The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1895-02-27
RECALLS OLD DAYS
FAMOUS WYE MANSION, WITH ITS
GRACIOUS MEMORIES.
A Sturdy Domicile and It's Outbuiidings
and "Quarters"-A Land of Mint Juleps
V;ctta EJfs Hovbood,s uov,a

magic or wish away from the vulgar
scrambling and the din and all the heart
less impertinence of this impatient time
back to those ways of pleasantness and
paths of peace which were the familiar
| conditions of old Maryland, he might
choose to find himself trundling in an an
| tiquated gig through the long dim stretch
/ of woods and the double colonnade of To-
Gusts and beeches which formed the ap-
proach to the great house" and ended 10
the graveled drive that belted the noble
lawn-frorn five to seven acres Of close.
| clean sward, dotted with frs and cedars
and terraced from end to end. Here stood
! the sturdy domicile, broad and square,
built of bricks brought over from England
] in the ships that came for tobacco. IL was
flanked on each hand with offices and
| strung out TO the very edge of the woods
with huildings-kitchen, dairy, ice
| house. oyerseer's lodge and the quartz"
! for the dusky colony of slaves. This latter
might be either a group of cabins or a
| single spacious tenement of logs or stone,
affordiDg one big sitting room below,
| floored with earth and rude dormitories,
bunked and blanketed above. On the
ground floor the negroes loved to lie
around the great hearth, with their feet to
the fire, and to sleep that sleep Of in
souciant beaJitude which was broken only
by the familiar cry of warning, Some
fool nigger's heel a-burningP'
In the distance was the clumsy wind
mill for the grinding of the maize which
was presently to find itself transformed
and famous in coquetries of johnny cake
and pone, and fiapjacks flattered with
golden butter, and beyond, between the
willows by the creek, glimpsed and glanced
the ripping silver of the bay, with its
sleepy coyes and inlets dotted with canoes
and barges, and with the slender spars of
pungies in among the cuddling little isles,
where Sambo tonged for ''eyesheters" in
the sun and the larger fisher took his finny
treasures from the weir.
Here was lane flowing with mint ju-
leps and blooming with delectable dam
sells. Mistress Rebecca Lloyd, beautiful
and gracious greeted the newcomer with
winsome courtesy on the broad piazza,
and the grizzled butler, who had "toted"
his young missuS around so long that
there were still times when he forgot him.
self and called her honey" brought you
the beguiling beverage on a silver salver
engraved with the family arms and was
distressed II your straw refused to draw.
That broad piazza was burned, with the
rest of the noble house of Wye, on March
IS, 1881, when British marauding party
looted the plantation and the mansion
and carried off plate, jewelry and watches,
swords, spurs, siishes and cooked beavers,
muffs, turbans and tippets, wigs and en-
broidered waistcoasts, plumed hats and
cardinals, the whole splendid plumber of
brave apparel and dainty bedeckings.
The fair Rebecca has long since been
choired among the angels, and the grizZled
butler sleeps with his toes turned up to
the mint, but when crossed the lawn one
kindly day in December / was greeted as
graciously by Rebecca's later kinswoman
and conducted into the great hall, which
never yet whether in the parent house or
in this, was big enough for the hospital
tiles it has herbored. The grand old man
or house gave its body TO the flames, but
its soul survives in the later mansion,
where its traditions of courtesy and kind
ness are piously cherished.
Near the site of the historic domicile
fragment of which still remains, stands
the beautiful structure, impressive by its
proud simplicity, which invites the way
farer today in the name of eight genera
tions of Maryland worthless who have kept
house there since Edward Lloyd /, the
Puritan, in 1868, set up his son Philemon
to be lord of the manor of Wye and master
of Wye House-incunabula majorum. The
main building of two lofty stories, includ
ing the ball, drawing room, parlor, din
ing room and chambers, all of noble pro-
portions, is connected by corridors with
one stored wings, which are the library
on ono side and tho dom Offices m tho
other, presenting pleasing facade of 200
feet, looking out upon the lawn and the
leafy avenue, and over the woods TO Wye
river and the bay.
In Governor Lloyd's time there was
certain steward, or bailiff, at Wye, one
Captain Anthony of St. NIichaers, at one
time master of a bay craft in the service of
the governor. This man was the owner of
a likely negro boy who escaped from bond
age, and by his remarkable powers, &C
quirements and address became known to
the world as Frederick Douglass In 1881
Mr.. Douglass, being then marshal of the
District of Columbia, was moved to re-
visit the scenes of his childhood and his
thrall, and one day found himself on the
porch of Wye House, where he was re
ceived by the sons of Colonel Lloyd, their
which is extended to every stranger who
finds his way thither. When he had made
known the motive of his visit, he was
conducted over the estate, from spot to
spot that he remembered and described
with all their childish associatiops-here a
spring, there hedge, lane, field,
tree He called them by their names or
recalled them by some simple incident,
and all the glowing heart of the man
seemed to go out to the place as he passed
from ghost TO ghost as in a dream. And
then strange thing happened Standing
mute and musing for awhile, he said slow
" and low, as one who talks in his sleep,
Over in them woods was whar NE and
Mars Dan useter trap rabbits. - Mars
Dam was the governors son. Was it the
mans half playful half pathetic sense of
the grotesque incongruity of the situation,
or was il elamour-all the tremendous sig
nificance of phenomenal life compacted
into the homely reflection and phrase OF
barefoot "darky?'
He plucked flowers from the graves of
dead Lloyds he had known and at the ia
bic drank to the health of the master of
the old house and of his children, that
they and their descendants may worthily
maintain the character and the fame OF
their ancestors. DR.. John W. Palmer in
Century.
His Bonanza
Fags-They say that DIR. Capsule has
made fortune within the last FIVE years.
Gacs-GraciouSi What a lot Of reOrie