Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway

by Effie Price Gladding

While in Charlottesville we drive about the country over the red clay roads which are so beautiful in the midst of the green meadows and orchards. This is the scenery that is so charmingly described by Mary Johnston in "Lewis Rand." Charlottesville is in the midst of a famous apple country, where are grown most delicious wine saps. All along in our Virginia travels we have seen evidences of a bumper crop of apples. Never have I seen so many apple trees bowed to the ground with their rosy crop. Each tree is a bouquet in itself; and a whole orchard of these trees with their drooping sprays of apple-laden branches, many of them propped from the ground, is a charming sight. I wish for the brush of a painter to transfer all this color and form to an immortal canvas.

On a hill near Charlottesville we have a never-to-be-forgotten view. Across a little valley on another hilltop is Thomas Jefferson's "Monticello," or Little Mountain. Just in front lies the town of Charlottesville upon its many knolls. And on beyond, rank on rank, stretch 150 miles of the Blue Mountains. The hill on which we stand has a bald top and just below this is a fringe of beautiful young apple and peach orchards. The trees do well on these hills. Lower down is the Pantopps orchard, which once belonged to the Jefferson estate.

1. Conococheague Creek Bridge, Md. 2. "Edgehill," near Charlottesville, Va. Old Home of Martha Jefferson Randolph. 3. "At the Sign of the Green Teapot," near Yancey Mills, Va.

One day we drive, by virtue of an introduction, to "Edgehill," a fine old estate where lived Martha Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's daughter. We are only a short distance here from "Castle Hill," the old home of the Rives family and the present residence of the Princess Troubetskoy. Another day we drive, by a stiff hill road winding through the estate, to "Monticello." The trees on the lawn of "Monticello" are our special delight, as are the views from the hilltop plateau on which the house stands. From here Jefferson could see in the distant trees the tops of the buildings of the beloved University which he had founded. No wonder that it is on record that Thomas Jefferson spent 796 days in all at "Monticello" during his two terms as President! In a family cemetery on the hillside, not so very far from the hilltop lawn, rest the mortal remains of Thomas Jefferson. He sleeps with the members of his family about him, and on the plain shaft of Virginia granite are these words, which were written by Jefferson himself and were found among his papers:

"Here was Buried
Thomas Jefferson,
Author of the Declaration of American
Independence,
Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious
Freedom,
And Father of the University of Virginia."

We spend some time at the University of Virginia, wandering about the campus, and admiring the old buildings of classic architecture. Every visitor should stand upon the terrace of the library, which commands a beautiful view of the quadrangle, flanked by long lines of professors' houses with classic white porticoes and enclosed at its further end by a hall of assembly. On the lawn of the quadrangle stands a statue of Homer. The bard is represented as sitting with his lyre in his hands while at his feet is a youth in the position of a rapt listener and learner.

As we wish to see as much of Virginia as possible we drive from Charlottesville to Culpeper, returning from Culpeper to Richmond. In leaving Charlottesville we drive past Keswick, a little settlement around which the country has been taken by many beautiful estates. Our route runs by Gordonsville and Orange through Madison Mills to Culpeper. Not far from Keswick we pass a sign at an attractive farm gate, which reads, "Cloverfields. Meals for tourists. Golf." We are sorry to be unable to test the hospitality of Cloverfields.

Although our road is more or less indifferent, we are passing through beautiful country. Around Keswick the fields are beautifully kept, and the entrances to estates are marked by ivy-covered posts of yellow stone, rough hewn. Some of the houses are red brick with white pillars, others are of stucco. There are plenty of turkeys and chickens, and hounds, as everywhere else in Virginia. We begin to see clumps of pine trees from time to time. The oak trees of the forest are very large, many of them of noble height. The juniper trees are in blossom, their blue-green berries making them look as if they wore an exquisite blue-green veil. In Virginia, one is everywhere impressed by the richness and luxuriance of the foliage. All along the roadside banks are clumps of hazel bushes, heavy with clusters of nuts in their furry green coats. The chestnut trees are full of fruit. About a mile north of Gordonsville we pass a plain shaft of light pinkish-grey granite on the roadside bank at the left. The name Waddel is on the shaft and the following inscription: