Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1860-01-19
4opular 8eaamg,
ANDREW JACKSON.

l
tracts from the first volume of Parton's ad
mirable "Life of Andrew jackson" just
published in New York by Mason Brothers,
The following extracts will show the style
and general character of the work. The
book cannot fail to interest readers of both
youthful and advanced years.
JAcKsoN's B1RTHPLAoE.-In a large
field, near the edge of a wide, shallow ra.
vine, on the plantation of Mr.. j. W. Cure
ton, there is to be seen great elump, OF
natural summer.house, Of Catawba grape
vines. Some remains of old fruit.trees near
by, and spring little way, down the ra.
vine, indicate that human habitation once
stood near this spot 1t is still and soil.
tary place, away from the road, in red,
level region, where the young pines are in
haste to cover the well.worn cotton fields,
and man seems half inclined to let them dc
it, and move to Texas. Upon looking IN.
der the masses of grapevine, heap Of
large stones showing traces of fire is dis,
covered. These stones once formed the
chimney and fireplace of the log-house
wherein George McCamielived and Andrew
Jackson was born. On that old, yellow
hearth.stone, Mrs. Jackson lulled her infant
to sleep, and brooded over her sad bereave,
ment, and thought anxiously respecting the
future of her fatherless boys. Sacred spot
not SO much because there a hero was born,
as because there noble mother suffered,
sorrowed, and accepted her new lot, and
bravely bent herself to her more than
doubled weight of care and toll.
MIsoH1EvoUs ANDY.-To the old people
in the Carolinas, who are descended from
the sisters of Mrs. Jackson, Andrew Jack
son is not so much the famous President
and the victorious General, as he little
Andy, the miscbief.loving son of good aunt
Betty. Indy did this; and Amdy went
there; when andy was at New Orleans,
and when indy was President-they say
in familiar talk about him by the huge fire.
places of their old farm-houses. He is well
remembered in that part of the country, as
there are twenty people living there who
were in the habit for many years Of hearing
their parents tell stories Of him; simple,
honest, hospitable people, whom to hear is
to believe. So changeless is the South, so
secluded do the farmers there live from the
world of men and books, that these kind
people are evidently just what their grand
fathers we're before the Revolution, and their
great-grandfathers in Carricfergus.
AUNT PHYLL1s.-There is an aged slave
woman known in the neighborhood as old
Aunt Phyllis. living still on the Crawford
farm, who lived there when Mrs. Jackson,
ninety-two years ago, brought her infant to
her sisters house. Aunt Phyllis appears
to remember her coming vividly. I saw
the old lady in her cabin, one of small
street of negro cabins, pottering over the
fire, and keeping an eye on half a dozen
small images of God cut in ebony, while
their parents were abroad in the fields
She is bent half double, but is otherwise
remarkably we'll preserved. At the men
tion of the name of Jackson, every wrinkle
in her old face laughed; but her recollec-
tions of the boy and his mother are scauty
in the extreme. She remembers Mrs. jack
son as stout woman who was always knit
ting or spinning; "a very good woman, and
very much respected Of the boy she has
one distinct reminiscence which the polite
reader must excuse me for repeating. As
every eye sees what it's capable of seeing, so
every memory retains what belongs to it to
retain and the memory of aunt Phyllis is
a memory in point What she recollects of
Andy is, that she assisted to cure him of a
disease which she called the 'big Itch
ANEREw AT THE LoG-scHooL.-In due
time the boy was sent to an 'old-feld
school, an institution not much unlike the
roadside schools in Ireland, of which We
read. The northern reader is, perhaps, not
aware that an sold.feld' is not field at al,
but pine forest. When crop after crop Of
cotton, without rotation, has exhausted the
soil, the fences are taken away, the land lies
waste, the young pines at once spring up,
and cover the whole field with a thick
growth of wood. In one of these old fields,
the rudest possible shanty of a Lighthouse is
erected, with a fireplace that extends from
side to side, and occupies third of the in
terror. In winter, the interstices of the log
walls are filled up with clay, which the rest