is a neighborhood known as "The Cross Keys." It lies fifteen miles from
Jerusalem, the county-town, or "court-house," seventy miles from Norfolk,
and about as far from Richmond. It is some ten or fifteen miles from
Murfreesborough in North Carolina, and about twenty-five from the Great
Dismal Swamp. Up to Sunday, the 21st of August, 1831, there was nothing
to distinguish it from any other rural, lethargic, slipshod Virginia
neighborhood, with the due allotment of mansion-houses and log huts,
tobacco-fields and "old-fields," horses, dogs, negroes, "poor white
folks," so called, and other white folks, poor without being called so.
One of these last was Joseph Travis, who had recently married the widow
of one Putnam Moore, and had unfortunately wedded to himself her negroes
also.

In the woods on the plantation of Joseph Travis, upon the Sunday just
named, six slaves met at noon for what is called in the Northern States a
picnic, and in the Southern a barbecue. The bill of fare was to be
simple: one brought a pig, and another some brandy, giving to the meeting
an aspect so cheaply convivial that no one would have imagined it to be
the final consummation of a conspiracy which had been for six months in
preparation. In this plot four of the men had been already
initiated--Henry, Hark or Hercules, Nelson, and Sam. Two others were
novices, Will and Jack by name. The party had remained together from
twelve to three o'clock, when a seventh man joined them,--a short, stout,
powerfully built person, of dark mulatto complexion, and strongly marked
African features, but with a face full of expression and resolution. This
was Nat Turner.

He was at this time nearly thirty-one years old, having been born on the
2d of October, 1800. He had belonged originally to Benjamin Turner,--from
whom he took his last name, slaves having usually no patronymic;--had