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I went on to tell Rachel that as a child I had lived in Principio Furnace, Maryland, where canonballs were made and used in the American Revolution. It seemed a strange coincidence to learn as an adult about the ancestral connection to the American War. My childhood playground had been the site where round iron projectiles were made for the troops fighting the British. Could one of my ancestors have manned a cannon? I don't know, but I like the idea.

On that same site in rural Maryland was an old multilevel barn—one I am convinced played a role in the underground railroad. As a child, I told Rachel, I, my brother and cousins, and a friend who lived in the big white house [photo of Principio Furnace Mansion from pbase.com] atop the hill that dominated the area, discovered a hidden passage between the exterior and interior of the barn from it's lower level that was accessible to an area that once was the stable, to an upper level where hay (at least in my youth) was stacked from the main level floor to the rafters. There also was a corn silo adjacent to the barn.

It wasn't until adulthood that I realized that panel at the back lower level of the barn that gave way one day when we were playing was a passageway to freedom. In my memory, it was a long, narrow passageway, wide enough to accommodate at least two children walking abreast. We were, after all, very young—ages 7 to 10—and had slim frames.

(sidebar In the mid-2000s I revisited Principio. The barn, stable area, and silo no longer stand. A small post office on the grounds also is gone. Only the Principio Furnace Office still exists. The old three-story house with shuttered windows we had lived in stood to the left of that structure. It, too, was gone.)

Interestingly enough, I had not been the first person that particular day in April to make a reference to Alfred

Isiah Blue. As it turned out, a tall, large-framed man in his late thirties had entered the medical office before me, and also mentioned the name of Alfred Isiah Blue to Rachel. Oddly enough, he and Dr. Blue shared the same last name.

As my conversation with Rachel unfolded, the second and younger Mr. Blue indicated that like Rachel, his family history included a death-bed revelation that a certain grandfather earned the distinction not by blood, but by marriage. Although the man said his family had loved the man they called grandfather, there still was some regret that it now was nearly impossible to identify at least one branch of the paternal birth line.

This sentiment was echoed by Rachel. How beneficial it would be I didn't know, but I shared information that the National Archives in the region was open the first Saturday of each month and perhaps some additional research could fill in gaps. My intention to avail myself of those resources has not been fulfilled, but a visit to that government facility remains on my to-do list.

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