The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • 141

IPastlme THE SUN, Sunday, October 25, 1981 Til Railroad builder for Czar Nicholas I left a legacy for Baltimore walkers In this third of three articles, Alan H. Fisher explores Leakin Park in Baltimore. This walk is excerpted from his book, "Country Walks Near Baltimore," which is to be published in November by the Appalachian Mountain Club. liy Alan II. Fisher The broad lawns, hillside trails, woods and mansion at Crimea, an imposing estate that has been preserved as a city park, offer a pleasant walk of up to 3 miles.

Crimea was the country estate developed with a trainload of rubles by Baltimore's rolling-stock magnate, Thomas DeKay Winans. It is a massive, almost cubic stone mansion that was built shortly before the Civil War overlooking the val ley of Dead Run at the western edge of Baltimore. Named for the Russian Riviera, Crimea was Winans's dacha-his summer home and winter hunting lodge. His in-town residence was Alexandroffsky, formerly located in a private walled park east of present-day Union Square and described in various accounts as "palatial," "magnificent," "exotic" and "fabulous." Two cast-iron lions that used to guard Alexandroffsky were removed when it was razed in 1927 and now stand near the lion cages at the zoo in Druid Hill Park. Crimea fared better than Alexandroffsky and is now a part of Leakin Park, where several miles of bridle paths follow the wooded slopes.

The story of Winans's Russianisms and his Russian millions starts with his father, Ross Winans, a prominent inventor in the early days of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. After traveling abroad for the to study the English railroad system in 1828, Ross Winans worked on the adaptation of English engines and rolling stock to the steep grades and tight curves of the new American railroads. He reduced the friction of railroad wheels by fusing them with the axles so that the entire assembly revolved as a unit, with- the axle turning in grease-packed boxes. This arrangement, with some modifications, is still in use around the world. He put the flange of the wheels on the inside edge and invented the swivel wheel truck and coned wheels with beveled treads to help trains negotiate curves.

He was the first to use horizontal pistons on his Crab locomotives and in time he built increasingly powerful engines, such as the Camel and the Mud Digger, that pulled the over the Allegheny Mountains. In 1835 Ross Winans and a partner assumed management of the MO locomotive and rolling-stock shops at Mount Clare under an arrangement allowing them to sell equipment to other lines provided that the had first call. Then in 1844 Ross Winans left the and set up his own shop where he built the Carroll of Carrollton, a locomotive so fast for its day that its potential speed could never be tested because the railbeds were not sufficiently straight or evenly graded for the engine to be fully opened. All of which brings us to the Russians, who in the late 1830s were embarking on their own railroad program. Czar Nicholas I had ordered the construction of a line between St.

Petersburg and Moscow. Two Russian engineers came to the United States in 1839 to study American railroads and rolling stock, and they eventually recommended to the Russian government that George W. Whistler, a civil engineer trained at West Point (and incidentally father of the artist James A. McNeill Whistler) be hired to superintend construction of the new Russian line. Major Whistler knew Ross Winans; he and Winans had served together on the commission to England, and Whistler had helped survey the route.

Whistler also thought highly of Winans's locomotives and abilities. At Whistler's suggestion Ross Winans was offered a contract in 1842 to set up a shop in Russia to manufacture rolling stock in partnership with the Philadelphia firm of Harrison and Eastwick, which had been recommended by the two Russian engineers. Ross Winans declined on the grounds that he was too old (he was only 37 and lived 35 more years), but he persuaded Route of The walk along hillside trails, broad lawns and woods is about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers). Follow the entrance drive past the tennis courts, a wooden chapel and caretaker's house. Fork left and follow the entrance drive to the Crimea mansion.

About a hundred yards after passing the front of the mansion, turn left off the driveway onto a dirt road and then left again at a intersection. Follow the path downhill, but turn left at the first opportunity along a meadow leading downhill below the mansion. Re-enter the woods and continue downhill to a semicircular parapet about 20 yards in diameter, where Thomas Winans's dummy cannons used to be mounted. Turn left and follow the trail slightly uphill along the slope, past two trails leading back on left, and downhill across a small masonry bridge with How to get You can get to the Crimea by bus or car. BUS: From downtown the MTA's Security SquareWestviewLorraine Park bus (15) passes the Crimea entrance to Leakin Park at the tion of Windsor Mill road and Tucker lane.

You will know that your stop is coming when the bus turns off Forest Park avenue onto Dickey Hill road and then turns uphill onto Tucker lane. From the bus stop, cross Windsor Mill road and enter the park between the vented and built by Charles S. Dickinson of Ohio, the gun was supposed to throw 200 balls per minute from a revolving set of cupped arms, "just like so many hands throwing baseballs," according to William H. Weaver, a journalist and witness when the gun was tested at the Winans factory. In less than a minute the weapon demolished a brick wall buttressed with a pile of timbers three feet thick.

An ardent and outspoken supporter of the Confederacy, Ross Winans attempted to send this gun to the South, but the weapon was intercepted by federal troops, who could not make it work. According to Mr. Weaver, a key piece of the mechanism had been removed before the gun was shipped and was to be sent only if the weapon reached its destination. In any case, Ross Winans was imprisoned briefly at Fort McHenry, and after his release he was jailed again when he tried to send a shipload of arms to the Confederacy. Unlike his father, the younger Winans was content to let the war take its own course.

In 1860 Thomas built the Crimea mansion, which shows a touch of Russia in its ornate carvings at the corners of the cornice and porch posts. The grounds were developed in the English manner with large trees amid extensive lawns enclosed by a curving natural border of forest. A long entrance drive climbed the hill from the Franklintown road at the bottom of the valley, and Baltimore and the Chesapeake Bay were visible before the trees grew. A semicircular masonry parapet halfway down the bluff was once decorated with a battery of dummy cannon, supposedly erected to resemble the Russian batteries at Balaklava, or according to another story, to deter passing Union troops from molesting the estate. A large undershot waterwheel that is still located near the Franklintown road pumped spring water to the house, and a gasworks manufactured gas for the principal residence.

Near the main dwelling is the "honeymoon house," which Winans built for his daughter when she married. The estate also has a caretaker's house, wooden American Gothic chapel, a large stone stable, and a vegetable cellar and ice house set into the slope at the bottom of the valley. Thomas Winans died in 1878. In 1941 part of the Crimea was purchased for a city park from Thomas Winans's heirs, and eight years later the city bought the balance. In both instances the purchase money was provided from the bequest of J.

Wilson Leakin, an attorney who had died in 1922. Leakin had left several downtown properties to the city with the. stipulation that the proceeds from their rental and eventual sale be used for the acquisition and improvement of a new city park. For 15 years different neighborhood groups and municipal agencies wrangled about where the park should be located. Even after the first Crimea tract was purchased, Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro favored selling the property in 1947 because he thought it inaccessible, but he later changed his mind after visiting the park for the first time and instead recommended that it be expanded.

The main house is now used as park headquarters. With thorny plants, your landscaping can be a burglary defense, too the walk iron-hoop railings. Continue along the flank of the valley and then gradually downhill past immense tulip trees. Eventually turn right as a intersection and then right again at the edge of Dead Run. With Dead Run on the left, follow the trail upstream, across some bottomland and past a low stone wall to a large clearing.

Follow the left edge of the lawn past a bridge and gradually uphill as the lawn curves right and narrows. Turn left where the trail that you followed earlier crosses the lawn in a grassy area below the mansion. Follow the dirt road uphill past the road intersecting from the right. Continue straight through the woods past another trail intersection and then downhill to the right. The trail eventually emerges at a broad lawn, with the entrance drive visible in the distance.

to the walk two stone posts surmounted by cast-iron eagles. AUTOMOBILE: The Crimea entrance to Leakin Park is on Windsor Mill road directly opposite the intersection with Tucker lane about a quarter of a mile east of the corner of Windsor Mill road and Forest Park avenue. Enter the park between the stone posts surmounted by cast-iron eagles and park in the lot on the left of the entrance drive. argue with a plant like that. In a way, using barbed plants to defend space is not all that new, says Jack Daft, director of the graduate program in landscape architecture (now in its fourth year) at Morgan State University.

Mr. Daft is also chairman of the Maryland Board of Examiners of Landscape Architects and a fellow in the American Society of Landscape Architects. Prickly plants are commonly employed along roadsides and around public housing, he says. The hardy Rosa rugosa, for example, a tough, thorny shrub, is a popular highway plant. A hedge of it bordering private property by itself, or in conjunction with a fence, is virtually impossible to penetrate.

It is also good as background planting on a large lot and is guaranteed to discourage anyone from hiding in it. Rosa rugosa, however, is a rampant grower and must be controlled. Mr. Daft is currently in charge of redesigning the landscaping at Sherwood Gardens. As arranged at present, the plants provide seclusion for unauthorized activities, such as beer parties.

The greenery diminishes the ability to see in. The problem confronting Mr. Daft was how to retain the style and character of the setting and at the time gain visual control of the site. His solution includes pruning trees by DIA MUNDIAL DE LA SALUD TABAC0 0 SALUD, ELIJA MEXICO AERE0 1.60 ing those anti-smoking stamps, including the one from Mexico City, seemed to accept some responsibility for having spread the use of tobacco. The Mexicans pointed out that their country is a producer, that tobacco is native to the New World, that Columbus found it in wide use here when he came almost 500 years ago.

Sir Walter Raleigh introduced tobacco to the English court and for centuries in Europe tobacco, often in the form of snuff, was used mostly by the wealthy. Not until early in this century did mass production illf liliif fOSAOA have, Shawnee and Teton, developed by Donald Egof of the National Arboretum and which are resistant to fire blight and scab; flowering quince (Chaenomeles speciosa), which is one of my favorites for its peach or white flowers depending on variety; eleagnus; Oregon grape holly or Mahonia aquilfolium or M. bealei; varities of Ilex, such as I. pernyi; and for hedges, Sloe, Blackthorn (Primus spinosa), which combines small white flowers and shiny black fruits with dense spiny growth. Two books Mr.

Daft recommends, both by Oscar Newman, are: "Defensible Space," MacMillan, 1972; and "Architectural Design for Crime Prevention," published in 1973 by the U.S. Department of Justice and Law Enforcement Assistance Administration and available from the U.S. Government Printing Office. It is booklet number 0-473-142. The old barberry mentioned earlier (Berberis thumbergii or Japanese barberry), Mr.

Daft says, is undeserving of scorn. It is still inexpensive and provides red berries and good color especially at this time of year. One of the most common plants grown in America today, this vigorous grower is nevertheless worth considering as a clipped or undipped barrier hedge. At the corner of the house or in a niche to prevent an uninvited guest from keeping out of sight, plant an inhospitable Devil's Walking Stick (Aralia spinosa). Its trunk is peppered with pins and needles, hardly the course for climbing into a second-story window.

Or try trifoliate orange pruned as a topiary, or pyracantha espa-liered against the wall. Though showy in form, neither plant is to be trifled with. There are improved varieties, such as Mo Whistler and the Russians to accept his two sons, Thomas and William, both of whom had worked under Ross in positions of responsibility, although still in their early 20s. In 1844, Harrison and Eastwick closed their Philadelphia locomotive shop and shipped their equipment to Alexandroffsky near St. Petersburg, where they were joined by the Winans brothers.

A new shop was established and the partners embarked on an immensely lucrative contract to supply 200 locomotives and 7,000 cars for the new Russian railroad, dubbed "the harnessed samovar" by the local populace. In 1850 the contract was expanded to include more equipment and ongoing maintenance. William Winans also designed and built iron bridges for the railroad, which was being laid out by Major Whistler. The Americans are said to have entertained lavishly, and judging from the estates that the Winanses later built here and in England, they became accustomed to life in the grand style. Thomas Winans returned home in 1854, three years after completion of the railroad.

He brought with him a Russian wife of Italian and French ancestry. William Winans stayed in Europe and never returned to the United States. Nor did Major Whistler, who had encountered constant difficulties and delays in the construction of the railbed. Weakened by cholera, he died in 1849 before the line was completed. One of Ross Winans's ventures at the outset of the Civil War was the repair of a steam-powered, self-propelled armored cannon in short, a primitive tank.

In ing a canopy and at the same time exposing the area underneath, and low shrub materials and groundcovers that permit unobstructed vision overhead. Varying levels would create an artistic effect. Such a combination of materials produces a more interesting design, better maintenance and greater security. Survey your property, therefore, to determine where its vulnerabilities lie. In some respects, Mr.

Daft says, you'll be faced with a trade-off. Greater security Gardens requires better visibility at the expense of privacy. Remove large pockets of plant materials that enclose space or rooms. A maze of boxwood, for example, would permit an army to hide inside. You needn't, however, throw these plants away.

Rearrange them by perhaps splitting them into two groups or positioning them in a line. Protect basement windows with translucent covers and fasten them down. Plant around them with, say, dwarf Chinese holly. It's eye-appealing, but the spines at the corners and tips of the glossy green leaves command respect. Low-growing, dense and evergreen, it takes full sun or light shade and rarely needs pruning.

More Nuclear Weapons," admittedly goals which cannot be realized in a short period of time. 1 Some of the U.N.'s gentle persuasion stamps have proved to be controversial, and its first three-stamp set of 1981 is an excellent example. The theme was the "Inalienable Rights of the Palestine People." The longest-running U.N. propaganda series, one designed to keep the pressure on, is connected with Namibia, in Southwest Africa. After World War the former German colony was governed by the Union of South Africa under a mandate from the former League of Nations.

In more recent times, the U.N. General Assembly ended the mandate and directed that the territory, which is about the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined, be given its independence. In preparation for this big step, several U.N. commissions have been at work there, usually with only grudging cooperation from the Republic of South Africa. Meanwhile, a new U.N.

set of Namibia stamps comes out each year. Sometimes they have offered only a gentle reminder that the struggle goes on. In other years the propaganda has been more blunt. For instance, the 1978 stamps, using the theme, "Liberty, Justice and Cooperation for Namibia," showed broken handcuffs. removing the lower branches to permit viewing underneath, relocating plants to open up areas to visual access from the street, and replacing over-grown materials with dwarf and lower-growing varieties.

All in all, he says, landscaping for security involves the same principles of landscape design generally, namely to select plants of the right dimensions. "The irony," he says, "is that most planting around houses is unsafe as well as unsightly. It is not in scale with the house. In addition to covering up the residence it also blocks out light and air. Old shrubs jammed up against the house provide a good means of unauthorized entry.

It's the old story, the plants are cute when they're little. Avoid, too, evergreens that block the view and provide a screen." At Sherwood Gardens, he explained, evergreens excessively pruned to expose a strong trunk crowned with a high top-knot take on an Oriental character. In other instances, "plain, old" cedars pruned up 15 feet became virtually unrecognizable. People asked what they were. However, the lower area need not remain totally bare.

It can be under-planted with coto-neasters or spreading junipers or ground covers, none taller than 24 to 30 inches. In fact, Mr. Daft says, you could carry out an entire landscape scheme with trees, form By Amalie Adler Ascher You won't find the subject in any textbook, nor much about it in magazines and reports, and as yet, no special courses have been devoted to the idea of using plants as weapons in protecting your home. But the time is ripe for such thinking: landscaping a residence with thorny plants. Landscaping for privacy can nowadays be a double-edged sword.

Tall and luxuriant shrubbery, once the hallmarks of a beautiful home, might place it in jeopardy. And those who allow their places to become overgrown are asking for trouble. In these times, maintenance is no longer a matter of choice, it's a necessity. I remember our old house. Common barberry bushes dotted the front slopes, julianae barberry grew at one side, and a tall old-fashioned pyracantha rose by a living-room window.

I never cared for thorny plants and ripped them all out, except for the trifoliate orange. It was then the rage in flower arrangements, especially in modern designs where its spiney branches could be pruned dramatically. But for meanness, this shrub has no equal. It's a maze of dagger-like thorns poised to do battle. Come a step too close and you will retreat scarred and bloody.

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This year some postal administrations which used another theme for stamps at Stamps the time of World Health Day, 1980, have designed new anti-smoking stamps. Senegal, a former French colony in Africa, is one. "Smoking or Health: The Choice Is Yours," proclaims the French legend on two 1981 stamps from the new republic in Northwest Africa. One stamp shows active, healthy people at play, the other stamp a diseased throat and mouth, which has a pipe between its teeth. The United Nations, which is indirectly responsible for the parade of Tobacco or Health issues, has been using stamps with a message for more than half its history.

Several times, in 1964 and in 1973, to cite two instances, it has issued stamps to promote narcotics control, most often using a poppy capsule and a skull in the designs. Other U.N. stamps have urged "Eliminate Racial Discrimination" and "No By James Casque When somebody mentions propaganda stamps, most collectors think back to postal issues from the World War II era or certain more recent stamps from the Middle East. Some of those stamps were born out of suspicion and hatred, and their designs show it. There are, for instance, stamps showing a bloody dagger plunged into the map of Israel.

But propaganda issues also include postage stamps employing gentle persuasion for all sorts of causes in no way connected with nationalism. Last year the United Nations proposed a World Wide Day of Health, leaving indi-yidiual postal administrations to adopt whatever designs they chose. Several countries decided that this was a good time to join the effort against smoking, now a proven health hazard. Argentina put out stamps showing a heart with a big hole in one side, a cigarette sticking through the hole. Mexico's stamp design was not so subtle.

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