Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-11-01

By THOMAS n. HENRY
A N eerie woodland is AnaloStan
~ Island, its beeches and tulip
II trees wearing the soiled yellow
4 \ Of this Southern october.
An atmosphere peculiar TO
itself hangs over this deserted tract of
shadowy forest and marsh in the
middle of the Potomac which has Just
been offered by the Roosevelt Memorial
Association as an addition to the Fed
eral park system Of Washington.
For a generation it has been aban-
doned to nature. Its highland is COW
cred with trees and bushes-the long
leaved sasSafras bushes which first turn
red in Autumn. blackberry. brambles,
deep carpets of honeysuckle. sumacs
with their clusters of scarlet berries,
thick patches of nettles, wild grape
vines suspended from walnut branches
like the ropes of hangmen. Its low
land swamp is a thick mass of brown
marsh grasses and cat-of mine tails
through which a feeble brook trickles.
Not Forest Primaeval.
But AnaloStan Island Is not the
forest primaevaL 1t is more like
bit Of English parkland on haunted
estate. Nature has been unable to de-
stroy in half century the puny order
illness of man The fast-grewing honey
suckle has not succeeded entirely in
covering the lichen-covere stone walls
of Gen. Mason's cellar-all that re-
mains of the mansion" The bramble
under the ancient trees has not wiped
out the forest colonades under which
lovers Strolled in the starlight and the
fragrance of honeysuckle in days be-
fore the Civil War when the island
was the home of wealth and culture.
One still can recognize the clear spaces
where wild Sunflowers now grow shoul-
der high which then were lawns COW
cred with beautiful verdue." There
used to be dances on those lawns n
old Gen. Mason's day. young
Englishman named David Baillie War
den. who was British consul at George
town in 1910. attended one of them
accompanied by Mrs. Curtis. to whom
he dedicated a curious book he wrote
about Washington.
Caretaker Has Clearing.
All over the island is the atmoS-
phere Of ''cld, unhappy far-off things
The 98-acre tract, less than 500 yards
from the Georgetown shore, is entirely
uninhabited except for the caretaker
and his family, who have cleared
patch of not more than half acre.
1t is known TO nearly every one in
washington. Yet those who visit it
in a year might be ccunted on the
fingers. The purpose of the Roosevelt
Memorial Association is that Analostan
Island shall be q wild-life preserve
where all the animals ana flowers can
find home and lead their cwn lives.
safe from the guns of hunters and the
curiosity of idle picnickerS. Nature is
trying to accomplish this--to establish
an outpost Of her own freedom under
the Georgetown smoEeStacEs which
symbolic the triumph OF her eternal
enemy-civilization
But the personality OF the little is
land is unacceptable human. The vine
twined trees and the half-hidden walls
breathe the sadness of dead days which
the wilderness knows not, but into
which time always converts the prattle
OF children and the laughter of love
and which forever follows as a sort OF
moving. ghostly fog, mans futile fight
down the ages.
Bit Of Wounded Woodland.
Such is Analostan Island this Au-
tumn--a bit of wounded wilderness
left on the field by an enemy that
has fed, and now struggling to arise
/ 1t Is not a captive, Shackled woodland,
like city park which temporarily tri-
umphant humanity has degraded into
/ NHAN1dAfA ASk It's NGAls0IcIR. VI u IAIIn
which has been dashed into q docile
carrier of burdens
Here IL Is proposed to erect mon
ument to Theodore Roosevelt, one whose
heart was with the wilderness and who
would have had men and women make
peace with their ancient enemy instead
OF inviting angry repriSals by uncalled-
/ for atrocities of warfare. One feels
that the reviving wilderness knows this
all - trs - "a
its friend, even when the stately city
across the river has forgotten him.
AnaloStan Island viii be q park for
those who love nature for itself and