Tag: Silver Spring MD

Wikipedia says: Silver Spring is a census-designated place (CDP) in southeastern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States, near Washington, D.C.

Silver Spring takes its name from a mica-flecked spring discovered there in 1840 by Francis Preston Blair, who subsequently bought much of the surrounding land. Acorn Park, south of downtown, is believed to be the site of the original spring.

The area that is now Silver Spring has been inhabited by various indigenous peoples for 10,000 years. Prior to European colonization, the area was inhabited by the Piscataway, an Algonquian-speaking people. The Piscataway may have established a few small villages along the banks of Sligo Creek and Rock Creek.

The Blair, Lee, and Jalloh and Barrie families, three politically active families of the time, are irrefutably tied to Silver Spring’s history. In 1840, Francis Preston Blair, who later helped organize the modern American Republican Party, along with his daughter, Elizabeth, discovered a spring flowing with chips of mica – believed to be the now-dry spring which is visible at Acorn Park. Blair was looking for a site for his summer home to escape the heat of Washington, D.C., summers. Two years later, Blair completed a 20-room mansion he dubbed Silver Spring on a 250-acre (1 km2) country homestead. In 1854, Blair moved to the mansion permanently. The house stood until 1954.

By 1854, Blair’s son, Montgomery Blair, who became Postmaster General under Abraham Lincoln and represented Dred Scott before the United States Supreme Court, built the Falkland house in the area.

By the end of the decade, Elizabeth Blair married Samuel Phillips Lee, third cousin of future Confederate leader Robert E. Lee, and gave birth to a boy, Francis Preston Blair Lee. The child would eventually become the first popularly elected Senator in United States history.

During the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln visited the Silver Spring mansion multiple times. During some of the visits he relaxed by playing town ball with Francis P. Blair’s grandchildren.

In 1864, Confederate Army General Jubal Early occupied Silver Spring prior to the Battle of Fort Stevens. After the engagement, fleeing Confederate soldiers razed Montgomery Blair’s Falkland residence.

At the time, there was a community called Sligo located at the intersection of the Washington-Brookeville Turnpike and the Washington-Colesville-Ashton Turnpike (now named Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road). Sligo included a tollhouse, a store, a post office, and a few homes.