last updated 10/12/2009
Frederick County is the largest county in the state of Maryland and is less than an hour from Washington, DC and Baltimore, and within a short drive of the Civil War battlefields at Gettysburg, Antietam and Harpers Ferry.
Frederick is perhaps best known for an incident during the Civil War which probably never happened. According to a popular poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, Barbara Fritchie, a 95 year-old widow living in Frederick during Stonewall Jackson's 1862 march through Maryland, defied Jackson's troops as they shot at the American flag flying from the upper story of her house:
"Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, But spare your country's flag," she said. A shade of sadness, a blush of shame, Over the face of the leader came; The nobler nature within him stirred To life at that woman's deed and word; "Who touches a hair of yon gray head Dies like a dog! March on!" he said.
Barbara Fritchie's house still stands in Frederick and is one of the many sites seen on walking tours of the town.
Usually overshadowed by Washington, DC to the south and both Philadelphia and New York to the north, Baltimore is nonetheless worthy of its nickname, "Charm City". Home to the Orioles (baseball) and the Ravens (football), Baltimore also is the site of the grave of Edgar Allan Poe, which is visited annually by the "Poe Toaster". For a "Star-Spangled Specialty", the Baltimore site which is most notable is Fort McHenry, birthplace of the National Anthem.
While Washington, DC will never be nicknamed, "Charm City", it is packed with more significant sites than just about anyplace else in the country. Whether you are interested in government (The White House, Congress, The Senate), museums (The Smithsonian), memorials or just a trip to The National Zoo, our nation's capital can provide plenty to do.
If you haven't been to the area since the 2003 Specialty, the National Air and Space Museum annex at Dulles airport in Virginia, which opened in December of that year, is definitely worth a look. All the stuff that wouldn't fit in the main museum on the Mall is on display, including the Space Shuttle Enterprise and The Enola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
Not as historically significant as the other area attractions, but probably of more interest to the kids, Adventure Park USA is located just a few minutes east of our Specialty Hotel.
