Men who have been raised in the Slave States, where, if the laws do not give them the power, they do not restrain them from cruelly punishing every offender with personal violence, even unto death, if their insulted dignity seems to demand it.  It is, however, encouraging to know that for a few years past the practice of dueling has somewhat fallen into disrepute among the more humane and candid class of community.

CHAPTER VIII.

HORSE-RACING AND GENERAL TRAINING.

After the return of the wedding party, Mr. Fitzhugh purchased a tract of land near that of Capt.  Helm, on which the newly-married couple commenced keeping house.  They, however, became dissatisfied with their location, and soon after sold their possessions and returned to the South.

Capt.  Helm still continued to take the oversight of his slaves, and was out every day, superintending his business, just as his overseer used to do.

About this time a man named Henry Tower came to Bath to hire “slave boys,” as we were called.  The Captain hired to him Simon and myself, and a Mr. Baker also hired to him one slave named Vol.  McKenzie.  We three started for Dresden, Ontario County, where we arrived in due time.

Mr. Tower had just bought a tract of land, three miles this side of the village of Lyons, on the Canandaigua outlet.  Here Mr. Tower contemplated making great improvements, building mills, opening stores &c.  This tract of land was comparatively wild, there being but a small frame house for a dwelling, one for a store, and another for a blacksmith shop.  Mr. Tower had two brothers; James, the eldest, who took charge of the store, and John, the younger, who took charge of the hands who worked on the farm; Henry himself superintending the building of the mills.  This firm had a great number of men in their employ that year.  I was kept busy helping the women about the cooking and house-work.  And here, for the first time in my life, I had a comfortable bed to sleep on, and plenty of wholesome food to eat; which was something both new and strange to me.

The Towers were thorough-going business-men; they built a large grist mill, with four run of stone, and also a distillery.  In those days it was customary for nearly all classes to drink spirituous liquors; hence, the distilleries were sources of great pecuniary interest to those who owned them.  But having lived to see the dreadful evils which the drinking of alcoholic beverages have produced on community, I can hardly speak of distilleries in the favorable light in which they were then regarded.

The Towers, with commendable enterprise, cleared a great number of acres of land during the first year I lived with them, besides doing a heavy business in the mill, store and distillery.

It was customary then for men to assemble at some public place for the purpose of drinking whisky and racing horses.