Gabriel Tolliver: A Story of Reconstruction Read online

  CHAPTER TWO

  _A Town with a History_

  Before, during, and after the war, Shady Dale presented always the sameaspect of serene repose. It was, as you may say, a town with a history.Then, as now, there were towns all about that had no such fortunateappendage behind them to explain their origin. No one could tell whatthey were begun for; no one could say whether they had for their nucleusan old field or a cross-roads grocery, or whether a party of immigrantspitched their tents there because the grass was fine and the waterabundant. There is one city in Georgia, and it is the most prosperous ofall, that was built on the idea that the cattle-paths and the oldgovernment roads afford the most convenient and picturesque contours forthe streets; and to this day, the thoroughfares of that city afford amost interesting study to those who are interested in either topographyor human nature; for it is possible to go to that city, and, with halfan eye, discover the places where the waggons and other vehicles turnedaside nearly a hundred years ago to avoid the mudholes, the fallentrees, and other temporary obstructions. They have been preserved in theconformation of the streets.

  Shady Dale is no city, and it may be that its public-spirited citizensstretch the meaning of the term when they call it a town. Nevertheless,the community has a well-defined history. When Raleigh Clopton, shortlyafter the signing of the treaty of peace between the United States andGreat Britain, crossed the Oconee, and settled on the lands of thehostile Creeks, his friends declared that he was tempting Providence;and so it seemed; but the event proved that from first to last, hisadventure was under the direct guidance of Providence. He demonstratedanew the truth of two ancient maxims: he who risks nothing, gainsnothing; heaven helps those who help themselves. Raleigh Clopton riskedeverything and gained the most beautiful domain in all the land. He had,indeed, one stormy interview with General McGillivray, the great Creekchief and statesman, but after that all was peace and prosperity.

  General McGillivray was one of the most remarkable men of his time, andhis time was during an era of remarkable men. He possessed a genius thatenabled him to cope successfully with the ablest statesmen of his day.He drew Washington into a secret treaty with the Creek Nation, and whenMcGillivray died, the Father of his country referred to him as "myfriend," and deplored his taking off. Courageous and adventuroushimself, McGillivray was no doubt attracted by the attitude andpersonality of the fearless Virginian. He became the warm friend ofRaleigh Clopton, and marked that friendship by deeding to the firstwhite settler two thousand acres of land lying between the Little Riverhills on one side, and the meadows of Murder Creek on the other.Moreover, he named the estate Shady Dale, and aided Raleigh Clopton toestablish a trading-post where the court-house of the town now stands;and on a pine near by, he caused to be made the semblance of a brokenarrow, a token that between the Creeks and the Master of Shady Dale alasting peace had been established.

  This was the beginning. When the multifarious and long-disputed treatiesbetween the United States and the Creek Nation had been signed, and ageneral peace was assured, Raleigh Clopton communicated with his friendsin Wilkes, Burke, Columbia and Richmond counties--the choice spirits whohad fought by his side in the bloodiest battles of the War forIndependence--informed them of his good fortune, and invited them toshare it. The response was all that he could have desired. His oldfriends and comrades lost no time in joining him--the Dorringtons, theTomlins, the Gaithers, the Awtrys, the Terrells, the Odoms, theLumsdens, and, later, the friends and relatives of these. For the mostpart they were men of substance and character.

  Well, perhaps not all. There are black sheep in every flock, andwherever the nature of Adam survives, there we may behold wisdom andfolly dancing to the same tune, and sin and repentance occupying thesame couch. So it has been from the first, and so it will be to the end.But, take them all in all, making due allowance for the tendencies ofhuman nature, the men and women who responded to the invitation ofRaleigh Clopton may be described as the salt of the earth. They had all,women and men, been subjected to the trials and hardships of a war inwhich no quarter was asked or given; and their experiences had giventhem a strength of character, and a versatility in dealing withunexpected events, that could hardly be matched elsewhere. To each ofthose who responded to his invitation, Raleigh Clopton gave a part ofhis domain, and laid out their settlement for them.

  This was the origin of Shady Dale. But to set forth its origin is not todescribe its beauty, which is of a character that refuses to submit todescription. You go down to the old town from the city, and you say toyourself and your friends that you are enjoying the delights of thecountry. You visit it from the plantations, and you feel that you arebreathing the kind of atmosphere that should be found in the social lifeof a large, refined and perfectly homogeneous community. But whether yougo there from the city, or from the plantations, you are inevitablyimpressed with a sense of the attractiveness of the place; you fallunder the spell of the old town--it was old even in the old times of thesixties. And yet if you were called upon to define the nature of thespell, what could you say? What name could you give to the tremulousbeauty that hovers about and around the place, when the fresh greenleaves of the great trees are fluttering in the cool wind, andeverything is touched and illumined by the tender colours of spring?Under what heading in the catalogue of things would you place the vividrichness which animates the town and the landscape all around when thesummer is at its height? And how could you describe the harmony thattime has brought about between the fine old houses and the setting inwhich they are grouped?

  All these things are elusive; they make themselves keenly felt, but theydo not lend themselves to analysis.

  It is a pity that those who are interested in traditions that are truerthan history could not have all the facts in regard to Shady Dale fromthe lips of Mr. Obadiah Tutwiler, who had constituted himself the oralhistorian of the community. Mr. Tutwiler was alive as late as 1869, andhad at his fingers'-ends all the essential facts relating to the originand growth of the town, and he related the story with a fluency, anaccuracy, and a relish quite surprising in so old a man.

  As was fitting, the old court-house, the temple of justice, had beenreared in the centre of the town, and the square that surrounds it tookthe shape of a park of considerable dimensions. On two sides were someof the more pretentious dwellings; the tavern, with a few of the moremodest houses took up a third side; while the fourth side was taken upby the shops and stores; and so careful had the early settlers been withthe trees, that it was possible to stand in a certain upper window ofthe court-house, and look out upon the town with not a house in sight.

  Naturally, the most interesting feature of Shady Dale was the CloptonPlace. It had been the home of the First Settler, and in 1860, when Nanand Gabriel were enjoying their happiest days, it was owned and occupiedby the son, Meriwether Clopton.

  From the time of the First Settler, the Clopton Place had been dedicatedand set apart to the uses of hospitality. The deed in which GeneralMcGillivray, in the name of the Creek Nation, conveyed the domain toRaleigh Clopton, distinctly sets forth the condition that the CloptonPlace was to be an asylum and a place of refuge for the unfortunate andfor those who needed succour. During the long and bloody contestsbetween the white settlers and the Creeks, it was the pleasure of theCreek chief to pay out of his own private fortune, which was a large onefor those days, the ransoms which, under the rules of the tribalorganisations, each Indian town demanded for the prisoners captured byits warriors. Such was the poverty of the whites in general that onlyoccasionally was General McGillivray reimbursed for his expenditures inthis direction.

  But no matter by whom the ransoms were paid, the prisoners were one andall forwarded to the Clopton Place, where they were cared for until suchtime as they could be transferred to the white settlements. In this wayhospitality became a habit at the Place, and in the years that followed,no wayfarer was ever turned away from those wide doors.

  In the pleasant weather, it was a familiar spectacle to see Meriwethe
rClopton sitting on the wide lawn, reading Virgil and Horace, two volumesof which he never tired. His favourite seat was in the shade of asilver maple, through the branches of which a grapevine had beentrained. This silver maple, with the vine running through it, and theseat in the shade, were a realisation, he once told Gabriel and Cephas,of one of the most beautiful poems in one of the volumes, but whetherVirgil or Horace, the aforesaid Cephas is unable to remember.

  There were days long to be remembered when the Master of Clopton Placeread aloud to the children, translating as he went along, and smackinghis lips over the choice of words as though he were tasting a finequality of wine. And the children felt the charm of these ancientverses; and they soon came to understand why words written downcenturies ago, had power to take possession of the mind. They werecharged with the qualities that brought them home to the modern hour;and for all that was foreign in them, they might have been composed atShady Dale. It is no wonder that the common people in the Middle Agesclothed Virgil with the gift and power of a prophet or a magician.

  Something of the charm that dwelt all about the place had its origin andcentre in Meriwether Clopton himself. His years sat lightly upon him. Hehad led an active and a temperate life, and a hale and hearty old agewas the fruit thereof. He had had his flings, and something more,perhaps, for there were traditions of some very serious troubles inwhich he had been engaged shortly after reaching his majority. ButGabriel's grandmother, who knew--none better--declared that thesetroubles were not of Meriwether Clopton's seeking. They were the resultsof a legacy of feuds which Raleigh Clopton, through no desire of hisown, had left to his son. It was said of Raleigh Clopton that his senseof justice was as strong as his temper, which was a stormy one. Heespoused the cause of young Eli Whitney, who had been despoiled of hisrights in the cotton-gin in Georgia, and this led him into a series ofdifficulties without parallel in the history of the State. RaleighClopton's attitude in this contest brought him in conflict with some ofthe most powerful men and interests in the commonwealth. It was acontest in which knavery, fraud and corruption, the courts, andconsiderable private capital, were all combined against Whitney, whoappeared to be without a strong friend until Raleigh Clopton became hischampion.

  The collusion of the courts with this high-handed robbery was soill-concealed that Raleigh Clopton soon discovered the fact, and hisindignation rose to such a white heat that it drove him to excesses. Hedragged one judge from a buggy, and plied him with a rawhide, he slappedthe face of another in a public house, and posted a dozen prominent menas thieves and corruptionists, with the result that the State fairlyswarmed with his enemies, men who were able to keep him busy in the wayof troubles and difficulties. It was the day of private feuds, and itwas not surprising that some of these enemies should attack the fatherthrough the son. Thus it fell out that Meriwether Clopton's experiencefor half a score of years after he came of age was anything butpeaceful. But he came out of all these difficulties with head erect,clean hands and a clear conscience. He was neither hardened norembittered by the violence with which he had to deal. On the contrary,his character was strengthened and his temper sweetened; so that whenthe lads who listened to his mellifluous translations from the Latinpoets, were old enough to appreciate the qualities that go to make up agood man and an influential citizen, the fact dawned upon their mindsthat Meriwether Clopton was the finest gentleman they had ever seen.