Catoctin Mountain Park Historic Resource Study

For centuries before the arrival of European whites, the Catoctin mountain area sat largely uninhabited with the exception of occasional groups of roaming Native Americans, lured by the rich natural resources of the area. Even as white colonists settled other areas of Maryland, the western part of the state remained sparsely populated. Then, beginning in the 1740s, whites began arriving in greater numbers. Early settlers were mostly Germans, escaping the political and religious turmoil of Europe. They carried with them an intense religious devotion and proficiency in farming. Life for the early pioneers could be hard, even terrifying when war broke out. Yet the availability of large, bountiful tracts of land offered real rewards. As the revolution approached, eastern elites, largely of English origin, also began noting the rich resources of the Catoctin area. Among them were Thomas Johnson, future governor of Maryland, and his partners who planned to build a iron furnace at the foot of the mountain. Chapter 1 then is the story of pioneers, rapid development, and swift change.

Native Americans

Traveling through Maryland in the 1680s, Dutch explorer Jaspar Danckaerts was impressed by the burgeoning colony, but he sensed that something was missing. "There are few Indians," noted the Dutchman, "in comparison with the extent of the country." He blamed the English for having "almost exterminated" the native population. [1] The relative paucity of Indians in Maryland actually was a permanent feature of the region and predated the arrival of the English by centuries. But Danckaerts' general point was correct: Native Americans did not populate Maryland as heavily as they did other areas of North America. And within the Maryland region, no area had a smaller Indian population than western Maryland, which reflected the general trend of sparse inhabitation found in the northern and central Appalachian region. [2]

During the Paleo-Indian era (1300-7500 BC) the first Native Americans entered the continent by crossing the Bering Strait. Nomadic hunters, these early travelers left few traces. Still, archeologists have uncovered enough evidence to establish that such early natives did inhabit the region that became Maryland. [3] Gradually as the climate warmed and forests developed, the early Indian population increased--especially around the waterways of the Chesapeake. By the Woodland period (2000 BC-1600 AD), agricultural villages and organized tribes had emerged in the coastal areas. [4]

The Blue Ridge and Monocacy Valley areas, however, contained significantly fewer occupants than eastern areas. Some scholars have theorized that during the Woodland period and after western Maryland served as a buffer zone between coastal settlements and the western Indians occupying the Ohio Valley.

Yet archeologists have uncovered significant evidence that western Maryland was not completely uninhabited. In the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, amateur archeologists such as E.R. Goldsborough began making surveys of the Monocacy Valley and Catoctin area. His surveys pointed to numerous sites containing evidence of Native American inhabitation. Although Native American sites in Eastern Maryland continue to draw the majority of scholarly interest, by the second half of the twentieth century, building on the work of Goldsborough, professional archeological surveys were underway in western Maryland. These studies suggest that native Americans did value and seek to exploit the rich natural resources available in the region.

More than anything else, the Catoctin and Monocacy areas served as fertile hunting grounds for eastern tribes. Around the mountains, exploring parties pursued deer and other game. In order to facilitate hunting in the uninhabited territory, Native Americans set brush fires to clear out game. At times the fires burnt with such fury that they could be smelled forty miles away. [5] Also of value were the rich deposits of rhyolite available in the western mountains. [6] Rhyolite could be fashioned into arrowheads, hoes, and other important tools. Those in search of the compound would dig small pits into the flattops of ridges. [7] The work of local archeologist Spencer O. Geasey in the 1960s and 1970s, focusing on rock shelters and rhyolite pits in Frederick County, stirred interest and suggested the need for more archaeological work. [8]

Between 1978 and 1980, the Maryland Geological Survey conducted an "intensive archeological reconnaissance" of upper Frederick County. As part of the survey, Michael Stewart excavated "aboriginal quarries" along the west slope of Catoctin Mountain near Foxville. Seeming to date from the Woodland period, the site was "characterized by large amounts of primary chipping debris, few diagnostics, and occasionally by small pits against the face of the outcrop." Finding ample evidence of rhyolite manufacturing, Stewart and the survey group concluded that the site might have been part of a larger "rhyolite procurement and processing system." Although, little is known of the mechanics of this system, archeologists hypothesize the existence of "a regional exchange network operating between bands or by movement of groups from the Coastal Plains to the interior processing camps." [9] What one archeologist characterized as "periodically revisited temporary" camps existed in the area to support to the rhyolite extraction. [10]

Other Western Maryland excavations have indicated more permanently inhabited sites. State archeologist Tyler Bastian excavated a Monocacy Valley site called Biggs Ford Village, where he found an ornament and other artifacts from the Late Woodland Period. [11] More recently, in 1992, the Archeological Society of Maryland initiated a major effort to excavate a Late-Woodland site high on a bluff over the Monocacy river, northwest of the present site of the Frederick Airport. While preliminary investigations do not lend themselves to absolute conclusions, the Rosenstock Village site, as it was named, did contain evidence of a possible permanent settlement. [12] Future digs may someday fill out the picture of prehistoric life in the Monocacy Valley region, but preliminary surveys suggest that temporary camps existed in the Catoctin Mountain area, while more permanent, yet still small, dwelling areas lay to the south--especially along the Potomac.

Clearly, the major source of transportation for the Native Americans sojourning in Western Maryland were the Potomac and Monocacy Rivers. But there also appear to have been a series of Indian trails allowing for passage through some of the more difficult terrain. Although nearly impossible to recreate, such trails do seem to have provided the basis for the later Monocacy wagon road, which sliced diagonally through the region from eastern Pennsylvania to central Virginia (see Map 1). [13]

With the arrival of European settlers in Maryland, beginning in the 1630s, a clearer picture emerges of the native population in the region. Early accounts from white settlers suggest a state of tension between coastal Indians and their neighbors to the northwest. Smaller tribes--in particular the Piscataway (also known as the Conoys) and Nanticokes, both from the Algonquian language group--occupied the Chesapeake area. [14] To their north and west were the Susquehannock, a more warlike tribe, which made its home on the Susquehanna River. The Susquehanna--related to the Iroquois-- but not part of the confederation--frequently clashed with both their Algonquian neighbors to the south and the confederacy to the north. [15] These series of raids and battles may have discouraged permanent settlement in the western reaches of Maryland, which sat as disputed territory between warring tribes.

Intertribal tensions also shaped early relations with the newly arrived Europeans in the 1630s. The Chesapeake Algonquian tribes strove to establish good relations with the whites, so as to tip the scales against the Susquehanna. They shared their technology with the newcomers and introduced Europeans to maize, beans, pumpkins, and squash. [16] But good relations were not to last. Lord Baltimore, after essentially removing the Susquehanna threat, turned on his Indian allies. [17] By the late seventeenth century, the proprietary government of Maryland had forced the Piscataway out of the Chesapeake region. Most moved to Pennsylvania, but some settled temporarily near Point of Rocks, on Heater's Island, on the Potomac River. [18] By the 1720s, the tribe had left Maryland completely. [19]

The displacement caused by the arrival of white Europeans brought other Native American tribes briefly to the Monocacy Valley region. Leaving their native South Carolina, the Algonkian Shawnee tribe temporarily inhabited the region before moving further north. [20] At other junctures, the Delaware and the Catawbas used the Monocacy River for travel and hunting purposes. The Tuscarora tribe, originally from the Carolinas, moved northward, after the Tuscarora war in 1711-1713. An English map from 1721 clearly shows a Tuscarora village at the mouth of the Monocacy River on the Frederick County side. The tribe, of course, also gave its name to the creek flowing to the south of the present-day park. [21] Like other eastern tribes during the difficult eighteenth century, the Tuscarora only briefly made Maryland their home before moving westward.

By the second decade of the eighteenth century, then, most Indians tribes had passed through western Maryland onto points further west. Although they dramatically reasserted themselves during the French and Indian War, on the eve of the white settlement of western Maryland, Native Americans were simply not a factor in the region.

Early White Exploration and Settlement

The absence of hostile Indians, however, did not lead to the immediate European settlement of Western Maryland. Indeed the first whites to come to the mid-Atlantic region (arriving in 1607) remained primarily in the Chesapeake area for almost a century. The appeal of the Tidewater region rested on the profitability of tobacco. By the late seventeenth century--while western Maryland remained largely uninhabited--thriving plantations, a self-indulgent gentry, and an African slave-based labor system had sprung up in the Chesapeake. Since good tobacco could not be cultivated in the western reaches of the colony, there existed little interest in exploration and development. [22] The absence of a navigable river in central western Maryland, the threat of Indian raids, and an ongoing border dispute between Maryland and Pennsylvania also worked to discourage settlement of the region. [23] While eastern Maryland thrived, western Maryland sat virtually vacant of white settlers.

By the early-eighteenth century, however, the market for tobacco had softened and the colonies began to diversify their economies. [24] Like the Native Americans whom they had displaced from the Tidewater region, European settlers began to look west in hope of exploiting the rich natural resources of the region. Trappers, traders, and missionaries were frequent visitors to the area by the early part of the century. In 1712, explorer Baron de Graffenried climbed Sugar Loaf Mountain and recorded: "We discovered from this height three chains of mountains, the last higher then the one before, somewhat distant and a very fine valley between the first ranges." Soon squatters and a few other hearty souls began setting up permanent homes in the region. [25]

The Chesapeake gentry, seeking investment opportunities, also grew interested. In 1727, a Chesapeake planter, Benjamin Tasker acquired a patent for 7,000 acres, west of the Monocacy, roughly twelve miles up the Potomac. The investor called his purchase "Tasker's Chance," as if to underscore the still risky nature of western ventures. Maryland's colonial government--seeking to encourage settlement of the backcountry--issued a proclamation in 1732 waiving the usual 40 shillings Sterling per 100 acre fee to anyone who would settle land in the western holdings of the colony. [26]

Yet settlement was hampered by a bitter debate over the exact boundaries of Maryland. Pennsylvania claimed much of the land west of the Susquehanna (which, of course, would include the present-day park). Indeed, Maryland's interest in populating the area had everything to do with efforts to buttress its claims against Pennsylvania. Quickly the dispute turned violent and a bitter war broke out in the 1730s. English-born pioneer Thomas Cresap--a robust Daniel Boone-type character--was Maryland's chief defender. His wife, known to sport a gun, two pistols, a scalping knife, and a tomahawk, was no less committed to the cause. To Cresap, area farmers loyal to Pennsylvania were "poachers." When captured by Pennsylvania authorities in 1736 and brought to Philadelphia to stand trial, Cresap infuriated his captors by declaring Penn's city, "one of the Prettyst [sic] Towns in Maryland." [27]

The bitter conflict slowed settlement of the Monocacy Valley region even as immigrants began passing through the region and noting its potential. Fleeing religious persecution and dwindling economic opportunity, Germans, especially from the Palatinate region of the Rhine, began migrating in large numbers to Pennsylvania in the 1730s. By 1750, the population of Pennsylvania was one half-German. Seeking inexpensive but fertile land, some Germans moved southwest from Pennsylvania, along the Monocacy Road or "Great Wagon Road." [28] Most likely an outgrowth of the old Indian trail through the region, the Monocacy route began in Pennsylvania on the west side of the Susquehanna at Wrightsville, then proceeded through York and Hanover counties to Taneytown, Maryland. From there, the road moved into the future Frederick County through the future Williamsport, then southwesterly across the Monocacy and Potomac. [29] Germans traveling the road might have been tempted to join the smattering of settlers already in western Maryland, but, despite the promises of Maryland's leaders, they feared paying double taxes or getting caught in the violent cross fire between warring colonies. [30] Most, therefore, pressed onward to the Shenendoah Valley.

By the 1740s, the conflict had settled somewhat, although it would fester for another thirty years. By that time Benjamin Tasker's son-in-law, Daniel Dulany, was ready to take the initiative in settling the area. Acquiring his father-in-law's land in 1744, Dulany hired Thomas Cresap to conduct a survey of western Maryland. Cresap reported that land in the Monocacy Valley equaled if not surpassed "any in America for natural Advantages." Encouraged, Dulany patented other land in the area, and subdivided Tasker's Chance, initially offering plots at bargain prices. [31] Although a member of the Chesapeake gentry, Dulany actively sought to attract Germans to his holdings. With a reputation as solid, industrious farmers, Dulany thought them to be the perfect pioneers to tame his land, and he offered them land sometimes at below cost. [32]

Many Germans took up Dulaney's offer. The 7,000 acres that made up Tasker's original chancy purchase soon became the site of a thriving city named for Lord Baltimore's son, Frederick. Many others, having accumulated enough money to purchase land themselves, took up residence to the north of Tasker's Chance, along the Monocacy River, near the Catoctin Mountains. The area had real appeal to German immigrants. The attractions, according to historian Elizabeth Kessel, included a "large measure of civil and religious freedom and unprecedented opportunity of owning . . . and accumulating large amounts of land . . . for a simple fee and only a minor obligation of a quitrent (annual tax), and land could be passed on to heirs with full force of law." [33]

Settling Western Maryland

Who were these German and German-speaking Swiss immigrants? Most journeyed to the New World as a result of the religious, social, and economic chaos plaguing Germany in the decades following a costly series of religious-inspired wars. The War of Spanish Succession in 1701, in particular, ravaged the area along the Rhine known as the Palatinate, the homeland of many who later moved to the Monocacy and Catoctin region. [34] Not yet a united country, Germany contained what one historian called a "myriad of petty principalities," each with its own authoritarian leader, imposing his religion on his subjects. [35] Protestant sects such as the Dunkards (German Baptists), the Mennonites, and the Moravians often suffered persecution, as could Lutherans or Catholics if they found themselves in the wrong municipality. Likewise, land had grown scarce and costly. A twelve-acre farm actually represented a substantial holding in eighteenth-century Germany. [36]

There then existed compelling religious and economic "push" factors encouraging emigration. At the same time, honest men such as William Penn and less honest speculators and shippers, seeking to profit from the desperate population, aggressively advertised along the Rhine. The promise of land and help on the journey created powerful "pull" factors for already discontented Germans in the area. Not all the pull factors, however, proved quite to be all they were made out. Dishonest schemers lay in wait for the eager migrants, and some were cheated out of their money. For most, even under the best of circumstances, the journey to the new world was expensive and difficult. Forty toll barriers sat along the Rhine. Authorities often slapped taxes on migrants, and Dutch officials in Rotterdam also sought their share of money from the pockets of immigrants. Some travelers might actually go broke en route and suffer the indignity of being sold into servitude in the New World in order to pay off passage, a process known as "redemption." [37] But the allure of cheap land and religious freedom resonated for thousands of immigrants.

While often impoverished, the migrants did bring skills with them to America. Germans had the reputation of being particularly industrious farmers. Many had other skills as well. Philadelphia physician Benjamin Rush noted of the immigrants, "the principal of them were farmers; but there were many mechanics, who brought with them a knowledge of those arts which are necessary and useful in all countries. These mechanics were chiefly weavers, tailors, tanners, shoemakers, combmakers, smiths of all kinds, butchers, paper makers, watch makers, and sugar bakers." [38] It is little wonder that one of the future settlements of these German migrants was christened Mechanicstown.

German and Swiss migrants settled throughout the North American colonies. But the majority established themselves--at least temporarily--in Pennsylvania. By the late-seventeenth century, Penn's colony was home to over 100,000 Germans. In fact, the vast majority of Germans and Swiss who settled the Catoctin region arrived in the early 1730s and initially settled in Pennsylvania before pressing on into western Maryland. [39]

One of the earliest settlers in the Catoctin area, Daniel Leaterman (also spelled Lederman or Letterman), a bishop in the Church of the German Baptist Brethren, emigrated from Germany in 1727. He briefly ministered to a church in Conewago, Pennsylvania before establishing himself in the 1740s on a farm he called Sandbergen (named for its sandy soil) southwest of the future Catoctin Furnace. [40] Yost Harbaugh (at times spelled Herbech) led his family from a village near Pfalz, Switzerland to Berks County and then York County, Pennsylvania. Yost's son George moved down the Great Wagon Trail to settle in what became known as Harbaugh's Valley in 1758 or 1759. The mountainous surroundings, it was said, reminded Harbaugh of his native land. In 1761 he married Catherine Willard, also originally from Switzerland. Later one of their daughters married a member of the Eyler family from Germany, who settled in the valley after having passed through Adams County in Pennsylvania. [41]

Some of the families later settling in Western Maryland actually traveled to the New World on the same ship. Such was the case with twenty-four year old Lenhart Firohr, who, in 1731, crossed the ocean on a ship with the Devilbiss family. Firohr arrived in Philadelphia, moved to Adams County and later settled east of Catoctin Mountain. Once in Maryland, the Firohrs found the Devilbiss family to be their neighbors to the south. In 1760, with area's population growing, the Firohr family acquired land for the construction of the Lutherans and Reformed Apple's Church. [42] A descendent of the original Devilbiss family, Alexander Devilbiss owned a plot of mountain land (tract 215), later incorporated into Catoctin Mountain Park.

While many of the early settlers were members of either the larger German Reformed or Lutheran strands of Protestantism, members of the smaller Moravian sect also arrived in the Catoctin area. Among the more prominent Moravians in the area was the Harbaugh family. The Moravians also managed to attracted converts. Jonhann Jacob Weller from Diedenshausen, Germany, in 1737 stepped off the Andrew Galley ship in Philadelphia, a member of the German Reformed Church. By the time he settled in Western Maryland in what became Mechanicstown, Weller had become an active Moravian. For a time, traveling Moravian ministers actually conducted services in Weller's home. His cousin, Johannes Weller, who also settled in what was later the Mechanicstown area, however, was associated with the Lutherans. [43]

Other influential German families who settled in the area included the family of Lawrence Creager (Krueger), originally from a village northwest of the city of Marbugh (roughly 50 miles north of Frankfurt) in Westphalia. Creager moved the family to York County, Pennsylvania in 1738, then to the Monocacy Valley in 1747. [44] The Creagers later owned mountain land--a plot known as "Creegers' Surprise" (later tract 163). Friedrich Wiblheit (Willhides) and his wife Lucretia left their village near Sinsheim southeast of the Heidelberg in 1731. Their son Frederick Jr. bought land on the northeast side of Hunting Creek in 1752. [45]

The Rouzers, originating, as did the Willhides, from the area near Sinscheim also firmly established themselves in the Catoctin area. Unlike the others, the Rouzers, led by Gideon Rauscher, an elder in the Dunkard Church, settled first in New Jersey. Gideon's son, Martin Rouzer (1734-1777), then moved to the Rocky Ridge area. His son Daniel settled in Mechanicstown, probably in the late eighteenth century, where he began a tanning business. Daniel married Sophia Shover, the daughter of Peter Shover, Revolutionary War veteran and another owner of land later incorporated into the Catoctin Mountain Park. [46] Yet another immigrant from Sinsheim was Georg Philip Dodderer, who migrated in 1724. Georg's grandson Conrad later owned a mountain lot optimistically entitled "Worth Something," which was part of the park acquisition tract 153. [47]

Many of the founding families mentioned above probably owned land in the area that now encompasses the park and certainly the names of their decedents can be found throughout Catoctin mountain land records. Early land records, however, for the Catoctin area are incomplete. Along with the families and persons noted in census, tax, and church records, there were no doubt other records either lost or destroyed. Likewise, squatters, settling unofficially on land and avoiding taxation or other charges, also certainly occupied the mountain land.

One of the few original settlers who does show up in the limited land records of the eighteenth century was Leonard Moser, a fascinating pioneer figure. Moser arrived in Philadelphia in September 1732 aboard a ship appropriately named "Adventure." Probably in his twenties, Moser traveled from Germany with his large family, who ranged in age from eight to forty. Very quickly, Moser became caught up in the Pennsylvania-Maryland dispute as an ally of Thomas Cresap. In 1735, Pennsylvania authorities captured Moser just south of Wrightsville. After a brief prison term, young Leonard retreated further south with Cresap and by 1736 settled in the Monocacy area. A close friend of Jacob Weller, Moser eventually joined the Moravian Church in Graceham. Moser was a weaver by trade, and, in 1751, he took on eleven-year old Michael Coker, a relative of his wife, as in apprentice. Moser also owned land along Great Hunting Creek, and in 1764 sold a thirty-acre tract on what was called Nolin Mountain (park acquisition tract 91) to a farmer named Mark Harmon (see Map 1). [48] Moser's family remained very much an active part of life on and around the mountain--as the presence of Moser Road in Thurmont attests.

Pioneer life in the Catoctin region was hard at first. Migrants, generally chose homesteads near running streams or creeks and built homes from logs. In the absence of nails, they carved notches into the logs to fit walls together. Rocks and clay provided raw materials for chimneys. As farms prospered, Germans and Swiss sometimes abandoned their log houses and constructed larger homes of wood and limestone, utilizing traditional German designs, often featuring central chimneys. In other cases, log houses were sheathed in clapboard or vertical board. Barns were large and built into bank slopes. The barn basement served as a stable and the first floor for storage and threshing. A popular German feature on barns were decorative ventilation slits on the gable ends. [49] Alongside their sturdy architecture and productive farms, Germans quickly gained notice for their hearty baked dishes that incorporated preserves made from huckleberries (generally found on the mountain, especially burned-over land), strawberries, grapes, and cherries. [50]

While early historians of the upper Monocacy Valley postulated the existence of a lost town called Monocacy somewhere south of later Creagerstown, such a town appears never to have existed. Instead, settlers established dispersed farms, eschewing the example of the cramped villages of Europe. [51] In the Monocacy Valley, Germans kept close kinship relationships, helping to preserve German culture for generations. Until the 1830s, German was the dominant language of central and northern Frederick County. Remarkably, today many of the same founding families continue to occupy the region in significant numbers, and evidence of traditional German culture can still be found.

Religion alongside kinship was the other glue that held early Catoctin society together. Germans brought numerous versions of Protestantism with them to North America. "There exist so many varieties of doctrines and sects," noted an observer of the Germans, "that it is impossible to name them all." [52] Settlers constructed the first church in the region, known as the Monocacy Church, out of logs as early as 1745. According to local historian Elizabeth Anderson, the church sat at the present junction of Hessing Bridge and Blue Mountain Road. [53] While apparently of Lutheran denomination, the church appears to have served all of the early settlers. With a great shortage of ministers in the back country, traveling Lutheran missionary Pastor Johann Caspar Stover from Pennsylvania served the church as part of his regular rounds. [54]

Very quickly, however, dissension between religious sects broke up the early ecumenical Monocacy Church (also known as the Log Church, see Map 1). The 1740s, the era of the Great Awakening, was in fact a time of great religious enthusiasm. Germans enjoyed their own revival of religious fervor. German missionaries, such as Michael Schlatter of the German Reformed Church traveled through the Maryland frontier attracting large audiences. Despite the language differences, Germans also flocked to the religious revivals held by English evangelical George Whitefield. [55] With the population growing and farmers increasingly prosperous, settlers wanted their own churches in which they could worship their own way. Moravians began meeting at the home of convert Jacob Weller and, in 1758, built their own church in Graceham. Meanwhile the Lutherans constructed Apple's Church in the future Mechanicstown. Later, as settlers began filling up the west side of the mountain, the Hauver family, led by German immigrant Peter Hauver, and area Lutherans built the Mount Moriah Lutheran Church (on present-day Foxville Church Road, see Map 1). [56]

Writing in the nineteenth century, historian of western Maryland, Thomas Scharf reported real rivalries and occasional violence between "Swizzers" (Swiss immigrants) and Germans in northern Frederick County (at this time Frederick County included present-day Montgomery, Frederick, and Washington Counties). These conflicts, Scharf suggested, were outgrowths of political tensions. Unfortunately, he provided no evidence for his claim, nor can any be readily found. One can surmise that there were differences, especially along the lines of religion, but any real conflict went unrecorded in historical sources. [57]

Rather than conflict between nationalities, the pioneers appeared more interested in material gain from increasingly commercialized agriculture. Upon arrival, first generation settlers quickly surveyed and appropriated the best land in the region, most acquiring tracts averaging 152 acres. The settlers cleared and plowed fields and established a grain-based mixed farming economy in sharp contrast to the tobacco grown in Eastern Maryland. Wheat was the primary crop but the German migrants also raised livestock, and grew small grains such as rye, barley, oats, buckwheat, flax, and hemp. [58] Credit networks among the settlers helped the Germans establish themselves and, sometimes, expand into more commercial farming. [59] While most farms remained family operations, more prosperous farmers did hire servants and some bought slaves. The first generation of Catoctin area farmers thrived despite adversity. Land holding at death frequently exceeded 400 acres. [60]

The French and Indian War

Despite the general success experienced by the pioneer generation of Germans and Swiss in the Catoctin area, the area suffered a significant upheaval in the decade following the initial settlement. As the English colonial frontier edged westward, conflicts grew over the fate of the Ohio Valley, claimed by both France and England. The two nations long had been at each other's throats and had fought several wars, the most recent of which ended in 1748. Seeking to lay a claim to land west of the English colonies, the French, with the help of their Native American allies, built a series of forts in western Pennsylvania in 1752 and 1753. Their efforts culminated in 1754 with the construction of Fort Duquesne (present site of Pittsburgh). Angry English authorities sent a young George Washington and a small group of Virginia militiamen to warn the French away. But the future president and his forces met a much more determined enemy than they had expected. Fighting broke out and the overwhelmed Virginians were forced to flee eastward.

Washington's defeat sparked an international war--the Seven-Year's War. The war in America put the colonists in a difficult position. Many, especially the Germans, had little loyalty to the British. Mennonites and Moravians, as pacifists, opposed both oath-taking and bearing arms; they felt particularly uncomfortable under pressure to fight for an imperial power with which they had little connection. Even colonists of English descent seemed to feel no great commitment to the battle. There was little interest in organizing a central administrative body among the colonies and real resistance to supporting financially the English army in the colonies.

Angry at the American colonists but determined to defeat their enemies, the English, in the summer of 1755, organized a large army under General Edward Braddock to march on Fort Duquesne. Braddock spent several weeks marshaling his forces at Fredericktown, where he headquartered at a Tavern on West All Saint's Street. There, he was joined by Washington and about 250 Virginia militiamen as well as by Thomas Cresap and a contingency from western Maryland. The colonists found Braddock to be an arrogant commander, contemptuous of their advice and knowledge of the back county. [61] In June Braddock rallied his troops, numbering some 2,500, toward Fort Duquesne. They stayed their first night on South Mountain before pressing further west. [62]

Although the English greatly outnumbered their adversaries, the French with the aid of a group of war-seasoned Indians took the offensive. They ambushed Braddock's army as it attempted to cross the Monongahela River, roughly six miles from the fort. Braddock and nine hundred men died in the fighting. Washington had two horses shot from under him. Defeated for a second time, Washington led the remaining forces back to Frederick County.

Settlers on the Maryland frontier reeled in horror at the specter of their defeated troops in retreat. Now there was nothing between them and the French and Indians. Hundreds of settlers fled their farms to the relative safety of Fredericktown, which quickly became an armed camp. [63] Paranoia swept not only western Maryland but the entire colonies. Fears swirled of Indian attacks, slaves uprisings, and Catholics plots. [64] Worried about their own security, eastern Maryland elites seemed little concerned with the fate of western homesteaders. Thomas Cresap, infuriated that the colonial government had not sent reinforcements west, threatened to lead a protest march on Annapolis. [65]

But Cresap and the other pioneers could not leave their western holding for fear of a French and Indian invasion. They organized a volunteer militia at Elizabethtown (the future Hagerstown), and Cresap turned his Potomac River outpost at Oldtown into an armed fort. [66] Tensions grew even greater as Indians began raiding and attacking settlements in western Maryland. Spurred by their French allies, Native Americans attacked Emittsburg. The small Moravian church at Graceham recorded 1756 as a year of "great danger and distress." [67] The Maryland Gazette, the colony's main newspaper, reported numerous scalpings in 1756 and 1757. Equally horrifying were the abductions. Native Americans kidnapped colonists, especially women and children, holding them hostage, sometimes for several years. In the Catoctin region, Indians abducted the daughter of Caspar Schmidt, listed in the Graceham Moravian records as a "farmer in the mountains," in 1757. The kidnapping apparently took place directly in front of her father. With a treaty signed in 1758 requiring the release of all captives, the Schmidt girl found freedom but was apparently claimed by a family living in Philadelphia. Schmidt was forced to travel north to reclaim his daughter and the final outcome is unrecorded. [68]

The several years of war had a profoundly dislocating effect on life in the Monocacy Valley. After having established farms, churches and homes, the settlers abandoned everything and fled. With the English victory in North America in 1760, the pioneers were eager to reestablish themselves and, no doubt, hoped for peace. But war, tumult, and change continued.

The Arrival of Iron

Security having been restored after the end of the French and Indian War, settlers returned to their homes. At the same time, easterners began looking anew at western Maryland with an eye toward investment opportunities. Just as eastern Maryland's Native Americans had mined the mountains for rhyolite, white easterners sought to extract their own bounty from the region in the form of iron.

Iron was, in fact, an increasingly important colonial commodity. England, the mother country, had developed a strong metalworking industry by the mid-eighteenth century. But the forests of Britain quickly became severely depleted, depriving English iron makers of necessary fuel for iron furnaces. By 1720, England was importing over 20,000 ton of iron, mostly from Sweden. To the English, committed to the mercantile economic ideals of the times, dependent colonies--and certainly not profiteering outside countries--should provide raw material and ready markets for finished products. Great Britain thus set about to encourage iron making in the North American colonies. In 1719, the Maryland General Assembly passed "An Act for the Encouragement of an Iron Manufacture within this Province." The far-reaching act allowed an entrepreneur interested in iron manufacturing to obtain a "writ ad quod damnum" or a special condemnation to acquire a water-powered site capable of producing iron. An unfortunate owner of a targeted site would lose his land unless he or she produced proof of an intention to build an iron works. If no proof was forthcoming, the land would go to an entrepreneur, who was required to begin furnace construction within six months. [69]

Iron manufacturing in the colonies presented challenges. English colonial officials, while eager to encourage the colonists to produce pig and bar iron, were less enthusiastic about the colonial manufacturing of finished products from iron. Parliamentary acts pertaining to iron in 1750 and 1757 allowed for the duty-free shipping of the metal but prohibited manufacturing of finished products and declared all "machines for hammering or drawing metal" as "common nuisances" to be destroyed within thirty days. Nevertheless, some colonial manufacturing of iron did continue in defiance of British authorities and money still was to be made from the production and exporting raw iron. [70]

Inspired by colonial incentives, a nascent iron industry in Maryland sprang to life. The Principio Company in Cecil County became the colony's first iron furnace in 1720. [71] The erection of several other furnaces for the manufacture of pig iron quickly followed. By 1762, eight iron factories existed in Maryland. [72] With greater security on the western frontier following the French and Indian War, investors targeted the western portions of the colony for development. Entrepreneurs from the lower Tidewater area erected the Hampton Furnace, one mile west of Emmitsburg in 1764. [73] The furnace boasted 3,000 acres of land. African-American slaves provided the bulk of labor. But operations at the furnace lasted only a few years before it went broke. [74]

Undeterred by the apparently risky nature of the venture, other wealthy Marylanders also began investing in western enterprises. [75] As early as the 1750s, prominent investor Charles Carroll, eventually planning to construct an iron-making plant, purchased a large tract of land in western Maryland. [76] By the 1760s, another wealthy easterner, Thomas Johnson, a prominent lawyer, entrepreneur, and future governor of Maryland, also took an active interest in western Maryland. Johnson's grandfather had come from Yarmouth, England in 1660 to settle in Calvert County. The family, already aristocracy, further prospered in Calvert County. Grandson Thomas was one of twelve children born to Thomas and Dorcas Johnson. Quickly proving himself adroit in both politics and business, Johnson moved to the forefront of colonial leadership. Among his close friends he counted George Washington. [77]

Seeking economic opportunity on the Maryland frontier, Johnson formed a partnership with Launcelot Jacques, a fifth-generation descendent of French Huguenot refugees. In 1768, taking advantage of the Maryland Assembly offer of ad quod damnum, Johnson and Jacques purchased a 9,860-acre tract known as Green Springs, roughly two miles south of Fort Frederick, on the Potomac River, in what is present-day Washington County. Accounts from the time referred to the furnace constructed on the site as the "Fort Frederick Iron Mill." [78] Their investment proved not particularly successful, and the two began to look for a better furnace location somewhat to the east.

A tract south of the Hampton Furnace--land which may well have provided some of the iron ore for the Hampton furnace--caught the attention of Thomas Johnson. Situated near a an iron ore bank, a ready supply of lime, and a plentiful water source (Hunting Creek), the tract known as "John's Mountain" owned by John Valentine Verdries and his wife Elizabeth appeared ideal for iron exaction and manufacture. The Verdries, like most in the area, were refugees from Germany and had been among the early members of the Lutheran Monacacy Log Church Congregation. [79]

Although ad quod damnum would have certainly been at Johnson's disposal, he and his partners do not appear to have used condemnation to obtain Verdries' land. In 1770, the Verdries sold the land, now called "Mountain Tract," to Thomas Johnson and his partner Benedict Calvert, also a partner in the Hampton enterprise to the north. [80] Johnson then set about to acquire other land in the area with the help of his brothers, Roger, Baker, and James, all of whom had already moved to Frederick County. Among their acquisitions was a tract known as "Good Will" and a tract originally granted to Charles Carroll known as "Stoney Park." [81]

The Johnson brothers, having secured several thousand acres in the area for mining and timber harvesting, then moved to construct their furnace. The Johnson family owned a sizable number of slaves and it is most probable that unfree labor constructed the original furnace. The exact site of the original furnace remains a point of some controversy. Archeological surveys have failed to yield any definite conclusions, although it appears that the first furnace was built within a mile of the current ruin. [82] An 1842 letter from the son of James Johnson identified the location of the first furnace as where "the Auburn house now stands" (see Map 1) [83] The original furnace stack stood 32 feet high and 8.5 feet in diameter. Although small compared to stacks later constructed at Catoctin, nothing like it had ever been seen in the Catoctin area before.

The Road to Revolution

While the Johnson brothers were introducing the Catoctin Mountain area to industry, tensions between Great Britain and her North American colonies were heating up. The friction grew out of an attempt by Great Britain to tighten colonial control after years of loose administration. Although essentially a frontier only a decade before, Frederick was the third largest county in Maryland by the 1770s, and western Maryland, along with new resident Thomas Johnson, were active players as the colonies edged toward independence.

Western Marylanders had little reason to feel any great affection for the mother country. General Braddock during the French and Indian War had proven callous and contemptuous of Americans trying to aid his cause. English incompetence was a bitter memory for many in Frederick County. In addition, roughly half the population was German and had little affinity for the imperial British and their authoritarian ways. Maryland authorities still forbade Germans from voting. There also existed fears that the British eventually would seek to impose their Church of England on the sectarian Germans. [84]

The local population was ripe then to support the growing resistance to the new imperial edicts. When colonial authorities attempted to impose the Stamp Act, requiring all printed materials to carry a stamp for which a payment was required, Frederick County joined in the upheavals that shot across the colonies. Protestors burned a tax collector in effigy during a mass demonstration in Fredericktown. [85] Meanwhile, despite the prosperity of some, others, especially commercial farmers were going into debt. They blamed imperial authorities and petitioned the General Assembly to protest a shortage of currency. Some Marylanders even resorted to using Pennsylvania currency. [86]

Meanwhile in 1767, the long-standing Pennsylvania-Maryland dispute came to an end with the establishment of the Mason-Dixon Line. This resolution paved the way for greater cooperation between the two colonies, as each faced the growing crisis with Great Britain.

Reacting to the growing tensions, the Governor of Maryland blamed Thomas Cresap for stirring up the people. In fact, Cresap, now rather elderly, again threatened to march on Annapolis when the colonial government appeared hesitant to recompense members of the western militia. [87] When tensions heated up again around the time of the Boston Massacre in 1770, a group of angry western Marylanders, primarily concerned with threats to religious liberty, met at Tom's Creek near Emmitsburg and issued the following statement:

Resolved by the Inhabitants of Tom's Creek Frederick County, in the Province of Maryland, loyal to their king and country that we reaffirm the Great Magna Carter of Civic and Religious Rights, as granted by Charles of England to Lord Baltimore and the Inhabitants of this colony, as reaffirmed on the first landing of the Pilgrim Fathers of Maryland. That there shall be a perfect freedom of conscience and every person be allowed to enjoy his religious political privileges and immunities unmolested. [88]

By 1774, a dysfunctional relationship between the colonies and motherland had disintegrated into open hostilities when the British forcibly closed Boston Harbor in retaliation for the Boston Tea Party. Although far way, Marylanders, especially in the west, identified with the struggles of the Bostonians. In July of 1774, 800 gathered in Elizabethtown (Hagerstown) to protest the blockade of Boston Harbor. [89] Similar protests were held in every district of the county. Proclamations of sympathy for Boston poured out of the meetings. [90]

Jonathan Hager, a German immigrant and founder of the future Hagerstown, was a great supporter of the colonial cause, as were the Johnson brothers. [91] When open hostilities developed in early 1775, Frederick County immediately organized two companies of volunteers, one under Michael Cresap, son of Thomas. With their faces painted like Indians, armed with tomahawks and rifles, and dressed in deerskins and moccasins, the volunteers headed north to aid the battling minutemen in the summer of 1775. [92] The war began just as construction completed on the Johnson Furnace at Catoctin. Both events signaled a new era for the mountain.