Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-12-06

rN the Soldiers Home grounds few
PAGES south of the front of that fine
white marble building called Scott
Hall. which is the building with
the square tower that is a skyline
mark of Washington, stand two trees
of unusual size for their species and
apparently of great age. There is
legend that their age is greater than any
other trees in the District. and that
they count their years with some of
the proudest old trees of the world.
1t is the belief of some of the friends
of these trees that they were old when
the first white men. whoever they were,
set foot on the shores of the new world
This is only legend, but by bringing
the matter into print it may direct the
attention of students TO these trees if
the attention of such students has not
already been attracted to them.
They are sassafras trees. They stand
o few feet apart and so resemble each
other that for time out of mind they
have been known as the twin trees
Big and gnarled and hoary, man
would scarcely recognize them as sasSa-
fras unless he read their character in
their leaves. But when the Ram bier saw
them and planted his camera before
them winter had shorn them of their
foliage, and at a glance one might take
them for gigantic. tfmewOrn and storm
torn willows or oaks. In summer the
low-hangings foliage of these trees
wells their wrinkIed and blotched bark
and one might pass them by without
suspecting their age. But with their
green yelling whipped away by the
cold winds that sweep the highland
where they grow they are bereft of
their disguise.
Near the trees are box hedges that
have been trimmed low in places, but
around the parade where the flag flies
from reveille TO retreat, where there
are four antique brass feldpieces. a
saluting gun and a sundial, you may
count more than a dozen giant box trees
which tell you that they are very old
These box trees and hedges grew green
before the Soldiers Home was created.
What is now the kitchen and lounge of
the Anderson building, the pebble-dash
broad-porched structure at the est of
Scott Hail. was the dwelling of Edward
Blackford, an Enslishman, or an Anglo
American. and who in some sere and
crumbling papers is described as Sir
that property the Rambler does not
know. but 1t was certainly in the early
years of the nineteenth century. Ed
ward Blackford became a bookseller in
Washington, the village. long before the
Rambler and The Star were born. Those
box bushes had been growing there be-
fore Rlackford came to live on the place.
Edward Blackford's daughter Eliza
beth was married to John Agg, man
who was born at Evesham, England, and
died not far from the sassafras trees
in April, 1855, at the age of seventy-five
years, and whose epitaph you may read
within the morning shadow of the west
wall of St Pauls or Rock Creek Church.
His wife. who was Elizabeth Blackford,
died in 1884.
Agg built himself a house. the site of
which has been lost and forgotten. but
those persons who know the neighbor-
hood well will tell you that they think
1t was in the little vale eastward OF the
Soldiers Home. and in the grounds of
the picturesque place called The Vine
yard, the home of the late Conway Rob-
inson about which the Rambler wrote
two or three SUNDAYS ago. The Agg
house was destroyed, presumably by
fire and he and his wife took up their
abode in cottage which had been the
dwelling of his overseer. The site of
that cottage may be distinguished. and
part of the lumber of it was used in the
construction of the gardeners cottage
on the Robinson estate, which cottage
Is still standing.
The house and lands of the Blackfords
were bought in 1S43 by George W.
Riggs, and he enlarged the house, which
is now coated with pebbles and cement
and called the Anderson building. 1t
was in or about the year 1857 that