Walking Across History

When I was younger I lived in a neighborhood in Southern Maryland called South Hampton. It’s about 15 miles from DC and a walking distance to the Potomac River. At night we could see the lights in Northern Virginia. Since the neighborhood lies so close to these two points, one would expect for the land to hold some type of history.

                My brothers and I use to play in the woods for hours and always find things and think, why is this here. We found multiple paths that had deep groves as if there was a lot of traffic going towards the river and also a lot of old large piles of dirt randomly in the woods near the river. We would find old tools like hammers wheels to wagons and markings on trees.  Then one day we found an old house that was basically flattened and as we walked we found a grave yard that was roped off by a metal chain fence. We typed the names into the computer and found out that the land was once owned by a slave owner and was later used to transport materials from DC and Virginia to each other. The paths we found were logging trails and the reason for all the dirt piles were due to broken down piles of wood..

                Places like this should be sacred to a town and not hidden in the woods.  They are pieces of history that should be saved and cherished. People walk amongst history daily and don’t even realize it. The land we walk on everyday holds so much history and we don’t even know it. These places matter.     254 words