USA > Maryland > Some old historic landmarks of Virginia and Maryland : described in a hand-book for the tourist over the Washington-Virginia railway > Part 1
USA > Virginia > Some old historic landmarks of Virginia and Maryland : described in a hand-book for the tourist over the Washington-Virginia railway > Part 1
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GEN
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 00045 0103
Gc 975 SNós SNOWDEN, WILLIAM H. SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND
SOME
Old Historic Landmarks
OF
VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND DESCRIBED IN
A HAND-BOOK FOR THE TOURIST OVER THE
WASHINGTON-VIRGINIA RAILWAY BY
W. H. SNOWDEN, A. M. OF ANDALUSIA, VA. MEMBER OF THE VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, AUTHOR OF HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF NEW JERSEY, VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND, &C.
SEVENTH EDITION OF FIVE THOUSAND. COPIOUSLY ILLUSTRATED.
$
SOLD ON TRAINS OF THE Washington-Virginia Railway Company Price, 25 Cents.
Allen County Public Library Ft. Wayne, Indiana
COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY WILLIAM H. SNOWDEN
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TO THE READER.
This Hand Book makes no pretentions to literary- excellence, nor fine typographical display. The only aim of the author in its preparation has been historical accuracy and the acceptable presentation of much and varied information in a little compass and at a small cost. It is merely an epitome of a Library Edition of much greater scope, with many more subjects and illustrations, now being published.
While the Book is offered nominally as a guide to locate important places for the tourist, and to briefly narrate whatever of historic interest per- tains to each of them, it is also designed for more than a mere itinerary to be hastily read and then carelessly thrown aside as being of no further value.
Some there may be of its readers it is hoped, who will find its contents of sufficient interest to take home for household reading and preservation.
We are now in an age when there is a far greater desire among all classes of our people than ever before for inquiry into whatever relates to or throws new light upon the work, the struggles, the progress, manners and usages of the generations of the earlier days.
Some repetitions of facts and occurrences will be found in reading the different chapters on account of their having been written at different times, for which the reader's indulgence is asked. The thanks of the author is due to such of his friends as have contributed to the work, and especially to Miss Eugenie DeLand of Washington City for her numerous pictorial designs. In the book will be found not only a summary of the life, services, and char- acter of General Washington, and a description of his home, his farms, and his farming operations, and the changes which have been incident to his land estate since his passing away, but also descriptions of numerous other outlying historic landmarks on both shores of the Potomac. The writer trusts that the book, hastily prepared in brief intervals of pressing duties, may prove an ac- ceptable companion to all strangers wayfaring among the many interesting historic points which will be open to them by this convenient and delight- fil route of travel to the Home and Tomb of the venerated Washington.
ANDALUSIA, VA.
W. H. S.
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Washington City to Mount Vernon.
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A Washington, Alexander Island, Arlington Junction, Addison, Four Mile Run, St. Elmo, St. Asaph, Del Ray, Lloyd, Braddock, Rosemont, Alexandria, New Alexandria, Dyke, Bellmont, Wellington, Arcturus, Herbert Springs, Snowden, Grassymead, Hunter, Riverside, Mount Vernon.
The tourist who boards the train of the Washington-Virginia Railway Company at the corner of Twelfth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, in the National Capital, for a ride to the Home and Tomb of George Washington will pass through a region of country whose every locality bears the vivid impress of most interesting as well as important historical associations, reaching back through nearly three hundred years of the begin- nings and progress of our country in the march of civilization and advancement.
On every stream and thoroughfare, in every valley and on every hill crest there is some memento or land mark, in whatever direction the eye may range, to remind of the pioneers who transformed the wastes of the wilderness, marked the bounds of the homesteads, laid the hearth stones, established the neighborhoods and set up the altars of the Virginia Commonwealth. Aside from the great historic interest which pertains to every portion of the way of this desirable route to Mount Vernon, there is also for the tourist a pleasing diversity of natural scenery, of which the broad skirting river forms a very attractive part.
As the train passes down 14th street towards the Potomac, the beautifully diversi- fied grounds of the Agricultural Department, those of the Smithsonian Institute and of the National Museum and the Botanical Gardens, comprising a large area reaching to the foot of the Capitol may be seen on the left. The extensive and varied collec- tions in the spacious buildings of these grounds from all lands and climes amply illus- trating the mineral, animal and vegetable Kingdoms of nature will well repay a visit. On the right are the monumental grounds from which rises the great shaft erected to the memory of General George Washington. This structure rises to the height of a little over 555 feet above ground level and 600 feet above mean tide water, and is the highest work of masonry in the world.
It is built of granite and marble and contained in its wall is a block of native copper weighing 2100 pounds from Lake Michigan. Its foundations are of blue stone laid 16 feet in depth. The topmost stone weighs over 3000 pounds. The whole structure is surmounted by a point of aluminium 91/2 inches high and 51/2 inches square at its base weighing 100 ounces, the cost of which was $225. Whiter than silver and not liable to corrosion this point as the sunlight strikes it, glistens like a huge diamond or an intense electric light. The base of the shaft is 55 feet square, with walls 15 feet thick. The whole structure weighs more than 80000 tons. Just under the pyramidon or pinnace stone is a platform with an area of 1167 feet from which, through eight windows, the visitor has magnificent prospects of the surrounding country. Here, the walls are 18 inches thick. The corner stone was laid July 4th, 1848, and the whole was finished in 1885 at a cost of $1,500,000. On an average 500 visitors ascend the monument daily at a yearly cost to the government of $20,000.
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SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
The top of the great structure is reached by an elevator, and also a stairway of 50 flights of steps, cach flight consisting of eighteen steps-900 in all. Within the walls of this structure there is room cnough to contain a thousand persons. Like the great dome of the Capitol, this massive shaft from its commanding height is a conspicuous land mark for many miles distant in all the approaches to Washing- ton. Being so high and isolated from other sur- rounding objects it has been struck numbers of times by lightning but without material injury. Strange to say, but it is nevertheless a fact established by nice and careful experiments, that this massive monument so deeply and broadly founded, has a daily leaning movement toward the sun, amounting at times to four or five inches.
In close proximity to the monument is the National Bureau of Printing and Engraving, where are printed all the paper currency and postage stamps of the government.
Emerging from the National Capital the train JOYCE ENS, crosscs the Potomac River by the New Highway Bridge, into Alexandria county, Virginia. This WASHINGTON MONUMENT. bridge, built in 1906, is 2,666 feet long and has a wide draw over the main channel of the stream through which large sailing vessels and steamers may pass up to the port of Georgetown two miles beyond, which place is at the head of a tide water navigation reaching down by a continually widening and deepening stream, until at its confluence with the waters of Chesapeake bay, 108 miles, it is seven miles in width. The distance from the Capital to the Atlantic Ocean is 185 miles. To Norfolk 210 miles. Fifty miles below the Capital the water becomes salty. The head waters of the Potomac are in the Alleghany mountains and its entire length is about 400 miles. This river was called by the Indians Cohangoruton. "River of Swans." Before the advent of the white man the haughty Algonquins had their tribal town or Capital where the superb city now lifts its domes and towers. The corner stone of the Capi- tol was laid with masonic ceremonies by George Washington in 1793. He was then serving the first year of his second term as president. Har- per's Ferry where the Shenandoah joins the Poto- mac is fifty miles distant. Great Falls eighteen miles.
The first white man who ever gazed upon the fair face of the Potomac and its beautiful land- scapes was that renowned adventurer Captain John Smith, one of the Jamestown colony who with fourteen companions in an open barge in the Spring of 1608 explored its majestic course through the unbroken wilderness from the Chesa- peake to the head of tide water a few miles above the present site of the Capital. From his notes and observations he made a map of the lands bordering the stream, with their numerous afflu- ents and various Indian settlements, which is still extant in his quaint book of travels and explora tions.
The flats in front of the city and over which Long Bridge and its causeway passes consist of
CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. /
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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
about 1000 acres, and are now being transformed by the government into a vast insular park and when laid out with roads and walks and planted with trees and shrubbery as contemplated, will be a place of great beauty and attraction.
Over the famous Long Bridge most of the great armies marching for the defence of the Union from the loyal states of the republic, entered Virginia during the civil war from 1861 to 1865. Not far from the western end of the bridge along the Columbia turn- pike may still be seen remains of Old Fort Runyon, built by the union troops-the first military works raised for the protection of Washington against the advance of the secession forces, and which was then the base of the first picketing and skirmishing operations of the great conflict. These defences were commenced by daylight of May 24th, 1861. To Runyon's New Jersey brigade, second, third and fourth regiments be- longs the honor of constructing this, one of the strongest of the forts, and it was named for the brigade's commanding officer-Gen'l Theodore Runyon. The old works are now in the midst of the extensive brick yards of Brick Haven and Waterloo. A portion of them yet remain, but the greater part of the historic clay thrown up here by the boys in blue of '61 now does service in the walls of Washington houses. The perimeter of this fort exceeded that of any of the other forts in the chain, covering an area of about twelve acres, and its armament consisted of twenty-three guns, one of which was a thirty pounder rifled Parrott, eight were eight inch sea coast howitzers, ten were thirty- two pounders and four six pounder field guns, all mounted on barbette carriages. These were manned by 315 men. A strong stockade fronted the marsh between the fort and the river. Fort Albany was in the immediate vicinity to the westward and Fort Jackson was to the northward.
While the great line of defences was in course of construction by the armed multi- tudes who swarmed all the hills and valleys from Washington to Great Hunting creek, the Long Bridge* played a very prominent part in the startling activities of the war. Over its broad thoroughfare passed unceasingly, night and day, railway military trains, commissary supply wagons, hurrying regiments of infantry, cavalry and artillery, dash- ing couriers and clattering mounted orderlies. The Capital was filled with contractors, speculators and adventurers of every description, and with relatives and friends of the soldiers, all of whom found their way over the river by this bridge to the numerous encampments.
A new steel bridge with capacity to accommodate the great and increasing railway and other travel over the stream, and of architectural design in harmony with the pro- posed plans for the beautifying of the National Capital, is already in course of construc- tion to take the place of the old structure.
THE OLD LONG BRIDGE ACROSS THE POTOMAC.
" If any of the boys in blue who came down from the loyal states in the early sixties for the defence of the Union, crossing the bridge, had imagined that they were on a holiday excursion to see gay and easy times their visions were soon dispelled when they began the incessant drills and the laboriors work of erecting the great lines of defences about the National Capital.
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SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
On either side of the river, both in Virginia and Maryland, the hills presented a continuation of heights which commanded the territory lying beyond, and these were quickly taken advantage of by the engineering department of the United States army. Strong embankments were thrown up, powerful guns were placed in position, and in order to give the widest range for execution, forests were leveled and in some instances houses and barns removed, so that the enemy would have no chance to come upon the city unawares. The forts were constructed of earth, timber and masonry in the most careful and thorough manner. They contained wells, bombproofs and magazines; were surrounded by ditches, fringed and planted with abbatis of sharp-pointed branches. and were armed variously. Well nigh forty years of peace have passed since these defences were constructed. To-day, hardly one of them remains intact as when the notes of reveille and tattoo sounded in their midst. Nearly all of them have been de- molished. The ramparts have been leveled, the ditches and rifle pits filled: and the plowshare of the farmer is again passing over them as before the war. As the forts were erected and provided with their armaments, they were as quickly garrisoned by the troops that poured into Washington from the north, and many of the bravest and best of the soldiers who fought for the perpetuity of the government saw their first service in the forts around Washington.
THE SYSTEM OF DEFENCES.
By the Ist of January, 1862, the entire defensive line, mounting about 500 guns, was in an advanced condition, although not completed. It was not, indeed, until the summer of 1865 that they were in anything like a finished shape. When completed the works comprised 62 forts with 44 supporting batteries, the whole having an armament of over 1,000 guns and requiring 16,000 men to properly man them. The first suggestion to erect fortifications was made early in May, 1861, by Gen. Mansfield, who was then in command of the troops in the city, and he indicated Arlington Heights as the best place to begin. By the 24th of that month Forts Ellsworth, Runyon, Albany and Corcoran were established for the special purpose of protection to the approaches of the bridges and ferries on the Potomac. It was not until the first battle of Bull Run had been fought, however, that a systematic plan of defense was thought of. After the battle of Bull Run the cluster of commanding heights, four miles west of Alexandria and six miles from Washington, were occupied by the confederates, but in October of that year the hills were again taken possession of and fortified by the Union troops. The system of works constituting what are called the defenses of Washington were divided into four groups: First, those south of the Potomac, commencing with Fort Willard below Alexandria, and terminating with Fort Smith, opposite George- town, comprising twenty-nine forts and eleven supporting batteries; second, Forts Ethan Allen and Marcy at the Virginia end of the Chain bridge, with their five bat- teries for field guns: third, those north of the Potomac and between that river and the Anacostia, commencing with Fort Sumner and terminating with Fort Lincoln, com- prising nineteen forts, four batteries armed with heavy guns and twenty-three batteries of field guns; fourth, those south of the Anacostia, commencing with Fort Mahon at Benning and terminating with Fort Greble at Oxon run, nearly opposite Alexandria, comprising twelve forts and one armed battery.
Looking to the left beyond the reclaimed flats from this end of the bridge may be seen at the junction of Anacostia with the: Potomac, the Arsenal, containing a museum of heavy and small arms, antique and modern, in which may be studied by the curious in such things, their wonderful evolution from their primitive forms and processes of loading and firing. Among the artillery are many guns which have been captured in various battles and sieges. The arsenal grounds are notable as having been the place where the chief conspirators in the assassination of President Lincoln were hanged.
In full view to the right of the bridge on an elevation overlooking a vast and varied landscape of cities, highlands and river, stands the classic home of George Washington Parke Custis, adopted son of George Washington and grandson of Martha Washington, erected in 1802. The place is known as Arlington. The large estate consisting of 1160 acres on the death of Mr. Custis in 1857 became the property of
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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
Gen. Robt. E. Lee who had married his daughter and only child Mary Ann. Mr. Custis had inherited his estate from his father, John Parke Custis who purchased it of Gerrard Alexander in 1745.
General Lee became the leader of the seces- sion armies and the estate in those troublous times being unoccupied by its owner was in 1863 sold under the confiscation act for the payment of the direct tax which had been lev- ied upon it for $92.00 and became the prop- erty of the U. S. Government which took pos- session of the premises .and set apart 200 acres of the domain for the interment of dead sol- diers of the Union Army. In this National Cemetery specially laid out and beautified with reference to the patriotic purposes in view, nearly 20,000 soldiers have been buried from battle fields, hospitals and homes. The cere- ARLINGTON MANSION. monies at this beautiful place on every Decora- tion Day under the direction and loving care of the Grand Army of the Republic are very imposing and always attract many thou- sands of the surviving veterans and friends of the departed. South Carolina seceded from the Union in December, 1860, and Col. Lee remained at his post in the United States army. Other States followed and he kept his place. Fort Sumpter was fired upon and the United States troops had a collision with the citizens of Baltimore and still he adhered to the government. But on the 19th of April, 1861, the convention in session in Virginia, passed the ordinance of secession and united her fate with that of the south. Col. Lee then believing that his allegiance was first due to his native state, resigned his commission and joined the Southern confederacy.
The title of the Government to all of the Arling- ton domain has been perfected since the convey- ance by the confiscation act, by acknowledged sat- isfactory values $150,000, to the legal heirs of the property. This interesting locality with its great natural beauties, its adornments of art, its shaded walks and drives, its fine panoramic views and its sacred burial associations the tourist should not overlook or pass by. It may be reached every hour of the day by the cars of the Electric road.
From Addison Station just beyond the brick works, a mile to the left and on the Potomac bank still stands the old Custis homestead of Abingdon where the three sisters of the Arlington proprietor -Nellie Custis, who became Mrs. Lawrence Lewis of Woodlawn, Elizabeth Custis, afterwards Mrs. Thomas Law and Martha Custis afterwards Mrs. Thomas Peters were born. They were the children of Col. John Parke Custis and Eleanor Calvert, daughter of Benedict Calvert of Mount Airy, Maryland. Their father, Col. John Custis son of Martha Dandridge Custis died of camp fever con- tracted in the siege of Yorktown, 1781, and their COL. ROBERT E. LEE AT 40. grandmother Martha, again changed her name in 1759 and went to live with Col. George Washington at Mount Vernon. Much interesting history pertains to Abingdon and its first occupants.
At Addison Station may be seen the dry bed of the channel of the Old Georgetown and Alexandria Canal, a branch of the great commercial water way connecting tide
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SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
water of the Potomac with navigation on the Ohio, a distance of 360 miles, an enter- prise commenced in 1828, and which grew out of the efforts of the projectors of the "Potomac Company" of 1784 of whom George Washington was the most prominent worker.
Along Four Mile run which the electric road crosses, four miles from the Capital, General Washington owned several hundred acres of land, and near its head waters, where the Old Columbia pike crosses them he had mills, from which were shipped cargoes of flour to the West Indies in the carlier Colonial times. Then, the run un- vexed by bridges was deep and navigable for sea going craft. On this stream was situated the convalescent camp of the civil war.
From Four Mile Run to Alexandria, four miles beyond, the road passes through a beautifully undulating and fertile stretch of country, which suburban improvement is invading and gradually dotting with handsome residences. Through this stretch the contemplated avenue or boulevard from Arlington and the Memorial Bridge to Mt. Vernon, a distance of seventeen miles, when constructed, will doubtless pass.
ABINGDON HOUSE-BIRTH-PLACE OF NELLIE CUSTIS.
At Spring Park Station the road strikes the Leesburg Turnpike, the Old Military highway over which General Edward Braddock and most of his army of British regu- lars and provincial troopers marched in the spring of 1755 to expel the French and their Indian allies from the lands of the Ohio river. The regulars consisted of the 44th regiment under Col. Peter Halket and the 48th commanded by Col. Thomas Dunbar, mustering 500 men, cach with supplies and provisions and about 800 provincial troops.
The Braddock road over which the gay regulars and provincials made their slow and wearisome marchi is still a way and a highway, holding its course to the mountains though not as then rugged with stumps of trees and boulders and shadowed by unbroken forests but graded and smoothed fc . easy and pleasant travel and lying through a region of farms and hamlets.
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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
They left Alexandria, then but a straggling hamlet in the forest, the second week in April, and reached the Ohio borders the first week in July ensuing, marching a distance of more than 300 miles through an unbroken wilderness with swollen streams innum- erable to ford, and rugged hills and mountains to toil over. The disastrous battie was fought on the ninth of July. Out of 86 officers, 26 were killed, among them Brad- dock and Halket. The army after the battle, under Col. Dunbar marched to Philadelphia and went into winter quarters.
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MAJOR GENL. EDWARD BRADDOCK.
For Braddock's obstinacy in refusing to listen to the advice given him by old Indian fighters as to the modes of conducting. the campaign, which later he vainly regretted; he paid the penalty with the loss of his life. With him were slain twenty-six out of his eighty-six officers, among them Sir Peter Halket; and thirty-seven were wounded including Col. Gage and other field offi- cers. Gage afterwards figured as a general in the British army, fighting against the colonists. Braddock was rash, and courted every danger. Shirley his secretary was shot dead and both his English aides were disabled. The battle was a rout. The regulars were panic stricken and fled, even fired upon the provincials, mistaking them in the smoke for the enemy. Gen. Braddock had been in the British service for more than thirty years and had participated in many severe en- gagements under the Duke of Cumberland. Al- though a brave soldier, he was rash and impet- uous and tyrannical.
Braddock had five horses disabled under him. At last, a bullet entered his right side and he fell mortally wounded. He was with difficulty brought off the field and borne along in the train of the fugitives. All the first day he was silent, but at night he roused himself to say-"who would have thought it." Dunbar was now in com- mand. On the 12th of July he destroyed the remaining artillery, and burned public stores and the heavy baggage to the value of a hundred thousand pounds sterling, pleading in excuse, that he had the orders for so doing of the dying general. In mid- summer he evacuated Fort Cumberland and then hurried to Philadelphia for winter quarters. At night Braddock roused again to say, "we shall know the next time better how to manage them," and died. His grave was made near Fort Necessity. Thus ended the famous expedition of 1755 against the French and Indians and the first days of military glory in Alexandria.
Since the occurrence of the events we have narrated, hardly a century and a half has passed, but the circumstances seem dim to us now and very remote; for the suc- ceeding years have wrought so many changes for the colonies and the states. They are not so distant after all when measured by the years of a long life time.
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