Frederick County Maryland Timeline

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The following important events in the history of Frederick County affected political jurisdictions, family movements, and record keeping.

1700s

 * 24 June 1747: The Rev. Henry M Muhlenberg visited the Monocacy charge of the Lutheran Church. He was a great organizer of Lutheran parishes throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
 * 3 July 1747: Thomas Cresap surveyed "Dulany's Gift," the site of The Moravian Church at Graceham.
 * 22 Jun 1755: Indians attacked settlers on this night and the next morning near Burkittsville. It is believed to be the slaughter of William House and 12 members of his family.
 * 4 July 1760: Maryland and Pennsylvania settled the boundary dispute between the two provinces with the signing of an elaborate document. The final settlement came with the acceptance of the Mason-Dixon Line in 1767, which took a large portion of land previous claimed by Maryland and added it to Pennsylvania.
 * 27 May 1768: the Rev. Bennett Allen was appointed rector of All Saints Parish, succeeding the Rev. Thomas Bacon, who had died.
 * 20 June 1774: a large gathering of Frederick Countians, meeting at the courthouse, deplored the closing of Boston harbor and urged the colonies to refuse all imports and exports to Great Britain. John Hanson presided.
 * 27 August 1776: at the Battle of Long Island, Maryland soldiers - many from Frederick County - distinguished themselves in gallantry and fortitude though vastly outnumbered.
 * 27 June 1777: Governor Thomas Johnson signed a contract with Abraham Faw to build barracks in Frederick, now known as the Hessian Barracks.
 * 27 August 1783: Orders were issued that Revolutionary War prisoners of war held at the Hessian Barracks in Frederick would be granted freedom to remain in America upon the payments of $80 in Spanish gold.


 * 31 August 1784: John Frederick Amelung and 68 workmen and their families arrived in Baltimore aboard the brig "Fame," after a four month voyage from Bremen, Germany. These people built and operated Amelung's New Bremen Glassworks near Park Mills in Frederick County. They produced some of the finest glassware in the new United States.


 * 1 June 1793: New Market was laid out by Nicholas Hall.

1800s

 * 25 September 1800: at a meeting on the Peter Kemp farm just west of Frederick, the United Brethren in Christ Church was founded by the Rev. Philip William Otterbein, who had been the third pastor of the German Reformed Church and oversaw the construction of the original Trinity Chapel on West Church Street in Frederick.
 * 19 June 1802: the first issue of The Fredericktown Herald was published.
 * 22 June 1809: Mother Elizabeth Ann Seton arrived in Emmitsburg from Baltimore with several members of her Sisters of Charity.
 * 27 June 1819: the fourth church building of the Middletown Reformed Church was dedicated.
 * 24 July 1821, 1848 and 1868: floods of The Carroll Creek through Frederick occurred. During the flood in 1868, the original home of Barbara Fritchie was destroyed and had to be demolished.
 * 26 May 1824: a cattle show was held at Mrs. Cookerley's tavern near the Monocacy Bridge. George M. Conrad was awarded five dollars for the best piece of carpeting; George Wissinger, two dollars for best linen; and John Hall, two dollars for best piece of diaper.
 * 26 June 1826: the Carroll Creek through downtown Frederick flooded, damaging the property of many citizens, including Jacob Engelbrecht's.
 * 4 July 1828: Charles Carroll of Carrollton laid the cornerstone for the railroad in Berlin (now Brunswick).
 * 4 July 1828: construction began on the Chesapeake &amp; Ohio Canal. It reached Frederick County in 1835.
 * 29 June 1829: snow fell in the Middletown area according to Jacob Englebrecht's diary.
 * 22 June 1832: the Post Office was established at Ijamsville, with Plummer Ijams, Jr., as postmaster.
 * 21 September 1832: a cholera epidemic raged in Frederick County.
 * 3 June 1837: the first black female was confirmed in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Frederick. She was Mary of the Thomas W. Morgan family.
 * 19 September 1844: construction of a water system for the City of Frederick was begun. It was completed November 22, 1845, at a cost of $90,000.
 * 27 July 1848: Wires for the magnetic telegraph from Baltimore to Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), were installed in Frederick.
 * 3 June 1854: the Frederick County Agricultural Society was incorporated.
 * between 1 March and 1 June 1860: 136 slaves were manumitted by their owners in Frederick County. This was in advance of a new state law which took effect on this date prohibiting the freeing of slaves.
 * 21 August 1861: the Ladies Relief Association advertisement appeared for the first time in The Frederick Examiner. The group of Frederick women provided food and other needed supplies to the numerous "hospitals" in the Frederick area during the Civil War.
 * 17 September 1861: the Maryland General Assembly reconvened in Frederick at Kemp Hall to take a vote on secession. No vote was ever taken because several legislators with Southern sympathies were arrested.
 * 1 September 1862: The new courthouse for Frederick County was due for completion. Although it wasn't finished by that date, it was shortly thereafter. The building now serves as City Hall for The City of Frederick.
 * 17 September 1862: the bloodiest, single-day battle of The Civil War occurred at Antietam in Washington County, sending thousands of wounded men to hospitals in Frederick and Frederick County.
 * 19 September 1862: the Battles of South Mountain on September 14 and Antietam on September 17, brought thousands of wounded to Frederick and surrounding communities.


 * 20 June 1863: there was heavy fighting around Frederick and Middletown as Lee's Confederate Army moved north.
 * 6 July 1863: William Richardson was hanged from a tree limb in Hagan's Field west of Frederick as a Confederate spy. He was captured near Woodsboro.
 * 6 July 1864: Middletown paid a $1,500 ransom to Confederate General Jubal Early.
 * 9 July 1864: Confederate Gen. Jubal Early ransomed the City of Frederick for $200,000.
 * 9 July 1864: The Battle of Monocacy was fought at Frederick Junction just south of Frederick.
 * 2 September 1868: The Maryland Asylum for The Deaf and Dumb (now Maryland School for the Deaf) opened at the Hessian Barracks with 36 students. William D. Cook was the first superintendent.
 * 26 May 1870: the cornerstone was laid for the Mount Pleasant Reformed Church by the first pastor, the Rev. A. R. Kramer.
 * 21 August 1881: the third church of The Glade Charge of The Reformed Church was dedicated in Walkersville.
 * 1 June 1883: the first telephone exchange was put in service in Frederick.
 * 6 July 1891: Walkersville Lutheran Church was organized at a meeting at the home of Thomas S. Albaugh.
 * 21 August 1892: Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church of Brunswick was organized.
 * 29 June 1895: Caroline E. Davis became the first graduate of The Notre Dame Academy in Libertytown. The school, which opened in 1891, closed its doors at the end of the 1970 school year.

1900s

 * 17 June 1905: 18 residents of Thurmont and its surrounding area were killed in a head-on collision of two trains at Ransom in southern Carroll County.
 * 4 July 1906: the Rev. George W. Crist began his pastoral duties at the Walkersville Lutheran Church.
 * 20 June 1909: the Woodsboro Church of God was formed following a revival meeting. It was disbanded in 1944.
 * 21 August 1911: the first airplane landed in Frederick early in the morning. One of the pilots was, who later became a 5-star General of The Army and commanding general of the Army Air Force.
 * 27 September 1918 news stories began appearing on a regular basis concerning the outbreak of the "Spanish flu" in Frederick County. Before it was over in mid-November, nearly 200 had died in the county from the disease.
 * 28 September 1920: nearly 4,000 Frederick County women registered to vote for the first time.
 * 28 September 1921: drilling for oil began in Thurmont at the end of Main Street on the property of C. C. Merritt. The company was called the Annie Laura Oil and Gas Company.
 * 2 September 1923: Beth Sholom Synagogue was dedicated in the renovated Elks Lodge on the south side of the unit block of West Second Street in Frederick.
 * 27 September 1926: the Brunswick Church of God was organized with 53 members.
 * 21 June 1934: Congress created The Monocacy National Military Park at the site of the Battle of Monocacy. The name was changed in 1976 to Monocacy National Battlefield. The bill creating the park was signed on this date by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
 * July 24, 1942: A temporary bridge over the Monocacy River on U.S. 40 east of Frederick was opened to traffic. It replaced the old (1808) stone Jug Bridge, part of which collapsed on March 3.
 * 23 June 1946: thieves stole approximately $50 from parishioners of The United Brethren Church on West Second Street (now Centennial Memorial United Methodist Church) while Sunday services were in progress. The perpetrators stole the money from purses in the choir room.
 * 26 June 1958: The Historical Society of Frederick County announced that it was now in possession of the Jacob Engelbrecht Diaries. Mr. Engelbrecht recorded local, national and international events in numerous journals from 1819 until his death in 1878. It is a unique record of local deaths, births, marriages, and just plain everyday tragedies. (The Society has published The Engelbrecht Diaries. The new volumes include more than 100 pages not included when the book was first published in the 1970s. It is available through the society in both book form and on a CD.)
 * 22 June 1972: Hurricane Agnes created havoc throughout Frederick County, destroying bridges, toppling trees, washing out roads, and causing the evacuation of Point of Rocks.
 * 20 June 1973: President Richard M. Nixon and Soviet Premier Leonid I. Brezhnev reached agreement on a treaty banning offensive nuclear weapons after several days of talks at Camp David near Thurmont.

2000s

 * 3 June 2003: St. Peter The Apostle Roman Catholic Church in Libertytown was destroyed by an accidental fire. The rectory of the parish, located next door, was also heavily damaged. Twenty-two fire companies from four counties and Fort Detrick battled the blaze for hours to bring it under control.
 * 18 June 2005: David A. Reed, who donated his estate, valued at more than $1 million to the Historical Society of Frederick County, died in Washington, DC. He was born August 13, 1929 in Frederick.
 * 20 June 2005: the final issue of The County Globe was published by George Dredden. It began in December 1990 as a multicultural newspaper with primary focus on the black community. During most of its history The Globe was published twice monthly.