I saw here on the table those very sweet "preserves" which a
quarter of a century ago were to be found on every farmer's table in New
England, if he had a thrifty wife, and which, after breeding a kind of
epidemic of dyspepsia, have now, I think, entirely disappeared from our
Northern tables. It seems they are still served on "company occasions"
in the South.
They have for their home use a tannery, and shops for tailoring,
shoemaking, carpentering, and blacksmithing; and they employ fifteen
hired people, all Negroes.
Their buildings, which are both brick and frame, are all in excellent
condition; and the large pines and Norway spruces growing near the
dwellings (and "trimmed up"--or robbed of their lower branches, as the
abominable fashion has too long been in this country), show that the
founders provided for their descendants some grateful shade. Near the
Church Family they showed me two fine old oaks, under which Henry Clay
once partook of a public dinner, while at another time James Monroe and
Andrew Jackson stopped for a day at the country tavern which once stood
near by, when the stage road ran near here. "Monroe," said one of the
older members to me, "was a stout, thickset man, plain, and with but
little to say; Jackson, tall and thin, with a hickory visage.
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