All these things are elusive; they make themselves keenly felt, but they do not lend themselves to analysis.
It is a pity that those who are interested in traditions that are truer than history could not have all the facts in regard to Shady Dale from the lips of Mr. Obadiah Tutwiler, who had constituted himself the oral historian of the community. Mr. Tutwiler was alive as late as 1869, and had at his fingers'-ends all the essential facts relating to the origin and growth of the town, and he related the story with a fluency, an accuracy, and a relish quite surprising in so old a man.
As was fitting, the old court-house, the temple of justice, had been reared in the centre of the town, and the square that surrounds it took the shape of a park of considerable dimensions. On two sides were some of the more pretentious dwellings; the tavern, with a few of the more modest houses took up a third side; while the fourth side was taken up by the shops and stores; and so careful had the early settlers been with the trees, that it was possible to stand in a certain upper window of the court-house, and look out upon the town with not a house in sight.
Naturally, the most interesting feature of Shady Dale was the Clopton Place. It had been the home of the First Settler, and in 1860, when Nan and Gabriel were enjoying their happiest days, it was owned and occupied by the son, Meriwether Clopton.
From the time of the First Settler, the Clopton Place had been dedicated and set apart to the uses of hospitality. The deed in which General McGillivray, in the name of the Creek Nation, conveyed the domain to Raleigh Clopton, distinctly sets forth the condition that the Clopton Place was to be an asylum and a place of refuge for the unfortunate and for those who needed succour. During the long and bloody contests between the white settlers and the Creeks, it was the pleasure of the Creek chief to pay out of his own private fortune, which was a large one for those days, the ransoms which, under the rules of the tribal organisations, each Indian town demanded for the prisoners captured by its warriors. Such was the poverty of the whites in general that only occasionally was General McGillivray reimbursed for his expenditures in this direction.