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THE INTEMPERANCE OF THIS COUNTRY A HUNDRED YEARS AGO: A DOZEN
GROGGERIES IN ONE CHURCH TERRITORY; CHANGES LATER ON. WHAT WOULD
WASHINGTON, ADAMS, JEFFERSON LIKELY THINK IF BROUGHT FORTH IN THIS
COUNTRY NOW: THE OLD TIMES AND THE NEW COMPARED
I have endeavored, truthfully though crudely, as gained by
tradition, to tell the people of this Island and the people of its
adjacent territory, what was going on, on this Island vicinity, a
hundred and fifty years ago; of the grog shops and the past times of
those who visited them, consisting of people from North, South, East
and West, who were trading and trafficking through Currituck Inlet.
So you can see that these drinking rendezvous and brawling resorts,
the people of this Island furnished only their quota. This whole
country a hundred years back was in the thraldom of intemperance,
and Currituck County had its share; for the writer had pointed out
to him, by the old and knowing ones, a place in this county where
less than seventy years ago within a distance of one mile were three
grogshops dealing out the fiery liquor. There is little doubt but
that in many places in our county, where there was one church there
were a dozen groggeries.
So Knotts Island really did not excel on this line in those days,
and need be aggrieved but little. Furthermore, in the year 1828,
the inlet filled up with sand, traffic stopped, foreigners stopped
coming to the Island and the few groggeries waned.
I have told you about witchcraft, haunts, ghosts, wizards,
conjurers and dream subjects on and about the Island; and I will
say right here that Knott's Island was only in line with the rest
of this county, and this county was no worse than the remainder of
the state, and this State was no more steeped in witchcraft and
incantations than others states for did not Massachusetts a few
centuries back, upon the verdict of jury and sentence of court,
murder their supposed witches; and did not Princess Anne county,
Virginia, drown a witch, and was not this place of submersion ever
after this called "Witchduck"? Witchcraft germs in this country
were as thick one hundred and more years ago as yellow fever germs
were in Norfolk in 1855.
I have told you how a great change took place after Tom Jones and
Anderson had somewhat mauled the Devil in submission; how the old
and new road quarrel began and how it ended (if it ever has ended);
how some church quarrels came along and how they ended, after which,
peace and quiet reigned once more. Great changes in this country
since that day have taken place. If Washington, Adams &
Jefferson were to arise in Boston and get on a fast train for
Washington, passing through the busy mar between these points, with
every factory and workshop on the way in full blast with their
clangings, puffings, snortings, squeakings, with steamers and
engines blowing their blasts, and with the confusion of tongues
among the tens of thousands of people hurrying and rushing in
pressing masses, and when arrive at the Capital to find motor cars
shooting about like meteors, moved by a power not perceptible to
them; would they know where they were, or could they ever find their
old homes? No, they would as likely believe they had been
transported to Venus or Mars as to the Earth. They would not know
the Capital nor even the White House which each had once occupied.
Let one, who a hundred or more years ago was familiar with this
Island and its locality, all at once now return; he would look for
the Inlet and the many vessels that frequented its waters. but
would find a blank; he would go to a place where a groggery once
held forth, no groggery there, not even a champion; even the
haunted bear-tree stump and the wash-oaks by the spring of water,
all gone; the old free church, gone; even the peep-holes through
which was first seen the dawn of day and which served the witches
as means of entrance are found no more. The public road, would
very probably be the most familiar thing in sight. He would listen
in vain for the past familiar thwack of the loom, the whir of the
spinning wheel, the grating of the cards; his eyes would discover
no lye-stand, nor logwood, once so common; the people whom he
would meet on the highway are bedecked in fine fabrics and linens
cut in a fashion strange and new; It would require a long time
with an experient teacher for the old soul to understand.
One hundred years ago or the beginning of 1800, the people of the
United States then were as a whole crude, awkward and unpolished,
Knott's Island had its share of these elements as these local
tales will tell. Great changes for the betterment of society have
since been wrought, by which the Island, as other places, has been
greatly benefited.
This Island is not compelled as of yore to go, through mud and
mire to market; its people can now jump on boat or car and can be
landed expeditiously in the new Norfolk where the streets are
ablaze with the electric glow instead of gummy oils. The old
tallow candles which the Island and others once had to make and
use, are no more; tropical fruits and useful things from distant
lands are swiftly put by steam to our very doors; you once
dispatched your letter to New York in a weekly mail bag and
expected an answer in a month; now you can read the events of the
world in a few hours after they happen; you can in a few minutes
send communications around the world through a wire; and now even
the wire is to be dispensed with. Education almost everywhere is
improved; the dark places of slumbering ages are lighted up;
charity is greatly enlarged; the standards of humanity and morals
are more elevated, not only in Christendom, but throughout the
world.
So we can see the progress of the world for the last half century
or more has tended strongly toward the better; despite this, there
are many good old people who, wedded to ancient ideas, think the
world is growing worse day by day.
One reason for this is quite plain. In past days there were few
newspapers and they were mostly weeklies; the subscription prices
were high and few people subscribed; if a heinous crime were
committed a hundred miles away the news of it, if published at
all, was stale by the time the slow mail brought it to the
subscriber's post office, and not one in fifty ever heard of it.
How is it now?
Thousands of different newspapers are published daily and there
are few so poor they cannot get a sheet or two. If one dose not
take a paper he need but step to his country store at night and
get the gist of the days new gratis. The majority of these papers
are sensational; they contain all manner of crime and misdemeanor,
thefts from a sixpence up to a train or bank robbery, murders,
assaults, etc. Those who live outside this busy life think by
reading such news daily, that we are going to the bad.
HERE GOES THE EDITORIAL:
"The man who is the cause of all our country's misery is this
day reduced to the rank of his fellow-citizens, and has no
longer the power to multiply the woes of the United Sates.
This day his name ceases to give currency to injustice or to
legalize corruption. It strikes us with astonishment that one
man could thus poison the principles of republicanism. This
day should form a jubilee." This was clipted from the
historical writings of Albert Payson Terbune--New York World.
So we can readily see that there were more wrangling and
abuse then than now.
So, everything in old-times was not sunshine and content; but
there was not so many seeking notoriety then as now (called
cranks) or Washington would have been assissinated as many
Presidents are now.
The old people may be much mistaken in worshipping the past.
For instance the good food prepared and eaten in old times.
The old Dutch oven corn pone--so sweet, was there ever any
bread so nice, especially so, when good sweet country butter
was spread upon it? Then that big pot of pork and greens
cooked over a six by four fireplace; no, nothing like this
bread and greens comes from these modern cooking-stoves. Then
that greasy stewpie cooked over the fire, with pie bread
covering the inside of the pot, filled with ducks, geese,
chicken or pig, with pie-bread balls intermixed; then the hoe
cake and biscuit made of wheat ground at the country
wind-mill, how delicious! They have not had a taste of these
biscuits since the war of '61. The writer for the last forty
or more years has in dreams been eating out of some of these
old time dishes; but very recently he had his desires
gratified as to these brown wheat biscuits; he ate one at one
meal, a mere bite at another, and wishes no more. He could
scarcely believe his own taste. It may be so with all the old
things the aged love so much to talk about and honor. Taste in
all things has been educated up to the present and it spurns
the past.
But doubtless in past days many good things prevailed in
society. In this country, in the prime val days of its history
and even up to the war between the States, there were bonds of
sympathy between all classes of its people, which led to
confidence and familiarity. Equality of intercourse, real or
seeming, was the result; besides, wealth had not accumulated
in the hands of a class or in a society generally. The
peoples' habits, therefore, were simple, and prevaded all
classes, and their tastes called for little beyond a
comfortable living. All classes were frank and confiding with
one another; the educated and rich gave a helping hand to the
ignorant and poor; the ignorant looked up to the wise for
social protection and direction, which they seldom failed to
get, especially so if they remained humble and grateful to
their directors. All, in a measure, were impressed with the
same simplicity and equality of rights in this country where
rights appeared mutual and inter-dependent up and prior to the
war of 1861. This war produced radical changes, both socially
and politically of which I will endeavor to give a summary in
the next chapter.
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