Miss Paula Strain has been an active member of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club since 1956. Her many years spent hiking and maintaining the trails of Maryland inspired her to delve more deeply into the lives, history and customs of earlier times there. Upon retirement from the MITRE Corporation, she has devoted her attention to extensive research of the local history of mountain Maryland. Tales of Mountain Maryland is a delightful collection of history, legend and folk tales from mountain Maryland. It includes Indian stories, political stories, a witch's remedy, stories of ghosts and the devil, and treason and murder.
The book opens with the first complete account of Justice William O. Douglas' historic hike on the C&O Canal towpath in 1954. At a time when there was much pressure to turn the towpath into an auto road, this hike is largely responsible for preserving the canal and towpath as they are today. "I get so tired of hearing about how wonderful tidewater Maryland was, yet mountain Maryland was just as interesting. But it's very little known," says author Strain. This book, and her previous book, Blue Hills a Maryland, bring to light much of this fading history of mountain Maryland.
