The Rocks of Deer Creek - Pages 46-83



Page 46 continued

THE ENCHANTRESS OF HUNTING RIDGE.

Running parallel with Rock Ridge, one and a-half miles north-northwest of 
the Rocks of Deer Creek, is Hunting Ridge, and, like the first, is high, 
rugged, and in places precipitous. Both ridges are covered with trees, 
generally of large growth, and between them is a narrow valley. The whole 
scene is of the wildest character, and, singularly, to the inhabitants 
generally of the county of Harford, is almost as much unknown as are the 
Highlands of Scotland or the mountains of Switzerland. In the narrow 
valley, at a time far beyond the memory of living man, there dwelt, as the 
ancient legend tells

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us, in a rude hut, built of unhewn logs and covered with clapboards, a 
family consisting of three persons--an aged man, apparently of fourscore 
years, intellectual in his appearance and courtly in his manners; a 
venerable woman, intelligent and dignified of mien; their daughter, a 
young lady possessing much beauty, affable, and of rare intellectual and 
social accomplishments. Whence they came none knew, and why they should 
have left a refined and cultivated community to take up their residence in 
so isolated and forbidding a locality was a mystery to all. After a time 
the abode was untenanted, and no one knew whither the former occupants had 
gone. A few years ago a gentleman visited La Grange, the country-seat of 
E. S. Rogers, Esq., and hearing the legend, was prompted by curiosity, and 
the interest he felt in the shadowy past, to visit the unknown scenes. 
About the middle of the afternoon of a summer day he left the residence of 
his hospitable friend at La Grange, and walked to the locality of whose 
physical attractions and mythical story he had heard. The experiences of 
his visit I will give in his own language, as nearly as my memory will 
permit me:

"Entranced by the grandeur of the hills and the picturesque loveliness of 
the vale, I lingered until the twilight of the evening came. Warned by the 
lateness of the hour, I was about to retrace my steps toward La Grange, 
when I observed, a short distance from me, a rude hut of logs, which gave 
signs of occupation. Associating this scene with the legend of the 
mysterious family, I felt an uncontrollable impulse to visit the rude 
habitation and its inmates. As I approached the dwelling I

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heard a female voice of exquisite melodiousness, accompanied by a harp, 
singing--

"When summer flowers are weaving
Their perfume wreaths in air,
And the zephyr wings receiving
The love gifts gently bear;
Then memory's spirit stealing,
Lifts up the veil she wears,
In all their light revealing
The loved of other years.

"When summer stars are shining
In the deep, blue midnight sky,
And their brilliant rays entwining,
Weave coronals on high;
When the fountain's waves are singing
In tones night only hears,
Then sweet thoughts waken, bringing
The loved of other years.

"The flowers around me glowing,
The midnight stars' pure gleams,
The fountain's ceaseless flowing,
Recalls life's fondest dreams,
Where all be bright in heaven,
And tranquil are the spheres,
To thee sweet thoughts are given,
The loved of other years.

"The interest I had felt was now intensified, and immediately upon the 
cessation of the voice and harp I rapped at the door. It was heard and 
answered by a gentle voice, bidding me, 'Come in.' I entered, and finding 
but a single occupant, a young lady, made as though I would leave the 
room, when a kind but emphatic, 'Be seated,' constrained me to remain. The 
young lady in whose presence I was possessed great personal attractions. 
Her features were regular, he form elastic and graceful, showing that no 
common blood

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flowed through her veins. An irrepressible desire seized me to know by 
what strange mutation of fortune one so gifted should have been impelled 
to bury herself and all her hopes in this desolate wilderness. I was about 
to enter into conversation, with the view of eliciting information that 
might give me a clue to the history of the mysterious being, when I felt 
myself under the influence of a strange spell. In a few moments I was in a 
profound slumber. How long I slept I did not know, and when I awoke the 
scene was wholly changed. I was in a princely mansion. In the room a 
solitary light was gleaming. The windows were draped with heavy silken 
curtains. A whisper of leaves and the murmur of a fountain were heard 
coming from without. Delicate flowers, arranged in vases, were shedding 
their perfume through the room, and the silver lamp shed a soft and 
radiant light on every object. The only occupant of the room besides 
myself was a young lady of medium height, pale of complexion, standing, 
statue-like, in the middle of the room, with a harp in her hand. She sang:

"Deep hidden in the bosom lies
A talisman of magic power,
An heirloom borrowed from the skies,
For man in his first sinless hour,
Inwoven in his secret heart
By some kind, pitying angel's hand,
Eve, Eden saw him sad depart
A wandering exile through the land.
This, when all other gifts took wing,
When of each heavenly gift bereft,
He stood a doomed, deserted thing,
From the great moral wreck was left--
Was left to light the lurid gloom

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That gathered o'er in his fall,
To burst, to brighten, and to bloom
O'er ruined Eden, Eve, Earth--all,--
Awakening joys that ne'er were his
In all their matchless pride and power,
Until all other hopes of bliss
Fled from him. In that angry hour,
When Heaven resumed the gifts it gave,
And drove him forth in his despair
To look upon his future grave,
The self-same hand was ready there
As when it plucked the fruit for him.
She touched the gem his bosom bore,
And though till now its light was dim,
A glory like the Cherubim
It from that magic moment wore.
And ever, 'mid the wrong and wrath
Of life, there beameth far above
The darkness dwelling on his path,
The glory gleam of woman's love.

"Again the scene changed. I was in the depths of a dark forest. It was 
midday, but the light of the sun scarce reached me at the spot where I was 
standing--the overhanging branches of the heavy-foliaged trees were almost 
impenetrable to its rays. Of the time when I left the princely mansion and 
its accomplished inmate I had no recollection, nor how I reached the 
interior of the forest. I saw no road, not even a path, by which I could 
have entered it. My situation perplexed me; indeed, alarmed me. For the 
first time in my life I saw myself surrounded by a network of curious 
circumstances I could not comprehend. My intellect failed me in the 
perception of my real condition; so also in the apprehension of the means 
by which I might be relieved from what seemed to me a hopeless 
imprisonment in the unknown wilderness. The anxieties

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of my situation awoke me. I was in the library of my friend at La Grange. 
Looking at the clock upon the mantel, I found that I had been asleep half 
an hour. I had been under the influence of a great Enchantress."



THE AGED TRAPPER, HUNTER AND FISHERMAN OF THE INDIAN CUPBOARD.

The Indian Cupboard is a well-known locality one and a-half miles below 
the Rocks of Deer Creek and one-fourth mile below the ancient mill now 
owned by heirs of the late J. Bond Preston, Esq. The Cupboard is a cavern 
entering a bold and projecting rock whose base is washed by the waters of 
Deer Creek. Within a few yards of this rock is the home of Alexius, the 
noted trapper, hunter and fisherman. When Alexius first saw the light of 
day is not known by the writer of this narrative, nor is it important to 
the interest of the story that it should be known. I am aware that 
ordinarily such ignorance might be interpreted as evidence of want of 
interest in the subject of the story, and perhaps as a lack of 
appreciation of his deeds. Such a judgment would do essential injustice to 
the hero, and such he was in the truest and most significant sense of that 
term. If his deeds do not

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rival those of the celebrated Baron Munchausen in the quality of 
exaggeration, or those of the Arabian Nights in romantic significance, 
they are such as to rank him with the celebrities of the time, and to 
entitle him to a place on the historic page. The place where the infantile 
cries of Alexius were first heard is among the wild, weird scenes of Upper 
Deer Creek, in the vicinity of the Rocks so celebrated in story and in 
song. The great-grandparents of Alexius were from the Island of 
Madagascar, in the Indian Ocean. Their migration to the American Continent 
was a forced one. The negroes of Zululand, South Africa, known as daring 
and aggressive warriors, and unscrupulous as to the means by which they 
secured their ends, under pretense of a friendly visit, entered Madagascar 
with hostile purpose, and attacking their unsuspecting and unprepared 
army, defeated them, taking many prisoners. These they sold to Portuguese 
traders, who, in turn, transferred them to English dealers in men. Among 
these were the ancestors of the subject of my story. They were put on 
board ship, and, after a somewhat tempestuous voyage of ten months, were 
landed at Joppa, then a seaport town in the province of Maryland. Happily 
for them and their descendants, they were purchased upon their arrival in 
America by a humane and benevolent gentleman then residing in the vicinity 
of Scott's old fields, now Bel Air, the county-seat of Harford.

Before proceeding further in the relation of my story, I will state, by 
way of parenthesis, that the people of Madagascar are not negroes. They 
are copper-colored, have straight black hair, and lack

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those prominent facial features which belong to the African race proper. 
They were sometimes enslaved, because it was practicable to do so, and 
profitable because their better looks made their possession more 
desirable. Enslaved, they intermarried with the inferior race, and hence 
but few, if any, remain of unmixed Island blood.

It is due to the character of slaveholders generally of that early period 
in the history of our Continent, to say that they were not deficient in 
those qualities that were needed to the discharge of the duties of their 
relations as masters. Their servants--such they were called--were well 
fed, well clothed, and their tasks, unlike those of Egyptian bondmen, were 
not heavy. To them was imparted a measure of education, and their 
attendance upon religious service was encouraged. In their early years 
they were allowed the utmost latitude of liberty. Basking in the sun, 
rolling in the sand, wading in the water, and an occasional siesta, 
constituted chiefly their summer employment; the winter, in the ashes by 
the blazing hickory fire, the occasional episode, snow-balling or sliding 
on the ice. The only fear of the youthful negro was of his irate mamma, 
whose habit of persistent beatings has often suggested the inquiry, "Is 
the African woman destitute of sympathy?" Many a negro child has been 
shielded from the cruel treatment of its mother by the authority of a 
sympathetic master or mistress. Instincts are hereditary, and though they 
may be modified by time and circumstances, often survive in their original 
character, with more or less distinctness, for many generations. The woman 
in Africa who will barter her child for gain, in America

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may inflict cruel chastisements. Alexius was fortunate in the possession 
of his Madagascan mother, she having all that solicitude for her 
offspring, and exercising that maternal care which insured their comfort; 
and having in his mistress a lady of great benevolence of character and 
kindness of heart, his youthful life was happy.

Alexius developed at a very early age those tastes and qualities which 
have made him so celebrated in the annals of Deer Creek as a most skillful 
and successful trapper, hunter and fisherman. Retiring in his nature, he 
loved the solitudes of the forest, and found in communion with its 
occupants the gratification denied by the common pursuits of life. And it 
was thus in his association with birds and fishes. At that period the 
forests of Deer Creek abounded in game, and its waters in fish. In the 
woods were raccoons, opossums, ground-hogs, wildcats, and smaller game; in 
the streams fall-fish, perch, eels, trout and turtle. The favorite game of 
our hunter was the ground-hog, or wood-chuck, as naturalists call it; and 
many are the wonderful and marvelous stories told of his adventures with 
this animal. Like a skillful hunter as he was, his first effort was to 
secure their confidence. He frequented their burrows and made their 
acquaintance. He had the peculiar faculty of making himself understood by 
them. This animal is not alone in its susceptibility to education. The 
flea has been trained to know the voice of its master, and to be obedient 
to his commands. Unhappily for the confiding chuck, the motive of the 
seemingly friendly hunter was sinister; he smiled only to betray, and the 
confidence of the simple chuck was his destruction.

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'Possum-hunting was an exciting pastime. In the woods of Rock Ridge and 
contiguous hills he passed much time in this, to him, pleasing pursuit. 
His habit was to leave his retreat about nightfall, taking with him his 
two trusty dogs, Bell and Traveler. Once on a trail, they followed it 
unerringly to the hiding-places of the game, which were usually in the 
thick boughs of some lofty tree, or in the rocky caves with which the 
ridges abound. The coon treed, the hunter ascended the tree with almost 
the agility of the squirrel, and, ascertaining the position of the game, 
proceeded to dislodge it. This he did either by a violent shaking of the 
limb, or by pushing the animal from his perch with a long and heavy pole. 
The coon on the ground was immediately secured by the dogs. More than once 
the hunter narrowly escaped the loss of his life in these perilous 
adventures, and he bears to this day on his hand the mark of the bite of 
an enraged coon struggling for his liberty. Want of space forbids the 
enumeration of the many thrilling adventures connected with his pursuit of 
game in the forests. In the water he was equally successful. Eels of 
enormous length and size were trophies of the fisherman's skill, as also 
turtles of great bulk and wonderful strength. Notwithstanding the 
asseveration of the fisherman, whose veracity it is not our province to 
question, it is hard to believe that "Big Turtle" supported the weight of 
a man of one hundred and sixty pounds, and carried him on his back the 
distance of a half-mile. The theory of Darwin--the survival of the 
fittest--would lead us to look for animals of larger size at the present 
than in the past, and there

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is the remotest possibility that this trophy of our fisherman's skill was 
one--the last survivor possibly--of a family that had, by a fortuitous and 
fortunate concurrence of circumstances, been preserved from the power of 
all trappers, hunters and fishermen, from Nimrod down to the last of his 
class on Deer Creek.

Our hunter was characterized by an even courage that made him equal to 
emergencies generally. He was never known to exhibit fear in contest with 
bird or beast or fish. It was different as to a gigantic snake, a habitue 
of the bill opposite the old mill above the Cupboard. This snake "was 
twenty feet long and thick as a man's body." It is conjectured that it was 
of foreign origin, or was of the Hall's-spring species that in very late 
times so excited the people of that section of Baltimore county, Md. But 
whatever may be the opinion of the present generation as to these accounts 
of the size of the fauna of the past, it is true that our hero was 
remarkably successful in his favorite vocations. And now, in his old age, 
he is envied by the younger generation of hunters, trappers and fishermen. 
He may be seen occasionally bearing homeward, as a trophy of his skill, a 
fat "chuck," and often in the early spring or summer morning drawing from 
the waters of Deer Creek the largest fall-fish or the longest eel. The 
"coon" and the "'possum" are now secure in their retreats, for age has 
incapacitated him for those exertions necessary to their successful 
pursuit.

A new day has dawned. An intensive civilization, eager for great 
achievements, has decreed that the hills and dales of Upper Deer Creek 
shall no longer rest in their comparative solitudes. The

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tramroad and the steam engine, with their enormous capacity of 
transportation, are about to substitute the common modes of travel and 
trade. The change will bring an increased population, and insure the 
erection of factories and mills. The theatres of the solitary wanderings 
and walkings and skillful achievements of our hunter, trapper and 
fisherman will re-echo with the whirr of the wheel and the sound of the 
hammer. A new generation, with its real and artificial wants, will take 
the place of the old, content in its enjoyment of the common modes of life.

The Indian Cupboard, no longer tenantable, has been abandoned. A common 
country road has marred its beauties, and soon the mighty and mysterious 
dynamite will reduce its proportions still more. Reluctant to leave a spot 
endeared to him by so many recollections of the past, the subject of our 
narrative is building of stone and wood, under the shadow of the Copper 
Rock, a habitation conformable to the style of modern times, where, as a 
partial compensation for the great loss he has sustained, the exclusion of 
the employments and pleasures of the past, he will view the mysterious 
stranger as it passes by, laden with the productions of the earth and the 
fruits of human skill.

The story I have told is not of one reared in affluence, a child of 
fortune, but of a poor man, who has illustrated the dignity of manhood in 
the faithful discharge of the duties of life as he understood them. And 
there are those who have owed to him the preservation of their lives from 
a watery grave in the sometimes excessively swollen and turbulent waters 
of Deer Creek; and many more for assistances

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and courtesies that ought not to be forgotten. To that class of the 
community who worship only the great we have no apology to offer for this 
remembrance of the humble. We find in such recollection an illustration of 
the well-known adage, "Act well your part; there all the honor lies."



THE MINE OLD FIELDS; OR, THE GATHERING OF THE WITCHES.

Two miles east northeast of the Rocks are the Mine Old Fields. This 
locality, though the Arabia Petrea of this section of Harford County, is 
not without a certain degree of interest, and may be catalogued with the 
many curious and attractive natural objects of the neighborhood of the 
Rocks. It is an elevated plateau of considerable area, abounding in iron 
ore, chrome and other minerals. Much of the rock is soapstone of a 
superior quality. From this stone the Susquehannocks and other Indians of 
the vicinity made their culinary vessels. Occasionally there is found a 
pot or other relic which is treasured as a souvenir of the distant past. 
These Fields, as they are called, have never produced wheat, or corn, or 
other cereals, but did for a time yield an abundant harvest of iron ore, 
which, being smelted, was manufactured into various articles that the 
necessities of civilized life demand, and they

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will, doubtless, upon the completion of the Railroad, yield again their 
valuable treasures.

A tradition exists that on this territory was found, many years ago, a 
rich mine of lead; that it was known to the first Mr. Rigdon, settled near 
by on land now in the occupancy of some of his decendants. He was, in his 
day, a great hunter, and obtained there, it is said, all the lead he used. 
There is a similar tradition that in the immediate vicinity of the Rocks 
there is a gold mine, known to the Susquehannocks, the original 
inhabitants, the knowledge of which was communicated by them to some white 
man who visited the locality at an early day. The contractor who made his 
way by powder, and crowbar and pick through the formidable rock, in the 
bill immediately beyond the creek, above the mill, found in the rock a 
substance bearing so strong a resemblance to gold that he conveyed a large 
specimen to the shanty. There it was for a time to be examined by the 
curious. But like the discoverers of gold at the settlement of Jamestown, 
Virginia, expectants were doomed to disappointment. The Mine Old Fields do 
have iron and chrome, and perhaps lead.

Like other portions of this far-famed section of Harford, the Mine Old 
Fields have a mythical history. The story of the gathering there by 
moonlight of the witches to practice their mysterious rites, has come down 
to us of the present generation. We shall relate it substantially as it 
was told to an aged citizen by that venerable hermit, whose romantic and 
touching history is written in this book. That the story may be properly 
appreciated, it will be necessary to preface it by some preliminary 
statements.

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Many persons believe not only in the power of the devil to assume a 
corporeal form, but also in his capacity of acting injuriously upon 
mankind through the instrumentality of others. Baxter, the author of the 
"Saint's Rest," shared this opinion with many of the wisest and best of 
England in an age of culture and refinement. The same credulous tone of 
mind existed in New England in its early history. It is true that at that 
period belief in witchcraft and other diabolical agencies were popular 
delusions which were rapidly disappearing from the world, but such men as 
Cotton Mather and the intelligent inhabitants of Salem were always ready 
to sustain their belief in such superstitions both from holy writ and 
philosophy. It was an excess of the imagination, affecting not only the 
stupid and the dull, but also the highest wrought minds. The early 
residents of our vicinage were a simple and enthusiastic people, primitive 
in their manners, and were doubtless affected by the sentiments of their 
more pretentious fellow citizens northeast of them. The Puritan, then as 
now, despite the prejudice and repugnancy felt toward him, singularly 
impressed his views and opinions upon others. In the existence of witches 
and other malevolent beings and their power of harm, many of our ancestors 
had the most implicit faith. They saw spirits and witches; to them devils 
appeared; strange sights were seen, strange sounds were heard. The Jack o' 
the Lantern was recognized as a personality whose every purpose was evil, 
and whose following certainly brought perplexity, and even peril of life. 
The Fay, though extremely diminutive in size, was greatly feared, not so 
much on account of its physical

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ability to do harm as of a supposed moral power of evil. The potent words 
were spell, charm, witchcraft.

Why witches practice incantation on moonlight nights may possibly be 
explained on philosophical principles. There is no peculiarity, that we 
are aware of, in the visual organs of a witch. The singular construction 
of the eye of an owl or an Albinos adapts their sight to moonlight. The 
retinas of witches are suited to the light of day. 'Tis not that; 'tis 
this, perhaps. The moon is idiosyncratic; psychologically, she is 
peculiar, and by the well-known law of sympathy impresses her own nature 
upon the nature of man. It must be so, or else the word lunacy would not 
have found a place in our lexicography. Other reasons why the witches were 
wont to assemble in the Mine Old Fields on moonlight nights are apparent. 
They had light. Besides, the fears of the people, heightened by moonlight, 
were a defence to them as strong as the walls of a fortified city. The 
witches were there, and there they practiced their dark rites. Around the 
blazing fire and the boiling caldron they, with joined hands, walked 
during the hours of moonlight--"black spirits and white, red spirits and 
gray,"--singing:
"Mingle, mingle, mingle,
You that mingle may,"
and invoking the spirits of power, ceased their orgies only when there 
came to them the gifts of power, in the exercise of which they satanically 
delighted. The demonstration of the fact that they who gathered in the 
Mine Old Fields by moonlight were witches, was that people in the vicinity 
became

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sick in all sorts of ways, Palling into strange fits, crawling under beds 
and into cupboards, barking like dogs, mewing like cats, bleating like 
sheep, and lowing like cattle. The doctors were sent for, and they 
declared that their patients were bewitched. All were superstitious. All 
believed in diabolical agency. Terror and consternation were in every 
heart.

Living at that day on Deer Creek, one mile east of the Mine Old Fields, in 
an humble dwelling, was an aged woman, whose only misfortune--if such it 
were--was that she was poor and infirm. The other occupants of the hut 
were an aged Indian woman, one of the very few who remained after her 
people had migrated westward, and a young man of the class of the 
"innocents," as the Swiss mountaineers benevolently name such unfortunates 
as are not endowed at birth with the sana mens. Albert, as he was always 
tenderly called by his aged mother, willingly labored to provide 
sustenance for the household, and the Indian woman, Maggy, having been 
taught the art of weaving, contributed also by her industry and skill to 
the support of the family. Of the aged matron of the lowly household it 
might have been said, "She that is a widow indeed, and desolate, trusting 
in God, and continueth in supplication night and day;" and of her 
assistant, "She hath done what she could." An Eden it was. But the 
cruelties of suspicion were soon to be felt by the hitherto unsuspecting 
and confiding household. Trouble came from an unexpected source.

Father G., a prominent man of the neighborhood, in conversation had said, 
"There have been wizards and witches in all times," and that pious

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and learned man, Cotton Mather, says, "That if all the spectral 
appearances and molestations of evil angels, and tricks of necromancy, and 
bodily apparitions of Satan and his imps, could be collected and counted, 
that are daily and nightly going on, all righteous and goodly men's hair 
would stand on ends with horror." "In these parts," continued Father G., 
"are infernal doings," and pointing significantly toward the cabin which 
the unsuspecting were abiding in peace, ominously said, "Satan may now 
abide there." That was sufficient to create in all minds a suspicion that 
very soon ripened into a conviction, that the aged and decrepit occupant 
of the cottage, as, perhaps, also her faithful assistant, dealt with 
familiar spirits, and that much, if not all, the strange evils which 
afflicted the community were to be attributed to their machinations.

On the morning of the following day the former habitation of the widow was 
but a pile of smoking ashes. The people said, "The wretches who made a 
compact with Satan, and inflicted the evils we suffer, have perished. Give 
God the glory."

From the Mine Old Fields the witches have departed. Their unhallowed rites 
have ceased; the innocent are at rest. And Father G. has, we hope, 
expiated his great wrong in the light of a knowledge free from cruel 
suspicion.



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THE FALLING BRANCH; OR, THE CAPTURED BRIDE.

Emptying into Deer Creek, three miles above the Rocks, is Falling Branch. 
It is so called from the fact that a mile or more above its mouth its 
waters fall from a rock twenty-five or thirty feet in height, forming a 
miniature Niagara, which, with the picturesque and romantic surroundings, 
constitute a most pleasing attraction. To some this curiosity is more 
attractive than the Rocks, nature not displaying herself in such bold and 
massive forms, but exceeding in picturesque beauty. It is a wild scene, 
primitive almost as when the wild man speared the speckled trout that 
abounded in its waters, or shot the swift deer that frequented the 
adjacent forests. Here the attention of the visitor is also curiously 
drawn to a series of stone steps that lead from the base of the rock over 
which the waters fall to its summit. These steps were seemingly cut by the 
hand of man. If so, by whom and by what instruments? The Susquehannocks, 
who dwelt by the locality when discovered by the white man, were men of 
large size and of much strength, but could physical strength so handle the 
stone axe or hatchet as to make the achievement possible? If human 
ingenuity and labor constructed the steps, it may have been done by that 
previous race whose instruments of labor were of copper or iron, or by the 
present race, to whom invention has supplied such instruments in their 
more perfect forms.

Within fifteen or twenty yards of the falls and

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directly opposite them are the remains of a mill and a dwelling-house, the 
former abode of the miller. Why the immediate contiguity of those 
buildings to the falls? Was the builder and occupier a man of romantic 
turn of mind? Appreciating the scene, and charmed by the music of the 
falling waters, were these the motives that prompted him to fix his 
residence in this wild spot? It would be pleasant to think so, but sadly 
for our imaginings, the suspicion of utility and economy is suggested. His 
nearness to the falls obviated the necessity of building a dam of 
perishable material, or the digging of a race, or the construction of a 
trunk more than a few feet in length. Wise, worldly wise, was Isaac Jones 
in his day and generation. But for aught we know, in the heart of that 
plain man who patiently watched the hopper in the years long gone, when 
northern Harford was a comparative wilderness, and the progenitors of the 
pretentious race of the present were a plain folk without ambition to be 
great, there may have been the highest and the subtliest appreciation of 
nature in her sublime and beautiful moods, and a susceptibility to art 
that brought to him the knowledge of that mysterious law--a law operative 
in the realms of spirit and matter equally--which harmonizes the creations 
of the made with the works of the Maker. The artist-born builds not a high 
house in a diminutive and contracted valley, nor a low one on a high bill 
overlooking an extended plain. These are but few of the many fitnesses of 
things perceived by the man whom God has created great in his appreciation 
of the harmonies of nature. Almost a demonstration of the possession of 
this quality is the row of Lombardy poplars, now in

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decay, that were planted in front of the dwelling, which, with the native 
forest trees and rocks and cataract and rapid river, constituted a scene 
of surpassing attractiveness.

The Falling Branch owes its chief attraction to the story of the Captured 
Bride, which, though confessedly legendary and mythical, is not without a 
certain degree of interest, especially to persons of much romantic 
susceptibility. Arlotto was the only daughter of a gentleman of fortune, 
whose home was in the vicinity of Hull, England. The attractions of her 
person and the fascination of her manners, added to a superior mental and 
moral culture, brought to her presence many admirers. Among them was an 
officer of the English Army. Young, handsome, accomplished, brave, the 
scion of a noble family, in all respects worthy of her whose qualities of 
mind and heart had so strongly attracted him, his suit was encouraged, and 
after a proper interval of time, they were wedded. The church, or rather 
cathedral, in which the nuptials were celebrated, was

"A dim and mighty Minster of old time!
A temple shadowy with remembrance
Of the majestic past."

Everything about it told of a race

"-- that nobly, fearlessly,
In their heart's worship poured forth a wealth of love."

There, under its fretted roof, and in the midst of its wrought coronals of 
ivy, and vine, and leaves, and sculptured rose--"the tenderest image of 
mortality"--the light which streamed through arch and

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aisle in harmony with all; that dim, religious light, which is a reminder 
of the past--of the dim, the shadowy, the heroic past--there, in the 
select assembly of the high-born, they pledged each to other their troth, 
and were by the aged and venerable priest pronounced man and wife. 
Retiring from the church, they were followed by the aged minister and his 
assistants, singing a recessional hymn, accompanied by the organ, the 
flood of its harmony bearing up on its high waves their voices attuned to 
the praise of God. Such was the marriage scene.

The past is always suggestive of the future. The memories of the past, 
like dim processions of a dream, are associated with visions of the 
future, though indistinct as dreams that "sink in twilight depths away." 
Arlotto passed from the altar happy, indeed, in the sense of the love of 
her now adored husband, but not without thoughts tinged with sadness. 
Apprehension of coming sorrows was the shadow that fell upon her pathway 
so soon. "Coming events"--sorrowful and pleasant alike--"cast their 
shadows before." A few days after the marriage the young officer was 
ordered to rejoin his regiment, then at Portsmouth, about to embark for 
America. This summons was the interpretation, in part, of the mysterious 
revelations that mingled with her present joys fears of future evils.

"Even so the dark and bright will kiss;
The sunniest things throw brightest shade,
And there is even a happiness
That makes the heart afraid."

The New World was at this period a theatre for

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the struggles of giants. France and England were contending for the 
mastery, and the stake was a continent, with all its possibilities of 
wealth and power. So desperate was the conflict, and of such magnitude was 
the issue, that each party was obliged to avail itself of all its 
resources. To the place of battle, so full of peril to the participants, 
the youthful officer would have gone alone. He was unwilling that his 
bride should be subjected to the privations incident to warfare, and to 
the perils always attending it, greater in this case because of the 
character of the foe. The savages were generally the allies of the French. 
Yielding to her entreaties, he consented that she should accompany him.

Arriving in America, the regiment to which the officer belonged was 
detached to form a part of the army then being raised by the governors of 
Massachusetts and Connecticut, and designed to operate against the French 
and Indians, who in large three were threatening the borders of their 
respective provinces. In a battle fought soon after his entrance upon the 
campaign, the young officer was wounded, and left upon the field as dead. 
Arlotto, immediately upon the cessation of the conflict, made her way to 
the ensanguined field, and after a patient and anxious search found her 
yet living husband. The dying sufficiently recovered to recognize her 
whose presence was the only earthly solace left to him. A few words, with 
difficulty uttered, were expressive of the tenderness and strength of his 
affection. Arlotto hoped. How delusive that hope!

"A moment more and she
Knew the fullness of her woe at last!

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One shriek the forests heard--and mute she lay
And cold; yet clasping still the precious clay
To her scarce heaving breast."

Awaking from what was less than death and more than sleep, Arlotto became 
conscious of the presence of a dusky form bending with seeming sympathy 
over her prostrate body. It was an aged Indian warrior, who, taking her 
tenderly by the hand, bade her arise, and by further signs indicated his 
desire that she should follow him. Toward the setting sun they journeyed 
slowly for some days; then south-eastward until they reached the immediate 
vicinity of the Falling Branch. There was the home of her captor, a lone 
cabin in the woods, within hearing of the plunging waters of the cataract. 
The Indian woman in whose care she was placed, seemingly won by "a form so 
desolately fair," or touched by the remembrance of some deep sorrow, 
manifested an unwonted interest in the captive, and cared for her with all 
the tenderness and solicitude of a mother. The aged warrior and his wife 
had seen a daughter go to the land of spirits,

"And ever from that time her fading mien
And voice, like winds of summer, soft and low,
Had haunted their dim years."

And fancying that they saw in their captive a resemblance to their only 
child, whose early death had thrown upon their pathway heavy shadows, 
their hearts, "with all their wealth of love," were touched by the sorrows 
of her to whom was left only the memories of the past. In the forest was 
no temple erected by human hands dedicated to the Sufferer of Calvary. It 
was a void waste, in which

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the sound of the church-going bell was not heard; nor priest nor altar was 
there. Yet in the silent majesty of the deep woods, and in the presence of 
the silver brook which pours from its full laver the white cascade, was 
more than the spirit of poetry which dwells amid such scenes. The spirit 
of the Holy One was there, and valley and brook, and cascade and deep 
woods and everlasting hills, and the green trees, were a grand minster at 
the altars of which the devout could worship and the sorrowing find 
relief. To this temple and to these altars in the green wood, by the side 
of babbling streams, in the sunlight and the stars' bright gleams,the 
sufferer went, and thither she led her captors, and there she taught them 
to listen to the voice of Him whose presence is the glory of all temples 
and of all altars.

The harp-string too strongly tensioned breaks. Worn with grief and 
hopeless of relief, Arlotto wasted, and when autumn's last sigh was heard, 
and the winter's blast, in the first days of spring; when "sound and odors 
with the breezes play whispering of spring-time," bore to her couch life's 
farewell sweetness, then she was passing away to that solemnly beautiful 
sleep, that deep stillness which falls on the silent face of the dead.

Arlotto's life work was ended; its great purposes accomplished. In the 
depths of the forest, within hearing of the murmuring waters of the 
Falling Branch, in God's acre she sleeps, and by her side her foster 
father and mother. In God's acre they rest, and

"Into its furrows shall we all be cast,
In the sure faith that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the archangel's blast
Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.

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"Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume
With that of flowers which never bloomed on earth."



THE EAGLE.

"He clasps the crags with hooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world he stands,
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls."

Some yards above the Saloon at the Rocks and under the hill, there lived 
in a small cabin a man by the name of Cully, the father of Arch Cully, so 
well known in his day by the residents of Rock Ridge and its vicinity. At 
that early period the Rocks and their surroundings were in almost their 
original wildness, unaffected by the arts and appliances of civilized 
life. The axe of the woodman might have been heard now and then, but no 
house other than the cabin had been erected, and no forge or furnace to 
mar the scene.

It was wash-day to the aged matron of the hut, and while engaged in the 
necessary vocation, she heard the cries of the chickens and the excited 
barkings of the dog without. An eagle, whose nest, with young, was on the 
summit of the opposite

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Rock, had swooped down from her eyrie, and seized with its talons one of 
the chickens. The little dog, true to its instincts, hastened to the 
rescue, and chicken, and dog, and eagle were soon engaged in earnest 
contest. The eagle was likely to succeed in her purpose, when the old 
lady, grasping her beetle, ran to the rescue, and striking the eagle a 
deadly blow, carried it in triumph to the cottage.

The eagles, like the original human inhabitants, pressed by the presence 
of civilized man, have sought their eyries on more distant and secluded 
heights. Occasionally one may be seen hovering about the summits of the 
Rocks, as if curious to observe the past homes of its progenitors.



THE WITCH RABBIT.

Among the hills in the vicinity of the Rocks was many years ago a 
remarkable rabbit. Tradit on tells us that it was of the size of a Jack 
Rabbit, that well-known habitant of the West, though not of the same 
species. The hunters of those early times sought by trap and snare to 
secure it, but without success. Many a charge from musket and shot-gun and 
rifle was directed toward it fruitlessly. The opinion of our simple 
fathers was, that the body of that rabbit was the habitation of a witch, 
and in solemn conference they resolved that it could

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be slain by a silver bullet only. The scarcity of the precious metal 
prevented the making of the problematical experiment, and hence the 
possessed animal was left to wander at will. For many years it has not 
been seen. The witch may have taken another habitation, or assumed another 
form. The enlightenment of the community has thrown doubt upon the story, 
once so implicitly believed. People now-a-days suspect much of the past to 
be mythical, as it doubtless is, but subjecting everything to a 
mathematical test, they may forget, as my credulous friend suggests, that 
there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in their 
philosophy. Candor compels us to say that in our philosophy there are no 
witches save those bewitching ones whose manners captivate the susceptible 
youths of the stronger sex.



THE BIG SNAKE.

The existence of a species of snakes of large size in the neighborhood of 
the Rocks has been reported for many years. Mr. William Jeffrey, an aged 
citizen of Bel Air, informed us that the track of a snake "broad as a cart 
wheel" was pointed out to him by his father seventy years ago; that 
thirty, and again fifty, years thereafter, the serpent itself was seen. 
The Ancient Trapper avers that in his

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youth he learned from a reliable source of a snake of extraordinary size, 
whose home was in the hill opposite the Ancient Mill. By the incredulous, 
the story was considered doubtful, or supposed to be an exaggeration, but 
very recently several persons whose truthfulness is not questioned, have 
declared that they saw the monstrous reptile. The visitor to the Rocks 
need have no fear, as the animal is most likely to shun the presence of 
man. And it is probable that the blasting of rocks in the making of the 
Railroad will induce his majesty to seek another domain in which to enjoy 
his hitherto acknowledged supremacy over the beasts that crawl.



WHITSUNTIDE.

For many years the Rocks were a resort at Whitsuntide. The best people of 
the country patronized the festival. It was a favorable time for making 
acquaintance and cementing friendships. And I suppose that then, as now, 
on festal days, Cupid was present, armed cap-a-pie, and that his arrows 
failed not of many a worthy mark. An estimable lady, who died a few years 
ago, living to be nearly one hundred years of age, was wont to speak with 
great interest of her visit to the Rocks of Deer Creek at Whitsuntide, 
when she was a little girl. Her memory of the delicate and refined 
attentions

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of Colonel John Streett, a prominent gentleman of Harford county, in those 
early days, was very distinct, and she failed not to speak of them 
enthusiastically

The Rocks in later years became at this season a scene of dissipation and 
rowdyism, and the patronage of the more respectable classes was 
discontinued. In the procession of years, another change has come. Now, at 
all seasons, the Rocks are a point of attraction to all classes. The pic-
nic, harvest homes, political gatherings, railroad meetings, have 
substituted Whitsuntide; and upon the completion of the Baltimore and 
Delta Railroad, the Rocks must, from the attractions of scenery and the 
salubrity of the air, become the resort of persons from all sections of 
the county and more distant points.



THE PERILOUS FEAT.

To say fool-hardy, would be an appropriate addition to qualify the act. A 
well-known resident of the neighborhood of the Rocks illustrated the truth 
of the old adage, "When wine is in wit is out," by forcing his horse to 
the very verge of the precipice, with seeming intention of throwing 
himself and his noble animal into the fearful abyss below. The sober 
horse, with more discretion than his drunken master, seeing the peril, 
turned at the

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moment of immediate danger, and thus saved himself and rider from certain 
death. This unhappy man afterward, in an attempt to force his horse across 
Deer Creek when swollen, was drowned. The particular point on the Creek 
where he entered the water is said to have been about the head of the dam 
of Preston's Mills. Thus died ignominiously a man who, but for indulgence 
in the use of an unnecessary beverage, might have lived for many years, a 
comfort to his family and an ornament to society. The horse, Bold Hector, 
as he was not inappropriately named, survived his unfortunate master 
several years.



AN ACT OF VANDALISM.

On the summit of the western Rocks was an immense boulder, weighing many 
tons, poised on a fixed rock so slightly and delicately that a strong man 
could move it at will, and yet it was so related to the rock upon which it 
rested, that it required the force of four men, aided by levers, to throw 
it from its position. These persons, without appreciation of nature, and 
of mere wantonness, or conceiving the purpose of giving immortality to 
their names, threw this object of great interest from its position to the 
rocks below, where it now lies without hope of its ever being replaced in 
its original

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location. I have understood that the then proprietor of the Rocks offered 
a reward for the discovery of the perpetrators of the ignoble deed, but 
that it was not effectual in securing that end. This may have been 
fortunate. Otherwise the names of the guilty parties might have been 
coupled in history with the destroyers of Rome and the burners of the 
Alexandrian Library.



CANAL AND RAILROAD.

When the Tide-Water Canal was completed, our citizens agitated the subject 
of slack-water navigation from a point five miles above La Grange to the 
mouth of Deer Creek, the accomplishment of which would have made a direct 
and cheap outlet for our trade to Baltimore and Philadelphia. The idea was 
born of a felt necessity, but could not have been made practical. Such a 
project would not have paid. And it has been well for the health of the 
country bordering Deer Creek that it was impossible of realization. Canals 
and fevers are synonymous terms.

Instead of slack-water, locks and dams, with increased disease, we shall 
have a Railroad, and more direct communication with Baltimore, our chief 
commercial city. Under the direction of a most energetic President and an 
enterprising Board of

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Directors, sustained by citizens along the line, who are awake to its 
advantages, it is being pushed with commendable vigor, and will, we cannot 
doubt, be completed in good time.

To our immediate Rocks of Deer Creek neighborhood the effect of the road 
will be very significant. Our rocks and minerals will be marketable, and 
the attractions of our scenery will draw many curious visitors. And it is 
to be hoped that the possessors of the soil will awake from their more 
than Rip Van Winkle sleep. It is strange that they have slept so long, 
seeing that around them there are so many examples worthy of imitation. 
The enterprise, thrift and judgment of the many successful farmers above, 
and the no less competent tillers of the soil below, should stimulate us 
to an exertion that may make this comparative wilderness blossom as the 
rose. The Railroad, completed, will ensure the development of all our 
interests. Our fields will yield abundant harvests, the waters of Deer 
Creek will be utilized in the operation of mills, and factories, and 
furnaces. Our lofty summits will be crowned with the residences of their 
proprietors, or occupied as the retreats of the wealthy inhabitants of the 
city.



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THE ORIGINAL MOONSHINER.

Southeast of the Rocks three-fourths of a mile, through a ravine hidden by 
wooded hills, runs a small stream, having its sources in several springs a 
short distance above, which gives evidence of occupation and use. Remains 
of a dam still exist, as also traces of a ditch, leading to what has the 
appearance of the foundation of a building. For what purpose was the dam 
built, the ditch dug, and the building erected? The oldest inhabitants 
cannot answer these interrogatories, and have no tradition in relation 
thereto. We are therefore left to conjecture the purpose for which they 
were made. It may have been the location of the distillery of some 
moonshiner--one of the progenitors of the gentlemen of West Virginia, 
Tennessee, North Carolina, and elsewhere, who are engaged in illicit 
distillation, to the great detriment of the revenues of the United States 
of America. If so, he could not have selected a place more favorable to 
his vocation.

Since writing the above I have had conversations with James Wann, Esq., 
and with David Tucker, St., an aged citizen, from whom I have learned some 
facts that may throw doubt on the moonshine theory. They informed me that 
in the earlier days of Harford the tub-mill was in use, requiring but 
little water; that the turning of chair-stuff by water, of which little 
volume was required, was common; as also the distillation of brandies from 
fruits, requiring comparatively little water. The waters of my brook may 
have been used for one of these purposes. A remark made by our venerable 
citizen,

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Mr. Tucker, throws doubt upon all these speculations. He said that it is 
not rare to find in the forests of this portion of Harford traces of 
ditches, sometimes of considerable length, leading to lowlands, and 
suggested that they might have been used for purposes of irrigation. If 
so, by whom? Not one of the oldest inhabitants has any knowledge of such 
use, and none know by whom they were excavated; nor is there tradition 
bearing upon the subject. Can it be that the people who preceded the 
Indians in the occupancy of this country, and who have left traces of a 
superior civilization--the mound-builders or some other race--were the 
diggers of these ditches, and used them, as suggested, for irrigating 
uses? Or might they not have been rude aqueducts conveying water to their 
villages or fortified camps, or, at a later period, to the palisaded 
villages of the Susquehannocks, against whom the Six Nations waged war for 
many years? It is known that the Tohocks, a tribe once residing at the 
head of the Chesapeake, did thus fortify themselves against the fierce 
Mingoes. How soon the past becomes mythical and legendary, and how greatly 
it is to be regretted that there has not been left more than mere 
conjecture of so much which, if known, would greatly interest us of the 
present!

"Thus are the tracks of nations blotted out,
Faint impress leaving, like the passing bird,
Save when the mould, erst trod by them, is stirred
By other races--giving to the light
Some yellow, crumbling bone, or instrument of fight."



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THE MONUMENTS OF THE GIANTS.

When the French first settled Canada, they heard marvelous stories of a 
race of giants who were said to inhabit the country at the mouth of the 
Susquehanna and westward of that river. How much foundation of fact there 
was for these reports we do not know, but in after years the 
Susquehannocks were known as men of large size and of great strength. Six 
feet or more in height, and of corresponding weight, was the 
representation given of them by the first white explorers of their 
country. The knowledge of the Indians who first communicated to the French 
the stories of the size and strength of the Susquehannocks might have been 
traditionary and descriptive of a race who had been gigantic in stature 
and of herculean strength, but who, from some unexplained and 
unexplainable causes, had in the progress of time degenerated to the 
proportions of ordinary mortals. Students of ethnology know that such 
degenerations have occurred. There are some slightly presumptive proofs 
that the traditionary stories of the physical proportions of the original 
dwellers by the Rocks of Deer Creek are not without some slight basis of 
truth. The King and Queen Seats are the sitting places of giants, and 
they, presumptively, were occupied at a time past indefinitely distant by 
the rulers of the country. Indian Jupiters and Junos, honored not less, 
perhaps, than the gods and goddesses of Roman and Grecian mythology, may 
have received there the homage of their subjects. The gods have come down 
to us, said the superstitious

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Ephesians, when Paul and Barnabas wrought miracles in their city. The gods 
are with us, would have been the natural exclamation of the superstitious 
Indians assembled in council on the summits of the Rocks in the presence 
of their rulers. We may not in this argument overlook the attractions but 
little noticed by intelligent seekers of curious objects which we have 
appropriately named, as we think, the Monuments of the Giants. On the 
summit of Rock Ridge, northeast of the Rocks, are several huge pillars of 
stone many feet in height. The curious observer that looks at them from 
the valley below in the dawn of the morning or twilight of the evening can 
scarce resist the conviction that they may have been erected by a race of 
giants in honor of their monarchs and to perpetuate their glory; and that 
here may have been deposited their remains, a use to which some, if not 
all, of the great mounds in the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi were 
appropriated. The geologist who shall visit these attractions may smile at 
that simplicity which attributes to the might of man that which may be 
only a proof and illustration of the power of nature, which, in the 
indefinite past, threw upon the summit of Rock Ridge these collossal 
piles. But whatever was the agency by which the result was effected, there 
they are--those monuments
"That look like frowning Titans in the dim
And doubtful light,"
to be numbered with the many curious and attractive natural objects seen 
in the vicinity of the Rocks of Deer Creek.

The view from the Monuments is commanding

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and extensive. In the distance northward is seen the Susquehanna River, 
and beyond it the hills of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; southward, the 
Chesapeake Bay and the Eastern Shore of Maryland --the bay dotted here and 
there with white sails, moving gracefully, like swans, upon the bosom of 
the scarcely ruffled waters. On every side are reaches of fields and 
forests, in the midst of which are towns and villages, hamlets and farm-
houses, constituting rare pictures of Arcadian beauty; the interest 
heightened by the lowing of the herds which feed upon the contiguous 
meadows, and by the sounds of distant church bells, reminding the devout 
of the hour of prayer, or summoning them to the worship of the sanctuary 
on the early Sabbath morning. The observer of these entrancing views is, 
however, conscious of that illusion which is always associated with such 
scenes; "every valley is an Eden, and every heart therein is at peace." 
The repose is the possession of unthinking nature; the hearts of the 
reasoning inhabitants are the abodes of strife, for in them is found envy, 
and pride, and ambition, and hate,

"Every prospect pleases,
And only man is vile."