Tag: Smith’s farm (Keedysville MD)

Wikipedia says: Keedysville is a town in Washington County, Maryland, United States.

The first documented house in Keedysville was built in 1738. The description for George Gordon’s “Gordon’s Purchas]” land tract notes “…one log house, 12 x 15 feet…” The initial warrant for the tract had been issued to Owen McDonald in Jan. 1738, the year before Gordon acquired it. Gordon’s Purchase was the first tract taken up by a Euromerican within what would eventually become Keedysville. The main road at that time was the Conococheague Road, which branched from the Great Wagon Road just east of Keedysville and led to the farthest reaches of the provence, passing through what would eventually be Keedysville. The house and its exact location are unknown but the starting point for Gordon’s Purchase was on today’s Bell Lane. As more settlers moved into the region a grist mill was built on Little Antietam Creek about 1765 to serve the earliest farmers who were mostly German and Swiss immigrants who’d migrated from Pennsylvania. This mill was bought by Jacob Hess in 1770.[8] Hess owned the mill and most of what would become the town until his death in 1815. During this period the budding community became known as “Hess’s Mill.” In the years immediately following Jacob Hess’s death the Sharpsburg to Boonsboro Turnpike was constructed (about 1820), which became Keedysville’s main street. Due to its location exactly half-way between Boonsboro and Sharpsburg the town became known as Centerville. The town’s name officially became Keedysville when the first post office was established due to the existence of another Centerville, Maryland in Queen Anne’s County. In the mid-1860s the B&O Railroad began acquiring a right-of-way and by the early 1870s a branch line extended from Weverton to Hagerstown with a busy Keedysville depot as the mid-way point. The railroad brought a much needed prosperity following the dark days of the civil war.