The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1874-01-30
Mis- eIIaneOus.
For the Agis & nteNigencef
A Ramble in Hartford.
NO. /.

vi IL. LDlloR lluFlliS IeCcHtly opeHI u
week very pleasantly in your county, ac-
companied by my friend, Mr.. D. L. Clark,
of High Point, N. c., a genial gentleman
and an Artist of some distinction, it is
gratifying to me to be able to state that al
though you have no railroad through your
county so located as to develop your re-
sources to the best advantage, no first-cass
educational institution, no county agricul-
tural organization, yet you have what is
scarcely less in value, an invigorating and
healthy climate, as finely wooded and wa
tered country, a soil naturally good and gen.
erous in response to liberal treatment and a
progressive improvement that will eventu-
ally make Hartford one of the best counties
in the State.
We arrived at Edgewood Station on the
afternoon of the 26th of December, where
we found in waiting for "the travelling pub
lie" what your people, by courtesy, term a
"stage," but what we down South call a
dug-out. This particular vehicle was
fashioned Tor the accommodation of six per-
sons, but on the occasion referred to, it
had to be expanded to the capacity of
sdndwiching ten. AS most of those, how
ever, were ladies, we were able to bear the
squeeze, rot o2!y pLi!osophically, but pleas
antly and, to add to our comfort, my friend
Clark, who is very gallant gentleman, in
sisted on carrying all the satchels, carpet
bags, bonnet-boxes and muffs on his lap
and mine and but for his modesty would
have asked some of the ladies to seat
among their baggage thus slowed away.
Notwithstanding the heavy load and
rough frozen road, the driver logged along
at lively gait and landed us all at Bel
Air "right-side up" in good time, where
we met with reception so cordial and
kind as to impress US with the belief that
we had alighted at the very fountain-head
of hospitality. Here we rested three or
four days, in the meantime, through whose
kindness you know as well as l do, we
were favored with short excursions through
the adjacent country stirring up in my men,
DRY many of the incidents and associations
of earlier years. In one of these excursions
l had the pleasure of re-visiting the neigh
borhood where Messrs. Nicholas b ond, Jno.
c. Norris, Joshua Wiley, Alexander Norris
and William Norris resided forty odd years
ago. and returning by the way of what is
now known as Emmorton. But little
change had taken place in this circuit in
the years that have elapsed since | saw it
before, except that the tall black walnut
trees that shaded the road from the Balti-
more pike to the old Bond house had near
ly all disappeared, but the same old field
pines that constituted wall of separation
between Joshua Wiley and Alexander Nor
ris still stood in their sterile gloom, covert
for owls and rabbits, which Nature intend
ed should be covered with waving corn
and golden harvests. The old denizens, |
learned, with the single exception of John
c. Norris, had passed away.
Nicholas Bond was genial gentleman
but q poor farmer, and seemed to be con-
tent if his negroes could make enough
upon what might have been a magnificent
plantation to keep their own souls and
bodies together like his surviving brother
who now owns the estate, he never married,
and regretted to see that the broad acres
which could have supported Il score of hap
ply families all these years, were lying par
TALLY waste and unimproved.
The farm of Joshua Wiley, adjoining, is
still as poor as it was half II century ago,
and if crow could subsist upon it with
out transporting rations from another field,
it seems to me that it would have to prac.
tice more industry and economy than
crows generally get credit for.
The farm of John G. Norris seemed to he
in statu quo, except that the large and
thrifty orchard that reached from the house
to the highway had mostly disappeared
and the walls Of the old mansion, presumed
to imagine, still bore the marks of tic
pencil of John G.. Chapman, the great
American Artist, who boarded with Mr.
Norris while pupil of Rev. Reuben Davi.
at the Bel Air Academy.
The farm of Alexander Norris and his
Quaker brother-in-law Morris seemed to
have been improved, with renewed or great
ly renovated domicils, and the music o.
the little stream that divided their posses
sions and propelled the machinery thai
polished and sharpened the hatchets of ole
Mr.. Taylor in the olden time, sounded to mt
like the echo of song had heard in year,
long gone by. That little stream, limpit
and bubbling, has its source short dis
lance in the rear of Mr.. Hanna's hotel il
Bel Air, and runs through the grounds
Immediately below the Baltimore pike tina
should be appropriated to the county agri
cultural and mechanical society.
Proceeding on round to the Abingdon
road, found the woods on the left still il
their primal state, which were once mad,
sacred and vocal by tents and affairs, ant
where, when boy, unmindful of the hol,
objects of Methodist camp-meeting, hao
gone in quest Of creature comforts" ant
flying squirrels. On the right, in what wa!
an old field in those days, u Mr.. Garrettsol