Crittenden press. [volume] (Marion, Ky.) 1879-1907, 1901-05-09
OLD BRICK CHURCH.
Washington Sometimes Woi SHIPPED
Within Its Plain Walls.
Romantic Spot in the valley of BROAD
Greek, Ten Miles from the Cap
ttaI, on the Maryland side
of the Potomac.
Especial Washington letter.

T>HE forests are clad in emerald
green, the air is redolent of
floral life and resonant with
the chipperings and twitterings and
chickering's of the feathered children
of creations; the hills and dales of
suburban Washington arc daily and
nightly Travelled, on their superior
roads, by riders, drivers, cyclists,
automobilists and pedestrians. Not
only our own people are enjoying the
woodland glories and beauties of the
country, but visiting friends who
come from near and far are shown
the country side of the national cap
ital, as well as its official, social and
architectural side.
Thefe is no road leading into or
out of the national capital which
does not bring one TO historic spots;
and they who have been here long do
not realize this fact so well as the
casual visitor or occasional literary
tramp, who keeps his eyes open and
asks questions of the plain people,
realizing the wisdom of the old say
ing:
"Lean not on one mind. constantly,
| Lest where one stood before, two fall.
! Something God hath to say 10 thee
| Worth hearing from the lips of ALL"
In one days journey along the old
common road which follows the
Maryland shore of the Potomac,
down towards Piscataway creek, by
asking questions of the people, we
discovered that this oft travelled road
is replete with history-and the
writer has been over it fully four
score times, without asking ques-
tons. by the time one has travelled
so far from the city that the natives
begin saluting-which they never do
in the immediate vicinity of town
you can, in your Imagination, date
yourself back three or four genera
tons without meeting anything mod
ern enough in appearance to bring
you out of it," to use the phrase of
the bypnotist.
The region was once a rich tobacco
country, and a spot of untitled land
was more rare than a well-cultivated
field is now. Tobacco, or the "sot-
weed" as it was called. made the col
ony one of the wealthiest of the new
world, and the "sot-wced factor" or
agent, was a lord, TO all intents and
purposes, though in his loneliness
somewhat registering and illiterate.
To-day his descendant, if he has
chung to the land, is being gradually
forced TO knucilc under to the vigor-
Gus nd-growth of oak and pine,
which is slowly encroaching upon the
WORKOUT fields. But those energetic,
hard-drinking, bull-bating and cock
fighting old colonists builded well
and left to their posterty solid walls,
often of brick imported from Eng
land, which are as good to-day as
they were a century ago; and so their
easy-going descendant has a home
in as good repair and quite as re-
spectacle as his pedigree. You will
find any number of these picturesque
old places, some in good condition
still, others occupied only in part, as
the habitable portions have been
slowly contracted by advancing de-
cay, others again quite abandoned |
and falling into compete ruin, or
gone entirely, and their sites marked |
only by a solitary chimney standing
like a gravestone.
A ten-mile drive from the city will |
bring us to a point where the road |
makes sudden dip into the valley Of
Broad creek. After we descend the |
stony hill and CT oss the stream at its |
foot we will core upon little brick |
church, surrounded by two or three
score Of graves. The little edifice is
in fair state of repair, and there is
little about it 10 suggest great age,
but on one of the headstones in the |