Spring Travels: The Natchez Trace

The Old Natchez Trace, a forest trail that leads from Nashville, Tennessee to Natchez, Mississippi connected the American interior to the Mississippi River and was of historic and vital route in the early days of the American frontier.  In fact, if you walk far enough back on the Old Trace, you will probably find it being used in 700 AD by prehistoric peoples, including the mound building tribes like the Natchez Indians.  Today, the Natchez Trace is maintained by the US Park Service along it 444 miles of idyllic two-lane, slow-paced travel through verdant woodlands.  

Traveling with the McCords in our 4Runner, we caught the Natchez Trace in Raymond, Mississippi about 75 north of Natchez, MS.  The idea was to cruise in our vehicle the now paved path that has been traveled by foot and horseback by the likes of Meriwether Lewis, Andrew Jackson, Spanish explores, French soldiers, pirates, frontiersmen, traders, scalawags, boatmen, all precede in previous millennia by the earliest of peoples on the North American continent.  We are walking in all of their footsteps, but instead of walking we are motoring at 50 mile per hour.  Our plan is to at any place of interest along The Trace and explore, ending up in the evening at The Routhland, a antebellum mansion B&B in Natchez.

Remnant of the Old Natchez Trace forest trail traveled by Indians, frontiersmen, Spanish, French and American explorers traders and soldiers.  Yes, they trod upon this very place on their way to the Mississippi River - just as we were doing.

The sign in the side of the road directed us toward a sidetrack where the actual pathway, worn into Mississippi soil from countless footsteps of travelers making there way to the Mississippi River.  This ground has seen the passing of members of a mound-building civilization (perhaps dating back to around 700 AD), Andrew Jackson to fight the British at New Orleans, Spanish explorers and French priests among thousand of others from the pages of history.  We stopped to walk the Trace ourselves.  Donna could not resist taking off her Trace-walking shoes and wading in the the small, clear creek beside the Trace.

Our traveling companion on the Old Trace, Donna McCord takes a trip through a brook
flowing beside the historic Natchez Trace. 

Sunlight through a springtime leaves along the Natchez Trac

 A little further down the Trace we come upon Rocky Springs ghost town.  A settlement boasting of 3 churches, artisans, stores and 25 square miles of farms tended by 2,000 slaves.  Rocky Springs thrived along the Natchez Trace from the 1780's into the early 20th Century, but a devastating infestation of boll weevils destroyed the economy and today all that is left is a Methodist Church and its graveyard, a few cisterns and several safes (long ago cracked open) rusting in the woods. 

Tree roots fight erosion at Rocky Springs ghost town

Spanish moss drapes from trees
surrounding an old Methodist Church

Rocky Springs Methodist meet still meet here on occasion.

Rocky Springs boneyard under spanish moss 

It is getting toward dusk and we need to check in to our B&B suite at the Routhland Mansion in Natchez before our hostess goes to her bridge party.  We leave the ghosts of Rocky Springs behind, but we are assured there will be more ghost awaiting us in Natchez as we scurry down the Trace like so many others before us.

Spring Travels: Builder of Mounds

On the outskirts of the modern hamlet of Natchez, Mississippi is an ancient site documented by several 17th Century French explorers and priests who visited the New World and journeyed up the mighty river to find what they referred to as "The Grand Village of the Natchez".  Modern archaeologist now believe that this site of three earthen mounds served more as a ceremonial gathering location, while the majority of the population of Natchez Indians were scattered about the region in small communities that raised squash, corn and beans.  But at the Grand Village of the Natchez, the Great Sun, paramount chief and his nobility resided in a dwelling atop the one of the mounds and another mound was topped by a temple where a fire was always kept burning in homage to the Sun.  The nobles were served the by the "stinkards" of the lower caste. 

We visited the museum that outlined the Natchez society rituals of human sacrifice of their own children and the hierarchy as observed by contemporary French accounts.  As the French settlement and fortification encroached upon the indigenous people, the Natchez turned on the French in 1730.  The French counter attached and claimed to have wiped out all of the Natchez, but there are those who claim that at least some warriors escaped and joined with the Creek and Cherokee Nations.

Ascending the "Temple Mound" at the
Grand Village of the Natchez

 A few miles up the Natchez Trace from the Grand Village is the impressive Emerald Mound. An 8 acre mound (the second largest such structure in North America) that stands above the Mississippi flood plain about 40 feet.  It took several generation of laborers working with baskets and digging tools of sticks and antlers to build such a high standing monument, beginning around 1200.  To think of the effort that went into the construction can not help but fill one with admiration for the efforts and toil of these antecedent people of the Plaquemine Culture, the mound-builders. 

The Great Sun mound (chief's dwelling) atop the south end of the 8 acre Emerald mound

Kirby and Sue climb to the Great Sun's mound at Emerald Mound
along the Natchez Trace

The view across Emerald Mound, a prehistoric ceremonial site built over generations.
From the top of the Great Sun Mound you can see the Temple Mopund on the far end of the raised Emerald Mound complex.

View across Emerald Mound from the steps ascending
The Great Sun's Mound and Dwelling

Emerald Mound from half-way up the steeply constructed slopes that
rise to a flat surface on the top of Emerald Mound

Spring Travels: Antebellum Natchez

As we came off of the Natchez Trace Parkway and entered Natchez, we began to search for the Routhland Mansion. a Bed & Breakfast where we would stay the two nights and using it as a base from which to foray on various local adventures.  The first adventure was to locate the B&B.

We eventually deduced where the address and GPS guidance wanted us to be and turned onto an inconspicuous driveway that wound up the slope to the Routhland estate.  Our hostess met us and filled us in on the routine and gave us our passes to breakfast to be served in the carriage house of the Dunleigh  B&B a quarter of a mile away.

Routhland Mansion
Our Natchez home for 2 nights

We Sunesons and McCords shared a single bathroom and a 2-room suite.  One room had a queen bed with a severely concaved mattress, the other room two single beds.

In the front of the Routhland estate was a magnificent old oak, dripping with Spanish moss and hosting ferns growing from its low-slung massive limbs.

Large and beautiful oak standing in front of Routhland

All afternoon a stiff breeze was pushing moisture up from the Gulf of Mexico, and I could feel we were likely going to get some electricity in the air.  Not disappointed, I settled into my strange sheets and pillow as I could hear distant rumbling growing closed through the wee hours of the morning.  I thought it fitting to have the raucous atmosphere pounding around us as I detected lightning through my shut eyelids.  I enjoyed the storm from inside the big, antebellum house.

In the morning, the grass was well drenched with last nights rain, and as the sky cleared, we strolled out to the majestic oak still standing before us, bearing silent witness to unknowable numbers of electrical storms and hurricane winds since it days as a seedling.  I was honored to stand below its boughs.

A little frivolity on top of even lesser amount of hair.
I 'moss' look fabulous!

Spring Travels: Dining with Ghosts

In planning the trip to Natchez, Kirby had researched a few spots that made claims to be haunted.  Now, I think it must be good for business if a restaurant makes a paranormal claim, and it seems that if the lights once flickered in the kitchen in 1993, then the place advertises a ghost on the premises.  I lean towards skepticism for most of these specific ghost claims, but - through recorded history, people say they have seen ghosts, so maybe their is something universal and true to the existence of spirit apparitions. Just maybe.

With an appetite for haunting possibilities and not to mention, dinner; we had King's Tavern on our list in hopes of good food and just maybe a few see-through guests passing by our table, chilling our spine and our water glasses.  King's Tavern is the oldest standing building in the Mississippi Territory, dating back to at least the 1780's (possibly older).  Adding some credence to the hauntings of this place is the documented excavation of three human skeletons in the 1930's when the tavern's fireplace was being repaired.  Bricked into the back of the chimney were the bones of a woman and two men, replete with a mysterious jewel encrusted dagger, the presumed instrument of their demise.

Long before the gruesome discovery behind the bricked-up back of the chimney, reports of ghosts within King's Tavern had been made.  Richard King, the tavern's early owner had hired a young bar maid named Madeline. the employer/employee relationship was rumor to quickly become one of a lovers affair.  Soon, Madeline disappeared and it was rumored that King's wife is said to have gotten suspicious and hired two henchmen to murder young Madeline.  Other visitors have reported the sounds of a crying infant coming from a vacant upstairs room.  This is said to be the ghost of a fussy baby that was taken from the arms of its mother by 'Big Harpe', a notoriously cruel bully in these parts, and slammed the baby into the wall and killing it, then Big Harpe returned to the bar to drink in quiet.

Donna and Sue look as if they'd seen a ghost while
waiting for dinner at the purportedly haunted King's Tavern

The ghost of Madeline (the missing bar maid and lover of the Tavern's proprietor) is said to be haunting the tavern along with the murdered infant who some say its cries can still be heard.

We selected a table in the corner, but the ladies suggested we move out to the back patio to dine in the pleasant twilight.  When I asked the our waiter about the spirits of the place, he mentioned that the three skeleton were discovered in the chimney wall, in the very corner that we had just vacated. Ooooh, creepy.

 The sun had now set and we found ourselves in the dark awaiting our dinner, mine was a crawfish pot pie - recommended.

As we completed our meal, Donna and I, each carrying cameras, left the table to pay off the tab, when Ricky, the wise-cracking proprietor, stopped us; "Hey you guys with the cameras [obviously tourist], where are you from?"  I mentioned "Dallas-area".  He repeated, "Dallas-area - fess up, where in the 'Dallas area'? You know I ran a couple of clubs in Plano and in Dallas..." and he named them off.  He filled us in on the story of his professional club and restaurant career, never giving a straight answer to any of my questions.

Then looking at our camera, he asked in a disappointing tone, have you been upstairs?  We allowed as to how we had not even known it was open to the public.  Oh he said, you get your butts up there right now.  We climbed the stairs lined with portraits, culminating with a portrait of Madeline herself on the landing on the 3rd floor.

Madeline watches all who ascend the stairs
and enter the upper room that is frequently cited as
Madeline's favorite haunt

 In the up-most chamber, the wall was lined with newspaper accounts of the discovery of the bodies embedded in the brick wall and the jeweled dagger plunged into the ribs of the lady's hidden bones. Another framed clipping was an eye witness story published by a newspaper reporter who was run out of the upper chamber by the mysterious swing of of Madeline's portrait hanging on the wall and the gyrations of a dangling chain that changed it direction of rotation when Madeline's ghost was challenged to make it do so, the trembling reporter.  The reporter and her photographer husband flew down the stairs and informed the proprietor that they would not be spending the night there after all.

I took photo of Madeline's portrait too, hoping that upon viewing I would notice a disembodied diaphanous woman hovering inside the room.  But, I saw nothing, I heard nothing and I felt nothing.

Once we descended the stairs, Ricky said he had something to show us.  He had his bartender pull up a video on his phone that was down-loaded from the tavern's security camera.  The backstory was that this video was from a Monday when the place was closed, and with nobody around.  There is a video recording of the refrigerator door opening by itself.  The bar tender demonstrated the good vacuum seal around the door and the high unlikelihood that it would just fall open.  Ricky added his opinion, "I am basically a skeptic of the paranormal stories I hear, but I am not so arrogant as to say it definitely could not happen to be true.  There has been some strange shit  happening around here."

Madeline keeps an eerie eye on those who come and go

 Having seen the video and heard the and read the stories, we bade Madeline and all of the ethereal tenants of King's Tavern good-bye. 

Spring Travels: Another Antebellum Mansion

Lansdowne Plantation

The Great Great Granddaughter descendants of the original occupant
greet visitors to the house still in the family and shows hospitality and
a peek into the past in each room and some of the stories from within.

All told, there must me at least a score of fabulously furnished antebellum mansions scattered around Natchez, Mississippi.  In fact their antebellum mansions are a big industry in town.  For Natchez, March through April is "Spring Pilgrimage" - when the home are open to the touring public on rotating days and weekends.  Tickets (at $15-$20 a head) can be purchased inside the well done Natchez Visitor's Center for home tours, 3 for the price of 2 even.  We all quickly reached a consensus that if you've seen one (maybe two) set(s) of four-posted beds, imported Persian carpets, French draperies via steam boat from New Orleans and sideboards of silver cutlery ad nauseum, and the 'dependencies' (less euphemistically called 'slaves quarters') - you've seen them all.  But what the hey, looking over our options while in Natchez, we sprung for tickets to tour 'Lansdowne'; one of its great appeals was that it was still in the family of the original builders.  Like so many of these mansion and plantation homes, when rich-planter Daddy married off one of his daughters at 17 or 18, she was given a newly build house and 800 or so acres so that she and her new husband could properly entertain in the planter society - until the damn Yankees came and put an end to all of the great formal fun and soirees.   

At Lansdowne we were met by several sisters, descendants of Great Great Grandmother who guided us through the rooms and times of the mid-1860's.  Portraits of the modern family dressed in Confederate uniforms (dashing cavalry officers) and hoop-skirted ladies.  The table was set with so much silver and flatware that when I asked about the utility of one peculiar serving piece, I was told that no one really knew what that piece might have been used for in its day.  No wonder the planter class did not want to give up the institution of slavery - who was going to wash all of those dishes and polish all of that silver? 

The family silver now on display.
Hidden before the arrival of the Yankees and saved from looting in all certainty,

A splendid table

Dunleith Mansion

With our particular B&B comes a free tour of the Dunleigh Estate, so after breakfast in the carriage house converted into a fine dining hall, we grabbed a morning tour.  The estate was build by a Philadelphia banker who came to Natchez to court the business of wealthy cotton growers, but he ended up courting a widow with six children.  The banker and his planter-class wife had 9 more children to add to the 3-story Dunleith Mansion.

Dunleith Mansion
Mic Jagger has rented and hosted a party here.

Imported French wallpaper in the dining room

We set a spell on the lawn beside the greenhouse

Late march - In time to catch the tail end of the azalea blooms

Spring Travels: A Peculiar Interest

In planning this trip to Mississippi with the McCords, Donna mentioned that, "It might be kind of weird, but I like to wander around in old cemeteries."  I replied, "How peculiar - I enjoy those very strolls myself."  Once we had established our base in Natchez, with maps (and GPS phone) in hand, we moved through the city streets toward the edge of town to link up with Cemetery Road.  We slowly drove through the iron gates and found a slightly wider spot to pull over and gt out and being to slowly move over the green lawn, pausing to read and ponder the inscriptions carved onto the many marble headstones.  

The undeniable grief and tears that must have soaked this very ground have given rise to some very ornate stones in memory of those laid beneath.  As I moved from plot to plot, I do the arithmetic in my head; date of death minus the year of birth; perhaps I am surprised that seldom does my number arrive to anything larger than 50.  Death was a frequent visitor to the children and youthful parents in many of these handsomely carved monuments.  Often the family plot, enclosed by a wrought iron fence, would have the a marker for their daughter, her date of death preceded that of her brother, 2 years her senior, by merely two days.  Next to the graves of the children was a substantial monument, with the enscription, Beloved Mother".  She was likely too ill to grieve her lost children, as she died a day after her second child.  I surmise the all-too-common disaster of yellow fever or some such disease swept through the family, and quickly took out three of its members.  I pause, though I can honestly not comprehend the scope of this sort of tragedy.  We are blessed to live with 21st Century medicine and all of the advances of public health - a blessing so immense that we scarcely ever consider our good fortune in this country.

An ornate family plot
Natchez City Cemetery

Kirby takes a rest beneath a huge oak tree

  
I think, disease and death was much more common in the 19th Century, but I believe for all of its commonality and banality, the grief and affliction experienced was no less for frequency.  Standing in place for the grief stricken and in memory of those who have passed, great stones are erected and scriptures written.  I guess it ends this way for all of us, but a stroll through these stones and dated markers causes me to tred lightly and consider my steps into the unknown days that remain for me as I walk this earth.

No matter the cause, it is sobering to come upon the ground made hallow by the graves of those who gave their all for their cause.  The glory of the south was laid out before us in several location with monuments to those who died as a confederate soldier.  All the more sobering to see a marker "Unknown Soldier".  These lads gave away even the knowledge to their own kin of there final resting place.  No one but the Lord knows the identity of these bones beneath this soil.  It is without a doubt a place of great sadness, but the living with there etched words and monuments try to adorn the tragedy with the trapping of honor and glory.  We are a strange species.

A sobering sight
The graves of unknown soldiers

At rest
The Glory of the South

Having touched upon our peculiar interest in visiting the old cemetery and having been alone with our own thoughts of mortality, we left this place of the honored dead and retrned to town.

In the evening we made a point to go out and walk along the tall bluffs between Natchez and the Mississippi River.  As the sun arched into a western cloud bank and a barge pushed its cargo upriver, I again was struck by large thoughts of a small man before a mighty river.  I was standing upon a spot where the Natchez People, great earthen mound builders, European explorers from old France and old Spain, ruffians, river traders, wanderers, American combatants of a divided nation and a bloody war had no doubt once stood.  As the big waters flowed quietly southward, who know what mysteries can come to this spot but were never shared and and how many wanderers have passed along this way and are long lost to all memory.  I fell small on the bluffs above the Mississippi and tiny in the currents of history of what has already passed from here.  I have to wonder, what is yet to come?  But I know it is futile to guess, but it has been a pleasant experience to stand from this vantage and peer back into what has been.

Sunset at the bridge between Natchez, MS and Vidalia, LA

We return home to Texas tomorrow.  

On the Pilchuck - Back to Basics

Kind of hard to see the photos come in to my email from our general contractor.  But we knew we had to get to this point, and better sooner than later I suppose.

With the disappointing arson investigation not going anywhere fast (as near as we can tell), we are step-by-step working the details out with our insurance adjuster and general contractor and have retained the services of an architect to put it all back together and give us a future to dream of, back out on the Pilchuck.

With the estimates in for demolition and the requisite permits and financial transactions set-up, I gave the go-ahead to dip into some the insurance funds to get a skip loader and a couple of trucks to load up with splinters and charred flotsam that was the Cook home from 1960 until the place was burned down in retribution on Halloween, 2016.  Sue had requested that a little something of 'what once was' be set aside prior to the clearing of the lot in anticipation of rebuilding.  She asked that the kitchen vent fan and the rhododendron by the kitchen window be saved if possible.  The word came back that the kitchen fan was destroyed in the fire, but the rhody, they would try and transplant and keep it out from going under the blade of the demo team.

Once the wicked winter weather of 2017 turned from snow and ice into just merely an abundance of rain and the usual mud; the work was scheduled in mid-March. 

Looking down onto the basement slab from about where the dining room window once was.

Just basement slab and surrounding concrete foundation remains.
We will rebuild upon the original foundation.

We were offered the option of taking a lump sum settlement of the depreciated actual cash value of the 57-year old structure, or getting the amount of funds up to the limit of our full coverage paid out over the process of rebuilding the house.  The decision was quick and simple, we would leave too much money on the table if we took the lump sum, so it was time to invest in a future back out at the Cook home place.

We are putting together a new floor plan, trying to stay within (or more likely, kind of close) to a budget dictated by the insurance settlement.  Our fist blush estimate is that we will have a new house up by this Fall.  Reluctantly, we will have to yet open it up, brand new fresh and clean to a set of renters once again; at least until we are ready to make the leap to the Northwest.  I am not excited about having a new bunch of renters in our place, but they will help pay the bills and ease the financial strain for a little while.  The question has to be asked, are there any decent people who rent and respect their rental home?  From what I hear and have experienced, they are but few and as frequent as frog's teeth. 

Up and at 'em

I do not mind the bright, cheery dandelions that sprout in my yard.  They are thought to be weeds, but 'weed' is an arbitrary assignment by those of smaller minds, hard definitions and exclusionary thoughts as to possibilities and beauty.

My dandelions come in mid-winter and beckon the tortoise brothers hibernating under the secretary in our breakfast nook.  Several generation of these yellow constellations come and go into the long-necked fragile globe of puffy seed balls before the tortoises rise from their October slumber to join the feast.  As always, the dandelions were waiting in full glory on Sunday, March 19, when both Isaac and Chomper sleepily pushed their little turtle butts into the middle of the kitchen.

Turtle Butts
Hibernating in our kitchen from October through March
Dandelions are ready for the Spring Breakfast Feast!

Both still groggy when found in front of the sink, I welcomed them to Spring of 2017 and and plucked them off the floor and placed them in a sunny patch of delicious dandelions.  They began to munch flowers and leaves and all seemed right and good in the backyard world.

Chomper in a 5-month deep sleep under the Kitchen Secretary

The Garden Beet

"... and the beat goes on"; so sang Sonny and Cher. La de da de de, la de de da de da...

We sing to to a different beet.  The beet of the winter garden, la da de da de....

A mild winter, a little rain at the right thyme and Sue has produced a pretty peck of produce.  She tugged and pulled and the beets popped out plump and purple, primed for pickling.  

Wash off the dirt, slice 'em up thin and put 'em some jars of pickle juice and then at dinner time we sing the lyrics - ...and the beet goes on and on the table, la de da de da...

Time to plant the summer garden of tomatoes, peppers, banana squash, okra, herbs, artichokes, asparagus.  And yes, the beat goes on...

Tulip Time

Daffodils come into their own in Sue's garden in the first week of February, tulips will follow and try and out-do the early rising bulbs.  Many are planted, but few are brought to full bloom - is it 'bad seed' or is it the dastardly work of the squirrel pack that is always rooting around in our yard and taking the bulbs and the pecans?

Sue got a couple of showy blooms from her tulip effort this winter, with the tulips first blooming in a bright yellow, then transforming over the succeeding days into the low frequency end of the visible light spectrum; going from the first blush of yellow and then into oranges that deepen, approaching a red-persimmon before the petals fall to the ground.

A splash of color around our front porch, well worth the effort.