Barbara Fritchie's home

Maryland Historical Society

Barbara Fritchie is the subject of a poem written by Massachusetts poet John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892) early in the Civil War. Whittier presented Fritchie, who died nearly a year before the poem was published in 1863, as a Union heroine for supposedly defying Confederate General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson during his brief occupation of Frederick. In Whittier's verse she declared, "Shoot, if you must, this old gray head, / But spare your country's flag." Much debate has centered on whether the incident ever occurred and, if it did, whether Fritchie was the woman whose patriotic fervor impressed Jackson.

As with many nineteenth-century women, there is little surviving documentation on Fritchie. She was born Barbara Hauer, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, daughter of German immigrants, Nicklaus and Catherine Hauer. Like thousands of Pennsylvania Germans, the Hauers settled in Frederick. Nicklaus was a hatter. In 1806, Barbara married John Casper Fritchie, a glove maker and a man fourteen years her junior. It is likely that he was raised by members of Barbara's extended family following his father's execution for treason in 1781. John died in 1849. The Fritchies had no children.

For reasons not easily explained, a variety of patriotic stories grew around Fritchie, a woman who seems to have been notable only for the fact that she lived well into her mid-nineties. Aside from the legend of her defiance to the Confederates, it was said that as a young woman she met George Washington, who presented her with a china bowl. As with the Jackson story, there is no substantial evidence that this ever occurred and no clear explanation as to why these tales spread except that Fritchie did seem to be a passionate patriot, perhaps in response to her father-in-law's fate. There is documentary evidence that she met Union General Jesse Lee Reno a week after the supposed Jackson incident and gave him a flag. It was used on his coffin following his death at the Battle of South Mountain.

As Fritchie's fame spread, so did that of Frederick. Almost as soon as the poem was published interested people began visiting the city. The also began debating its accuracy. Nonetheless, Fritchie possessions became relics. In 1899, a play, Barbara Fritchie: The Frederick Girl, became popular. Fritchie was portrayed as a young belle by Julia Marlowe (1866-1950), a leading actress of the day.

The community capitalized on the fame. Although her house was torn down in 1868 after a flood, it was rebuilt in 1927 as a museum. In 1913, Fritchie's and her husband's remains were moved to the more presentable city cemetery; in 1914 a monument was erected. Even today, while scholars generally agree that the tale is a myth, the house is considered a Civil War site and tourist destination.

Quynn, Dorothy Mackay and William Rogers Quynn. Barbara Frietschie. Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1942.