Naming Ben Lomond Peak

Ben Lomond 

Mary Wilson Montgomery

(named Ben Lomond Peak)

Born April  20, 1811

West Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland

Died  May 7, 1876

North Ogden, Weber, Utah Territory, United States

To Ben Lomond, beloved mountain of my home town:

Silent Sentinel - by Lettice O. Rich

You stand in silent majesty, unchanged by age or wind-lashed storm,

Guardian of a home-filled valley cradled in your mighty arms.

Sculptored (sic) by a master hand, of earth and tree and craggy stone,

Each season paints an overlay and claims your splendor all its own.

Your snow-capped peak, cloud-mantled, reach up to azure blue,

Where silver beams pierce fluffy clouds to let the moonlight through.

In the solemn stillness of a winter’s listening night,

Your beauty seems transplanted from some celestial sight.

O symbol of strength, I wonder…if words were yours to speak,

Would history be unfolded beneath your towering peak:

did you see the roaming redman (sic) wing arrows at deer or moose,

Or a patient dark-skinned mother croon to a dusky papoose?

Did you feel their apprehension when white intruders came,

Encroaching on their homeland, killing their fish and game?

Did you smell the fragrant upturned hearth, see sagebrush cleared for schools,

Marvel at channeled mountain streams, with bare hands and faith for tools?

Did you reel their pangs of hunger, slow numbing of winter’s cold,

The sorrow of parting with loved ones, too weak for life to hold?

Remember a Scottish mother…homesick, discouraged, alone who named you 

“Old Ben Lomond” because you brought memories of home?

I wonder what you think of us and the way we live each day,

If you could speak, Ben Lomond…

I wonder what you’d say.