Pleasant Living Magazine

Part One

This piece appeared in the January/February 2005 issue of Pleasant Living.  In our effort to keep Ruby Lee Norris’s writing alive, we are reprinting it here.  According to Ruby Lee, this article, and the two additional parts to follow, drew more interest from readers than almost all of her other articles.  This, and dozens of other articles by Ruby Norris, appear in her new book, A Long View from Sandy Hook’s Pinegrove, scheduled for release by Pleasant Living Books this summer.

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Little did I know how much history I would uncover when I decided to do a piece about old trees. A friend had received information from the National Register of Big Trees and suggested that I might like to do a story.

Immediately I thought of the Brompton Oak in Fredericksburg that spreads its enormous limbs across the lawn of Brompton mansion, residence of the president of the University of Mary Washington. Having been closely associated with my alma mater, I knew that one of the attractions in the front hall of Brompton is an 1864 Matthew Brady black and white photograph of wounded Confederate soldiers lying under the tree. The Washington Artillery of New Orleans fired down upon advancing Union troops from near this tree, located in Marye’s Heights, helping to win a major Confederate victory that resulted in nearly 18,999 casualties, according to Deborah Fitts in American Forests.

Recently, the Steamboat Era Museum in Irvington has made a concerted effort to collect oral history. While inquiring about steamboats, I happened to unearth two remarkable stories about old trees not far from Sandy Hook’s Pinegrove. On a high hill along the Syringa Road there is an area called Freeshade, so called because of a grove of oak trees that gave shade, and shade was free. Under one of the huge oaks, there was a “slave junction,” according to Joshua Holmes, where shiploads of slaves were brought into Middlesex and auctioned under the Freeshade tree.

A History of African Americans in Middlesex County, 1646-1992 records that in the 1680s, slave ships came to the wharves in Middlesex County. Captains of the slave ships sold to major plantation owners, who, in turn, sold to small planters. Legend has it that the Wormleys from Rosegill near Urbanna and the Churchills from Wilton near Hartfield, as well as plantation owners from as far away as Gloucester and the Potomac River, came to auctions at Freeshade. Maria Banks, who lives in the Freeshade area, said that the tree perished during Hurricane Hazel in 1957.

Mama says “Yes” and I go up the road with Daddy.  What a special day!  I am dressed for the occasion in my Roy Rogers cowgirl dress, a Davey Crockett raccoon hat, and the red cowboy boots Daddy gave me on my fifth birthday. 

I climb eagerly into the front seat of Daddy’s 1950 blue Buick, and settle in, surrounded by stale cigarette smoke, and other lifeless odors.  Loud noises emerge from under the car hood.  The revved-up engine indicates Daddy’s impatience.  I am slow to close the car door.

“Now honey, our first stop is the Log Cabin, and I want you to promise your old Daddy that you will not go home and tell your Mama where I took you today.”

“No Daddy.  I won’t tell.”

Daddy always likes to drive fast, and approaches each curve with one foot pressed hard to the gas pedal. He puffs on his cigarette and rests his arm on the open windowsill, clutching the steering wheel with his other hand.

Seated next to him on the passenger side, I slide back and forth in motion with the car as it bounces in and out of the deep potholes in the dirt parking lot.  This is fun.  I feel like I’m on a carnival ride.

I know we are at the Log Cabin, and although Grandma is not with us, I still hear her voice.  “No one of good raising goes to that Log Cabin.  It’s nothing but a joint.” Daddy, who did have “good raising,” never listens to Grandma, or anyone else. He is his own person and what others think or expect doesn’t bother him at all.

Preparations for the trip to the steamboat wharf are causing all sorts of excitement this morning. I am allowed to ride in the horse and wagon with my daddy to pick up his order that is arriving at Mill Creek Wharf from Baltimore. Daddy owns and runs a country store at Hartfield halfway between Saluda and Deltaville.

Mama has to hurry through morning chores like washing smoky lampshades, emptying slop jars, making the beds, and serving breakfast. Grandmother Julia. who lives with us, helps her. Mama wants to finish household chores before she watches the store while Daddy goes to the steamboat wharf.

They both stop work when they hear Daddy yell, “Whoa, Whoa” at Woodrow, our magnificent chestnut-colored horse. Seems to them that if Daddy just spoke in normal tones Woodrow would walk into his harness just the same because he is so well trained. Sometimes just for fun Daddy lets me ride Woodrow bare back out of the stable to the watering trough—even though I am only ten years old.

Today Daddy lifts me onto the seat he has placed in the middle of the wagon and we ride for a long time along the quiet dusty dirt roads from Hartfield to Mill Creek. My heart skips a beat when I think that I will be on the wharf when the steamboat glides alongside. When the captain pulls the cord that makes the whistle blow a deep toot, toot, tooting sound to announce his intention to dock, it’s like nothing else I have ever heard.