The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1858-06-17
Communications.
Correspondence Of the News.
NOTES OF TRAVEL.
NUMBER "

NUMBER v.
FareoCeH to Boyhood Scenes - Home
1rard- Bound - Crossing "Hqs0n 6I
Dipon's Line Contrast Jeh0een Penn
@lyapia and Mqrvland- Effects Of
Siagery The WcatFcr- Crops-H1r-
Uesting Machines, d,c.
CECIL COUNTY, ND, June lth, 1858.
FRIEND BoARDMAv: Il have bid
farewell once more to Chester County
to its beautifully cultivated fields, to the
scenes Of my early childhood-and what
is harder still, to friends and relatives,
that shared my earliest friendship. L
have, in all probability, taken the last
look at the graves Of many early friends,
and read for the last time the inscrip-
tions on the marble that marks their
resting-placo.
! What a change we can see, after a few
short years of absence from a ncighbor-
hood inlwhich we wereacquaintedI Lit
tie boys and girls have got to be men
and women; young men have become
groy-headed and grey hairs have passed
into the grave.
I believe I wrote fast from the Bran
dywine battle-ground Now I write
from the sunny side of 'Mason & Dix
on's Line" The line is marked here
by large stone, standing some two
feet out Of the ground, planted every
) mile by Mason & Dixon, who we're op-
E pointed by William Penn and Lord
Baltimore to run the line between their
possessions. The stones, it is said, were
brought from England They are
marked with the letter "P." on the
; North side, and "M. on the South
= It was quite an event for the ladies to
cross that magic line. They thought
4 they felt difference in the very atmos-
phere, as soon as they knew themselves
to be in territory where men, women and
e children are sold like hogs in the mar
= ket!-where husbands and wives are
separated, to pay the debts which are the
e result of extravaganza and debauchery
that the rery peculiar institution" itself
caused IF they could not feel a differ
q ence in the I am sure could very soon
t see a difference in the agriculture of the
country, after leaving the land of free
! labor and free schools, and passing into
!: State where the word "free" is odious,
Q Yet crossing the line where we did,
: Con the Philadelphia and Port Deposit
r road) the contrast between Freedom and
q Slavery is not so strongly marked as in
o many other places, for the reason that
Immediately south Of the line is a large
$ settlement of Quakers, who settled here
C in the days Of Penn, believing it to be
j. in his Province, which the subsequent
6 running of the line proved not to be the
case These people, it is we'll known,
e profess to bear a faithful testimony
d against slavery, and their influence has
almost entirely excluded slavery from
the neighborhood, and literally moved
the line Of freedom several miles farther
south. But still the lalos Of slavery are
in force here, and they must and will
to some extent blight and curse any
land where they are in force.
=, The contrast is so great in passing
from Pennsylvania to Maryland, even
here, under the favorable influences
above mentioned, that no one could helI
notice it. North of the line we SEE
fine brick school-houses, "where learn
ing is a free gift" besides which, in al
most every town, is a fourishing acado
, - my or private boarding-schOol; but here
we will, at best, see but an Indifferent
sohool-houso, now and then, where q
soauty education is doled out to such as
- are able to pay for it,
Why do we not see the fine, double
deoked barns here, that we do in Penn
sylvania? Why are the fences tumblinl
down, and the fence.oOruers growing uI
IT, with briars and bushes--the gate-post
tumbling down, or the gates of theil
hinges2 The stock, too, look as if thel
felt the curse Of slavery resting on them
Instead of the fine hogs we see in Ches
Of ter County, we see lean, sharp-nOsec
Ig breed, that look as if they would chasI
'' a grOund-squirrol a mile to rob him Of
chestnut
10 But there are honorable exceptions Il
o,i this kind Of farming There are som
. excellent farmers here, but they cam
from Pennsylvania. And what brough
them here ? Why, they came beoaus
" 3 they could buy land for about ono-haJ