The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1868-08-07
Especial Cor. Of the Chicago Tribune.l
VIRGINIA AND THE YIRGINIANS.
A Talk with Porte CrayOn.
WAsuINaroN. JUNO %. 1s


ern man of my acquaintance, the I'm
ion General and Aide-de-camp, David
Hunter Strotber, cousin of Genera
David Hunter, but better known by his
7lODlme de coy0ge of |Porte Crayon.'
He is fifty years of age, singular-look-
ing man, with Polish face and struggling
white beard, yet with two young child
rem around his feet, the youngest but 8
few months old. He has keen scintil.
liant eye, gristly body, pretty wei
emaciated and wearied out in the war
and his eyes have suffered by drawing
upon the shining surface of lockwood
SO that he has given up ell work but
writing and sketching upon paper.
The history of this man is in many
senses singular. He belongs to one oftht
Oldest and most eminent families of Vir-
ginia. His mother was a Hunter, OF
Martinsburg his father q Colonel in the
old army of the United States. Around
him by marriage and fellowship the
leading rebels of Virginia grew up
the Masons, Randolphs, Lees, Custises
Pendletons. Old Colonel Strother, re.
pairing to Berkeley Springs for his health
erected there one of the largest hotels
in America. Prior to that time the
springs were used for a sort of invalid
camp meeting every year, invalids re-
pairing there with covered wagons
tents, or sheltered by bushhuts. In this
way Lord Fairfax, Washington, Charles
Carroll, aud most of the Revolutionary
people, drank and bathed in the waters
and Mrs. Washington and the Baroness
de Reidesel occupied adjoining huts
while yorktown surrendered.
Old Colonel Strother, small, imper-
ativc, indurated man, held, by his per-
sOnal influence, the county of Morgan
to the Union. He was past eighty years
old his influence extended across the
North Mountain into the valley of Vir-
ginia, and he became so obnoxious to
rebels that they arrested him and drag
ged him to Winchester. His own cous-
in, Angus Mcdonald, put him in pris-
on pen, exposed to the rain and vapors
of the night, but there the old soldier
harrangued the rebel volunteers until
they became uneasy, like their officers
and the latter brought him to trial on
the charge of treason. Colonel Stroth-
er's friends were very solicitous for his
safety, and stirred themselves, with reb-
ell conniVance, to get together the most
favorable testimony in his defense.
The witnesses, one after another, de-
posed that they knew Colonel Strothel
very well that he was a good Virgini-
an, q charitable man, no Abolitionist,
etc.
The old man, disdaining to be so rep
resented, though at the price of his safe
ty, arose i'll court and cried:
"You know nothing of my senti-
ments, sir ii gou wish to know my opin-
ions Ito the Judge 1 will give them to
you. signed with my name and sealed
with my seal. How dare you arraign q
good citizen of the United States before
this mob tribunal? call this process
treason l call you a traitori And i
had the power l would hang you Oh
the public gallOws!"
The court took a speedy way of get
ting rid of this old trooper, and he was
permitted to go home. But there was
Stonewall Jackson plundering hi;
house there the young men whom he
had helped TO christen and taught tc
shoot the rifle, Wanting their treason
Old Col. Strother laid down in shame
and died. His daughter put his body
i'll hearse and followed it alone, will
a single carriage, across the mountain!
| to MartinSburg, where she buried hin
among his fathers.
Meantime, "Porte Crayon" was in til,
Union lines, Aide-de-Camp to McClel
Ian, to Banks, to Hunter. He guided
the army of the Union to Antietam
His services cover all the Atlantic ant
I Gulf slope, from Lake Pontchartrain t.
| the SusQuehanna. After the war he wa
Secretary to Governor Pierpont o
Virginia. Then he came to the villag
of Bath to rest and pursue in pleasan
competence his studies and drawings.
1t was there that found him, happie
than he has ever been, but done with &C
tive life. The hotel is still intact, an,
Hospitality kept by Porte Cray on's broth
in-law. It is still the favoriie resort 70
New Orleans, Washington and Balti
more people, and many Northern mel
are building cottages there.
VIRGINIA sULLEN.
! found "Porte Crayon" in his library
his early oil paintings surrounding tn,
room, and scattered among his book
were sketches of the john Brown raid
the most valuable "reminiscences eXtan
of that border warfare. His library i!
perhaps the most perfect in Virginia, il
its colonial and local State collections
! He is the most conscientious designe
in the country, not so exquisite, perhaps
as barley, but barley long ago resigned
individualism for commerce, and he ha
made a fortune. Porte Crayon's large
and better sketches have never beer
published; they are studies of nativ
character, the Mountain surveyor, thu
Chesapeake skipper, the negro patriarch
instinct with human suggestion from
/ the hairs to the hands, and never exag
Grated, often numerous, and always III
volving some national or domestic sen
timent. When had opportunity ask
ed Strother the state of feeling il
Virginia.
..Sulleness and ruin, he said, s'the oil,
vices of pride and idleness that Johl
Smith attested of the Virginians exis
to-day through this whole common
wealth, aggravated by conscious power
ty. The sentiment against manual Ia
Dor is strong as ever. The young mel
can't contend against it. They viii loite
around hotels, borrow money from any
body, with no expectation OF returnin;
it, drink on credit, but do no work. !
good many young fellows have been t
see me, seeking advice tell them t
They are able-bodied. In an atmos
phere where work is pride they will d
as well as anybody. But their conditio
is hopeless here. 1t is not altogether tn
sentiment against work it is the atmo:
phere of laziness, the feeling of feuda
ism at war with the personal degrads
, ton Ofindustry, deposing trade, tit onl
for politics and fighting"
sit is no delusion," continued Port
Crayon, ''that the feudal spirit and mod
of life, perpetuated in Virginia by sis
very, is more marked than you will fin
it anywhere in Europe. Bulwer woul
have found models here for the Last
the Barons. The feudal spirit ws
ayerse to the life of cities. So Is VII