They
were soon delighted with the young stranger, who was busily employed in
his new vocation with their younger brothers. I remember to have heard
Mr. Thomas Shields say the young man teaching at his mother's was a
most remarkable man, and narrate some instances of his great powers of
memory, accompanied with facts which came within his own knowledge.
These were so very extraordinary, that notwithstanding the high
character for integrity borne by Shields, there were many who doubted
them.
There lived at no great distance from Mrs. Shields, a planter, Mr.
Thomas Hall. This man was a coarse and illiterate overseer for some
years in the county, but having carefully husbanded his earnings, was
enabled, in company with James C. Wilkins, to commence planting upon an
extensive scale. At the time this young man was teaching at Mrs.
Shields', Hall had accumulated quite a fortune, and was a man of
comparative leisure. His mind was good, and now that he had an
abundance of the world's goods, and was becoming a man of consideration
in the community, he felt, in his intercourse with his educated
neighbors, the want of that cultivation which would make him their
equal.
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