Scenes in my Native Land/Vale of Wyoming
VALE OF WYOMING.
There's many a beauteous region of the earth,
Doth take its baptism from Castalia's fount,
And henceforth, to the ears of men, become
A charmed name. But in this new-found West
There hath been little pomp, or ornament
Bestow'd to herald Nature, where she works
With glorious skill.
And so, the traveller goes
To muse at Thessaly, or strike his lyre
Beside Geneva's lake, or raptured mount
Benlomond's cliff, pouring o'er other climes
The enthusiasm which his own might well inspire.
Yet go not forth, Son of the patriot West,
To give the ardor of thine earliest love
Unto an older world, till thou hast seen
June's cloudless sun o'er Wyoming go down,
And from her palace-gate, the queenly moon
Come slowly forth, wrapped in her silver veil,
So calm, so still, not as at Ajalon
To light the vengeance of the warrior's arm,
But lost in admiration of a scene
She helps to beautify. Yea, go not forth,
Till from the brow of yonder mountain height
Through interlacing branches, rich with bloom,
The tulip, or magnolia, thou dost part
The canopy of close-enwreathed vines,
And through a mass of foliage, looking down
On copse, and cultured field, and village spire,
Behold the Susquehannah, like a bride,
Glide on in beauty, to her nuptial hour.
Here, too, are gloomy haunts, where roam the bear,
Or the insatiate wolf, and sunny glades,
Where with light foot the red deer leads her fawn,
And quiet, shaded brooklets, where leap up
The speckled trout.
Yet still, deceitful Vale,
So lulled, and saturate in deep content
With thine exceeding beauty, thou dost hide
A blotted history, of tears and blood,
A dire, Vesuvian, lava-written scroll,
Which the confiding lover at thy feet
But little wots of. Thy romantic groves.
And fairy islets, have sent up the cry
Of wounded men, and o'er the embroidered bank
Where violets grow, the carnage-tint hath lain
Deep as a plague-spot.
Ask yon monument.
That o'er the velvet verdure lifts so high
Its lettered chronicle, who sleeps below?
And why, so many lustrums, tearful Spring
Did weep, like Rizpah, o'er the slaughtered brave,
Unnamed, unhonored ere its pillared breast
Arose to take the record of their names,
And of their valor, teach a race unborn.
The memories of red war, how thick they spring
Among these flowers. Here in fierce strife have stood
Indian and white man, aye! and they whose faith
Was in the same Redeemer, through whose breasts
Flowed the same kindred blood-drop, casting off
The name of brother, in their cradle learned,
Have madly met, I may not tell you how.
History hath stained her pencil and her page
With these dark deeds, and ye may read them there.
Yet would I tell one tale of Wyoming,
Before we part. There was a pleasant home,
In times long past. A little, crystal brook.
Where water-cresses grew, went singing by,
While the ripe apples, gleaming thro' the boughs,
And in its humble garden, many a bush
Of scarlet berries, sprinkled here and there
With fragrant herbs, sage and the bee-loved thyme,
Betokened thrift and comfort.
Once, as closed
The autumn-day, the mother, by her side
Held her young children, with her storied lore,
Fast by her chair, a bold and bright-eyed boy,
Stood, statue-like, while closer, at her feet,
Were his two gentle sisters. One, a girl
Of some eight summers, youngest and most loved
For her prolonged and feeble infancy.
She leaned upon her mother's lap, and looked
Into her face, with an intense regard,
And that quick, intermitting sob that tells
How the soul's listening may impede the flow
Of respiration. Pale she was, and fair,
And so exceeding fragile, that the name
Given by her stronger playmates, at their sports,
Of "Lily of the Vale," seemed well bestowed.
The mother told them of her native clime,
Her own, beloved New England, of the school,
Where many children o'er their lessons bent,
Each mindful of the rules, to read, or spell,
Or ply the needle, at the appointed hour,
And how they serious sate, with folded hands,
When the good mistress through her spectacles
Read from the Bible.
Of the church she spake,
With slender spire, o'er-canopied by elms,
And how the sweet bell on the sabbath-morn,
Did call from every home, the people forth,
All neatly clad, and with a reverent air,
Children, by parents led, to worship God.
Absorbed in such recital, ever mixed
By that maternal lip, with precepts pure,
Of love to God and man, they scarcely marked
A darkening shadow, o'er the casement steal,
Until the savage footstep, and the flash
Of tomahawks, appalled them.
Swift as thought
They fled, thro' briars and brambles fiercely tracked
By grim pursuers. The mother taxed
With the loved burden of her youngest-born,
Moved slowest, and they cleft her fiercely down:
Yet with that impulse, which doth sometimes move
The sternest purpose of the red man's breast,
To a capricious mercy, spared the child.
Her little, struggling limbs, her pallid face
Averted from the captors, her shrill cry,
Coming in fitful echoes from afar,
Deepened the mother's death pang.
Eve drew on,
And from his toil the husband, and the sire,
Turned wearied home. With wondering thought he marked
No little feet come forth to welcome him;
And through the silence, listened for her voice,
His Lily of the Vale, who first of all
Was wont to espy him.
Through the house he rushed,
Empty and desolate, and down the wild.
There lay his dearest, weltering in her blood
Upon the trampled grass. In vain he bore
The form of marble to its couch, and strove
Once more to vivify that spark of life
Which ruthless rage had quenched.
On that dread hour
Of utter desolation, broke a cry
"Oh father! father!" and around his neck
Two weeping children twined their trembling arms,
His elder-born, who in the thicket's depths
Scaped the destroyer's eye.
When bitter grief
Withdrew its palzying power, the tireless zeal
Of that dismembered household, sought the child
Reft from their arms, and oft, with shuddering thought,
Revolved the hardships, that must mark her lot,
If life was hers. And when the father lay
In his last, mortal sickness, he enjoined
His children, never to remit their search
For his lost Lily. Faithful to the charge.
They strove, but still in vain.
Years held their way,
The boy became a man, and o'er his brow
Stole the white, sprinkled hairs. Around his hearth
Were children's children, and one pensive friend,
His melancholy sister, night and day,
Mourning the lost. At length a rumor came.
Of a white woman, found in Indian tents,
Far, far away. A father's dying words
Came o'er the husbandman, and up he rose,
And took his sad-eyed sister by the hand,
Blessing his household, as he bade farewell
For their uncertain pilgrimage.
They prest
O'er cloud-capped mounts, through forests, dense with shade,
O'er bridgeless rivers, swoln to torrents hoarse,
O'er prairies like the never-ending sea,
Following the chart that had been dimly traced
By stranger-guide.
At length they reached a lodge,
Deep in the wilderness, beside whose door
A wrinkled woman, with the Saxon brow
Sate, coarsely mantled in her blanket-robe,
The Indian pipe between her shrivelled lips.
Yet, in her blue eye dwelt a gleam of thought,
A hidden memory, whose electric force
Thrilled to the fount of being, and revealed
The kindred drops, that had so long wrought out
A separate channel.
With affection's haste
The sister clasped her neck, "Oh lost and found!
Lily! dear sister! praise to God above!"
Then, in wild sobs, her trembling voice was lost.
The brother drew her to his side, and bent
A long and tender gaze, into the depths
Of her clear eye. That glance unsealed the scroll
Of many years. Yet no responding tear
Moistened her cheek, nor did she stretch her arms
To answer their embrace.
"O Lily! love!
For whom this heart so many years hath kept
Its dearest place," the sister's voice resumed,
"Hast thou forgot the home, the grassy bank
Where we have played? the blessed mother's words,
Bidding us love each other? and the prayer.
With which our father at the evening hour
Commended us to God?"
Slowly she spake,—
"I do remember, dimly as a dream,
A brook, a garden, and two children fair,
A loving mother, with a bird-like voice,
Teaching us goodness; then, a trace of blood,
A groan of death, a lonely captive's pain;—
But all are past away.
Here is my home.
These are my daughters.
If ye ask for him,
The eagle-eyed, and lion-hearted chief.
My fearless husband, who the battle led,
There is his grave."
"Go back, and dwell with us.
Back to thy people, to thy father's God,"
The brother said. "I have a happy home,
A loving wife and children. Thou shalt be
Welcome to all. And these thy daughters too,
The dark-eyed, and the raven-haired shall be
Unto me, as mine own. My heart doth yearn
O'er thee, our hapless mother's dearest one,
Let my sweet home be thine."
A trembling nerve
Thrilled all unwonted, at her bosom's core,
And her lip blanched. But her two daughters gazed
All fixedly upon her, to their cheek
Rushing the proud Miami chieftain's blood,
In haughty silence. So, she wept no tears,
The moveless spirit of the race she loved
Had come upon her, and her features showed
Slight touch of sympathy.
"Upon my head
Rest sixty winters. Scarcely eight were past
Among the pale-faced people. Hate they not
The red man in their heart? Smooth christian words
They speak, but from their touch, we fade away,
As from the poisonous snake.
Have I not said
Here is my home? and yonder is the bed
Of the Miami Chief? Two sons who bore
His brow, rest on his pillow.
Shall I turn
My back upon my dead, and bear the curse
Of the Great Spirit?"
Through their feathery plumes
Her dark-eyed daughters, mute approval gave
To these stern words.
Yet still, with faithful zeal,
The brother, and the sister waited long,
In patient hope. If on her brow they traced
Aught like relenting, fondly they implored
"Oh sister! go with us!" and every tale
That poured o'er childhood's days a flood of light,
Had the same whispered burden.
Oft they walked
Beside her, when the twilight's tender hour,
Or the young moonlight blendeth kindred hearts,
So perfectly together. But in vain,
For with the stony eye of prejudice
Which gathereth coldness from an angel's smile,
She looked upon their love.
And so they left
Their pagan sister in her Indian home,
And to their native vale of Wyoming,
Turned mournful back. There, often steeped in tears
At morn or evening, rose the tearful prayer
That God would keep alive within her soul
The seed their Maker sowed, and by his grace
So water it, that they might meet in Heaven.
The pleasure of travelling in the State of Pennsylvania, and noticing the abundance of its resources, is heightened by referring to the memory of its benevolent founder, the Man of peace. The scene under the broad shadow of the Elm at Kensington, often rises to view, when, in the autumn of 1682, he executed that treaty with the natives, which has been happily styled, the "only one ever formed without an oath, and the only one that was never broken."
There, with a few followers, unarmed save with the fearlessness of honesty, he met the fierce chieftains, "sudden and quick in quarrel," the tomahawk inured to blood in their belts, and in their quivers the arrow that never missed its aim. Trained to suspicion, by the oft-repeated treachery of the whites, their rigid and care-worn features strangely softened, as they observed the beaming countenance, and simple manners of William Penn; while with a kind of instinct often possessed by the children of the forest, they murmured to each other, "He is a true man."
When he freely gave them the price they demanded for their territory, adding beside, many articles of merchandise which he begged them to accept as gifts, and put into their hands a parchment-deed of the purchase, requesting them to keep it for their posterity, their iron hearts were melted before the spirit of truth and peace, and the impulsive, and impassioned shout burst forth, "We will love Miquon,*[1] and his children, as long as the sun and moon give their light."
Our first view of the Susquehannah convinced us that it deserved the praise so often given it, of being one of the most beautiful rivers, that ever indented earth's surface. The green banks, and fairy islets around which it circles and lingers, seem to embrace, and strive to detain it, with an earnest love. A bridge over its clear waters, among the pleasant scenery of Owega, is the dividing line between the States of New York and Pennsylvania; and after crossing it, we traversed an exceedingly hilly country, clothed with primeval forests.
Among some of the most prominent peculiarities of the German population which here prevails, are immense stone-barns, several stories in height, and costly beyond what would seem appropriate for an agricultural establishment. This species of architecture was rendered the more remarkable, by contrasting it with some of the small, incommodious farm-houses, where the young children basking neglected in the sun, around the doors, or enclosures, and the large horses with their sleek, shining coats, proudly moving in ponderous wagons, proved that purely animal nature absorbed its full quota of attention from the master and father.
Travelling for part of a day in one of the public conveyances, it was striking and even affecting to see the diversity of character and fortune, which the circumference of a few feet comprehended. In the group nearest our own, were a newly-married pair, who being all the world to each other, sought to elude the observation of that world, as well as any claim it might chance to institute upon their time or attention. Then there was a poor, young creature of seventeen, unattended by protector or friend, with her son, scarcely a month old, going from the humble home of her parents, to her husband, a collier, in the mining districts, and thankful for the least advice or assistance in quieting her wailing babe. Then there was a lady, in a fixed consumption, its fatal flush upon her cheek, and unearthly brightness in her eye, moved by the restlessness of that wasting disease, to travel without other aim or object, than present alleviation, or possibly an illusive, shadowy hope, of future gain. Beside herself, and the nurse, were two sweet little daughters, of six and eight, her only treasures, companions in all her wanderings; while she, apparently aware of her perilous condition, exchanged with those objects of her affection fond and mournful looks, like one journeying to that "bourne from whence no traveller returns."
After our party were again by ourselves, in our own vehicle, curiosity induced us, during the fervor of a summer-noon, to enter a log-house, and inspect its capacities, and the habitudes of its inmates. It was one of the larger order, and comprised two stories of moderate height. As there was no public house, in its immediate vicinity, the family were ambitious of providing us entertainment, and set forth from their own resources a decent dinner, with a dessert of freshly gathered berries from the neighboring field. Afterwards, they furnished conveniences for a siesta, to such as desired it, and produced for the readers, newspapers in German and English, with a few antique volumes. We discovered that in these unpretending tenements, there might exist more of comfort and even of refinement, than their rude aspect announces to the passing traveller.
At Montrose, and Centreville, we found good accommodations, and at the latter place were told the story of a calamity, which in the summer of 1833, came upon them as suddenly as the shower of flaming cinders that enveloped Pompeii. At nine in the evening, while many of the villagers were in the act of retiring to rest, a whirlwind passed over them, and in the short space of two minutes, laid the greater number of their dwellings in ruins. A church, and a bridge of solid timber, were rent in fragments, and dispersed as swiftly, as those of slighter material and foundation. The storm fortunately moved in a narrow vein, but whatever stood in its pathway, was displaced, or destroyed. Yet amid all this unexpected desolation, the uprooting of trees, and the atmosphere filled with flying missiles, the Hand of mercy so protected the inhabitants, that no lives were lost.
At Carbondale is a specimen of the celebrated and inexhaustible coal-mines of Pennsylvania. A shaft of two thousand feet in extent, carried into the side of a mountain, we explored, riding on the car of the miners, and lighted only by the flickering lamps, which they bore in their hands. The walls of anthracite rose on either side, and o'er-canopied our heads, like an arch of polished ebony, while occasionally the sound of trickling waters oozing out amid utter darkness, reminded us of the regions of Erebus. Hundreds of tons daily, are the product of these mines, which are borne by the power of steam up a steep hill of six hundred feet, for the purposes of transportation. A community of miners from Ireland and Wales, exist here in distinct settlements, each preserving their national habits and characteristics, and not always inclined to a pacific intercourse. The Cambrian women, with tall white caps, and ruddy faces, were occupied in household duties, and the care of their children, while one or two pastors faithfully labored for the instruction of their emigrant flock.
After witnessing the junction of the Susquehannah, with the soft-flowing, and sweet-named Lackawanna, we entered the valley of Wyoming, so long and justly famed for its fascinating beauty. From Prospect Rock, from Ross Hill, and other points of view, every variety of surface was visible, from the deep-shaded slumbering dell, to the sunny hill, cultivated to its very summit; and every intermediate hue, from the pure white of the buck-wheat, to the rich blue of the blossoming flax-field, the dark green of the forest, brightened now and then by the glancing antlers of the deer, the empurpled drapery of the mountains, and the irized ebony of the anthracite, the diamond of that remarkable region. Often was some melodious passage from the Gertrude of Campbell brought to the memory or the lips, by scenery, which had he ever beheld, he might doubtless more accurately have portrayed.
"Nor wanted yet the eye for scope to muse,
Nor vistas opened by the wandering stream;
Both where at evening Alleghany views
Through ridges burning in her western beam,
Lake after lake, interminably gleam:
And past those settlers' haunts, the eye might roam
Where earth's unliving silence all might seem,
Save where on rocks the beaver built his dome,
Or buffalo remote, lowed far from human home."
Wilkesbarre, which should have adopted the classic name of Wyoming, is embosomed in that enchanted vale, and laved by the blue waters of the Susquehannah. A great proportion of its inhabitants are of Connecticut origin, and it displays thrift and industry, as well as a rich dowry of nature's charms. It exhibits an agreeable state of society, and admits visitants to an intercourse both heartfelt and hospitable. Among many cherished obligations to the friends, under whose auspices this journey was made, is an introduction to this pleasant spot and kind-hearted people.
No one, gazing on the quietness of the surrounding vale, where it might seem that peace would ever delight to have folded her wing, can remember without emotion, its history of tears and blood, or realize that its smiling surface conceals a catacomb of bones.
The most sudden and surprising changes marked its early existence. The settler who wielded at morn the sickle that was to give his children bread, grasped at noon the weapon of the soldier, and ere night-fall moistened with the life-tide from his bosom, the clods of the valley. Civil war unveiled its rovolting features. Neighbor stood against neighbor, and friend against friend. The nurtured at one breast, met with the frown of deadly foes, and heads that had lain side by side in the same cradle, were cleft by kindred hands. Still, unawed by terror or tempest, the Moravian missionaries lifted the white flag of the Gospel's peace, and Zinzendorff labored to teach the ignorant natives of the forest the lore of a Redeemer.
The bitter strife between the New-England settlers and the Pennsylvanians, between the loyalists and the sons of liberty, in our war of revolution, and the fearful massacre, which made the few survivors of the valley fugitives, are too well known, and too painful, to be here recapitulated. Yet, whatever prompted the call to arms, whether the defence of home or country, or the blind ardor of a mistaken cause, the men of Wyoming were always the bravest of the brave.
Utter desolation and desertion came upon the Valley, after the battle of 1778. Its defenders had fallen, and the bereaved families took their flight, to whatever place of refuge might be open to them. Some even travelled on foot to Connecticut, and implored shelter in the clime of their ancestors.
After the restoration of peace, the fugitives gathered themselves together, and returned to their beloved and desolated Wyoming. Their first sacred duty was to search for, and deposit the mutilated remains of their relatives and friends, beneath the soil that they had so nobly defended. But the lapse of years had silently reduced those green mounds to the level of the surrounding verdure, until nothing remained to designate the exact spot of interment, save general locality, and the tenacity of tradition. When prosperity once more revisited the Valley, Memory turned with an increase of grateful love, to those who had perished in its defence. Their decaying bones were collected, and a monument projected, which should transmit the story of their valor to future times. But its progress was arrested by various causes and forms of financial embarrassment, until the ladies of the Valley, by their energetic efforts, won for themselves the honor of its completion.
It is erected on the precise spot where the ashes of the fallen brave repose, five miles from the village of Wilkesbarre, and on the opposite bank of the Susquehannah. Its material is granite drawn from the neighboring mountains. Simplicity and symmetry are its constituents. It is an obelisk of sixty feet in height, on a base eighteen feet in diameter, having four marble tablets inserted, and bearing on the one in front the following inscription.
Near this spot was fought
On the afternoon of the 3d of July, 1778,
The Battle of Wyoming:
In which a small band of pratriotic Americans,
Chiefly the undisciplined, the youthful and the aged,
Spared by inefficiency from the distant ranks of the Republic,
Led by Col. Zebulon Butler and Col. Nathan Denison,
With a courage that deserved success,
Fearlessly met, and bravely fought
A combined British, Tory and Indian force
Of thrice their number:
Numerical superiority alone gave victory to the Invaders,
And wide-spread havoc, desolation and ruin
Marked their savage and bloody footsteps through the valley.
This Monument,
Commemorative of these events,
And in memory of the actors in them,
Has been erected
Over the bones of the slain,
By their descendants and others, who gratefully appreciate
The service and sacrifices of Patriot Ancestors.
On the two side tablets are inscribed the names of those who fell in this battle, the officers arranged according to their rank, and the soldiers in alphabetical order, with the expressive motto,
"Dulce et decoram est pro Patriæ mori."
The remaining tablet above the door is for the names of the few who were in the battle, and survived. This monument forms a prominent object in the surrounding scene, raising its fair head amid the green foliage of summer, the many-hued leaves of autumn, or the snow-clad boughs of winter, and yielding both from base and summit an extended view of vale, village, river, and mountain.
To find the connecting links between beautiful nature, and the higher endowments of the human mind, is always delightful. Thus we were led to search out here, with no common interest, the birth-place of the late Rev. Edmund D. Griffin, one of the most accomplished clergymen of his times, who was early called from a world which his intellect and piety would have benefitted, to that where faith receives its blessed reward. A bright and peculiar association is connected with his first visit to this his native valley, when a boy of twelve, which cannot be so well related as in the language of his biographer, the Rev. Dr. McVickar.
"On Sunday an incident occurred, which will long be remembered with interest by those who were present. It happened that the solitary pastor of the Valley was that day absent on some neighboring mission. The church consequently was not opened, but the congregation assembling in the large room of the academy, prayers were offered up by some of the elders. After this, a discourse was to be read. A volume of sermons with that view was handed to the father of Edmund, either out of compliment to his standing, or as being more conversant with public speaking than any present. The father, not being very well, transferred the book to his son; his modesty for a moment shrunk from it, but the slightest wish of his father was ever a paramount law with him: so he arose, and addressed himself to his unexpected task, with no greater hesitation than became the occasion. The sermon selected, proved to be an impressive one. The reader was less than thirteen years of age; in the language of affection of 'angelic beauty;' and many of those present, saw him now, for the first time, since but a few years before they had caressed him, an infant on the knee. His talents as a reader, by nature superior, were heightened by the excitement of the occasion; and the effect upon a numerous audience, to use the language of one who heard it, was 'indescribable and overpowering.' They remembered the words of the Psalmist 'out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength,' and their hearts yielded to the lips of a child, an obedience which age and wisdom could not have commanded. This incident, never forgotten by the inhabitants of his native valley, was afterwards recalled to mind with deep interest, when, after eleven years, he again adressed them as an authorized preacher of the gospel. This was his only subsequent visit, and but two years before his death."
Proud dowry hast thou, beauteous dell,
Of murmuring stream, and mountain swell,
And storied legend, stern and high
Of ancient border chivalry,
And ashes of the brave, that sleep
In hallowed urn, mid foliage deep.
Still Memory calls with magic power.
Forth from his cherished natal bower,
A form, whom Beauty rare and high,
And Genius, with an eagle eye,
And Piety on radiant throne,
Did consecrate, and make their own.
A traveller in the realms of old,
Where art and wealth their charms unfold,
Amid the Alpine cliffs be saw
That Name which woke his infant awe,
And summoned to an early tomb,
In bright, but scarce perfected bloom,
Beheld, with faith's exulting thought,
The crown by his Redeemer bought.
Fair Wyoming, the enthusiast's eye
Doth scan thy charms with ecstasy.
Yet though the tide of minstrel song
Hath flowed thine echoing haunts along,
And martyr-courage, bold and free,
Bequeathed its blood-stained wreath to thee,
A holier fame for thee is spread,
The birth-place of the sainted dead.
- ↑ * The name given by the aborigines, to their friend, William Penn.