A view of the Back River, from Doboy Island
William Butterworth ran away from his home in England in the early 1800’s. Making his way to Liverpool, he then hopped on a slave ship to Africa. After several stops and adventures he wound up the Georgia coast aboard a timber ship, the Neptune , that had anchored in Sapelo Sound to take on a cargo of cedar shingles and barrel staves. Due to the ships draft, the wood was barged out to the ship from Darien and the Atamaha River. This is an excerpt, taken from his memoir, with an account of being stranded after a wreck on Doboy Sound with a load of shingles bound for the anchored ship.
pp. 205-211:
…At length, after many a clumsy fall, and suffering also from the boughs of trees, which frequently lashed our faces, in recovering their natural positions after being pushed aside, we were agreeably surprised by the smell of burning wood, and soon saw a very fine white smoke, gently ascending amongst the dark foliage of the trees.
Never did the voluptuous epicure view with half as much pleasure the diversified productions of the most sumptuous festive board,as we the circling smoke emitted from the humble hut of a negro, situated at the extremity of the plot of cultivated land. We rapped at the door gently, for fear of alarming the inmates; but, notwithstanding our precaution,they were terrified, not being accustomed to nocturnal visitants.
” Hoo dare ?” asked a voice within, as we rapt a second time, much louder than the first. Intending to excite commiseration, we began to narrate our sufferings, which must have seemed unconnected, from his frequent interruptions, desiring us to leave them to enjoy the repose that nature required, to fit them for the toil of another day. We were all talkers; he desiring us to go about our business, we striving to awaken sympathy; instead of which, we, for a long time, only awoke suspicion by our untimely visit, and disturbed his wife and two children by our noise.
Had we sailed in any other employ, we perhaps might have talked till daylight, without removing his scruples or exciting pity. But when he heard that we belonged to the Neptune, and that Captain Dale had sailed with us from Charlestown, and was then at Darien^ he said he knew Captain Dale, and that he was going to feed some pigs for him, for the use of the ship.
The door was immediately opened, and he invited us in. His wife and two children, whom we had disturbed, arose, and bade us good cheer. She soon set about preparing for us some hominy, which is Indian corn, grossly ground, and boiled to a stiff consistence; when sufficiently boiled, it was poured into a calabash, covered with molasses, and set before us in a simple but frank manner. She entreated us to partake freely; at the same tune, in a short grace, imploring the benediction of heaven upon it.
A second invitation was unnecessary to men, who had nothing on their stomachs except water, of which I had drunk from three to four pints, during the time that the friendly hostess was preparing the hominy, my two companions drank a most immoderate quantity. Charles, the black, in whose hut we were now going to enjoy a large calabash of homony, left us for a short time; he, kind soul, wishing to make us more comfortable than the extent of his resources would allow, ran to another hut, the only one besides his own on the Island. The object of his visit was to procure for us something better than he himself could set before us, as he expressed it; though few things, if any, could agree better with the stomach, after five days fasting, than the nourishing dish prepared for us by the mother of the two chubby-faced children, who innocently laughed, as they gazed with astonishment on the three Bochrah men, who had disturbed them in their sleep.
We gulped the hommony down with the greatest eagerness; and as Dutch John, in attempting to keep pace with me burnt his tongue and palate, the contortions of his masculine features tickled their juvenile fancies, and amused them wonderfully. If ever attention was paid to the proverb, ”Let your meat stop your mouth,” it was during the time that we were empty-ing the calabash of hommony, in the hut of the hospitable black family, which we afterwards found was in Hird’s Island, the property of George and Sandy Bailey, of Black Island; for, although our communicative hostess informed us that there was only another family on the Island, told us the name thereof, as just noticed, together with the names of the gentlemen in whose possession the Island was, and also that her husband and the other black man were stationed thereon, to take care of the stock, not a syllable was uttered by any of us, except the yaw of the Dutchman, in answer to our benefactress, who very feelingly inquired if he had scalded him-self, as he shook his head, under pain, from the boil-ing hominy.
Before we had finished our grateful repast, Charles, and the man to whose house he had been, returned, bringing with them a quantity of flour, made from Indian corn, desiring Charles’s wife to make it into cakes. Both the men were advanced in years, and both expressed regret at not having it in their power to make us more comfortable; lamenting that their stock of racoon bacon was exhausted, to which, they assured us, we should have been as welcome as their own families. It is a luxury with the negroes, and is made by smoke-drying the flesh of the racoon,after its thickly-furred skin is taken off, which is sold to the store-keepers. I never tasted any of this sort of bacon, though I have heard it extolled, and have frequently eaten of the animal, when boiled like a rabbit, and found it no contemptible dish….
…When we had finished the hommony, and thanked the two men for their goodwill in wishing they had something better to give us, we all three laid down on some planks to rest our weary limbs. While we slept, the good black woman was busied in making cakes, which she baked on a hoe, for want of a bake-stone ; from which circumstance they are called hoe-cakes, being very commonly baked thus amongst the negroes.
With full stomachs and grateful minds, we arose from the planks, as the first rays of return-ing light gleamed across the mud floor of the benevolent Charles, whose equally generous wife pro-posed, that whenever we wished to depart, he should set us on our way, and assist us to carry our keg to his spring, as she called it, where we should get a quantity of fresh water. Undissembled gratitude was the only return we could make to these worthy people, which was feelingly tendered them, and as feelingly accepted.
We had not yet received the extent of their in-tended favours; that pleasure was most judiciously reserved for their two children to confer, thereby teaching them practical beneficence. And it was a most gratifying sight, to see the good housewife place a large hoe-cake under the arms of her smiling offspring, leading them by the hands to us, and then desiring them to imitate God, in doing good. The children drew their hands out of those of their mother, and taking the cakes from under their arms held them to us, for our acceptance. We took them,and, as well as sailors knew how, implored of heaven for them its protection and guidance through life.
Charles’s friend, his wife, and her two children came out of the hut, as I took up the keg, all wishing us a safe arrival at the Neptune. Refreshed and gratified, we bade them farewell; and, with Charles for our guide, soon arrived at his spring, in the wood, through which lay our way. Its discovery would have puzzled any one, except a mischievous boy bent on finding a bird’s nest, whose prying curiosity nothing can escape. It was not like the springs of modern romance, bubbling up in silvery streams, nor musically meandering along flower enamelled banks. It was scarcely visible, when pointed out, being nearly grown over with weeds, and almost full of dead leaves. In fact, it was more a reservoir than a spring. A barrel, with numerous perforations through its sides, was sunk in the ground, into which the water drained, filtering through the dead leaves. A large cocoa nut shell served as a bucket; weighted at the bottom with a stone, it readily sunk, pressing down in its descent the overspreading leaves, which resumed their situation on the cocoa nut shell being drawn up by a string, to which it was appended. A benevolent disposition prompted him to favour us with about two gallons out of his little stock; we thanked him, shook him by the hand in a rough English manner,and one of us taking his wife’s present of hoe-cakes, the other two by turns carrying the keg, containing his present of fresh water, we bade him farewell…
