aided by RichardCameron and his son, John Calvin, who was now a husky lad of fifteen.When extra help was needed they called on their neighbors; always havingrefused to purchase slaves, though just now, because of the breaking upof the great plantations they could be bought at bargain prices.
By the fall of 1782, the plantation was again in first class conditionand in balancing up, it was found had more than supported the family forthe year.
In the winter of 1782, Richard Cameron and Ruth were married. It was amost happy match, approved by the neighborhood generally, though some ofthe women said: "If Ruth were the kind of a girl to consider her easeand comfort she would marry Carter Harrington," a rich young planter whohad moved to the Valley from the Tidewater Country.
At the request of Donald McDonald, who had grown very feeble, theJackson River Meeting House accepted his resignation and called RichardCameron as their pastor. He was installed in January, 1783.
The school in 1782 had been reorganized by Jeremiah Tyler, who was itsprincipal. There were more than a hundred children in attendance.Assisting him as instructors were his daughter Judith and Mrs. Harris, awidow, who the year before had taken the place of Mrs. McDonald. Mrs.Harris was from Boston, where she had taught a girls' school for severalyears. The school now enjoyed the reputation of being the best west ofRichmond; in fact, many contended it was the best in Virginia.
John Calvin was conceded champion in the spelling and quotation battles,which continued the neighborhood attraction and the regular Fridayafternoon entertainment.
The Fairfax family, in 1782, moved from Greenaway Court to JacksonRiver, where Captain Fairfax bought an extensive boundary on the edge ofthe Valley between the Preston farm and the Campbell plantation. Thethree families were inseparable and visited at all hours without theslightest formality.
Captain Fairfax and his wife said that Dorothy had made them move to theValley and tried to tease her by telling John he was the attraction. Thetwo children treated the jest in the most matter-of-fact way, Dorothysaying: "He is almost as dear to me as you and father are," and John,that: "I am very glad that Dorothy lives so near, she is the best friendI ever had." Theirs was a close friendship of more than ten years,beginning almost in infancy with never a thought about the relations ofthe future.
They were much together, frequently visiting John Calvin Rock, wherethey would take their books and spend the whole afternoon. He would readaloud or write for her what she called prose poems; little practicalessays on everyday things, yet possessed of a spirit of individualmysticism and beauty of thought. Considering them her greatest treasuresthey were carried home and locked up in a small cabinet of inlaid woods,which had belonged to her distinguished and aristocratic uncle, LordFairfax.
The two were as dissimilar in disposition and appearance as possible.She was petite, inclined to be innocently giddy; quick with tears ofsympathy and capable of making one forget his sorrows by her chirpygladness; yet as John knew, a very sensible girl when confronted bysomething of importance.
He was tall for his age with big hands and feet; and apparently, thoughnot in reality, clumsy. His light hair was always in wavy, riotousdisorder. He loved the solitudes of the mountain and the great forestbeyond, and spent much of his time climbing over the mountain and inlong tramps through the forest. He never carried a gun, refusing to killany wild thing, and wearing his girdle, had no fear of the Indians. Hetold Dorothy that when alone he could almost touch the wild deer or walkinto the midst of a drove of turkeys; and if in his rambles he came upontimber wolves or bear, they passed him without showing either concern orfriendliness.
He was uniformly courteous to every one; yet his only intimates were hisown family, including the servants of the household, Dorothy, the schoolmaster and his daughter, the Clarks and a few silent Indian friends, whowhenever they passed through the settlement called at the Pinnacle andtalked with him.
When one of the tribe into which he had been adopted visited him healways sent remembrances to Tecumseh and the Prophet, the woman who hadnursed him in his strange illness and the medicine man whose tattooingprobably had caused it; and to John Mason, who for eight years had beena missionary with the Ohio tr
ibes, he wrote long letters and sent a bookor two at every opportunity. Strange that this man so land hungry; sopossessed with the dominant Anglo-Saxon passion of land ownership, as tohave sold himself for five years in order that he might pay his passageto America, expecting there to become a freeholder and a gentlemanfarmer; at the expiration of his servitude had chosen to become amissionary to the Indians and never, even to his intimates, mentionedthe dream of his earlier days.
The Indians marked the boundary of the Campbell plantation and themountain trail passing it with the Mingo sign of ownership and the signname and office of John Calvin, to protect it from Indian depredation.Their friendliness while partly due to Mason's unselfish service andbecause they were kind and respectfully received and entertained at theplantation, in the main was a tribute to John Calvin, to whom they paidreverence as a chief and as a member of the Mingo priesthood. He wascalled in the Indian tongue, Chief Cross-Bearer, because of the tattooedmarks on his chest, which as he grew seemed to grow not only in size butthe more vividly manifest.
The Indians, deep students of nature and attributing to the Great Spirita closer fellowship with men than did the white men and possessingtherefore a more intimate or innate insight into the spiritual phases oflife, saw and appreciated that John Calvin felt yet deeper thesespiritual phases and was gifted with an inexplicable capacity, rarelygiven man, for grasping the teachings and purposes of the Great Spirit;though his scarcely definable gift was as yet unsuspected by him.
Even they did not know that when he came into a room where some one wasill and raving in delirium, the ravings ceased; and that when he placedhis hands, which were cool and dry and pleasant to the touch, upon aperson suffering with pain or fever the pain or fever departed for thetime and the patient usually slept. This had first been noticed by hismother and Dorothy, though neither mentioned it.
Once when the schoolmaster was ill the boy came in and sat with him andwhen he spoke of the pain which felt like a great spike being driventhrough his head, the boy in sympathy placed his hand upon his foreheadand stroked it several times. The touch was pleasant and soothing and ina moment or two the pain was gone. The master said: "Boy, you are agreat nurse," and in a few moments was asleep.
As he slept he dreamed that an holy one of God went forth about theearth, comforting the afflicted, ministering unto the needy andunfortunate, lifting the weary, telling of God's love and in such a waythat it seemed but a part of his everyday life, not as a duty, not inservice, but as he slept and ate and performed such other functions aswere necessary to his being.
His path finally led to the palace of the King, and the King came outand greeted him, saying: "Come, blessed of my father, inherit thekingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was anhungered and you gave me meat; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; Iwas a stranger and you took me in; naked and you clothed me; sick andyou visited me." And this holy one asked: "When did I all this?" And theKing answered: "Inasmuch as you did it unto one of the least of mysheep, you did it for me, their shepherd."
It was thus rumor of the boy's attributed power started and spreadthroughout the settlement. A few wise in their own conceit, explained itby saying: "He is so good, so free of sin, so pure of heart that hisvery presence is a tonic." And the boy, when he learned what was said,hastened to his rock and prayed long and fervent prayers that he mightbe kept from sin and fitted in some way to render service.
When some of the other boys asked: "How do you keep so good?" he wouldanswer: "Would that I were better and my life cleaner. If I am betterthan some boys, mine is not the credit, because I am not tempted as theyare. It may be that the men of my mother's people have been so long inthe service of God and my father and his father are such good men, thatit is almost natural for me not to wish to do mean things."
In the summer of 1783, John Calvin completed the course in the Tylerschool. At his request, which was seconded by his mother, ColonelCampbell arranged for their son to attend William and Mary's.
The boy's mother was very much concerned about his associations inWilliamsburg. She objected to the college dormitory, insisting that herhusband write his most trustworthy friend to find if possible the rightsort of family with whom their son might board.
He wrote Judge George Nicholas, a lawyer of prominence and an intimatefriend, asking that he act for him in line with his wife's wishes. Mr.Campbell received a letter from Mrs. Nicholas, wherein she expressed hersympathy with and an under standing of Mrs. Campbell's anxiety andoffered to take him into their family and look after him as her own son.
With no further understanding, as it was now time to leave, ColonelCampbell took his son to Williamsburg. The night of their arrival theywere guests of Judge Nicholas. When the Colonel returned home, hisreport of arrangements and particularly that her son was happilydomiciled with the Nicholas family, lessened the worry of his mother.
During the four years he was in college, their house was his home. Muchof the finished manner and scholarly way of expression for which hebecame conspicuous, was acquired by association with this accomplishedfamily.
When he came home in the summer of 1787 he was so tall that his mother,though she stood on tiptoe, was unable to kiss him, until he lifted herup in his arms. For the first time as he and his father stood looking,the one into the face of the other as they had a way of doing, he didnot look up but down. Colonel Campbell, who stood slightly over six feetin his moccasins, said: "Well boy, you seem to have the best of me; youhave grown out of my class and are broad of shoulders and narrow ofloin, as a young man should be; but you are pale. It will do you good tospend a few weeks in the wilderness. You might find it helpful to visityour Indian friends. Mason is here and expects to return next week. Howwould you like the trip?
"I am just home; it is too soon to think about leaving. Where isDorothy? Does she know I am here? She always met me before."
"Yes," and the father smiled, leaving his wife to answer the question.
"You would hardly expect Dorothy to call upon you; you are six feet two,and one would think large enough to find your way to her." Which remarkcaused him to blush and change the subject.
Richard Cameron and his wife were still a part of the family; and theyhad two children, a little boy two years old, Archibald, and the baby,Mary.
Mason, who had been a missionary with the Indians so long that theirtongue seemed the more familiar speech, when he greeted John,unconsciously lapsed into the Mingo dialect. His life had given a newexpression to his face; not a sad, but a winsome and wistful one. If onelooked closely into his eyes, he felt a sense of peace and reverence.
They talked about their Indian friends and he told John that always whenhe came to the Settlement they sent word that they wished to see theirchief, "The Cross-Bearer;" and John half promised to return with him.
In the late afternoon he climbed to the Pinnacle and watched the shadowof the mountain extend itself until it covered the whole valley and theclouds like great white ships sail with the wind on an inverted azureocean; then, as the sun sank, the shadow of the mountain reached upwardand transformed the white and fleecy clouds to deeper tints, then todark banks of fog, and the azure into a gray twilight sky.
All about were evidences of Dorothy's daily visits to the rock. In aniche he found a book and the place mark was his last letter. About werescattered almost an arm load of half wilted flowers. She had been therethat very morning and he wondered why she had not come in the afternoon.
He was still thinking of her when the plantation bell gave three tolls,his call, and he hurried home. The family were around the table waitingfor him. When he had taken the old place at the right of his mother,where he had sat since his high-chair days, his father as head of thefamily asked the blessing and then helped all bountifully.
"Mother, have you seen Dorothy today? Is she well?"
"Yes, she is well; you better go down after supper and see CaptainFairfax; she will likely be at home."
----
Dorothy lost little time in washing the supper dishes and tidying up abit. Then she placed the porch chairs to her satisfaction, blushing asshe did so. For five minutes she waited in restless anticipationwondering what made John late; finally she feared he might not come. Thedog gave a bark of warning. A second or two later she heard a step uponthe road; and a tall man stood for a moment upon the stile. As he drewnear her heart gave little jumps of joy at the sound of each footstep.
She stood in the shadow until John reached the step; then they called,"Dorothy"--"John"--and each held out both hands in greeting.
Captain Fairfax and his wife came out, as was the custom in those days,instead of retiring to the back porch or going upstairs as now; and allsat and talked; John of his college days and the news of Williamsburgand the coast, and they of the news of the Valley and the frontier.
Conversation drifted to their childhood and the time of their captivity;which led John to speak of his intended visit to the Mingo country. "Ishall go back with Mason and remain for several weeks. Father says Ilook pale and need the outdoor life. I would be glad to have you go,Captain."
"If it can be arranged I am sure I would enjoy the trip. It is more thanfive years since I was on the Ohio."
"Father if you are going, there is no reason why I might not go too,though Mr. Campbell has not asked me. I am a daughter of the tribe andhave been told to come with Chief Cross-Bearer."
"Well Dorothy, when did I get to be Mr. Campbell? You know how much Iwish you might go. There is no danger."
When he left for home is was tentatively arranged that Dorothy and herfather were to go and the young people were very happy.
Some days later, in the gray of early morning, Dorothy and her fathermet the others on the trail near the plantation; and John, withoutasking, added to his own pack all of the traps Dorothy carried excepther rifle.
All were dressed in Indian costume, not only for convenience butprotection; as their only real danger was in being taken for unfriendlywhites and ambushed before their identity should be discovered.
The trail through the gap and down the mountain side, centuries old, hadbeen made by the Indians and great herds of buffalo. After passingthrough the gap to the western side one had a superb view down the deepvalley of the upper Kanawha and the opposite mountain range, whichseemed a twin to the one on which you stood. A virgin forest clothed itsside and great bald peaks and precipices peeped out in grayish, ruggedcontrast. The trail threaded narrow coves, in which were great chestnutand poplar trees, and wound in ever descending curves and spirals aroundthe base of great cliffs and from one natural terrace to a lower one.
The distance from the divide as the trail followed the river from itshead fountains to where Mason and his Indian friends had cached theircanoe was thirty miles, the usual first day's tramp; but as a concessionto Dorothy, though she said it was not necessary, they camped whentwo-thirds of the distance had been covered.
While Dorothy, Mason and John made ready the camp and began supper;Captain Fairfax and the Indians hunting in the cliffs, killed a yearlingbear, steaks from which were broiled for supper and breakfast.
By nine the next morning they made the willows, where the canoe wasconcealed; and from there in four days and without unusual incidentpaddled to Point Pleasant; and also in good time they completed theirvoyage from the mouth of the Kanawha, down the Ohio and up the Scioto,to Shauane-Town.
Word of their coming having preceded them they were met at the river bythe whole village. John Calvin was lodged with his brothers by adoption,Tecumseh or the Crouching Panther and Oliuachica or the Prophet; theothers were taken to the guest lodge.
Their visit was made the occasion for several big hunts and festivalswhich were enjoyed by all. Oliuachica and two braves returned to JacksonRiver with them; not only as a guard for that journey but to act asguides and to protect their party upon its contemplated emigration tothe District of Kentucky, by way of the Wilderness Road.
While they were away Donald McDonald died. Mrs. McDonald going from theroom wherein she was spinning to the adjoining one, found him sitting inhis old hickory split-bottom chair, with his Bible resting in his lap.Though the door between the rooms had been open, she had heard no sound.His death was not unexpected; he was quite feeble and in hiseighty-third year. They buried him in the kirkyard of the church wherehe had preached for so many years.
Though his kindred a month or so later moved to Kentucky and never againvisited the old place, his grave was not neglected. Friends and membersof his flock, in testimony that his work was appreciated and his lifehad not been in vain, trimmed the turf of the green mound and in seasonstrewed it with apple, laurel and rhododendron bloom.
Voices; Birth-Marks; The Man and the Elephant Page 16
