Life in the Slave Plantations

The State of North Carolina runs a reconstructed slave plantation at Somerset Place, about 25 miles from where we were staying. Entry is free, and guides take conducted tours explaining the plantation under the slavery regime. In 1865 slavery was abolished when the south lost the Civil War, and the slaves were freed. For most, their new liberty brought immediate problems as the southern economy had been practically destroyed by the war so there was little work, and large numbers migrated north.

This is Josiah Collins’ house, embellished over the years by sucessive generations. He started the plantation in 1785 with partners whom he later bought out. The partnership bought 100,000 acres of swampy land and with a workforce of 200 turned it into a prosperous plantation by 1790. 167 out of the 200 were slaves, and of these 54 died in those first 5 years. Work was long and hard, as the table of days and hours worked in later years shows.

They did not work on Sundays and festivals, but on these days they were required to attend church where the sermons reinforced the preordained nature of their miserable lot, but their rewards would be generously reaped in Heaven. There can be few slaves taken in by this misrepresentation of Christian values because runaways were common and even full-scale revolts occasionally occurred.

These houses are reconstructions of the slave quarters. They don’t look too bad as dwellings, until it’s realised that 4 families lived in each house, one family in each of the 4 rooms, maybe 25 or more people altogether. The single room houses held up to 15 souls. Josiah Collins and his descendants weren’t being deliberately repressive, simply providing the minimum comforts and food necessary to achieve the best economic return from their slaves in the same way you would apply principles of good animal husbandry. The Collins’ even had a hospital on site to ensure the better functioning of their “assets”. Of course, some owners treated their slaves particularly harshly because they could get away with it since slaves had no rights in law.
Slavery was a dehumanising experience for those individuals unfortunate enough to either be born into or be kidnapped into it. Pictures from the early days of photography are rare, especially of the underprivileged classes. The photo underneath is of a couple born into slavery on the Collins’ plantation, probably taken on their wedding day and almost certainly after the northern victory, so they were free citizens (just). They pose with great dignity.

North Carolina: Oct 19th to 25th

We’re 250 miles south of Washington DC, and a world away. This is rural America, growing cotton, peanuts and soybeans. The most unusual to us is the cotton crop: you can almost hear dem 'ole pickers singing in the plantations.

It’s being harvested right now (by machine!) and left in bales in the fields before being cleaned and graded by the cotton gins and then going on to the mills. Cotton is the USA’s biggest revenue crop, and is second only to China in the world cotton production league table. Lonnie Donegan used to sing “Jump round, turn around, pick a bale-a-cotton”, etc, and you might wonder how big a bale of cotton is. It’s this big, with Jane for scale.


We are staying at the Rocky Hock Campground. It is surrounded by fields growing the three staple crops mentioned above. Nearly surrounded, that is, except for the one side that is the Chowan river, and the other boundary with the Great Dismal Swamp that stretches all the way back to Virginia, some 30 miles, and contains all sorts of nasties like poisonous snakes but also a few black bears and bobcats. In the sunlight, it doesn’t look at all dismal.

David and Keith, father and son, who own the site, have a canal cut through the swamp from the site to the Chowan river, and they took us on a boat trip to show us around. The bald cypress trees are swamp trees that happily grow out into the river that is only 4 feet deep except for a 20 ft deep channel in the middle.

The Chowan river is two miles wide at this point, more of an estuary than a river, and legend has it that Blackbeard the pirate used it as a hideaway and even buried some of his treasure in the vicinity. All good Tourist Office stuff. Here we are, nearly half way across, in the battered boat with weed fouling the props which accounts for Keith’s worried expression.

Dad David, at the back of the boat, aged mid-80’s, is a country-and-western performer, yes is, and has his own concert hall on the site. This isn’t for the campers, although they can come along, but for his C&W band and the locals. We attended the Friday concert and it was packed. The 10- piece band was excellent, all old timers apart from the drummer (David’s grandson), and they performed a full three-hour programme. So here they are, on stage. The shots of the floor full of dancers, line dancing, were blurred because of the low light so aren’t included.

The area was a great habitat for birds, many of which we hadn’t seen before e.g. mocking bird, northern flicker woodpecker, and this delightful bluebird who looks a bit cross, as if to say, “go away”, or words to that effect.

Back to Virginia: Oct 11th to 18th

A low-key week spent visiting Claire and family. So let’s do a few low-key family photos. Below we’re just out for a walk in a local park with Claire’s four dogs, Jane and Claire with two apiece.

This is Claire’s neighbourhood, plenty of trees and space. Our rv is parked in the drive waydown on the left, but you can’t see the house. There’s a picture with the first blog (now unfortunately unviewable!), which shows it to be a solid brick-built construction as opposed to the wooden majority. Less fire risk, less dry-rot etc, so cheaper insurance you would think, but no, repairs and site clearance cost more, so insurance is in fact higher.

Scott is a mechanical genius and will tackle anything. This below is Scott doing what Scott does best, attacking the huge engine in his huge truck. He’s in the process of taking the cylinder head off.

Encore Niagara Falls

Blog Issues: the photos now appear in this and the previous blog posting, but nothing before that. We’re still trying to sort it.


The power of Niagara inspired the creation of the world’s first large-scale hydroelectric power plant. Another first was the generation of this power as alternating current, developed by Nikolas Tesla, which is now the world standard for commercial and domestic electricity. Tesla’s commemorative statue above is worth reproducing as the basis for today’s quiz. Question: what is he doing? Is he engaged upon the business of the day whilst reading a copy of The Sun? If so, where is the cup of tea at his feet and the loo-roll? All blog comments gratefully received.

This looks like a futuristic block of flats, but it’s the feeder control for the US-side power station. The USA and Canada share Niagara’s water equally, and between them extract half of the river flow into huge tunnels that fill turbine reservoirs four miles downstream. So the mega falls of Niagara is only working at 50% capacity!

Going downstream from the falls a couple of miles there are some killer rapids, the highest grade of difficulty, grade 6, and are out of bounds for white water activities. It was here that Captain Mathew Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel, was drowned in his attempt to swim the length of the Niagara River (36 miles long, connecting lake Erie to Lake Ontario). The rapids then feed into a giant whirlpool, so you’ve got no chance.

There are some beautifully maintained gardens on the Canadian side of the Niagara Gorge. Here is an example, the floral clock. A new planting layout is created each season, which they are so proud of that there is a small exhibition of pictures of all previous years’ schemes. The similarity to a pizza menu is remarkable.

Canadian law allows casinos, New York State’s doesn’t. Niagara is in New York State, so all the gamblers went to Canadian Niagara and the American side lost tourist revenue. That was until someone had a bright idea. Native Americans have been treated so shabbily in the past that, as a sop to the nation’s conscience, they now have some legal recognition of their separate identity, for example, self-government in Tribal Reservations. Right, so let’s put the casino in a Tribal Reservation and then it’s outside of New York State law. Consequently, the casino, shown below, is now successfully run by the Seneca Indians, and everybody’s happy.

To get back to everyday USA, the lovely scene underneath was around the corner from the campsite, where we went for an evening stroll. To us, it was just as beautiful as Niagara in its own way although maybe not as jaw-dropping.

Oct 5th to 10th Niagara Falls

NOTE: The blog photos are not all currently being displayed. It is not your computer at fault but a Blogger system error to which I have not at present found a solution

Niagara is the world’s biggest waterfall by annual volume of water. It is impressive and magnificent. The falls split into two main sections, American Falls, unsurprisingly on the American side, and Horseshoe Falls in Canadian territory. Horseshoe Falls carries nearly 10 times the volume of water of American Falls. Here’s a photo of American Falls with Jane unsportingly refusing to dive into the cascade as I take the snap. Doesn’t look that small, does it?


The way to experience the falls hands-on is from the water, on the Maid-of-the-Mist boat trip. There are about eight Maid-of-the-Mists, numbered accordingly, and each voyager is kitted out with disposable blue bin-bag style weatherproofs. Here comes the boat we’re queuing for, with its cargo of distinctively dressed thrill seekers.

Now we’re on the boat in our designer weather gear. Jane’s got a Lacoste crocodile on hers, although it could be a blemish in the material, but we know it’s the real thing. Careful not to shove your fingers through the plastic when you’re tying it on.

We sail in front of American Falls to start with, and a distance shot gives an idea of the scale of the waterfall by comparison with the boat. The photo was taken later that day from the 500-foot Skylon observation tower on the Canadian side.

Now on to the bigee, the 173-foot drop Horseshoe Falls. The next photo is of the start of this half-mile expanse, after which it’s impossible to use the camera because of the deluge of spray.

Again, I’ll go back to a distance shot from the Skylon Tower to show where the boat goes into this foamy abyss. It’s the object in the lower centre of the picture. All the passengers have a wonderful time getting thoroughly soaked in spite of the excellence of the purpose-designed waterproofs. It was probably as well we didn’t need to use the lifeboats.

In 1960 a Maid-of-the-Mist boat saw a small figure in a life jacket bobbing in the water right below Horseshoe Falls. They pulled in a seven year old boy who had just gone over the falls. The family had been fishing from a boat in the river above the falls, far too close to the rapids, when the engine failed and the rapids capsized the boat. The boy’s sister was pulled from the river right at the edge of the falls, but the boy and a family friend went over. The family friend did not survive: very few people have. The boy became a minister of religion. I suppose if anyone ever had proof…

Finger Lakes: 1st to 5th October

We left New York with temperatures in the high 70’s. Our destination was the State Parks Department campground at Taughannock Falls, about 250 miles north west of New York, in the Finger Lakes area. Passing through the small town of Ithaca just before reaching our destination, we noticed one of those electronic signs that display the time and temperature alternately. It was mid afternoon, warmest part of the day, and showing only 43 degrees. We knew it was getting gradually colder, but this cold! Once on pitch, we couldn’t seem to get warm inside the rv.

This was the heating system’s first proper run . It makes an immense amount of noise as the fan blows out the warm air, so you feel it must be generating an effective supply of heat. The heating controls describe it as a “furnace” which reinforces this illusion. What it actually does is produce a reasonable amount of heat in a small area that then quickly shoots up to the ceiling. The local Walmart were clean out of human fly suckers so we were unable to take advantage of this available heat by adhering to the ceiling. Instead, we sat in the rv with big coats and thick socks on.

So this is why we’re wearing winter gear in the photo. The falls were really beautiful and, with a 230 foot drop, actually higher than Niagara. The river leading from the falls tumbles through a steep tree-lined gorge of about a mile and then into the 40-mile long Cayuga Lake. All of the 7 or 8 Finger Lakes are long, slim and slightly bent like fingers, hence the name. I suppose they could have been less romantically called the Banana Lakes.

Here is the gorge, and we followed a splendid path to the falls along the bottom of the gorge, ending at the spot where we had our picture above taken. All it needed was a tribe of Mohican Indians paddling past in their birch-bark canoes to make you feel like an old-time settler.

And more waterfalls nearby, this one is Buttermilk Falls where the water cascades down the side of a steep hill. It‘s not just the few hundred yards you can see in the photo, it actually roars down in this way, on and off, for several miles. We ascended the steep path alongside and checked it out. Quite spectacular.

This is our pitch on the State Park campground. I’m sure you will have spotted our neighbours’ tiny caravan on the left. It is a caravan, but just for sleeping in. The two gazebo tents are where the neighbours spent their days- and evenings, too- happily sitting outside while we shivered in our rv! They are made of sterner stuff, clearly descended from original pioneer stock.

Chipmunks were darting around everywhere, so this is a cute pic to finish

Manhattan: Sept 29th & 30th

We took a hop-on hop-off bus tour just to get orientated. In quick succession we saw the landmarks: Flatiron Building, Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, Times Square etc. Most awe-inspiring and wonderful architecture, but brilliant photos are available in any guidebook or on the internet. Let’s look at Ground Zero:

Several massive buildings are rising up on the cleared site. It’s all very chaotic, with construction works and memorial areas generating conflicting flows of traffic. Perhaps this turmoil represents the chaos of the tragedy itself so is keeping the memory current. When it’s all finished, and the memorials and the structures are in place, when it’s all neat and tidy, the incident will recede into history. You get the impression that New Yorkers don’t want to let go of it just yet, it’s still raw 10 years on.

New York is razmataz. In Times Square this lady is promoting something or other, maybe herself, and happily posed for me. Also, in amongst the bustle of people in the Square, there was a live choir, the Nasdaq Choir, performing.

Within all busyness of Manhattan, the City has created some ingenious breathing spaces, in the first example out of an old high-level railway line, which looks like this from the street:

It’s a walkway now, completely away from traffic and planted with shrubs. Loads of people were using it, as the photo shows.

The main leisure space has to be Central Park, a surprisingly varied, undulating and large area. It’s the countryside with a skyline. It looks like a photoshop merge of two separate photos.

About half way up the park is a landscaped area called Strawberry Fields, a memorial to John Lennon who lived in an apartment block nearby and where he was shot dead. Yoko was instrumental in getting this area created and also paying for it, and she still lives in that same apartment that she and John Lennon shared.

There were all sorts of activities going on in Central Park as well as the more obvious ones of walking and jogging. There were good sports facilities, being well used, and a few eccentrics like the artist with the giant canvas below whom Jane watched for a good 10 minutes. She was a small old lady who never looked up from under her wide straw hat, so we didn’t see her face. Could it indeed have been Yoko? I could have tied my wishes to her hat instead of her tree in Washington.

Nice view of the Hudson River? Nothing remarkable, maybe, but I waited here for ages hoping for a plane to land, just as it did at about this point in Jan 2009. It was one of the best feats of airmanship ever, and all 155 passengers survived. Despite the potential as a tourist event, it’s difficult to see how you’d stage a re-enactment.

Liberty and Ellis Islands: 28th Sept

Liberty Park is where we walked on our first evening, and is so called because it overlooks Liberty Island and the Statue of. Conveniently for us, the boat for Liberty Island leaves from Liberty Park and takes only 15 minutes. Here we are below, nearing landing.

The ticket includes entry into the statue, the base of which is full of exhibits and history of the project. It was a gift from France to the United States, dedicated in 1886. Close-up, the statue is huge and a great feat of design and engineering that involved the skills of Gustav Eiffel, of Eiffel Tower fame. It is made of copper so needs elaborate support and strengthening. An exact replica of Liberty’s face, next photo, about 10 feet tall, is shown in the exhibition hall.

In every party of tourists who snapped the face, one of the group posed with his/her fingers or hands shoved up Liberty’s nose. It’s a shame that the nose couldn’t be electronically programmed to sneeze just as the photoflash went off. The strong face is supposed to be that of the statue designer Bertholdi’s mother.

It had a major refurb in 1966 due to corrosion and many bits were replaced with more durable modern parts. This is the original torch, obviously replaced by one with longer-life batteries

The boat calls at Ellis Island on the way back. Ellis Island was the check-in point for most immigrants to the US between 1892 and 1924 when the open door policy changed. Steerage passengers only, the poorest but most numerous, were processed here: first and second class were dealt with at other venues in New York. 12 million immigrants were landed on the island between these dates, and each one was vetted for health, financial and political suitability before being permitted to enter. About 2% were rejected and repatriated.

This is the building through which all hopefuls needed to pass, viewed from the landing stage.

The registration hall was on the first floor with the officials’ desks at the far end. The old photo next is of this same hall in working order.

The building is full of memorabilia and photos showing the vast spectrum of prospective settlers from all corners the globe and revealing the desperate poverty many sought to escape from. There was some light relief, however, as in the plaque below:

It is said that 40% of Americans can trace at least one ancestor from their immigration acceptance at Ellis Island, so the facility is an important part of US history, and presumably that is why it has been so well restored. It also houses the immigration records that can be accessed on site or by internet.

Arrival at The Big Apple: 27th Sept

This is us at the campsite in Jersey City, just across the Hudson river from Manhattan. “Looks like a car park”, you might say. In fact, that’s what it is. Ambience is sacrificed in order to stay in the closest campground to New York City. Actually, it was very quiet, with 24-hour security and excellent transport links to all the attractions by train or boat.

We arrived early enough to take a stroll in Liberty Park near the campsite. It’s a large, flat, well-tended greenspace, running back from the waterfront. And what a view of Manhattan! The park itself is similar to nice parks everywhere but what is unique is the New York skyline, so that’s what we’ll feature in the following shots, with a brief description.

Empire State Building, a bit further away in mid-town Manhattan, just as the light’s fading.

Brooklyn Bridge with schooner sailing past.

Nightshot of Manhattan, atmospherically shaky (unintentional).

We also came upon this memorial in the park to 9/11. The two stainless steel columns point across the Hudson river to the precise location of the Twin Towers in the World Trade Center. The twisted girders in front are from the wreckage of the Towers. The name of each person who perished is engraved on the insides of the two steel columns, to which there is full public access. It was powerfully simple and moving.