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490	Mississippi	Historical	Society.
attended the lamented Griffith, Walker, Stockton, Grayson, Daingerfield and others, who were swept off as they planted their aspiring feet on the higher platforms of professional renown. But we pass on for the present, from a subject suggested by the mention of Judge Turner, who has outlived nearly all his early associates, and still seems in the enjoyment of robust health and vigorous intellect.
Our first night was spent at Mrs. Ray?s, a spacious Inn at the junction of the Gallatin and Monticello roads, and immediately on the Natchez Railroad. We know of no place where the traveller is made more comfortable. Roomy apartments, luxurious beds, a table bountifully and delicately spread, a hostess of the kindest disposition and most engaging manner, a fine gushing spring, with no scarcity of madeira, claret and Monongohala to render your libations more generous?these form a tout ensemble rarely to be found at a country ordinary. What a delightful excursion for our citizens in the balmy periods of the season, a strawberry hunt near Mrs. Ray?s, and a picnic in the magnificent pine forest about there! Who could not be eloquent? What lover could not woo and win, with a fine girl stooping to gather the ruby fruit, not half so rich as the blush upon her cheek? And then, there are huckleberries near Mrs. Ray?s. Why, the heart of a mountaineer would leap at the very idea! There is to him poetry in the thought. The days of young romance come back dancing upon the memory, gilded with sun-lit recollections of his early home?his first idolatry of woman, whose sainted image nor time, nor distance, nor other attachments, nor the ?sere and yellow leaf" of misfortune, have been able to tear from its resting place. How many destinies are fixed for life, hearts cemented into one, in the colder North, in these autumn rambles over the sunny side of the mountain?these annual fruit-gatherings! But here is another attraction to Mrs. Ray?s. Winter is coming; we have no sleigh rides; no music of the merry bells, as they sweep, like Laplanders, over the glassy valleys, reflecting back the joyous moonbeams and the smiling stars. This is not vouchsafed to us; but how delightful to wrap up in warm furs, and glide along in the cars, with the melody of clarionet and horn, flinging back their cheering echoes from the hills, to a ball at that pleasant
A Trip Through the Piney Woods.?Claiborne. 491
; inn, with a glorious supper of oysters and chicken salad, turkeys, terrapin and champagne! Why, it would be almost as pleasant as a New England sleigh ride! Now that there is a suspension of arms, and politics for the moment is not the thing, we should look around us, and see how many sources of enjoyment and of improvement are within our reach.6
July 6th.?From Mrs. Ray?s passed on to Meadville, the county seat of Franklin, once a pretty village stretching along the road for a quarter of a mile, and fringed with white cottages and beautiful trees, but now in a state of dilapidation and decline. The palsying hand of time has shaken it to pieces.
The place was named in honor of a gentleman who still survives?one of the few memorials of territorial days?General Cowles Mead, at present a citizen of Hinds County. He has played no mean figure in the game of politics, and was at one period among the most prominent characters in the South. He emigrated when very young from Virginia to Georgia. In 1805 he had a violent contest with Thomas Spaulding, Esq., a very wealthy and able politician of Georgia, and was returned to Congress. Mr. Spaulding, however, contested the election. It appears that the law of Georgia requires all the returns to be made to the Governor within twenty days after the election; that three counties failed to make their returns within the prescribed period, whereupon the Governor proclaimed that Mr. Mead was elected by a majority of 169 votes, and gave him his certificate of election. It was established on the part of the petition, that a tremendous hurricane prevented the returns from those three counties in time, and that if counted, they would give him a majority of thirty-nine votes over the sitting member. The committee reported in favor of the claimant, and after a debate of two days, the House sustained the report by a vote of sixty-six to fifty-two. See National Intelligencer for 1806. President Jefferson soon afterwards appointed Mr. Mead Secretary of the Mississippi Territory. The seat of government was then at Washington, and Robert Williams, who died a few years since in Louisiana, Governor. The reputation of Mr. Mead preceded him. When he arrived
'The second sketch, embraced between references "4? and ?5," ap-
peared in the Free Trader and Daily Gazette for November 8, 1841.