Aristopia/Chapter 8
The site for the town was selected a few hundred yards above the mouth of Rock Creek, where the ground is high enough to be free from malaria, while the hill is not inconveniently steep. Springs of pure water were near at hand.
Several tents had been brought, and with these and tarpaulins and boards convenient shelters were soon set up on a little clearing made for the purpose. Then began the work of felling trees for house-timber. Of course, the first land to be cleared was the space for the village. After that the trees were felled on a spot near the mouth of the creek well adapted for tillage, so as to be clearing a field with the same labor that procured building material. It was decided to build the first square of the village of thirty cabins, fifteen by twenty feet, around a square, three hundred feet on each side. The intervals between the houses were to be filled with a stockade. All the doors and windows were to be on the inside of the square, while in the outer walls were to be no openings except loopholes for muskets; for it was determined to make the village a fort, trusting nothing to the savages. Though the Nacotchtanks were at present friendly, the Massawomeks might come, and Ralph Morton knew that barbarian nature is fickle and inconstant.
The cabins at Jamestown had been thatched with reeds, and thatch was quite a common roofing for English country-houses, but Ralph had seen in the Jamestown conflagration the dangers of such roofs. It was decided to make the roofs of "shakes," or shingles, about three feet long, split from straight-grained timber. A supply of froes had been brought over for splitting shakes. In fact, Ralph's forethought had supplied everything. His experience in logging at Jamestown enabled him to invent a truck for hauling logs. It had two wheels, placed much closer together than those of an ordinary wagon, so as to pass more easily between trees and stumps. The axle was like the drum of a windlass, so that a log could be loaded by drawing it up with a chain wound up by turning the axle with spikes. The chain was fastened to the log between the large end of the log and the middle, leaving the small end to drag on the ground.
The larger logs were split in two, thus economizing material and making the work of raising the logs upon the walls lighter. It was found that they could he split more easily with a charge of blasting-powder than with wedges.
The cabins were supplied with stone fireplaces, building stone being close at hand, very broad, as wood was plentiful. The chimneys were made of sticks, thickly covered with clay, to keep them from burning. As glass was then scarce and dear, the colony used little of it in their windows, which were mostly made of oiled muslin. In that age people procured light in their houses mostly by leaving the doors open, except in stormy weather.
Ralph Morton supervised the work with constant care and good judgment, apportioning the labor of felling trees, cutting and notching the logs, splitting the shakes, raising the logs, etc., among the men, so that no strength would be wasted. For hauling the material there were two span of horses and two yoke of oxen, with two wagons and three logging trucks. As many men as could work without getting in each other's way were put upon one house, to finish it as soon as possible.
Until the first house was finished, the women and children slept on board the vessel; afterward they slept in the houses. Until houses enough for all to sleep in were finished a guard of three men, assisted by three mastiffs, was kept at night. It was observed that the Indians were much afraid of these great dogs. Four small cannon were planted, one at each corner of the fort.
The sailors were kept at work while the vessel stayed. A good many of the Indians also assisted in such work as they could do. It has been supposed that Indian men cannot be induced to do manual labor, but this is not the case. They assisted in loading the ships of the first English traders with sassafras wood, on the Atlantic coast; in the far Northwest I have seen them working as lumbermen, and in the far Southwest as railroad graders; but they will not work continuously. Three consecutive days is the very longest time they will labor. Morton would riot trust the Indians in the village at night. He made them withdraw to their camp before dark. As the Indians learned the great value of hoes in cultivating their oorn, their women were glad to help the white men clear their fields, taking hoes in payment. A squaw would willingly work three days for a narrow hoe that cost Morton fifteen pence. The Indians had heretofore used the shoulder-blades of elks and bears for hoes and shovels.
The Indians also supplied the colony with fresh meat in exchange for ornamental trinkets. Seines had been provided with which plenty of fish were easily taken from the river near by.
When the houses were completed and the stockade was built, work was directed to clearing and planting a field. Indian corn, beans, peas, pumpkins, and Irish potatoes were planted. The last vegetable was as yet little known in England, but Ralph Morton was quick to see its value as a food-plant, and had brought some tubers for planting.
The Flora remained with the colony about six weeks, that the sailors might assist in building the houses and loading the ship. Part of a cargo, consisting of stave-bolts split from the best white-oak trees, sassafras, and cedar, was loaded, and the vessel returned to England for another load of colonists and goods.
Besides the horses and oxen, there had been brought out three good cows, half a dozen young pigs, and a dozen chickens.
As the settlement was now in fact a village, it needed a name. Ralph proposed to call it Columbia, but his brothers importuned him to call it Mortonia, and so it was named.
Soon after his arrival, Ralph visited his mine, and found if undisturbed. He did nothing more about it until the houses were built and the field was planted. Then he set men at work to build a house over the mine. The foundation of the building was made of large stones laid in cement. This foundation was raised to a level, it being on a steep hill-side, and the rest of the building was made of logs about a foot thick. The roof was of shed form, sloping with the hill, made of two-inch oak-plank firmly spiked on. The small door was of heavy oak plank. There was only one window, narrow, and guarded with iron bars. The room was about fifteen feet square and eight feet high. A large number of men were kept at work on the building, to finish it as soon as possible. During the time it was being built Ralph slept every night over the mine on a bed of pine boughs, bear-skins, and blankets. The workmen had a camp near by.
Of course, the men were curious to know what the building was for, and it was hinted that it was for a prison; then they were curious to know why a prison should be built there, nearly three miles from the town. The whites considering it a prison, and the Indians being informed that it was "bad medicine," no one was likely to try to get into it, and Ralph's object was to prevent anyone from discovering the mine inside.
Henry and Charles Morton had been informed of the existence of the mine, under the strongest bond of secrecy. Ralph had refused to inform his other brothers and John Somers of the source of his wealth, but let them infer from the legend on the gold bars that he had been in at the capture of a Spanish West Indian carrick, something which most Englishmen still considered by no means a reprehensible proceeding, although there had been peace between England and Spain for several years.
The spring and summer passed without any such epidemic as Ralph Morton somewhat apprehended. There was some mild, temporary sickness from change of climate, and some from ordinary causes, but there had been no deaths. The location was high and healthful, the water pure and cool, the food good and plentiful, and everything had been ordered with so much forethought, that not only was disaster, but even discomfort, avoided. The crops ripened and added to the colonists' store. Of course, in the crude, freshly-cleared soil they were not so good as the next year's crops should be, but they were fair.
During the latter part of the summer the colonists had leisure to build another square of cabins for the new immigrants whose arrival was expected, and to provide a large supply of stave bolts, sassafras and cedar for loading the Flora as soon as she should arrive and discharge her cargo.
In August, Ralph and his two brothers went to work in the mine to get out more gold. The quartz about the mass of gold was dug out all around for a depth of two feet or more. It was then found that the gold filled a crevice in the quartz, in a solid sheet about six inches thick, and from six to eight feet long, the length in the same direction as that of the quartz dike. A small hole being dug to a depth of ten feet, it was found that the mass extended still farther downward. Ralph was then assured of wealth enough to carry out his design of founding a nation. It was much labor to saw the blocks of gold out of this mass. A thousand pounds avoirdupois was got out and cast into bars in the moulds with the Spanish legends which, with the crucibles, Ralph had brought with him.