The Yazoo City Whig and political register., 1839-09-20

The Grave of ROsaIfc.
BY BENJAMIN DRAKE.

in the year 1889, soon after the destruc.
ton of the Bastile, while the people Of Paris
were fearfnlly excited, and in the midst of
a revolution, tragic in violence and blood,
beyond parallel in the annals of nations,
an American citizen, [Jeel Barlow whose
name is not unknown in the political and
literary history of this country, made his ap-
pearance in the capitol of France. He re-
presented himself-and correctly so-as the
authorized agent of the Scioto Company,
empowered to sell, at very low price, 5000
600 acres Of land, on the north side of the
Ohio, and east of the Scioto river. Having
opened an Office, he exhibited maps of this
immense tract of country, and plan of the
magnificent city of Gallpolis, which at the
touch of his magic wand, was to raise upon
the wilderness bank of Ohio. Connected
with proposals for the sale of land, the agent
put forth glowing pictures of this fertile and
beautiful Arcadia, in which it might have
been supposed the wolves were all sheep.
and aborigines all shepherds, the buckeyes
all peaches and pomegranates. The dark
shadow of coming desolation at home, con-
trasted with the quiet enjoyment of an
earthly paradise, in land where the chival-
ry of Lafayette had assisted in unfurlng the
banner of freedom, soon filed the Office of
the agent with throng of excitable French
So greedy were the purchasers, that in
very short time, at least five hundred per-
sons, constituting about eighty families,
drawn from every grade of society-mer-
chants, lawyers and clerks-ship owners,
artizans, and shop-keepers-soldiers, priests
and noblemen-sailed from their native land
for the Ell Dorado of the new world They
landed at Alexandra, full of hope and joy
Gus enthusiasm. To their utter astonish-
ment, they soon ascertained that the Scioto
Company had entirely failed to obtain title
to the lands, which their agent had been
selling in Paris; and, that the very region in
which they had pictured to themselves so
much of rural felicity and luxurious ease,
was actually teeming with wild beasts and
warlike Indians. The bright bubble which
had been playing before the excited fancy
of these Frenchmen, was now exploded.
The colonists appealed to the agents Of
the company, but received little satisfaction;
the addressed letter to General Washing
ton. who prohered them any assistance
which the Executive could give; they sent
a committee to New-York, where some of
the leading members of the company re-
sided, to insist upon compliance with the
contracts made by their agent; conference
was finally held at Alexandria, which re-
suited in an agreement on the part of the
SciotO Company, to give each purchaser
one IN and one OUT lot in the city of CALI
polls, as an indemnity for the failure to
comply with their engagements; with the
further stipulation to convey the emigrants
to the banks of the Ohio, SO soon as the
necessary arrangements could be made for
their reception. These preparations were
simple. Two long rows of log cabins, one
story IN heightb; divided into rooms fifteen
feet square, with stockade and pickets to
defend them against Indian aggression, con-
stituted the far-famed Gaulic city, at the
time when these thoughtless and disap-
pointed adventures reached the banks Of
the Ohio.-Here new difficulties awaited
were without food or the means
of procuring il. For months after their ar
rival, they subsisted on potatoes and hick- |
ory nuts, suffering from the inclemency of
the weather, and in constant dread of the |
tomohawk of the savage. They were inef-
fcient pioneers, having neither the skill to
take the wild animals for food, nor the en-
terprize to subdue the wild forest in which
they roamed. They were unacquainted
with the power of the axe, the mighty agent
in the art of civilization. The telling Of a.
sycamore tree was the work Of many hands,
for many days; and when it had fallen, they
could neither burn nor cut it up; but con-
irving, with infinite labor, TO hack off the
branches, they would dig trench in the
ground, and roll into it the prostFate monarch /
Of the woods. and thus sntomb it in the
earth. This was the novel course they pur-
sued for clearing their lots and preparing
them for corn and potatoes. The colonists
presented, indeed, curiously grotesque ap-