Recollections of Rambles in the South.

Traveling in Virginia and the Carolinas

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The last entry in Clark’s Travels in the Old South: “The author was a New England farmer and schoolteacher who traveled through parts of the Carolinas and Virginia. He visited Charleston, Columbia, Fayetteville, Norfolk, and Yorktown. Although Father William had numerous experiences, the book is dull. His comments on cotton culture, Negro laborers, naval store industry, bad roads, the scarcity of taverns, and the general hospitality of the people (especially the Virginians) are more or less orthodox.”

Clark may be too harsh. Chapter XVII is devoted to the Pamunkey Indians and their dogs, and there is a narrative here —a young New England schoolteacher going South to seek employment and experience the region— which is neither rote nor trite.

Authorship has been attributed to educator, reformer, doctor, prolific author, and Yale graduate, William A. Alcott (1798-1859), of Wolcott, Connecticut. Alcott wrote scores of books upon physical education, diet, family life, and his experiences as a school house teacher. (See AMB I:10 —“It is said he visited 20,000 school-houses”)

Scarce to the trade and a lovely copy.

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