People took their pleasures gladly in those days, and in an old New York _Postboy_ (January 2, 1766), and a yet older Philadelphia _Gazette_ (December 26, 1765), we read of a right jolly mock funeral, in which the Stamp Act was buried with much ceremony, the chief mourner being the unlucky distributor, Zachariah Hood, in effigy, which, during the frolic, was hanged in the Court-House Square, near the stocks and whipping-post. The usual supper and ball of the period ended the day. The skies grew ever darker, and, in the next old paper to which we turn, we read of pledges made to support the blockaded Bostonians, on whose shoulders the burden of a common injustice was laid. Next came the call to arms, and the start, on their long march to Boston, of two companies, in command of Captain Michael Cresap, whose father had blazed his way to the Ohio. One of his lieutenants was John Ross Key, whose son Francis, yet unborn, was to make his name forever famous. On the roll of honor the county gives high place to Sergeant Laurence Everhart, who, in the battle of Cowpens, prisoner though he was, bore himself right haughtily in the presence of Colonel Tarleton. Escaping by good fortune, a better fortune enabled him to deal a blow at a British officer whose sword was lifted against Colonel William Augustine Washington, so saving that brave life. Long years afterward we hear of a meeting between the veterans, when “with tears and kisses” the old bond was strengthened. At home work scarcely less patriotic was doing. Flax, hemp and wool were grown, spun and woven; a gun-lock factory was established, saltpetre was made and in the iron furnaces owned by D’Hughes and by Thomas Johnson and his brothers, cannon and bombs were cast. The Market House became an arsenal. Hessian prisoners, hundreds of them, were confined in a log jail built for them, and in some stone barracks, still partly standing. To reinforce Washington, and to share the perils of Valley Forge, seventeen hundred men left home, and until peace was declared, the people of Frederick bore their share of the danger and the loss with all bravery and cheerfulness. It is like a page from the history of the darkest ages, however, to read this sentence passed upon seven Tories, convicted of treasonable conspiracies: “_You shall be carried to the gaol in Frederick town, and be hanged therein: you shall be cut down to the earth alive, and your entrails shall be taken out and burned while you are yet alive. Your heads shall be cut off; and your body shall be divided into four parts; and your head and quarters shall be placed where His Excellency the Governor shall appoint. So Lord have mercy on your poor souls._” This terrible sentence was in four instances executed! [Illustration: ROSE HILL, THE HOME OF GOVERNOR THOMAS JOHNSON.]