Page:Historic towns of the southern states (1900).djvu/124

 the village and the county formed a year or so later. There was, it is true, a very dissolute Frederick Calvert who died—the last Lord Baltimore—in 1771; but there was also a Frederick, Prince of Wales, father to King George III.; and it was no doubt in his honor that the name was given by Charles Calvert, then bowing and smiling at the English court.

In 1766, the frontier troubles known as the French and Indian War had assumed such proportions that General Braddock came over to see what could be done about it. A young surveyor from Virginia, tall and brave, with splendid physique and a judgment which impressed all who came in contact with him, was invited to act as aide-de-camp for the British commander. The meeting between Braddock and George Washington took place in Frederick, in April of the ill-fated year 1755, as all men may read, not only in the pages of more serious historians, but also in a chronicle steeped with the very spirit of the eighteenth century, wherein William Makepeace Thackeray has recounted the adventures of The Virginians. Another visitor at the same time was Benjamin Franklin, Postmaster-General of the Colonies, who came to arrange for the delivery