Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1865-11-18


quent token of the cost of Liberty.
Does any man, horrifed by the storie!
told concerning it believe the famous
and infamous "dead line"
Go no more, even in dreams, to Pompei
and Her ulaneum, buried cities of the old
world. Here is the
CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD.
| City as prosperous as those, as fruitful as
those in the signs and tokens of q life that
was and is not. On those eleven or twelve
acres there were at least $500 houses-per-
haps 5000 would be more correct figure
and not less than three-fourths of them are
nearly as good as they were on the day of
their sudden evacuation, and in hundreds of
them are memorials of that life of want and
woe which $4,000 men knew here, and from
| which 1000 passed out through the door of
the timber, and laid themselves down in
long rows tor the final sleep, and for the
glorious reward due unsefish souls.
In the construction of these habitations
there is almost infinite variety on common
general plan. This one in which sit, and
through which the still driving storm be-
gins to beat, furnishes that general plan,
with very little elaboration or decoration.
Come in and see it. Do you find the door
low and narrow, and have you horror Of
this squat roof and these smoky walls, and
this foor2 Yet here lived three or four
mentor many weeks, doubtless, and, per-
haps, for many months The hut is six
and half feet long, four feet and three
inches wide, and about five feet high in the
centre. hole of fifteen inches depth was
dug and at either end of it was set fork
ed stick; in these two forks were laid a
ridge pole. The wall of our house is the
side of the hole; the roof is the slope of
sticks or slabs of wood resting on the ridge
pole, and at the edge of the hole. This is
the general plaE. The huts smaller than
this are more numerous than those larger.
The back end is made of sticks driven into
the ground, against which earth has been
thrown. The front end is built with more
care Half of it is of mud brick, and the
door and the little chimney at the corner
occupy the other half. The door is simply
a mole; the chimney is seemingly built up
OF little bricks, and gives tiny fire place
OF about fifteen inches square. The roof
was first covered with pine brush and then
six or eight inches of earth.
Perhaps hundred of the huts are en-
tirely above ground. Possibly score ore
so high that an ordinary man can stand
straight in them. But then there are
thousand built over holes three feet deep-a
thousand not more than four feet high in
the ridge-a thousand not more than four
feet square-some hundreds that show only
such height above the ground as we'll fill
ed grave. Do you deem it awful that men
should live in such habitations as thesel
Yet there were palaces beside the burrows
of Salisbury. The thousand of tiny bricks
h,so do ro1< 4,
of the hill side west of the brook. The
graded fiat extending back sixty or seventy
feet from the stream suggests parade
ground; but it was only the bed on which
these little bricks were sun-baked. In the
use of the brick there was sometimes great
deal of skill and ingenuity displayed. One
sees with pleasure score or two of CHM
neys that ale models of architectural beauty;
one finds not few fire places that are con-
structed with elaborate improvements. So,
too, few of the wooded huts have doors
curiously braided or woven of splinters.-
There is, indeed, over in the southwest
corner, one whole house above ground,
woven walls and roof, like q basket. These
things, though, are exceptional; generally
there was only so much as would answer
the baldest utilitarianism.
saw with gladness that there was plenty
of wood. Some of it as have already said,
is still piled in a long rank just outside the
stockade. There is an abundance, also,
scattered all about the neutrality-suspicious.
.y east of the brook. Look into hundred
buts, and you shall see the wood ready cut
for the little fire place-in seventy-five of
them surely. In few cases it even yet lies
nicely piled against the chimney on the
outside.
In one of these, little square, deep hole
house, was a page of Hazzlitts Table Talk,
rude wooden spoon, a pair of wooden
knives, tin plate, and an armful of pine
wood. Was it this morning that the tenant
moved out into the large world?
HERE LIVED A YANKEE BOY OF EDUCATION.
1t is six months since he last passed
through the door, yet everything is as
orderly and neat as if arranged but an hour
ago. His wood is carefully piled in the
corner next to the fireplace, his stool is
sound and strong, his seat against the wall
has not fallen down, the bowl of his brier-
wood pipe is sweet and clean. He was
saving and thoughtfnl-here is the spring
of pocket knife laid away against possi-
ble need: carefully in the pine bush cover
ing of his roof is little roll of blue army
cloth for patches; en- a string tied in the
corner are strung three buttons. He read
somebody's history of English literature, for
here is a leaf from the book-pages 229 and
$50; he kept the roll of his company,
judge, for here is a page, wet and dingy,
from his diary, on which are dozen
names.