The Female Prose Writers of America/Mary Elizabeth Moragne/The Huguenot Town
THE HUGUENOT TOWN.
Constructed for purposes of personal convenience, by a simple community, thrown without protection among strangers, in a country yet almost savage, without money, and with few facilities for building, this town was not distinguished from the other primitive settlements except by the love of association which it evinced, and the strong marks of national character which it assumed. The common interest of safety, not less than old prejudices in favour of this mode of life, seemed to warrant the propriety of combining that strength, which, when divided, might not be sufficient to protect their lives from the Indian’s scalping knife, or their customs and property from the invasions of the roving, unsettled, and shifting tide of white population. It would hardly be supposed that a people who had forsaken their own country for the sake of these hallowed customs, could easily merge them into the rude and reckless mass of provincial habits,—every feeling of national love, every principle of their sacred religion forbade it; and the formidable barrier of a foreign tongue, whilst it shut them in from the new world, guarded the treasure they had so much desired to keep inviolate. An ignorance of the common methods of agriculture practised here, as well as strong prejudices in favour of their former habits of living, prevented them from seizing with avidity on large bodies of land by individual possession; but the site of a town being selected, a lot of four acres was apportioned to every citizen. In a short time a hundred houses had risen, in a regularly compact body, in the square of which stood a building superior in size and construction to the rest, which served the threefold purpose of hotel, café house, and “bureau des affaires” for the little self-incorporated body.
The situation was not chosen with much regard to beauty or health; it was in a rich level valley, a few rods from the river, which they vainly supposed would furnish an easy access by navigation to remote places, particularly to Charleston, where many of their number remained. The simplicity of this idea is much in character with the many impracticable views which a new country suggests, and is not more strange than the belief that a small township, holding its own regulations and manners, could flourish in the midst of a wild country, independent of commercial relations; yet time alone proved the futility of both. The town was soon busy with the industry of its tradesmen; silk and flax were manufactured, whilst the cultivators of the soil were taxed with the supply of corn and wine. The hum of cheerful voices arose during the week, mingled with the interdicted songs of praise; and on the sabbath the quiet worshippers, assembled in their rustic church, listened with fervent response to that faithful pastor, who had been their spiritual leader through perils by sea and land, and who now directed their free, unrestrained devotion to the Lord of the forest.
Did I say there was no beauty there?—none but the clear glancing of the rippling stream, and the high arching of the solemn woods above, wreathing their limbs in fantastic forms against the deep blue sky, and forming a natural temple, in which each tree stood up tall and distinct as a polished shaft in the midst. The solemn Elm, and deep green river Oak were there, sustaining the slender Larch, and twining their branches through the light-green foliage of the Maple, which beautifully contrasted the glittering notched leaves of the fragrant Gum. The woods still wave on in melancholy grandeur, with the added glory of near a hundred years; but they who once lived and worshipped beneath them—where are they? Shades of my ancestors—where? No crumbling wreck, no mossy ruin, points the antiquarian research to the place of their sojourn, or to their last resting-places! The traces of a narrow trench, surrounding a square plat of ground, now covered with the interlacing arms of hawthorn and wild honeysuckle, arrest the attention as we are proceeding along a strongly beaten track in the deep woods, and we are assured that this is the site of the “old French town,” which has given its name to the portion of country around. After some years, but not till the country was established in peace, it was gradually abandoned, on account of the unhealthiness of the situation, and because the narrowness of its limits obliged the citizens, as they grew rich enough, to move out upon the hills, to which their familiarity with the usages of the country had now rendered them less opposed; and it must be confessed, also, that in the course of the Indian wars, and the scenes of the revolution which followed, attrition with the more enterprising and crafty had worn off so much of their native simplicity as to admit the passion of avarice, which, by calling them to a more enlarged sphere, greatly tended to the oblivion of their town, though more than half a century had passed away before they had forfeited any of their national characteristics, or admitted any corruption of their native tongue.