The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-09-29

Merry England and the royal gaiety Of court life; tho busy streets of London town, and the old manor house of mtlord, were but happy memories to the lonely pioneer Of the old Dominion. Rugged featured and determined, he had turned his eyes from the past, and in the distant clearing at Jamestown had fashioned his humble reed-thatched hut. Rough hewn 1t was; ungainly, rather forsaken, it stood in the wilderness; It's shelter unacquainted with the protection of womanly heart and life: its rafters strangely unresound- ing to the echo of childhood happiness.
 Perhaps after . day of brave struggle and unceasing toil the bronzed soldier, the sturdy Iaborer. and tho young adven- turer confided the same lonely secret to the murmuring wind as they dreamed the same dream out under the stars. Yet this was not always to last. One happier day the leaves of the century old trees fiuttered with new gladness; all the lit tie wild flowers courtesIed a gay welcome where they swayed in the brocze. A truant sunbeam passed the threshold of an open doorway to finger round hearth stone in Henrico, and little cabin claimed it's soul. For in the house that the man had builded the woman founded q home. A brave little home which stood in that rude settlement, surrounded by an untried world of perils, stanohly facing the dawni And when the winds came. and the storms descended '1t fell not. for 1t was founded upon a rock" which was the cornerstone of American civilization. Henceforth many baby eyes were destined to open upon new land, good land, a home land.
 Love and labor wrought valiantly in that virgin forest For. as Carleton tells us:
 'It aint the funniest thing man can do Existing in country when it's new;
 Nature who moved in first, 8 good long
 while
 Has things already somewhat her own
 style,
 And she don't want her woodland splendor
 battered.
 Her rustic furniture broke up and scat
 tered;
 Her paintings, which long years ago were
 done By that old splendid artist king. the sun, Torn down and dragged in civilizations s
 gutter.
 Or sold to purchase settlers bread and
 butter.'
 Usually the bread without much butter for hungry young America, the corn hay- ing been purchased after much parleying with the Indians, who at that time eccu- pied most of the land in tidewater Vlr- ginla On a sdoping hill just over the York the big chief dwelt in his royal tepee. There was none other to whom tribute was due, than the Powhatan; none, save the little maid, the princess Pocahontas, crowned royalty with a wealth of dusky hair and the twining scarlet berries. Like Minnehaha she was light of the wigwam, the frelight by which cen savage heart was warmed, the guiding starlight of the pale faced pioneer For the soldier whose life she saved said of her: lever once In four or five days she brought food, which saved many of their lives, that else, for all this, had starved for hunger" long journey from York to Jamestown for the little Pocahontas," who was ''of so great a spirit, however her stature" After she had married Master John Rolfe in the old church at Jamestown she made her home in Henrico, where lived the great Gov ernor Dale Near by was Rock r Ill, the parsonage of the good apostle of Virginia. where he and Dale became the stancnest of friends. The gruff high marshal and the man of gentle mein alike were inter ested In Pocahontas, or Rebecca. as her Christian name was. Perhaps they won dered at the wisdom of so slight maid who had firmly renounced the god of her fathers, the one alone called Hiwassa, the spirit of evil. to accept as her life the one alone called Love, the spirit of all good. Yet Pocahontas herself spent many happy hours at the old parsonage, helping the good apostle to teach the Indian children.
 More than half hundred years passed after that before the cabins of the pioneers assumed more important aspect as they became the homes of the gold laced soldiers who guarded the palisades of the frontier. Occasionally one remained unchanged, the primitive little haven of some jovial fisherman. Meanwhile the humble houses of the interior had ex- banded into the comfortable wooden homes of the planters, situated along the banks of the James. From the present site of Richmond to the Chesapeake there were vast plantations, surrounding homes which seemed always inviting the way farer to partake of their spacious hospi- tality. The gay barges of the planter glided up and down the river, to gladden. the heart of some neighbor friend for fortnight. Or, perhaps. the planter him- self rode slowly by on horseback en route 
 capital On his way from Powhattan or Smiths old settlement of Nonsuch hs passed Ampthill and Shirley, the future home of Lees mother; Berkley, destined to be a presidents birthplace; the little city of Henricus. with it's low matched roofs and crooked streets; Dewey's Bluff. peacefully undreaming any future con- fiict; Wyanoke and Flower de Hundred; the estates of Westover and Martins Brandon finally to reach James Cittie,'' tho little old weather beaten church and the humble beginning of all that was to be- This same James Cittie" happened to be the only one, with the exception of Henricus, of which Virginia could boast at that time. The southerner always pre- ferred the individuality. the independence. the separateness which belonged to a rural people. Perhaps he thought too much of individualism, but if socially an aristocrat, politically he was democratic from the first when the Burgesses de- clared that ''all free men should vote.'' Slavery was never the Souths convic- ton. but was simply congenial to the climate and conditions, which seemed nec- essary to it's industrial growth. It was certainly a wonderful system for the training and development of a child race. Perhaps it was but the undesirable means to better end for all concerned. Each plantation was complete within itself. The lord of the little world was no less parsonage than the planter himself, who, despite all his gold lace trimmings, was as unaffected and portly and smiling q grand Burgess as one might wish to see. No longer in the rough garb of the soldier. except at the far-off out, posts; neither was miladi of the manor house clad in the homespun of the settler. but rather in a silSer skirt short and neat