Port Tobacco, Maryland. Hired a horse and crossed Nanjemoy
Creek. Got to Port Tobacco in the evening. This is a small town situated at the
head of a Creek of the same name. The County Courts are held here and a
Warehouse for the inspection of Tobacco. Several Scotch Factors are settled
here.
SOURCE: Nicholas Cresswell, The Journal of Nicholas Cresswell 1774—1777, pp. 19-20
Marched at 2 o'clock through a well inhabited country, though I can give no account of the people, as I have not been in the inside of a house (but one or two ornerys). They sometimes come to the road side in order to take a view of us as we pass by, but a person can scarcely discern any part of them but the nose and eyes, as they have themselves muffled up with linens, &c., in order to prevent the sun from burning their faces (I mean the female sex). At the same time they will have a number of blacks standing around them, all naked, nothing to hide their nakedness. You can easily distinguish their sex; I mean the blacks, for reasons already mentioned. They will also have their attendants dressed in the same uniform. They will also attend their table in this manner.
* * * * * * * * *
This day we passed through Richmond in twenty hours after the enemy had evacuated it a number of houses being destroyed by the enemy. They also destroyed a great quantity of Tobacco, which they threw into the streets and set fire to it. The town is built close on James River under a bank. We encamped two miles this side of the town. About 6 o'clock P. M. Capt. Davis and self made to town and spent the afternoon playing billiards and drinking wine—20 miles.
SOURCE: Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Publisher, Journal of Lieut. William Feltman, of the First Pennsylvania Regiment, 1781-82, p. 5
Saw them plant
Tobacco. The Land is first hoed into small round hills about the size of
Molehills and about 4000 of them in an acre. The plants are something like
small Cabbage plants; they only make a hole with their fingers or a small
stick and put them in, one in each hill. Two Negroes will plant three acres in
one day. Small Blisters are broke out all over my body, attended with an
intolerable itching. They call it the Prickly heat and say it is very
wholesome. It may be so, for everything I can tell, but it is very troublesome.
SOURCE: Nicholas
Cresswell, The Journal of Nicholas
Cresswell 1774—1777, pp. 17-8
The Land here is
level, sandy and barren in general, except where it is mixed with Oyster shells
which renders it very fertile. Agriculture is in a very poor state. In short,
they know very little about farming. Tobacco and Indian corn is all they make
and some little wheat. All done by Negroes. The Tobacco is all worked with
Hoes, the Indian corn with Ploughs, but of a bad sort and without a Colter. The
furrow they make is not more than two inches deep and does little more than
kill the weeds. Land sells upon an average here, at about three Dollars pr.
acre. (Thirteen shillings and Sixpence Sterling.)
SOURCE: Nicholas
Cresswell, The Journal of Nicholas
Cresswell 1774—1777, p. 18
