The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1905-05-10


three generations, the new city
reservoir and water works, which
will cost a million and a half dollars
when completed, the Seven Pines
battlefield, where was located what
was known as the ''bloodyIV" and
bloody angle where $4,000 men
were killed on tract of land COW
ering, | should judge, not over Is
acres. The battlefelds of Cold
Harbor and Fair Oaks, and fifty
other places of interest to a north
ern visitor, in a southern city like
Richmond.
Our trip to Newport News. Hamp-
ton, Old Point, Fort Monroe, Ports
mouth and Norfolk was made on the
steamer Pocahontas, down the James
river, which broadens out to more
than a mile wide soon after leaving
Richmond. The Pocahontas, which
leaves Richmond every other day at
seven clock in the morning and
arrives at Norfolk at s o'clock in
the evening, is a new, three-decked
steamer, and is said to be the hand
soonest craft ever employed in south
ern waters. The hull is construct
ed OF steel; length 305 feet; width,
over guards, 81 feet; depth of hold
II feet, and engines having an indi-
Gated horse power of 8, 100. We en-
joyed the trip very much and though
we experienced to the full the good
bye remark of a Virginia friend
who said, "reckon youall will have
right smart of weather befo' youall
return, yet we did not let the rain
which fell during part of the fore
noon, keep us from seeing the many
points of interest along the James.
The steamer stops at all of these
points to leave or take on passen-
gers and mail. A monument marks
what is said to be the grave of
Powhattan, the father of Pocahontas,
on the north shore. Our boat passed
through Dutch Gap canal, which
cuts off loop of about seven miles
of the river, and was commenced
by federal force under Gen. But
Ter, during the war. At City Point
the Appomattox river enters the
James and upon the bluff may be
seen the fine residence long used
as headquarters of Gen. Grant,
Berkeley, better known at the
north as Harrison s Landing, was
the point for exchange of prisoners,
and the birthplace of President
Harrison (Tippecanoe) and grand
father of Benjamin Harrison. At
Wind Mill point 100, 1000 Federal
troops crossed the river on a pom
toon bridge in two days, to besiege
Petersburg. We had half an hour
at Jamestown, the scene of the
earliest English settlement on the
continent. It was OF most surpass-
ing interest to us. Here is pre-
sented to the passing traveller a
vista of several thousand acres of
well-tilled land, much of it recently
reclaimed from the marsh. Just
west of the fine new wharf is to be
seen the tangled copse, above
which projects the heavy brick
tower of the first church built in
America, with its little cemetery,
and close by its shadows the earth
rampartS of confederate fort. The
storms of years have engulfed in
the stream a considerable part OF
the original town dating from 1907,
of which abundant traces are visi
BILE in the fields just beyond the
church. A mass of masonry upon
the shore is supposed to have once
formed part Of Capt, John Smith S
magazine, and not far from the
wharf is the large residence, said to
be the oldest habitable house in the
United States, dating from 1910. 1t
was built by William Cary, whose
great granddaughter, Mary Cary,
students of historic fiction will re-
member, was courted in vain by
George Washington.
The talk of the people of the en-
tire state of Virginia at the present
time is the jamestown exposition
which is to be opened in 1907. The
exposition will probably be held al
Norfolk, and not only Virginia but
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