368 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



respectable methodist clergyman who also performs the 

 baptismal, communion, marriage and burial rites. 



There is a small stock of cattle, hogs, and sheep kept 

 upon the place for meat, which are only allowed to come 

 upon the fields in winter, under charge of keepers. The 

 buildings are all of wood, but generally plain, substan- 

 tial, and good. There is a pretty good supply of tools, 

 carts, boats, &c., and the land is estimated to be worth 



$100 an acre for the rice land, which would be $150,000 



The 500 acres upland, $25 per acre, 12,500 



The negroes, at $300 each, 210,000 



Stock, tools, and other property, say 7,500 



$380,000 



which will show a rather low rate of interest made from 

 sales of crops, notwithstanding the amount of sales look 

 so large. 



Now the owner of all this property lives in a very 

 humble cottage, embowered in dense shrubbery, and mak- 

 ing no show, and is, in fact, as a dwelling for a gentle- 

 man of wealth, far inferior in point of elegance and con- 

 venience, to any negro house upon the place, for the use 

 and comfort of that class of people. 



He and his family are as plain and unostentatious in 

 their manners as the house they live in ; but they possess, 

 in a most eminent degree, that true politeness and hospi- 

 tality that will win upon your heart and make you feel 

 at home in their humble cot, in such a manner that you 

 will enjoy a visit there better than in a palace. 



Nearly all the land has been reclaimed, and the build- 

 ings, except the house, erected new within the twenty 

 years that Governor Aikin has owned the island. I fully 

 believe that he is more concerned to make his people com- 

 fortable and happy, than he is to make money. 



