Evening star., 1927-08-14
Capital Sidelights

Apropos of the graveyard set up in
the Capitol by the tombstone makers
under a grandiloquent name that has
suggested many facetious wise
cracks" about the burial ground of
politicians, we are reminded:
When the Congressional Cemetery
was established in the extreme south
east corner of the District in 1907 it
was chosen by Congress as the place
of interment for practically all Sena.
tors, Representatives and executive
officers who died in Office. This prac.
tice continued until 1885, and since
1855 extremely few from official life
have been inferred there.
Meanwhile the custom had grown
up of erecting a cenotaph in memory
of each Senator or Representative who
died in office, Notwithstanding that
they were buried elsewhere. These
official monuments are unique in their
ugliness and form the most striking
feature of the cemetery. They are of
sandstone, and consist of six-foot
square bases, surmounted by a pyra-
midal top reaching height of about
five feet. The inscriptions show great
carelessness.
From the time the first one was set
up, in 1907, for Senator Uriah Tracy
of Connecticut. the pattern was adj
hered to until 1877, when an act abol-
ishing the custom was passed on mo-
ton of Senator George F. Hoar of
Massachusetts. He argued that sit
certainly added new terrors to death
to propose that in any contingency,
whatever might be the poverty or
degradation of a member of Congress,
his body should be put under a struc-
ture similar to those
\ X X +
The names of Cabin John Bridge
and Cabin John Run are attributed to
hermit fisherman, Capt. Tor Cabin
John, who Is said to have formerly
lived at the juncture of Cabin John
Run with Bowie Run. Tradition has
evolved a romance which would fden-
tify this obscure hermit as the hus-
band of the "Female Stranger" whose
tombstone in Alexandria stands as an
unsolved mystery.
X X y
At the outbreak of the Civil War
the name of Jefferson Davis. formerly
Secretary of War and later President
Of the Confederacy, was obliterated
from the inscription on Cabin John
Bridge. The space remained blank
until the second Roosevelt admins
tration, when it was restored by act
Of Congress.
A recent reference to James Bar
bour of Orange, Va. in an article
as to little-known historical facts
about sections of the Old Dominion
easily accessible from Washington has
reminded q friend Of the writer con-
cerning the following lines written by
S. T. Coleridge, one of the greatest OF
English poets, in the album of Mr.
Barbour's daughter. when she was
visiting him while serving as Minister
at the Court of st. James. They are
dated Grove, Highgate, Aug, 1929, y
and are as follows:
Child of my muse. In Barbour's
Go cross the main; thou seek'st no
foreign land:
'Tis not the clod beneath our feet we
name
Our country, each heaven-sanctioned
tie the same
Laws. manners. language, faith, an
cestral blood,
Domestic honor. awe of womanhood
With kindly pride thou wilt rejoice tC
see
Britain with elbow room and doubly
free.
Go seek thy countrymen! And If one
scar
Still fingers Of that fratricidal war,
Look to the main who brings thee
from afar;
D. NIs pI Lz1
dove.
And say. greet thee with brothers
On a visit last week to President
Monroe's old home, Oak Hill, near
Aldie, Loudoun County. Va, Rep.
resentative r. Walton Moore, whose
ancestors, Col. John Fairfax and Sen
ator Henry Fairfax. formerly owned
the estate and did much to preserve it
standing in front of one of the fire
places presented by Gen. Lafayette
recalled an amusing incident that he
had cleaned in the course of his ex
tensive historical research.
Lafayette knew Monroe first when
they both served with Washington in
the Revolution. and then in Paris near
the close of the Reign Of Terror, when
Monroe secured the release from prison
Of Nine. Lafayette. When Monroe S
new home at Oak Hill was completed
Lafayette was the first honored guest
and drove out with President John
Quincy Adams, who had been Mon.
roe's Secretary of State, across the
old Chain Bridge. which has just been
closed to traffic. Representative Moore
says that 1t was then a toll bridge
with the toll collectors station on the
Virginia end. President Adams had
not been accustomed to paying toll
and started to drive by, but was
stopped by the toll collector, who did
not recognize Adams and Lafayette.
With some chagrin the President paid
the fee. Then as he dove along
some one clipped off, the toll col.
lector. who forthwith ran up the hill
after the Presidents carriage, calling
to him to stop. When Mr.. Adams had
allowed the collector to overtake them,
the abashed man sputtered apologies
and tried fneffertuql1v tO force the