Cornish Characters and Strange Events

"Being such a Clerk in the Law, all the world wonders he left such an odd will, which is short and in Latin. The substance of it is, that he having bequeathed a few Legacies, and left his second son one hundred marks a year, and nine hundred pounds in money, enough to bring him up in his Father's Profession, he concludes: Reliqua meorum omnia primogenito meo Edwardo, dissipanda nec melius unquam (speravi) lego: I leave the rest of my goods to my firstborn Edward (mistake for Humphry), to be consum'd or scattered (for I never hoped better). A strange, and scarce a Christian Will, in my opinion, for it argues uncharitableness. Nor doth the world wonder lesse, that he should leave no Legacy to some of your Lordship's children, considering what deep obligations he had to your Lordship; for I am confident he had never bin Attorney-General else."

Hals tells this story of Noye: "The Attorney-General on a day havinge King Charles I and the principal officers and nobilitie of his court, at a dinner at his house in London, at which tyme the arch poet Ben Jonson, and others being at an inne, on the other side the street; and wantinge both meate and money for their subsistance, at that exigent resolved to trye an expedient, to gett his dinner from the Attorney-General's table, in order to which, by the landlord of the inne aforesaid, he sent a white timber plate or trencher to him, when the King was sate downe to table, whereon was inscribed these words: —

When the world was drown'dNor deer was found,Because there was noe park;And here I sitt,Without e're a bitt,Cause Noah hath all in his Arke.

Which plate beinge presented by the Attorney-Generall to the Kinge, produced this effect; that Jonson had a good dish of venison sent him back by the bearer to his great content and satisfaction, on which aforesaid plate, by the King's direction, Jonson's rhymes were thus inverted or contradicted: —

When the world was drown'dThere deer was found,Although there was noe park;I send thee a bitt,To quicken thy witt,Which com' from Noya's Ark.

William Noye anagram, I Moyle in law. He was the blowcoal incendiary or stirrer up of the occasion of the civill wars between Kinge Charles and his Parliament, by assertinge and setting up the King's prerogative to the highest pitch, as King James I had done before, beyond the laws of the land as aforesaid. And as counsill for the Kinge he prosecuted for Kinge Charles I the imprisoned members of the House of Commons, 1628, viz. Sir John Ellyot, Mr. Coryton and others."

Noye died in 1638. Hals adds: "He had the principal hand in the most oppressive expedients for raising money for the King, and seems not to have had the least notion of public spirit. He was, in a word, a man of an enlarged head and a contracted heart."

His portrait, formerly possessed by Davies Gilbert,22 has been engraved in Polwhele's Biographical Sketches in Cornwall. The eldest son, Edward, was killed in a duel by Captain Byron in France in 1636, and then Carnanton passed to his brother Humphrey, a colonel in King Charles' army, and Commissioner of the Peace for the County of Cornwall. He married Hester, daughter of Henry Sandys, and sister and coheiress of George Lord Sandys of the Vine. He was as worthless a fellow as his elder brother Edward, and William Noye, the father, foresaw the ruin of the family estates to whichever of his sons they fell; for, in default of male issue, they were to go to Humphrey Noye, not Edward as Howell states. Humphrey by his bad conduct, riot and excess, lost all the estate left him by his father except Carnanton, and for many years lived on the charity of his friends and on dishonest tricks; for being a magistrate and generally chairman at the sessions, he took bribes to pervert judgment; acquitting felons, etc., till at last he was detected and struck out of the Commission. Hals says: "After which growinge scandalous for these and other misdemeanours, he was slighted by his former friends, and put to great hardships to get a subsistance necessary for the life of man (his creditors beinge upon mortgages in possession of his whole estate). However, it happened some time before his death, that upon puttinge his hand and seale with his creditors for conveying the manor of Amell and Trylly in Penwith to his son-in-lawe, Mr. Davies, on marrying with his daughter Katherine, he had by them pay'd him in cash £100 in consideration thereof. Soon after the receipt of which money he sicken'd and dyed at Thomas Wills' house in S. Colomb Towne, and left £80 in cash, about the yeare 1683; which was more money than he was possest of at one tyme for about twenty yeares before; and the last words that he was heard to speake, as his soule passed out of this life, was: 'Lord, where am I goinge now?'"

Humphrey Noye had two sons, but both predeceased him and died without issue. His daughter Hester married Henry Davies, of Buryan, and had by him a son, William, who left issue two daughters only.

Catherine, the second daughter, married in 1679 William Davies, of Bosworgy, who by her left issue John Davies of Ednovean, whose daughter Catherine married the Rev. Edward Giddy, whose son Davies Giddy assumed the name and arms of Gilbert.

The third daughter, Bridgeman, married John Willyams, of Roxworthy, but died childless. After her death Willyams married Dorothy, daughter of Peter Daye, gent., and by her had issue, and the family of Willyams to this day possesses Carnanton.

The arms of Noye are azure, three crosses crosslets, in bend, argent.

WILLIAM LEMON

William Lemon was the son of a William Lemon, of Germoe, in humble circumstances; he was baptized at Breage, 15th November, 1696; his mother's maiden name was Rodda. As a lad he obtained a smattering of knowledge at a village school, sufficient to enable him to enter an office as clerk to a Mr. Coster. The story was told of him that as a boy he had formed one link of a living chain, which, connected only by the grasp of their hands, extended itself into a tremendous surf, and rescued several persons who had been shipwrecked.

Whilst still young he became manager of a tin-smelting house at Chiandower, near Penzance, and speedily acquired a great knowledge of mining in Cornwall. In 1724 he married Isabella Vibert, of Tolver-in-Gulval, and with her received a sufficient fortune23 to enable him to indulge in speculations in mines, and these turned out so happily that he embarked still further in mining ventures. He was the first who conceived the project of working the mines upon a grand scale, and not of running them by small bands of adventurers. A new era in mining opened with the introduction of the steam-pump, and the first, invented by Newcomen, of Dartmouth, was used in the Great Work at Breage. William Lemon associated with himself George Blewett, of Marazion, and a Mr. Dewin, and these three commenced working a mine on a farm called Truvel, in Ludgvan, the property of Lord Godolphin, and named Wheal Fortune, where the second steam-engine was employed.

Mr. Lemon is said to have realized £10,000 out of Wheal Fortune, and this enabled him to extend his operations. He removed to Truro, and commenced working the great Gwennap Mines on a scale unprecedented in Cornwall. Carnan Adit was either actually commenced, or at least was effectively prosecuted, by Mr. Lemon; and as his means increased he soon became the principal merchant and tin-smelter in Cornwall.

But he was keenly alive to his deficient education. He was shrewd, could calculate, but had no knowledge of English literature, and his spelling was remarkable. However, he set vigorously to work to correct his defects, and late in life placed himself under the tuition of Mr. Conon, master of the Truro Grammar School, and even acquired a certain – not, certainly, very extensive – knowledge of Latin.

Mr. Lemon had a favourite tame Cornish chough that would always obey his call. If he were walking on Truro Green, or through the streets, the chough would fly to him instantly at his whistle, though it had been associating with other birds or perched on a house-top.

It so happened that John Thomas, afterwards the Warden of the Stannaries, but then a boy at Conon's school, taking his gun, contrary to the rules of the school, and going out shooting, unluckily killed the chough. This produced a great outcry, and when he was told that this was Mr. Lemon's favourite bird, he strongly suspected that the least punishment he would receive would be a flogging from his schoolmaster and a hiding as well from Mr. Lemon. But Thomas took courage, went to Mr. Lemon's house, knocked at the door, was admitted to Mr. Lemon, and trembling and in tears confessed what he had done. Mr. Lemon paused a moment, and then said that he was sorry for the poor bird, but freely forgave the little delinquent on account of his candour in acknowledging his fault, and more than that, he promised to keep it a secret, and if it should reach Conon's ears, would intercede for him.

In 1742 he was Sheriff for the county. He became one of the Truro magistrates, and might, had he cared for it, have been elected as a member for one or other of the Cornish boroughs.

He was author of a lucid argument written to Sir Robert Walpole to obtain the withdrawal of a tax levied on coals, and which acted prejudicially on the Cornish mines. The presentation of this memorial is thought to have been instrumental in obtaining for him, from Frederick, Prince of Wales, a grant of all minerals found in Cornwall, with the exception of tin; and the Prince likewise sent him a present of silver plate.

He bought Carclew in 1749, and died at Truro, 25th March, 1760, in the sixty-third year of his life.

He and his wife had one son only, William Lemon, junior, who died some years before his father, leaving two sons and a daughter. The elder, Sir William Lemon, Bart.,24 represented the county of Cornwall in Parliament during fifty years.

As an instance of the respect paid to the genius, and above all the wealth of Mr. Lemon, the people of Truro are said to have drawn back from their doors and windows as he passed through the street, and the Rev. Samuel Walker, when exhorting children at catechizing to be circumspect in the presence of Almighty God, said: "Only think, dear children, how careful you would be if Mr. Lemon were looking upon you."

Sir William's eldest son, Major William Lemon, shot himself at Princes Street, Hanover Square, London, early in 1799, when a young man of only twenty-five.

The baronetcy is now extinct, and Carclew is the residence and property of Captain W. Tremayne.

SAMUEL DREW

The life of Samuel Drew was written by his eldest son, and published by Longman, Rees, and Co. in 1834. It is a volume of 534 pages, and probably few would be disposed to wade through it. Of his early days by far the brighter account is that furnished by himself to Mr. R. Polwhele; but the son supplies some anecdotes that may be quoted.

"I was born on the 3rd March, 1765, in an obscure cottage in the parish of S. Austell, about a mile and a half distant from the town. My father was a common labourer, and had through mere dint of manual labour to provide for himself, a wife, and four children, of whom I was the second. One child died in infancy, and at the age of nine years25 I had the misfortune to lose my mother." Rather more than a year before the death of Mrs. Drew, Samuel was set to work at a neighbouring stamping-mill as a buddle-boy, and for his services his father received three-halfpence a day, but this was raised later to twopence, the largest sum Samuel realized in that employment, though he continued to work at it for more than two years.

Not long after the death of his wife, Samuel's father took a woman named Bate into the house, to act as housekeeper; and in the second year of his widowhood he married her, to the disgust of his children. When she was entertaining her friends and gossips at tea after the wedding, Samuel discharged a syringeful of water over the party. This was more than she could put up with, and Samuel had to be sent away and apprenticed to a shoemaker named Baker, in the parish of S. Blazey.

He says himself: "My father, being exceedingly poor, felt much embarrassment in finding a premium to give to my master, with whom, at the age of ten years and a half, I was bound an apprentice for nine years, which length of time, together with five pounds five shillings, was considered by my master as a suitable bargain. It was at this tender age that I bid adieu to my father's habitation, and as a place of residence have never entered it since. The little knowledge of writing which I had acquired from my father was almost entirely lost during my apprenticeship; I had, however, an opportunity at intervals of perusing Goadby's Weekly Entertainer, and used to puzzle my little head about riddles and enigmas, and felt much pleasure in perusing the anecdotes which were occasionally interspersed through the pages."

Whilst at the shoemaker's a curious incident occurred: "There were several of us, boys and men, out about twelve o'clock on a bright moonlight night. I think we were poaching. The party were in a field adjoining the road leading from my master's to S. Austell, and I was stationed outside the hedge to watch and give the alarm if any intruder should appear. While thus occupied I heard what appeared to be the sound of a horse approaching from the town, and I gave a signal. My companions paused and came to the hedge where I was, to see the passenger. They looked through the bushes, and I drew myself close to the hedge, that I might not be observed. The sound increased, and the supposed horseman seemed drawing near. The clatter of the hoofs became more and more distinct. We all looked to see who and what it was, and I was seized with a strange, indefinable feeling of dread; when, instead of a horse, there appeared coming towards us, at an easy pace, but with the same sound which first caught my ear, a creature about the height of a large dog. It went close by me, and as it passed, it turned upon me and my companions huge fiery eyes that struck terror to all our hearts. The road where I stood branched off in two directions, in one of which there was a gate across. Towards the gate it moved, and, without any apparent obstruction, went on at its regular trot, which we heard several minutes after it had disappeared. Whatever it was, it put an end to our occupation, and we made the best of our way home.

"I have often endeavoured in later years, but without success, to account, on natural principles, for what I then heard and saw. As to the facts, I am sure there was no deception. It was a night of unusual brightness, occasioned by a cloudless full moon. The creature was unlike any animal I had then seen, but from my present recollections it had much the appearance of a bear, with a dark shaggy coat. Had it not been for the unearthly lustre of its eyes, and its passing through the gate as it did, there would be no reason to suppose it anything more than an animal perhaps escaped from some menagerie. That it did pass through the gate without pause or hesitation I am perfectly clear. Indeed, we all saw it, and saw that the gate was shut, from which we were not distant more than twenty or thirty yards. The bars were too close to admit the passage of an animal of half its apparent bulk; yet this creature went through without effort or variation of its pace."

He was roughly and cruelly treated by his master, who would beat him with the last, and at one time for a while maimed him. At length he felt that he could endure the bondage no more, and with sixteen-pence ha'penny in his pocket he ran away with the intention of going to Plymouth and seeking a berth on board a man-of-war.

At this time Sam's father was in somewhat better circumstances. He was chiefly employed in what was called riding Sherborne. There was at that time scarcely a bookseller in Cornwall; and the only newspaper known among the common people was the Sherborne Mercury, published weekly by Goadby and Co., who also issued the Weekly Entertainer. The papers were not sent by post, but by private messengers, who were termed Sherborne men. Drew, senior, was one of these. Between Plymouth and Penzance were two stages on the main road, each about forty miles; and there were branch riders, in different directions, who held regular communication with each other and with the establishment at Sherborne. Their business was to deliver the newspapers, Entertainers, and any books that had been ordered, to collect the money, and to take fresh orders. Mr. Drew's stage was from S. Austell to Plymouth. He always set off on his journey early on Monday morning and returned on Wednesday.

When Samuel Drew had made up his mind to run away, he did not choose the direct road for fear of encountering his father, but took that by Liskeard.

"I went on through the night, and feeling fatigued, went into a hay-field and slept. My luggage was no encumbrance; as the whole of my property, besides the clothes I wore, was contained in a small handkerchief. Not knowing how long I should have to depend on my slender stock of cash, I found it necessary to use the most rigid economy. Having to pass over either a ferry or toll-bridge, for which I had to pay a halfpenny, feeling my present situation, and knowing nothing of my future prospects, this small call upon my funds distressed me, I wept as I went on my way. The exertion of walking and the fresh morning air gave me a keener appetite than I thought it prudent to indulge. I, however, bought a penny loaf, and with a halfpenny-worth of milk in a farmer's house ate half of my loaf for breakfast. In passing through Liskeard my attention was attracted by a shoemaker's shop, in the door of which a respectable-looking man, whom I supposed to be the master, was standing. Without any intention of seeking employment in this place, I asked him if he could give me work; and he, taking compassion, I suppose, on my sorry appearance, promised to employ me the next morning. Before I could go to work tools were necessary; and I was obliged to lay out a shilling on these. Dinner, under such circumstances, was out of the question; for supper I bought another halfpenny-worth of milk, ate the remainder of my loaf, and for a lodging again had recourse to the fields. The next morning I purchased another penny loaf and renewed my labour. My employer soon found that I was a miserable tool, yet he treated me kindly. I had now but one penny left, and this I wished to husband till my labour brought a supply; so for dinner I tied my apron-strings tighter and went on with my work. My abstinence subjected me to the jeers of my shopmates. One of them said to another, 'Where does our shopmate dine?' and the response was, 'Oh! he always dines at the sign of the Mouth.' Half of the penny loaf which I took with me in the morning I had allotted for my supper; but before night came I had pinched it nearly all away in mouthfuls through mere hunger. Very reluctantly I laid out my last penny, and with no enviable feelings sought my former lodging in the open air."

But on the following day Samuel's father, having learned where he was, came to remove him and take him back to S. Austell. Compensation was made to Baker, his indenture was cancelled, and he remained at Polpea, where Mr. Drew now had a little farm, for about four months.

Drew, the father, not only was occupied as a Sherborne rider, but he was also a contractor for carrying the mail between S. Austell and Bodmin, and he chiefly employed his eldest son, Jabez, in carrying the mails.

"At one time in the depth of winter I was borrowed to supply my brother's place, and I had to travel in the darkness of night through frost and snow a dreary journey, out and home, of more than twenty miles. Being overpowered with fatigue, I fell asleep on the horse's neck, and when I awoke discovered that I had lost my hat. The wind was keen and piercing, and I was bitterly cold. I stopped the horse and endeavoured to find out where I was; but it was so dark that I could scarcely distinguish the hedges on each side of the road, and I had no means of ascertaining how long I had been asleep or how far I had travelled. I then dismounted and looked around for my hat; but seeing nothing of it, I turned back, leading the horse, determined to find it if possible; for the loss of a hat was to me of serious consequence. Shivering with cold, I pursued my solitary way, scrutinizing the road at every step, until I had walked about two miles, and was on the point of giving up the search, when I came to a receiving house, where I ought to have delivered a packet of letters, but had passed it when asleep. To this place the post usually came about one o'clock in the morning, and it was customary to leave a window unfastened, except by a large stone outside, that the family might not be disturbed at so unseasonable an hour. I immediately put the letter-bag through the window, and having replaced the stone, was turning round to my horse, when I perceived my hat lying close to my feet. I suppose that the horse, knowing the place, must have stopped at the window for me to deliver my charge; but having waited until his patience was exhausted, had pursued his way to the next place. My hat must have been shaken off by his impatient movements."

The remarkable thing about this incident is that the horse was quite blind, yet it could go its accustomed road, and stop at accustomed places, without seeing. By all the family this sagacious animal was much prized, but Samuel's father felt for it a special regard; and the attachment between the master and his faithful servant was, to all appearance, mutual. Many years before, the poor beast, in a wretched condition from starvation and ill-usage, had been turned out on a common to die. The owner willingly sold it for little more than the value of the hide; and his new possessor, having by care and kindness restored it to health and strength, soon found that he had made a most advantageous bargain. For more than twenty years he and his blind companion travelled the road together. After the horse was past labour it was kept in the orchard and tended with almost parental care. Latterly it became unable to bite the grass, and the old man regularly fed it with bread sopped in milk. In the morning it would put its head over the orchard railing, towards its master's bedroom, and give its accustomed neigh, whereupon old Mr. Drew would jump out of bed, open the window, and call to the horse, "My poor old fellow, I will be with thee soon." And when the animal died, he would not allow the skin or shoes to be taken off, but had the carcase buried entire.

Samuel tells another story of instinct in brute beasts: —

"Our dairy was under a room which was used occasionally as a barn and apple-chamber, into which the fowls sometimes found their way, and, in scratching among the chaff, scattered the dust on the pans of milk below, to the great annoyance of my mother-in-law. In this a favourite cock of hers was the chief transgressor. One day in harvest she went into the dairy, followed by her little dog, and finding dust again thrown on the milk-pans, she exclaimed, 'I wish that cock were dead!' Not long after, she being with us in the harvest field, we observed the little dog dragging along the cock, just killed, which with an air of triumph he laid at my mother-in-law's feet. She was dreadfully exasperated at the literal fulfilment of her hastily uttered wish, and, snatching a stick from the hedge, attempted to give the luckless dog a beating. The dog, seeing the reception he was likely to meet with, where he expected marks of approbation, left the bird and ran off, she brandishing her stick and saying in a loud, angry tone, 'I'll pay thee for this by and by.' In the evening she was about to put her threat into execution, when she found the little dog established in a corner of the room and a large one standing before it. Endeavouring to fulfil her intention by first driving off the large dog, he gave her plainly to understand that he was not at all disposed to relinquish his post. She then sought to get at the small dog behind the other, but the threatening gesture and fiercer growl of the large one sufficiently indicated that the attempt would be not a little perilous. The result was that she was obliged to abandon her design. In killing the cock I can scarcely think the dog understood the precise import of my stepmother's wish, as his immediate execution of it would seem to imply. The cock was a more recent favourite, and had received some attentions which had been previously bestowed upon himself. This, I think, had led him to entertain a feeling of hostility to the bird, which he did not presume to indulge until my mother's tone and manner indicated that the cock was no longer under her protection. In the power of communicating with each other which these dogs evidently possessed, and which, in some instances, has been displayed by this species of animal, a faculty seems to be developed of which we know very little. On the whole, I never remember to have met with a case in which, to human appearance, there was a nearer approach to moral perception than in that of my father's two dogs."