Away back in the years, Terra Rubra, the colonial home of John Ross
Key, spread out broad acres under the sky of Maryland, in the northern
part of Frederick County. Girt by noble trees, the old mansion, built
of brick that came from England in the days when the New World yet
remained in ignorance of the wealth of her natural and industrial
resources, stood in the middle of the spacious lawn which afforded a
beautiful playground for little Francis Scott Key and his young
sister, who lived here the ideal home life of love and happiness.
Among the flowers of the terraced garden they learned the first
lessons of beauty and sweetness and the triumph of growth and
blossoming. At a short distance was a dense line of forest, luring the
young feet into tangled wildernesses of greenery and the colorful
beauty of wild flowers in summer, and lifting great gray arms in
solemn majesty against the dun skies of winter. Through it flowed the
rippling silver of Pipe Creek on its sparkling way to the sea. At the
foot of a grassy slope a spring offered draughts of the clear pure
water which is said to be the only drink for one who would write epics
or live an epic. Beyond a wide expanse of wind-blown grass the young
eyes saw the variant gray and purple tints of the Catoctin Mountains,
showing mystic changes in the floodtide of day or losing themselves in
the crimson and gold sea of sunset.

In this stately, old, many-verandaed home, looking across nearly three
thousand acres of fertile land as if with a proud sense of lordship,
the wide-browed, poet-faced boy with the beautiful dreamy eyes and the
line of genius between his delicately arched brows passed the golden
years of his childhood.

It is said that President Washington once went to Terra Rubra to visit
his old friend. General John Ross Key, of Revolutionary fame. It may