The clustered spires of
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.
- From the poem Barbara Frietchie by John Greenleaf Whittier
In approaching Frederick the singular beauty of its clustered spires struck me very much, so that I was not surprised to find Fair View laid down about this point on a railroad map. I wish some wandering photographer would take a picture of the place, a stereoscopic one, if possible, to show how gracefully, how charmingly, its group of steeples nestles among the Maryland hills. The town has a poetical look from a distance, as if seers and dreamers might dwell there.
- From Oliver Wendell Holmes' journal 1862
