biography
| name: |
Frietschie or Fritchie, Barbara
|
| |
née Haver
|
pronunciation:
[fritchee]
| sex:
| female
|
| lived:
| (1766–1862)
|
| biography:
| US heroine, born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA. She married John Casper Frietschie, a glove-maker, in 1806. According to legend, on 6 September 1862, at the age of 95, she boldly displayed the Union flag as Confederate soldiers passed by her home in Frederick, MD. In tribute to her bravery, she was not harmed. When an account of the incident reached John Greenleaf Whittier, he immortalized it in his poem with the lines: “‘Shoot, if you must, this old gray head but spare your country's flag’, she said”. A replica of her house was built in 1926. |
|
|
