trouble I’d get myself into if I ever got ahold of where they’re standing. I’m tearing things up pretty good from right here. Don’t know what I’d do with the leeway they got. That kind of slack can’t be no good for nobody. That’s like stepping into the mouth of the devil. Walk on in and before you know it, you turn round and can’t get out. You just standing there, looking out at the world through all those teeth.
And this world is full of folks already been washed over the edge but they’re still here, walking round, making things hard on the rest of us. Rest of us feels real few sometimes.
Richardson
All my father ever told me was to make something of myself. He was forever reminding me that we lived in a new world where a man would have to be blind not to be able to get ahead.
It was 1781 by the time my brother David and I made it home for Christmas. We had just retired from the Continental Army, Independence from England secured at last after seven long years. Our mother made her usual teary fuss but he was all business. We’d barely sat down at the table when he started in on me.
“You and your brother were lucky to make it through this damn war in one piece. This water is not going to run clean for a while, if ever. You best bite into this world and chew. If you want to go West, fine. But don’t go empty handed.
“Gather as many land grants as you can get your hands on, go as far as you can and get there first. Once you secure a toehold, you can always parlay it into a town.”
“Look at me,” he was fond of saying. “I came here owing seven years and now everybody owes me.”
I couldn’t even picture him an indentured servant. A ragged and hungry fourteen year old, stepping down into some dank hold, headed for this unknown place. It seemed impossible. But here he was, rich, fat and full of advice.
“Take up land. Get it under cultivation. Patent it to put it in your name. Then resurvey as soon as you can to add all the adjoining vacant land to your parcel without having to pay for it. That’s how you do it. Then you keep on doing it because without property, few men are thought much of. How do you think I turned fifty acres into one thousand and a town to boot?”
He’d ask us this favorite question time and again. Just like that, he’d remind us, snapping his fingers then peering at us as if he’d made a joke. And there it was, his land stretching out all around us. His town thriving on the road out of Baltimore. He was insistent about the road. Said that was the key.
“Without a road, a town can never prosper. You must have a good road and the county seat both.”
He said this last part over and over. He still tells me now, in almost every letter he writes, asking about what he hopes is my empire and saying he needs to come see it for himself soon since he’s nearly ninety.
I’m working to make my Memphis out at Chickasaw Bluffs but it’s a hard place. Roughneck boatmen from up and down the Mississippi, along with a muddy mix of frontier settlers and come-to-trade Indians. All of them rowdy with alcohol and difficult. I chose the name Memphis because it means enduring and beautiful and I need it to be both.
Buying the Bluffs was an enormous investment but it should pay off. People warm to my William immediately. I take great pride in this quality of his since I lack it myself. Pretty as he is, he can talk to anybody. Perhaps due to his profound democracy, he is welcoming without seeming weak and this strikes a crucial balance on the frontier.
William knows full well that I sent him out to the Bluffs as much to protect my negroes from his incessant leniency as to give him a good start but he doesn’t let it bother him. He is handy with managing my second store and his eye for reading counterfeit money serves us in good stead.
I still believe the troubles we are having out there stem more from the place itself and its history than from anything William has done wrong
And this world is full of folks already been washed over the edge but they’re still here, walking round, making things hard on the rest of us. Rest of us feels real few sometimes.
Richardson
All my father ever told me was to make something of myself. He was forever reminding me that we lived in a new world where a man would have to be blind not to be able to get ahead.
It was 1781 by the time my brother David and I made it home for Christmas. We had just retired from the Continental Army, Independence from England secured at last after seven long years. Our mother made her usual teary fuss but he was all business. We’d barely sat down at the table when he started in on me.
“You and your brother were lucky to make it through this damn war in one piece. This water is not going to run clean for a while, if ever. You best bite into this world and chew. If you want to go West, fine. But don’t go empty handed.
“Gather as many land grants as you can get your hands on, go as far as you can and get there first. Once you secure a toehold, you can always parlay it into a town.”
“Look at me,” he was fond of saying. “I came here owing seven years and now everybody owes me.”
I couldn’t even picture him an indentured servant. A ragged and hungry fourteen year old, stepping down into some dank hold, headed for this unknown place. It seemed impossible. But here he was, rich, fat and full of advice.
“Take up land. Get it under cultivation. Patent it to put it in your name. Then resurvey as soon as you can to add all the adjoining vacant land to your parcel without having to pay for it. That’s how you do it. Then you keep on doing it because without property, few men are thought much of. How do you think I turned fifty acres into one thousand and a town to boot?”
He’d ask us this favorite question time and again. Just like that, he’d remind us, snapping his fingers then peering at us as if he’d made a joke. And there it was, his land stretching out all around us. His town thriving on the road out of Baltimore. He was insistent about the road. Said that was the key.
“Without a road, a town can never prosper. You must have a good road and the county seat both.”
He said this last part over and over. He still tells me now, in almost every letter he writes, asking about what he hopes is my empire and saying he needs to come see it for himself soon since he’s nearly ninety.
I’m working to make my Memphis out at Chickasaw Bluffs but it’s a hard place. Roughneck boatmen from up and down the Mississippi, along with a muddy mix of frontier settlers and come-to-trade Indians. All of them rowdy with alcohol and difficult. I chose the name Memphis because it means enduring and beautiful and I need it to be both.
Buying the Bluffs was an enormous investment but it should pay off. People warm to my William immediately. I take great pride in this quality of his since I lack it myself. Pretty as he is, he can talk to anybody. Perhaps due to his profound democracy, he is welcoming without seeming weak and this strikes a crucial balance on the frontier.
William knows full well that I sent him out to the Bluffs as much to protect my negroes from his incessant leniency as to give him a good start but he doesn’t let it bother him. He is handy with managing my second store and his eye for reading counterfeit money serves us in good stead.
I still believe the troubles we are having out there stem more from the place itself and its history than from anything William has done wrong
Similar Books
