Page:Annual report of the superintendent of Negro Affairs in North Carolina, 1864.djvu/10

8 upwards of eight hundred houses are standing upon this area, disposed in an orderly manner, and sheltering two thousand seven hundred and ninety-eight freedmen. Of these, 1,226 receive help from the government, as dependents. The whole settlement is under charge of Mr. L.J. Howell, whose ability and tact make him a valuable helper in negro affairs. His services, for more than two years, are deserving of honorable mention. If we must have camps, or African villages, in which temporarily to shelter and feed refuges from bondage, this settlement, located healthfully on the banks of the Trent, is a model for imitation. Its headquarters, where reside the superintendent, his assistant, and some of the female teachers, its hospital buildings, at one extremity, overlooking the river shore, its blacksmith's shop, cook-houses, camp stables, and variety store, its comfortable dwellings, its well-filled schools and churches, its neatness, comfort and order, conspire to make it a happy home for many a panting fugitive, in which he may learn the first lesson of a higher social life. The gardens, though small, were wonderfully productive, and furnished for the cultivators thousands of bushels of green vegetables. It must not be supposed that the sandy soil of Eastern North Carolina is a sterile soil. Though it looks unpromising, it contains an admixture of the carbonate and phosphate of lime, from the detritus of old shells and marine substances, which makes it quite productive. The white refugees in a neighboring camp, composed of better houses and standing on better soil, neglected to raise anything themselves, but purchased vegetables freely of the negroes. In some cases, their corn, fifteen feet high, quite overtopped their houses.

On the first and second days in May, this village received an accession of upwards of two thousand new comers, from Little Washington. Our army had evacuated that post, after the fall of Plymouth, and the colored people, true to the instinct of liberty, followed the troops to New Berne and Beaufort. They quickly settled themselves, and seemed as happy as before. Tents were pitched for them at first, which were occupied until cabins could be constructed of "shakes," an article well-known in this region,