At Town Bridge a torrent
raged that was not to be crossed until the tide fell. Freemason, between
Brewer and Granby, presented a sea deep enough to float a vessel of one
hundred tons. Our Rialto on Granby was not erected till eighteen or
twenty years later; and I remember our fathers were so proud of it, that
they invited strangers to see it. It took, for a time, the shine from
the Navy Yard. The health of the town ranked the lowest. The tombstones
in old St. Paul's tell of the number of captains of vessels and trading
merchants who died here. The letters of Wirt show the prevalent belief
that an acclimating process was just as necessary here as at New Orleans
and Havana, or on the coast of Africa. It was the fear of yellow fever,
perpetually dinned in his ears by his country friends, who but echoed
the popular belief, that drove Wirt away. Such was Norfolk, not
enveloped in the mists of tradition, but such as she was, when Mr.
Tazewell came to reside here in 1802.
He lived to behold a very different state of things. He lived to see it
one of the cleanest cities in the world, and to see more miles of paved
streets in Norfolk than any other city south of the Potomac can boast
of; and those streets lighted up every night with a brilliancy equal to
that which a rejoicing people, thirteen years later than 1802, kindled
in commemoration of the victory of New Orleans, and of the peace with
Great Britain.
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