Becoming Americans (48 page)

      "Major Dorsey has been ordered to remain in Charles Town, Mistress Harrison. John Lawson told me that himself," Robert said. "The Charles Town harbor is decorated with the rotting heads of pirates, and the people still fear others' return, or an invasion by the Spanish. Lawson says that by Spring the city will be calm."

      Should she try to get to Charles Town, Sarah Alice asked Robert? He advised against any unescorted sailing in the Atlantic, even if just to Charles Town.

      "Then I'll wait in Bath!" Sarah Alice said in desperation.

      "Yes, Child. You certainly would be more comfortable," her mother said sadly.

      "Yes, Bath," Sarah Alice said. She'd accept the invitation of John Lawson. He was the only honorable man from Carolina that she'd ever met, and that was only this year at a reception given by Colonel Harrison upon Surveyor-General Lawson's return from England. He was back from a triumphant trip to London where he'd reported to his superiors and had his book,
A
New
Voyage
to
Carolina,
published to much acclaim. Mister Lawson had traveled throughout much of both North and South Carolina, writing of the land, the plants the animals and the various Indian nations in the colony. He'd sailed for Virginia aboard one of two ships which carried, as well, 650 healthy, industrious, skilled people bound to settle a new town Lawson was to survey for them and for their leader, an impoverished Swiss nobleman, Baron Christopher von Graffenried. Half of these German settlers died during the stormy, thirteen-week voyage and, when finally entering the James River, a French privateer appeared and took one of the vessels, leaving all aboard destitute and impoverished.

      Sarah Alice had made the burdened Lawson laugh at a dinner Commissary Blair gave for him. Lawson was a Scot and, when told of her impending marriage to Major Dorsey, he extended an open invitation to visit him and Hannah—the woman with whom he lived and treated as his wife—when Sarah Alice arrived in Bath. Robert's news would insure her acceptance of that invitation. Indeed, Edward must take her to Lawson's house in Bath! To stay in this hut with her mother until spring was an unbearable prospect.

      "And we've other friends in Bath, my dear," Anne said, brightening up a little. "Tobias Knight, a member of the Council, lives there. He's a good friend of our patron, William Glover. Some few other church people live there, also. It's not simply a hotbed of pirates and dissenters, my dear. They've a public library, even! There are women who can read!" Anne was a Carolinian, now, and she was eager to point out the developments that were happening in Rogues Harbor.

      Sarah Alice looked through the candlelight to the wrinkled old woman. Her mother had had a long and eventful life, years of happiness, sprinkled with problems and sadness. Times of great love and great loss. Sarah Alice Harrison was called old by some, and she felt it when she thought that she'd lived for thirtyfour years without one moment when her eyes sparkled in the way she'd seen her mother's do in the months the Fewoxes were newlyweds. She'd never buried herself in mourning—other than for the change of clothes and requisite performances of grief when her husbands died. She'd never gone mad at the thought of betrayal and grief. But, now, there was Major Dorsey, and the sparkle had appeared in her newly-wrinkling eyes. Terror gripped her at the thought that Major Dorsey might sail without her. This was her last chance for life! She would go to Bath.

      During the fortnight visit, Anne and her daughter realized that this visit would be their last together, so each did what she could to please the other, while Joseph and Stephen fished and hunted with Edward and Robert. Sarah Alice wore her mother's rockets. She told her mother stories of grand plantation life and of lavish entertainments in Williamsburgh. She helped her mother cut and dry green apples, and she cleaned fish for smoking and drying. She went with Anne to visit Edward's wife, Pathelia, at his surprisingly small plantation. Anne sought to relieve her daughter's boredom by having Sarah Alice invited to the best Anglican homes in Chowan and Pasquotank.

      James Fewox's reputation had not besmirched that of his wife, who was openly and vocally aligned with the pro-Church party. Despite her poverty, Anne was a welcomed guest among those Glover partisans who were still celebrating the arrival of the Queen's cousin as their governor. In preparation for one such party, Sarah Alice had been stunned when Anne opened her chest and pulled out a dress, sleeves, and bodice that would have been fashionable, even, in Williamsburgh. Any of the older Harrison women would have wanted it!

      Salvage, Anne told her. Edward had found it in a ship that was abandoned and floundering off the treacherous Outer Banks. Those dangerous shoals were the graveyard of many ships, she told her daughter. Many people found such goods washed ashore, or, in half-submerged wrecks.

      "The ways are different in Carolina," Anne said.

After the busy visit with her mother and a prolonged, weeping farewell, Edward's sloop was re-loaded and they sailed to Currituck, leaving Joseph and Stephen there at John's plantation. The boat then headed southward, following inside the line of the Outer Banks before skirting the islands and marshes between the mainland and Roanoke Island. Sarah Alice stood by the helm as her brother practiced maneuvering his new boat.

      "Is it here the ghost ships sail?" she asked.

      "So it's said," he replied, looking about.

      "And does this boat have ghosts?" she asked.

      Edward turned his attention to her and laughed.

      "If it does, they're bumbling, Boston fools," he said.

      "Where did you get her, Edward? Your plantation, though busy, could not buy a sloop such as this. I know, the ways of Carolina are different, but…."

      Edward laughed again.

      "The ways are different only in detail, for they lead to the same place as the ways of Virginia. Riches!" Edward said. "I claimed this boat by the law of the sea. She ran ashore on the bank and her crew were all dead of the fever, save two, and they died the same day."

      "And how was that 'the Carolina way?'" she asked.

      "Do you really want to know, Mistress Harrison?" her brother asked, with a twinkle in his eye that reminded her of their mother.

      "I do," she said, very curious.

      "We take an old mare to the top of those high sand hills on the bank, and we wait until night. We tie a lighted lantern about the nag's head, then walk along the top of the hills. Foolish sailors think we're a landing, and they head into harbor and run aground. It's not new with us," Edward rushed on. "The Indians did it before us! The same thing."

      He waited a moment for his sister to react.

      "That's kinder than most!" he declared. "I seen men shoot holes into stuck boats so their owners can't refloat and go on. Now, that's the way to get some booty!" He was warming to his subject. "You know that nice dress Mother wore to the Pollock's last week…?"

      Her brother was beautiful to Sarah Alice. Even when a sickly child himself, Edward had taken care of her. No one ever thought he'd live to grow up, John had told her once. Now he was alive and sparkling, and she had no remorse for the loss of New Englanders.

      "It's a wonderful find," she said. "I hope you'll take Mother something beautiful back from Bath."

      Edward's sloop, the
Pine Reward,
sailed westward from the inland sea called the Pamticoe Sound, into the broad Pamticoe River. Sarah Alice judged the mouth of the river to be nearly as wide as the Albemarle Sound at Bull Bay. She saw islands, marshes, and large bays on the north shore of the river; the south shore was barely visible. Dolphin swam alongside the sloop, a family of three seeming to race them. If Fewox could build a racetrack for them, he would, Sarah Alice told her brother.

      Soon, the three-mile-wide entrance to the Machapungo River appeared. Edward steered the
Pine
Reward
northwesterly into it, and towards their destination. A gently curved bay on the eastern shore of the river, opposite a point of land on the western side, was the location of Brother Richard's land. His long pier extended into the river to a depth that would accommodate ships that boarded heavy transports of naval supplies.

      To Sarah Alice, the land appeared more a wilderness than that at Scuppernong. Here, there grew almost nothing but pine trees; a desolate, green pine barren where no crop would ever grow, even when cleared of the trees. She despaired that her brothers would never have tobacco land. Tar was a smelly, dirty business.

      Richard, with his wife and daughters, came running down the pier as Edward and his man tied up the
Pine Reward.
After introductions and kisses, Sarah Alice followed her brothers, her nieces, and her beautiful, French sister-inlaw—whose Irish accent was a surprise to Sarah Alice—back to their house.

      The house was built on high, cedar pilings, and it was obvious to Sarah Alice why this was done. The land was very flat and low, barely above the level of the river. A week of rain would leave the house an island. Dusty trails led into the woods, and a cart path made of logs ran from the pier into the forest. The house, itself, was better than the one occupied by their mother. Richard had always been good with his hands and tools, so he'd built a sturdy, one-room house—with a wooden floor—for his family. A sumptuous meal of shrimp, duck, and venison, accompanied by the good local wine and a fine French brandy, made Sarah Alice less pessimistic about Richard's future.

      "'Tis a wonderful war, Queen Anne's given us," Richard said. "You'd not believe it, but your youngest brother's growing rich! The Crown's placed a bounty on tar, and as much as I can produce, the Admiralty will purchase."

      "But living here, Richard. Do you want your daughters growing up in this wilderness?" Sarah Alice asked him.

      "My wife grew up here," he answered, smiling. "It seems to have done her no harm. And we've a town nearby, you know. Joseph says it's already nearly as much a town as James Town was when he first visited there. Bath is more of a town now, I wager, than James Town is at present! And certain, it is, to become an important port for Carolina. You sailed near Ocracoke Inlet to get here. Easy, rapid access to the ocean, yet impossible to invade by large warships. We've a product, a port…. What more could we want?"

      "A stable government, for one thing," Edward said. "And less fomenting troubles with the Indians."

      "Nay," Richard shrugged. "We've no problem with our Indians in Wickham precinct. We've Algonquin tribes. They're enemies of the pesky Tuscarora. What we need is our own county and a courthouse for the Machapungo settlers. Most of the freeholders of Wickham precinct have petitioned for one. That will come about. As we tamed that bear cub, Edward, as boys, we're taming this wilderness."

      Sarah Alice was surprised by the strength and adventuresome spirit of the brothers. They'd not been like that when younger.

      By morning, wind was blowing sand and dust, but Richard was eager to show off his operation. Sarah Alice dressed in borrowed rocket, splatterdash, and boots, and followed her brothers through the smoke and dust into the woods. Twice she saw snakes crossing the path, and deer she saw grazing across a used and burned-down pine forest glanced up, then went back to eating new growth.

      "Jacques Fortescue was her father." Richard answered Sarah Alice's questions about his wife. "He had to flee France when King Louis started his massacre of Protestants. Like many of the Huguenots, they first went to Ireland. Then some of them came to Carolina, most to near Charles Town. A few, like Fortescue, came here, and were the first white settlers in Pamticoe. Jean was born in Ireland, but she grew up in Pamticoe. Like father, growing up in Virginia."

      The wind was blowing from the fresh forest and, again, memories of her youth came with the sharp, clean aroma of the pines. To one side, dead, dying, and scarred trees leaned against each other. In the distance were large, black fields of smoldering stumps. In front of them was the vast, virgin pine barren that was being stripped and drained of its sap.

      "Here," Richard said. "This is how we do it. Much as father did at Deep Creek, but better and quicker."

      "We get the rosin by cutting channels in the standing trees that meet at a point, here, at the foot of the tree. Then, two or three small pieces of board are fitted to receive it. The men cut the channels as high as they can reach with an ax, and the bark is peeled off from all those parts of the tree that are exposed to the sun. The heat of the sun forces out the turpentine, and that falls down upon the boards placed at the root. Then, it's gathered and melted in great kettles to become rosin. To make tar, the men dig out a flooring—down to the clay, and a little low in the middle—where they lay a pipe of wood with the top part of it even with the floor. The pipe runs out about two feet outside the clay floor, and the earth is dug away and barrels placed in the hole to catch the tar when it runs. Then, on the clay floor—look over here—they've built up a large pile of dry pine wood—split into pieces—then covered it up with a wall of earth, but for a little at the top where the fire is kindled. Once the fire is burning—look over there—they cover the hole with earth so there won't be any flame, only heat enough to force the tar down into the floor, through the pipe, into the barrels. The men poke air holes in the fire with a stick, sufficient for the heat to continue. We make the pitch by boiling the tar in iron kettles or, usually, by burning it in round clay holes made in the earth. My problem is barrels. I can't make hogsheads and barrels fast enough! I have to buy barrels. Father would be ashamed of me."