XV. THE WASHINGTON CYPRESS.

I arrived at Norfolk, in Virginia, on Easter eve, a few years ago, and early on Monday morning started for the Dismal Swamp, accompanied by a gentleman well acquainted with the history and localities of the neighborhood. We rode into the depths of its solitudes along the Dismal Swamp Canal, contemplating with wonder the magnificent cypresses, junipers, oaks, gums, and pines, draped with long moss, that cover it.

We penetrated to Drummond's Pond, and

went a short distance along its northeastern verge to an immense Cypress-Tree, at the foot of which, tradition avers, Washington once passed a night. The gentleman assured me that an old man, who died at Richmond twentyfive years before, once went to the Swamp with him, pointed out that tree, and affirmed that he accompanied Washington on that occasion, as a guide, though a young man only nineteen years of age. I sketched the Cypress and its surroundings, but did not believe the story. But on reference to Washington's writings, collected by

Dr. Sparks, the tradition assumes the features of truth. A project was formed in Virginia for draining the Dismal Swamp. A company for that purpose was chartered by the Virginia Legislature in 1764. Washington was one of the corporators. In October, 1763, he explored the Swamp on horseback and on foot. In a letter to Dr. Hugh Williamson, in 1784, he refers to it as follows: "Once I traversed Drummond's Pond through its whole circuit, and at a time when it was brimful of water. I lay one night on the east border of it, on ground something above the common level of the Swamp; and in the morning I had the curiosity to ramble as far into the Swamp as I could get," etc. Upon such testimony, I give a drawing of that venerable Cypress, as the one under which Washington slept almost a hundred years ago.

Drummond's Pond is near the centre of the Swamp, and is a dreary, solitary, and mysterious sheet of water. When Moore, the Irish poet, visited Norfolk in 1804, he heard the story of a young man who, on the death of a girl he loved, became insane. He believed she was not dead, but had made the Swamp her abode, and under that impression he wandered into its solitudes and perished. This was the origin of his touching ballad, commencing

"They made her grave too cold and damp

For a soul so warm and true;

And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,
Where all night long, by her fire-fly lamp,

She paddles her white canoe.

And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,

And her paddle I soon shall hear:

Long and loving our life shall be,

And I'll hide the maid in a cypress-tree

When the footsteps of death are near."

VOL. XXIV.-No. 144.-3 A

WW THE MAMI APPLE-TREE.

de sunetion of the St. Mary and St. Jow does where he firm the Maumee River, Walur of no taxes in bidiana, is a rich ich hat dan corn has been raised da andred consecutive riches externg the soil. It is oppoAll that stands upon A væ or do brave of Aonga. x of the noted villages Maior dans; and there MishLide Dartia the famous Miami Now and lived until late in life. He se here long since passed away, and ng thing remains with which Autod It is a venerable Appletig fruit when I visited it late in It is from a seed doubtless Ce French priest or trader in early a fruit-bearing tree a hundred Nasica (Wild Cat) or RichSuccessor of Little Turtle, was born exhibits now-with a trunk fect in diameter, seamed and ad the elements-remarkable

city of Fort Wayne may be Apple-Tree; and around it ties of stirring scenes near century, when American

armies were sent into that region to chastise the hostile Indians. On the Maumee, near by, a detachment of General Harmar's troops were defeated and decimated by the Indians, under Little Turtle, in the autumn of 1791. The sanguinary scene was at the ford, just below the Miami village; and Richardville, who was with Little Turtle, always declared that the bodies of the white men lay so thick in the stream that a man could walk over on them without wetting his feet.

A short distance from Little Turtle's village, in another direction, lies a beautiful and fertile plain, between the St. Mary and St. Joseph, opposite Fort Wayne. There, in a garden, near an apple-orchard planted by Captain Wells, the white brother-in-law of Little Turtle (who was killed at Chicago in 1812), is the grave of the chief.

That orchard is the oldest in Northern Indiana, having been planted in 1804.

Little Turtle commanded the Miamis at the defeat of St. Clair, in the autumn of 1791. He was also in command in the battle with Wayne, at the Fallen Timbers, in 1794. He was not a chief by birth, but by election, on account of personal merits. He died in 1812, when Co-issee, his nephew, pronounced a funeral oration at his grave.

Volney, the eminent French traveler and philosopher, became acquainted with Little Turtle

in Philadelphia, in 1797, two years after he led his people in making the final treaty of peace with Wayne, at Greenville. By his assistance Volney made a vocabulary of the Miami language.

While in Philadelphia Little Turtle sat for his portrait, and alternated with an Irish gentleman. They were both fond of joking, and sometimes pushed each other pretty hard. On one occasion, when they met at the artist's studio, the chief was very sedate, and said but little. The Irish gentleman told him that he was defeated in badinage, and did not wish to talk. (They talked through an interpreter.) Little Turtle replied, "He mistakes; I was just thinking of proposing to this man to paint us both on one board, and then I would stand face to face with him, and blackguard him to all eternity!"

VILLERE'S PECAN-TREE

XVII. VILLERE'S PECAN-TREE.

"Sumter has undoubtedly fallen!" I said to my traveling companion, as I sat upon the basc of an unfinished monument, sketching the battle-ground at New Orleans, on the 12th of April, 1861, and heard seven discharges of cannon in the direction of the city. The telegraph had informed us in the morning of the attack upon it. The conjecture became certainty a few hours later, when we returned to the St. Charles. During those hours we visited the fine old residence of General Villeré, a few miles below the city. It was the head-quarters of the British army at the time of the battle on the plain of Chalmette, on the 8th of January, 1815.. A few rods from the mansion, on the broad lawn that surrounds it, we were shown a stately Pecan - Tree, beneath which were buried the

viscera of General Packenham, the British commander-in-chief, who was mortally wounded in that battle. The tree is tall, and about nine feet in circumference. On account of its associations it is the subject of superstitious reverence among the negroes, because, since the event that made it famous, it has never borne fruit. On the bark, near an orifice in the tree, are dark red spots, which the superstitious declare to be blood, having been seen there ever since the day of Packenham's burial.

After the battle the bodies of the slain or mortally wounded British officers were taken to Villeré's. Some of them were interred in the garden, by torchlight, the same night. Those of Generals Packenham and Gibbs, and of Colonels Dale and Rennie, were placed in casks of rum, after proper preparation, and sent to England. The viscera of each were first removed and buried. Packenham's, as we have observed, were buried at the foot of the great Pecan-Tree, then standing in the garden, but now included in the lawn.

The remainder of the dead of the British army were buried in the rear of Bienvenu's plantation near. The implements of culture have never since touched the spot. A grove of inferior cypresses mark the dreary cemetery, and it is regarded with awe by the superstitious negroes.

Near the famous Pecan-Tree stands another, younger but not more vigorous, that bears fruit in abundance. This fact makes the barrenness of its notable companion seem more remarkable.

XVIII-THE FOX OAK AT FLUSHING. The last in the order of our historical trees, and the one latest sketched, is in the eastern part of the village of Flushing, Long Island, a few miles from New York city, and known as the Fox Oak. It is in quiet Bowne Avenue, not far from the ancient mansion of the Bowne family, erected in 1661. It has ever been held in reverence by the Society of Friends or Quakers, ⚫ because it once sheltered George Fox, the founder of their sect, while preaching to a multitude. Fox came to America in the year 1672, on a religious visit. He landed at Philadelphia, where he remained a while. He then passed through New Jersey to Middletown, where he embarked for Gravesend at the western extremity of Long Island. From Gravesend he traveled by land the whole length of Long Island. Returning he stopped at Flushing, "where," he says in his journal, we had a meeting of many hundred people." There being no place of worship large enough to hold the multitude, Fox preached in the shade of two large white-oak trees near the house of John Bowne, a Quaker, who entertained him. The oaks were made famous by that remarkable gathering.

66

Its

years old. Its circumference, two feet from the ground, is sixteen feet.

Fox, in his journal, mentions an extraordinary circumstance that occurred soon after his visit on Long Island. "We passed," he said, "from Flushing to Gravesend, about twenty miles, and had three precious meetings there. While we were at Shrewsbury, John Jay, a Friend, of Barbadoes, who came with us from Rhode Island, fell from his horse and broke his neck, as the people said. Those near him took him up for dead, carried him a good way, and laid him on a tree. I got to him as soon as I could, and concluded he was dead. Whereupon I took his head in both my hands, and setting my knees against the tree, raised his head two or three times with all my might, and brought it on. He soon began to rattle in his throat, and quickly after to breathe. The people were amazed; but I told them to be of good faith, and carry him into the house. He began to speak, but did not know where he had been. The next day we passed away, and he with us, about sixteen miles, to a meeting at Middletown, through woods and bogs, and over a river where we swam our horses. Many hundred miles did he travel with us after that."

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