The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1899-08-11
A Tribute to Bra Il d o C k
Heights.

Frederick County may well he
proud of her ancestral birth, To-
Gated as she is in the lap of ma
ture, where from her mountain
cliffs our vision may quietly re-
pose on scenery not eXcelled,
wrapped in an atmosphere as pure
as the ether that skirts the sky,
gifted and enriched by the hand
of nature, it makes one feel an ir
reSistible charm. delight that
cannot be expressed, in the
beauty and grandeur that fingers
around these native hills that
have stood as sentinelS to mark
the changes in human events,
and from these lofty cliffs the be-
holder stands i'll statue-like sur
prise, when he thinks that God
planted these everlasting hills
when creation was yet young in
years.
And that through all the cen
turtles that have come and gone,
they lift their proud heads to the
rising sun as lie climbs the cas-
tern hills to give warmth and Sus-
tenance to nature, and on either
side our vision rests over valleys
draped and robed in living green,
waving their bread branches to
the coming breeze. And as far
as the eye can sean the dim dis
lance around and beneath a land
scape all blooming in expanded
beauty, making one feel that this
mountain view for sublimity of
beauty will stand side by side in
the gallery of the worlds sculp-
ture.
And what makes Frederick
County proud of these historical
hills is because she has given birth
to names, both in State and
in war, that has measured arms
with the world. And as the REM
iniscences of other times come
up to thought when these hills
were made vocal with the tread
OF contending armies, beginning
with the struggle of our liberty,
III the great event that gave
independence to our colonies,
for right here in the bosom
OF this valley slumbers in calm
repose the long remembered Ev-
erhart, the friend of Washington,
when at the sound of the bugle
call by that gifted genius of old
Virginia whose name will live
green and be re echoed and encir-
cled by the plaudits of mankind
as long as liberty has an advo-
cate.
1t was from this county that
sprang to arms the yeomanry of
these green hills and buckled on
the sword in defence of right and
home at a time when strange and
unforeseen events began to crowd
the annals of the world, she
linked her destiny with the great
son OF liberty, the immortal
Henry, in driving oppression from
our shores and made old England
bow her proud head to the shrine
ofliberty and her favorite general,
captive, led back the relics of
his conquered army to comment
crate i'll the mother country the
insolence of her power and the
emancipation of these valleys
planted i'll the garden of nature
and nourished by the dew drops
from heavens eternal spring.
Later OH in the war of 1912 this
county gave to the union of these
States the Star-Spangled Banner
which waves in triumph over land
and sea, and wherever the home
sick soldier fixes his eyes ON the
star that glitters to his native
State he feels proud to fight be-
meath its folds.
Then coming down to our Civil
war Braddock Heights becomes
the more attractive for around
the base of these mountains the
roar OF cannon and the clash of
arms between the blue and the
gray, each contending for the
right, will be a subject Thought
and read of with feelings ofregret
by all now living.
And the curtain falls over the
thousands of noble heroes on
both sides whose light went out
just as it had reached the SPLEEN
dor of its noontide glory.
III. N. ETCHISON.