USA > Maryland > Some old historic landmarks of Virginia and Maryland : described in a hand-book for the tourist over the Washington-Virginia railway > Part 4
USA > Virginia > Some old historic landmarks of Virginia and Maryland : described in a hand-book for the tourist over the Washington-Virginia railway > Part 4
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All too swiftly passed the time, as I fondly tarried in the midst of so many allurements from the dull and perplexing routine of business in the city. Hours of the bright mid- summer days I watched from the vine-hung verandas of the "Old Mansion," the broad
ANDALUSIA
Residence of W. H. Snowden.
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river's expanse before me, with its flitting shadows, its sails, and passing steamers. Sometimes it was a leisurely stroll along the pebbly shore, or boating in the still waters that beguiled me, and sometimes it was straying over the site of the old Indian town of Asasomeck, looking for arrow heads, javelin points, fragments of pottery, and other re- mains of the ancient dwellers.
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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
One serene evening, as the parting rays of the setting sun were fading beyond the hills I joined a boating party for an excursion to the opposite shores of "Maryland, my Maryland." A delightful ride over a stretch of two miles of the still waters brought us to the head of "Broad Bay," where we landed, and then walked in the twilight a short distance up the valley to an ancient chapel, erected in the time when all the surrounding region was a part of the realms which owned the rule and sway of the king of "Old England." Within the walls of this chapel, our Washington, Lord
ACROSS THE RIVER TO BROAD BAY, FROM ANDALUSIA.
Fairfax, and many other noted men of that time were wont to worship. Many genera- tions of its congregations are lying under the crumbling stones of the briar grown graveyard, and as I pondered where so often had been read that last solemn ritual of "dust to dust," many a vision flitted before me, of happy bridals and solemn funeral trains of the "dead past" of the long ago.
As we turned in pensive mood from the sacred place, the full moon was up and beam-
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SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
ing brightly on the still waters of the grand old river to light us back on our homeward way.
The sketch of my outing would be incomplete, if I failed to mention a sail down the river to Fort Washington and also a ride over the electric road to Mount Vernon. Reader, did you ever climb to the heights of the old fort? If not it is worth a journey to do so. Go there on some fair midsummer day, and survey from its vine-covered battlements the broad and varied expanse outlying before them. In that expanse the
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VIEW UP THE POTOMAC, LOOKING FROM ANDALUSIA.
eye may trace out the National Capital, with its towering dome and obelisk, sitting superbly enthroned in the mist and dimness of the far away hills to the north, and the grand old river flowing down in its seaward course through its setting of green slopes and plains and wooded crests, gives to all the view a charm and beauty not often surpassed.
A visit to the home and tomb of the immortal chieftain is surely an event to linger long in the memory of every patriot.
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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
But I am reaching the limits of the typos, and so must not tarry, otherwise the story of my outing with its round of varied pleasures and enjoyments would be a long one. To the friends who had kindly bidden and welcomed me to their hospitalities I said goodby, and with many regrets at parting, turned homeward from the long to be re- membered scenes of Andalusia.
O, homestead by the river side And see the sway of trees and flowers As winds round them are blowing,
When rains of life are falling,
I'll go in fancy to thy fold And hear the robin calling
And tho' through splendid castles In foreign lands I'll roam,
His sleepy mate at early dawn; I'll watch the river flowing
O, may my heart be pure and true, As in the dear old home.
From Andalusia to Mount Vernon the distance is three miles, with the intervening stations of Herbert's Spring, Snowden's, Hunter's and Riverside Park at Little Hunt- ing Creek, which make the occupants of numerous adjacent farms conveniently accessi- ble to this important line of travel. The crock divides the original River Farm of Washington's map from the Mansion House Farm, and one mile beyond, the road ter- minates at the gates of the Mount Vernon Mansion.
BROAD CREEK-OLD CHURCH AND OLD HOUSES.
Four miles below Alexandria, on the Maryland shore, and opposite to Andalusia, on the Virginia side, is the estuary or bay of Broad Creek. There Washington often went, as he tells us in his diary, with his friend and neighbor, Diggs, of Warburton Manor, to throw his line for the finny denizens of the still waters. At the head of this bay, where now only the light-draught scow boat can ascend the silt-filled channel, large schooners used to lie at their moorings and load with cargoes of tobacco, wheat, and corn for the foreign ports. It was a busy neighborhood then, when the odd and ancient looking houses, which have stood through the changes of one hundred and fifty to two hundred years were comparatively new, and the surrounding lands were fertile and produced abundantly all kinds of farm products.
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ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, BROAD CREEK, MD. over 200 years old.
There is much in this isolated locality to interest the curious delver into the scenes and circumstances of the olden time. The weather-beaten tenements, so dilapidated and forlorn in appearance; the impoverished fields and the forsaken landing-place with never a freight nor cargo to be loaded or discharged, will murmur to him, as he thoughtfully scans the desolation, in audible stories of how the generations of toilers
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SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
came and went-how they fretted out life's fitful fever, and were at last gathered from their labor of success or failure to the densely populated burial-place of the settlements.
The creek meanders down from the far uplands in bright rivulets, touching in its course the borders of many an old home whose mournful landmarks of falling tene- ment or blackened hearthstones or deserted springs are mute but eloquent reminders of the long faded years when those now impoverished fields in their primitive fertility yielded to the tobacco and maize planters their fifty and a hundred fold.
More than two hundred years ago an Episcopal church was organized here by the first dwellers. The parish was at first known as Piscataway, afterwards King George's, and the Church of St. John's. The first house of worship was of logs and built in 1694, rebuilt with bricks in 1722, and enlarged to its present dimensions in 1763, John Addison, William Hatton, William Hutchinson, William Tannhill, John Emmet, and John Smallwell were of its first vestry, and Rev. George Tubman its first rector. This church antedates all other Episcopal churches of the Potomac region of Maryland. The leading spirit in the organization of this church was Col. John Addison a member of the Governor's council and an uncle of the celebrated Joseph Addison.
The burial place of the old kirk is densely peopled with the dead of departed congre- gations. Over most of the graves is a wilderness of tangled vines. Many of the stones are levelled and sunken nearly out of sight, with inscriptions worn and hard to de- cipher. Hundreds of graves have no stones at all, presumably of the earliest burials. A broad marble slab lies over the remains of Enoch Lyells, killed in a duel, August 7, 1805, with the following inscription:
"Go, our dear son, obey the call of Heaven;
Thy sins were few-we trust they are forgiven.
Yet, oh, what pen can paint the parents' woe? God only can punish the hand that gave the blow."
OLD HOUSE AT BROAD CREEK, MD.
200 years old.
The quarrel of the duelist had its origin in offensive remarks made at a ball in the village of Piscataway, and the duel took place at Johnson's Spring, on the Virginia shore. The young man who was killed and who had made the remarks was averse to the encounter, but was goaded on to his death by his father and mother. His antag- onist was named Bowie, who afterwards fled to the new settlement of the southwest. To him belongs the unenviable reputation of originating the bowie knife.
The hip-roofed house over two hundred years old still remains on the shore of Broad Creek where the wounded man was carried by his friends to die. It stands lonely and ghost like, scarred and blackened by the mutations of time, a grim memorial not only
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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
of the duel, but of the more prosperous days of the locality, when square rigged vessels even, sailed from the now lonely and desolate place with cargoes of tobacco and other valuable freight of a fertile and productive region.
Long after the event of the duel the old house was to all the negro population an ob- ject of aversion; and even to the present time stories handed down through the gen- erations, are told of strange lights which were seen flitting and hovering over the local- ity, on dark and dismal nights. These lights if seen as averred, may not have been due entirely to the distorted imagination of the ignorant negroes but as well to the phosphorescent exhalations from the decaying matter of the surrounding marshes.
THE DOGUE INDIANS-ASSAOMECK .-
Alas for them! their day is o'er, Their fires are out from shore to shore;
No more for them the wild deer bounds, --
The plough is on their hunting-grounds, The pale man's axe rings thro' their woods, The pale man's sail skims o'er their floods.
On the shores of the Mount Vernon estate, and far inland to the west, once roamed a numerous tribe of aborigines of the Algonquin race whose prowess was acknowledged and feared by all the surrounding tribes. The chief settlement or village of "Assao- meck, according to the investigations of Professor Holmes, of the National Ethno- logical Bureau, occupied the site now known as Andalusia, four miles below Alexan- dria. The great number of stone axes, javelin and arrow points, and fragments of pottery which have been turned up there by the plough, sufficiently attest the fact.
Here, in 1608, that fearless explorer and doughty old soldier, Captain John Smith, on his way up the Potomac to beyond the present site of the National Capital, stopped to hold parley with the reigning chief, and smoke the pipe of peace and friendship. Their settlement was the scene of a cruel and unsparing massacre by a force of aveng- ing colonists during the Bacon rebellion of 1676. Where their cabins clustered along the river shore in the primeval days, the suburban homes of Andalusia now rise up to greet the eye of the passer.
FORT WASHINGTON, AND THE MOUTH OF THE PISCATAWAY-LEONARD CALVERT WITH HIS VANGUARD OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
Seven miles below Alexandria, on the commanding heights of the old manorial estate of "Warburton," in Maryland, are the frowning battlements of Fort Washington. They help to give picturesqueness to the grand landscape of which they are a part, and they represent an expenditure of many hundred thousands of the public treasury, and many years of hard toil of long-vanished builders. But that is all. For the de- fence of the National Capital, they are practically useless against the new methods of naval attack. In 1814, when the British fleet came up the Potomac, the garrison then occupying the works, abandoned them and allowed the enemy to proceed to Alexan- dria and plunder the city without molestation. At the foot of the heights, just under the walls where the waters of the Piscataway and the Potomac unite, came, in 1634, Governor Leonard Calvert with two hundred followers, most of them Roman Catholic gentlemen and their servants, to establish, under the provisions of a royal charter to his brother, Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore), a settlement of the new region of Maryland, as yet untenanted save by roving aborigines. He anchored his vessels, the "Dove" and a small pinnace, proclaimed the catholic faith, raised the standard of Old England and proceeded to negotiate with the Indians, who assembled on the shore to the num- ber of five hundred. The chieftain of the tribe would neither bid him go nor stay. "He might use his own discretion." It did not seem safe for the English to plant their first settlement in the wilderness so high up the river, whereupon Calvert descended the stream, examining in his barge the creeks and estuaries near the Chesapeake. He entered the river now called St. Mary's and which he named St. George's, and "about four leagues from its junction with the Potomac" he anchored at the Indian town of Yoacomoco. To Calvert the spot seemed convenient for a plantation. Mutual promises of friendship were made between the English and the natives, and upon the twenty- seventh day of March, 1634, the Catholics took quiet possession of the place, and religious liberty obtained a home-its only home in the wide world-at the humble
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SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
village which bore the name of St. Mary's. Very soon after this time all the region around the Piscataway river was explored by the Calvert colonists; and the Jesuit Mis- sionaries who had come over with the proprietor established their missions from St. Mary's up to the Anacostia river. The parent mission under the direction of Father White was located at Piscataway. Great hopes were entertained by them of the evan- gelization of the Indians. Schools were instituted among them. A printing press, the first in all the colonies south of Massachusetts Bay was set up at Piscataway and
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FORT WASHINGTON AND MOUTH OF PISCATAWAY RIVER.
catechisms and portions of the gospels were printed in the Indian tongue, some copies of which were brought to light only a few years ago in the library of the Vatican in Rome. For more than two hundred years they had lain there forgotten in the gath- ered dust with the reports, the fathers had sent of their missions in those early times along the wild shores of the Potomac.
Numbers of the Indians we are told by the chroniclers embraced the new faith and
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were baptized, among them King Chilomachen, his Queen, children and attendants. Of these self sacrificing missionaries, one of their faith has said: "Their pathways were through the wilderness and their first chapels were the wigwams of the savages. They assisted by pious rites in laying the foundations of a state. They kindled the torch of eivilization in the new found lands. They gave consolation to the grief strieken pilgrim. They taught the religion of Christ to the sons of the forest. The history of Maryland presents no better, no purer, no more sublime lesson than the story of the toils of her first missionaries."
WHEN KING GEORGE 2ND. OF ENGLAND RULED VIRGINIA.
CLIFTON FERRY.
JOHNSON'S SPRING. DUELLING GROUND.
"As ancient was this hostelry As any in the land may be, Built in the Old Colonial day
When folks lived in a grander way With ampler hospitality." * *
By 1745 with the exit of the aboriginal inhabitants from the tide water regions of Virginia, the wave of eivilization had advanced up the Potomac even to the slopes of the Blue Ridge. In that year was passed by the General Assembly an act establishing a publie ferry from Clifton Neck, now the river farm of the Mount Vernon estate, to the Maryland shore. Capacious boats were provided for the ferriage of vehicles of every deseription as well as for pedestrians, horses and eattle, and were manned by sturdy negro oarsmen; and but a few minutes were required by them to cross the stream. By this ferry went all the travel by land through the colonies between New York and Georgia. The rates of ferriage were "for a man or horse one shilling, for every eoaeh, chariot or wagon and the driver thereof six shillings. For every cart or four wheeled chaise and the driver thereof four shillings. For every two wheeled chaise or chair two shillings."
Arehdeaeon Burnaby in his travels through the middle settlements of America in 1760 tells us he crossed the Potomac at this point going northward by Upper Marlboro and Annapolis.
The Old Ferry House as shown in the engraving stood on the brow of the hill about fifty yards from the tide level. It fell to ruins fifty years ago. It was a noted place of entertainment on the great highway. The traveller always found under its roof an abundance of good fare; for the river was stocked with the finest fish and the forests around abounded with wild game; and there was no stint of apple brandy, cider and beer, old jamaica and other beverages for all who were inclined in that direction, and most folks were so disposed in those primitive times.
Not far from the doorway of the hostelry gushed the spring called by the Indians, the "Great Fountain." Its waters clear and eold, still pour out from the hill side unabated from year to year, just as they did in colonial times. Their souree doubtless is among the distant rocks of the Blue Ridge. Perhaps the first white man who ever drank of them was Captain John Smith when he ventured up the Potomac in 1608. And no wonder that he told in his journal of the "sweet waters," with which the new region abounded.
This locality was in the years far back a noted resort for duellists. The last duel was fought in 1805 as elsewhere noted in these pages. Later on, it was a favorite place for summer social gatherings of every description. Fourth of July parties met there from the two cities and celebrated Independence Day; and Washington tells us in his diary that he met his neighbors there at barbecues and other social and political gatherings.
No highway in all the land had more interesting historical associations than this by the Old Ferry.
No road was used more frequently by Washington. He always took it when going to his river farm and to the races at Annapolis. It was the road he travelled when going to the first Continental Congress.
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SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
In his diary for Aug. 30th, 1774, he says "Col. Pendleton, Mr. Henry and Col. Mason came to my house and remained all night." "Aug. 31, these gentlemen dined here, after which Col. Pendleton, Mr. Henry and myself set out on our journey for Philadel- phia." They crossed the Potomac by Clifton ferry five miles below Alexandria into Prince George county, Maryland and reached Upper Marlboro for supper and lodging." "Sept. Ist, breakfasted at Queen Ann's ten miles further and dined at Annapolis. Crossed the head of the Bay to Rock Hall in Kent county by the packet ferry. Here we suped and lodged. Sept. 2nd, dined at Rock Hall and thirteen miles further on in the journey supped and lodged at Newtown on Chester river." ""Sept. 3rd, break- fasted at Downs (now Galena) sixteen miles beyond. Dined at Buck tavern ten miles further. Lodged at New Castle eighteen miles. Breakfasted at Christina Ferry eight miles. Dined at Chester twelve miles. Fifteen miles beyond, after supping at the New Tavern in Philadelphia lodged at Dr. Shippens, in all one hundred and fifty-one miles in five days."
Grant
CLIFTON FERRY.
Down this highway in 1781 came the forces of General Green going to the Carolinas, and the armies of Washington, Lafayette, and Wayne going to Yorktown. By Wash- ington's orders at the time the local militia was summoned to repair all the ways over which the troops, the beef cattle, the baggage wagons and artillery were to pass through the several counties of Virginia; and the planters all along were requested by him as a particular mark of respect to assist the officers from point to point in their carriages.
The National Capital was then but a straggling settlement with its few buildings in the midst of forests and swamps, with difficult approaches to it from every side. The Long Bridge had not been built and the only ferry to the Virginia Shore was that to Analostan Island, from Georgetown.
The only traces of this highway in its course through the Mount Vernon estate may
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OF VIRGINIA AND MARYLAND.
be seen in the clump of trees on the electric railway at Arcturus Station, as shown in the accompanying engraving. Clifton Ferry was discontinued after 1808.
The Old Ferry House as shown in the engraving stood on the brow of the hill about fifty yards from tide level. Fifty years ago it fell to ruins.
"With weather stains upon its wall And stairways worn and crazy doors,
And creaking and uneven floors And chimneys huge and tiled and tall."
THE OLD ROAD.
But a remnant left of the old highway, When George of England held royal sway- Only a hollow, worn deep in the hill- But listen well-it has tales to tell Of the tide of travel that over it roll'd For a hundred years in the days of old.
Lift ye the veil, and the throngs shall pass Before your vision as in a glass.
You will hear the creak of the cumb'rous wain; You will hear the teamster's shouts again. Before you will pass on its tedious way The stage and four of the ancient day.
Anon, you will see the planter ride With liveried coachman at his side- The gangs of toilers will come and go From their endless tasks of joy or woe. The steps of armies you will hear And their bugles will greet you loud and clear-
Their drum's wild beat you will hear as well Echoing afar through the wooded dell- They are veterans tried and service worn With garments faded and rent and torn; They have fought at Trenton and Lexington- Though fields they have lost, they have glory won, And their good flintlocks and powder dry They are keeping well for the by and by. Brave continentalers-they are marching down For the final fray at Old Yorktown!
Mark ye the leaders in buff and blue- Washington and Greene and "mad Wayne" too; And, Lafayette and Chasteleux And the dashing count of Rochambeau, Our friendly allies from France afar Who have come to turn the tide of war.
These are the visions which you may sce If you lift the veil by the old highway.
Fort Washington and Fort Hunt opposite to it on the Virginia shore command the approach by water to the National Capital and as a result of several years of constant work upon them by the Government are now fully equipped for defence. When the great avenue in contemplation, to connect Arlington and Memorial Bridge with Mount Vernon shall be constructed, it will doubtless pass very near to Fort Hunt and so be- come a military as well as a public highway down from the National Capital.
Little Hunting Creek which the road crosses at Riverside Park is the natural and lower boundary of Washington's River Farm of 2000 acres just travelled over, and which he purchased of William Clifton in 1767. On the south side of the creek lies the other large farms of the Old Mount Vernon estate known as the Mansion House farm, Union farm, Dogue Run farm and Muddy Hole farm, containing in the aggre-
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SOME OLD HISTORIC LANDMARKS
gatc, 6000 acres. The part of the estate on which the home is situated was included in a royal grant of 5000 acres made by Gov. Thomas, Lord Culpeper, in 1670 to Lieut. Col. John Washington and his associate in maritime adventure, Nicholas Spencer, in . consideration of their services to the Virginia colony for bringing to its new lands from England one hundred immigrants or settlers. This Col. John Washington was a great grandfather of General George Washington whose father Augustine purchased of the Spencer heirs their right in the original grant. By purchases from time to time previous to the Revolutionary war the General added one thousand acres more to the already large domain until its boundaries embraced a total of 8000 acres as held at the time of his death in 1799.
There is hardly a spot over this vast extent of land which has not known of the pres- cnce of this great rural proprietor. There is not a valley, nor a hill, nor rivulet, nor spring that has not associations of him. He laid all its roads, divided all the different plantation tracts and directed in person all the improvements which went on from year to year over the estate.
Little Hunting Creek in Washington's time was bordered by a dense growth of forest trees, which almost entirely shadowed its waters; and at all seasons of the year, wild fowl, ducks, geese and swan gathered there in great numbers, affording for the General and his visiting friends ample opportunities for shooting which were as jealously guarded from invading poachers as those of any game reservation in Old England; and the same protection was given to the game animals which wandered the wooded do- mains of the estate.
Augustine Washington, father of George, laid the first foundation of the Mount Ver- non Mansion just previous to 1736. He erected then only the middle portion of the building as we now see it in its more pretentious entirety, with its commanding front, its broad veranda, its belfry and its numerous apartments. The first structure was plain and simple, but with its four rooms it was then deemed an ample dwelling place, and no important additions were made by the new proprietor until after his marriage which occurred in 1759. Between that time and the year 1786 he had fashioned the Mansion into very much the form and appearance which it presents to us today. His guests were constantly increasing from at home and abroad and he needed more room and style for their entertainment. He obtained from England workmen and materials and by the close of 1785 had completed his improvements in which he was his own architect, drawing every plan and specification with his own hand. The interior of the old house remained to a great extent unchanged, but wings were added and the ex- terior remodeled, so that its appearance today is very much the same as when com- pleted then.
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