Monroe’s Birthplace

About two miles from our farmhouse, on the other side of the bay, is President James Monroe’s birthplace. It has a visitor’s center, a replica of his family’s house, a walkway that follows his milestones, and a circular path through the woods about a mile long. Chase and I walk this path every day. I re-center myself every day with this short walk in the woods. It has become a very special place for me from the very beginning of my days in Colonial Beach.

As a volunteer I service the dog stations, as I do at the Robin Grove Park.

President Monroe was born here on April 28th, 1758. Then 500 acre farm was adjacent to a tract of land his great-great grandfather Andrew Monroe acquired in 1650.

A winter visit to the cemetery

There is a small unmarked cemetery at the Monroe Birthplace, deep in the woods. Off the worn paths where tourists and dog walkers traverse.

Unmarked, meaning there are no signs, fences, gates. As I am told, an old African-American cemetery with tombstones going back to the 1800’s.

This is a photo essay I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I decided to wait for a good snowfall. I went out on Friday to plan things out, knowing we had a snow coming that night. On Saturday I went out to capture these photographs.

I didn’t want it to be gloomy, with long dark shadows. So I went at mid-day when the skies had cleared. Being winter, with a lower Sun, there would still be shadows to work with, but not a somber evening thing. I didn’t want that.

This is not a somber moment. This is remembrance, respect and love.

It was a quiet, bright snow covered morning. The graves are not in any organized fashion, just spread in seemingly random locations, which seemed perfectly fitting and natural amongst a thicket of trees.

There’s something tranquil about the quiet sanctity of a small resting place lost in the woods.

_____________________________

The living come with grassy tread

To read the gravestones on the hill;

The graveyard draws the living still,

But never anymore the dead.

The verses in it say and say:

“The ones who living come today

To read the stones and go away

Tomorrow dead will come to stay.”

So sure of death the marbles rhyme,

Yet can’t help marking all the time

How no one dead will seem to come.

What is it men are shrinking from?

It would be easy to be clever

And tell the stones: Men hate to die

And have stopped dying now forever.

I think they would believe the lie.

– Robert Frost

The 20-Star Flag

Early in our country’s history, our flag kept evolving, adding stripes and stars for each new state. It was clear that it could get out of hand, so in 1818 Congress passed a law about how to deal with it. The 13 original colonies would always be represented on the flag, and when a new state was included into the union, a star would be added. At the entrance to the the Monroe Birthplace flies a 20-star flag, as he was President when this occurred and he signed the new law.