Page 369 [369]
OCR
ERODF BALE SERT E and interesting highway, and many of the roads which lead therefrom extend to the tourist a call so inviting that the summons is irresistible. About ten miles from Fredericksburg, an attractive roadway leads to the right in a southeasterly direction. Great branches of oak, sycamore, maple, and elm trees, garlanded with honeysuckle, interlock familiarly above, and form a graceful canopy over its hard, smooth, serpentine surface, carpeted here and there with pine-cones and needles. This entrance-way to the interior of historic old Caroline County, with its sweeping hills, and restful valleys, is very charming. Caroline County! which gave to our nation’s history such distinguished men as Edmund Pendleton, William Woodford, Richard Brooke, and John Taylor! It also gave the Battailes, Fitzhughs, and Gordons. The latter of Flintshire, Belvedere, Santee and Prospect Hill. It was the home of the Hays, of Haytield; the Corbins, of Moss Neck, and others are closely associated with the best in every phase of the social, political, and religious life in Caroline County. | Many of the homes of these old families, long past the century mark, exhibit a peculiarly picturesque age, with entire freedom from that detracting quality, often the result of years of indifference on the part of unappreciative inmates. Santee, familiarly known as the old Gordon place, but which was originally one of the many Fitzhugh country seats, is among the most interesting estates in this section. Its vine-hung house was. built by Battaile Fitzhugh in 1807, and here, as in days of yore, [230]
