Richmond, VA and the Outer Banks
Following a long journey from Texas, Flat Frodo arrived in Richmond, much feeling the need to read more of one Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
Henry “Box” Brown Perhaps the most oft-repeated account during the period before the Civil War was the one about Henry Brown. Brown had his friend Samuel A. Smith, a white shoe dealer from Richmond, Virginia, send him off in a wooden shipping crate. Three feet deep, two feet wide and three feet long, the box became Brown’s home for 26 hours while it was shipped from Richmond to Philadelphia’s Anti-Slavery offices. The rumor that spread through the ranks of abolitionists suggested that, upon the opening of the crate, Brown popped out, wet from the travel, and jubilantly declared “How do you do, gentlemen?” As word of Brown’s creative choice of transportation spread, it quickly inspired other runaways to follow the same idea. Shortly thereafter, an eighteen-year old girl and a pregnant woman arrived as freight from Baltimore at William Still’s house.
Frodo stretches his legs in front of Castle Stormhands.
Frodo seeks to enter and asks “What is the Elvish word for ‘friend’?”
From within the walls he hears, “THEY BE NO ELFISH SPOKEN HERE MASTER BAGGINS!”
Frodo accompanies the Gracious, Humble and Better Looking Dwarf Corin Stormhands to the mines.
Frodo thinks to himself “I doubt the dwarf mines much mithril in this location…” (Frodo is right).
Frodo stands on the steps of Mr. Jefferson’s Capitol.
We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour. ~ Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
From Capitol Square, Frodo journeyed to high atop Richmond’s Church Hill where he stood outside the gates of the famed St. John’s Church. There Mr. Frodo felt a kinship with Patrick Henry. Frodo thought of Mr. Henry’s historic words upon this site and remembered his own words spoken at the Council of Elrond…”I will take the ring to Mordor, though I do not know the way.”
Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death! ~ Patrick Henry. Speech in the Virginia Convention, March, 1775
Frodo enjoyed his sojourn into Richmond. But lo, a darkness fell over the Hobbit Hole. Talk of implosion filled the thread and there were rumours of pirates and interlopers. Much strife was felt between the races of men, hobbits and dwarves (being of course that the elves always cause strife that was seen as nothing new).
Word reached the far western shores that Flat Frodo was in peril.
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