A Singular Horseback Journey

— My personal recollections of my grandfather’s brother, known to all of us as “ Uncle Joe,” are very limited, being confined to a dim memory of his carrying me on his back, and swaying from side to side as he walked, to make my ride more exciting and enjoyable. I can recall nothing of his features, but have a distinct impression of the indestructible texture of his felt hat and the broadness of his round shoulders. The honest hats of those days outlasted a lifetime; indeed, were never worn out, but thrown aside or given away to people of low degree when too soiled for seemly wear.

I have been told that Uncle Joe was a stumpy little man with a dull face and bulging eyes, and as clumsy as a clod ; in all respects different from my grandfather, who had the beak and eye of an eagle and was as agile as a cat. His bald forehead bore a mark that Uncle Joe had set upon it with a chunk of lead thrown in one of those fits of passion which he never outgrew. This happened when they were boys at their home in Newport, at the time of the war of independence, when Uncle Joe did some service against the enemies of our country. The British held the town, and one night he found a squad of Hessian soldiers carrying off a stick of timber from his father’s wharf for firewood. Stealing up behind them, he gave the heavy timber a lusty push, and down it went, carrying some of the men with it. They caught him and gave him a drubbing ; but it made as little impression upon him as it would have made upon a turtle, and when they resumed their pilfering he played them the same trick again.

If there were a society of Nephews of the Revolution, I might be eligible on the score of the service of my great-uncle. The family were Quakers and non-combatants, and Uncle Joe’s father was called a Tory by the Whigs, and a Whig by the Tories, for taking no part with either. The English and French officers were in turn quartered upon him, as their respective armies held the town.

When Uncle Joe grew to man’s estate and crusty old-bachelorhood he came to live with my grandfather, who had settled in the youngest State of the young republic. He undertook to clear a piece of land on the new farm, all by himself and without help of a team, but hauling the logs together with a rope. Half a summer gave him enough of such labor, and he left the unfinished work for more skillful hands to complete.

After a few years of life in the new country he was seized with a yearning for his old home, its old fields and saltbreezes, its quohogs and tautogs, its succotash and upsqunch, and all the toothsome viands which the born Rhode Islander knows exist nowhere in perfection save within the limits of his native State, narrow, yet broad enough to hold all the best things of the earth. Perhaps he longed to see the playmates of his boyhood, Young Tom Ninnegret and Gid Nocake, last of the Narragansetts, and his old nurse of the same race, who would not speak the language of the destroyers of her people, yet wept that her vow would not let her do so when the beloved white children begged her to.

So it was settled he should go, and that he should make the journey on horseback; for there was no wagon at his disposal, if there were a one-horse wagon in the neighborhood, and there was no direct public conveyance by land. One memorable morning Uncle Joe’s tall steed was brought to the door equipped fertile long journey, his great bundle of possessions was strapped behind the saddle, and all the farm hands of Rhode Island stock, Bart Jackson, Lige Perry, the Lockes and Jaquays, were summoned to hoist the unwonted horseman to his seat ; then, with hearty farewells of his Quaker kindred and the good-bys of the attendant “ world’s people,” he set forth. Doubtless he felt some regret at leaving his kinsfolk, and perhaps some remorse for having been heard to execrate them in a moment of wrath. “ Damn Tommy and all his tribe! ” was an improper expression from one bred a Quaker, but probably his paramount emotion was trepidation at the thought of the inevitable descent from his horse which must occur before many hours had passed.

At a slow and careful pace he rode through the oldest city of the State, and at noon came to the county-seat, where he was obliged to feed his horse and refresh himself. Having accomplished these objects and being ready to resume his journey, he could not mount without help, and he was too proud to ask it. So he led his horse out of the village, remarking to the landlord and bystanders that he wanted to stretch his legs a bit, and hoping that when well out of sight he might find some friendly stump or fence by which he could climb to his seat. But he found it not. that day, nor the next, nor at all. Thus leading his horse, he walked all the weary way, two hundred and fifty miles or more, to Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and thus, horse and foot, marched into his native town and came to the house of his fathers.

I do not know whether he told the story of his equestrian journey or whether it became known by report of witnesses. I can never think of the intended long ride, that soon became almost as long a walk, without laughing, nor yet without pity for the absurdly pathetic figure of my great-uncle trudging along the stretches of uninhabited road, past the farmsteads and through the villages of three or four States, towing his ample means of transportation close at his heels. One can imagine what a make-believe air of traveling in the manner that exactly suited him he assumed when he met or was overtaken by other travelers, and how adroitly he parried or how testily he answered their questions, and how content he must have been with loneliness. I do not know in what season of the year this journey befell, but I trust it was a comfortable one, neither too hot nor too cold ; that the roads, then never good, were at their best; that he saw pleasant sights, and heard the birds singing all the way, and had happy thoughts in the long hours of lonely meditation that were forced upon him ; and that, no naughty boys jeered at him when he could not pursue and chastise. How glad he must have been at last to smell the salt air, and see beyond the blue arm of Narragansett Bay the green shore of Aquidneck lying before him !

Many years ago he made the last lonely journey that is allotted to all and that ends in everlasting rest. Yet it seems but a little while since my venerable grandfather, after reading a Newport letter, said, “ All well, my poor old brother Joe is gone.”