A Brief Introduction to our Historic Village

For thousands of years before European colonization, the region where Burkittsville is located was home to Indigenous Native American peoples who hunted, cultivated crops, and traded with neighboring tribal units. Paths worn over centuries of migration and economic activity created the crossroads around which Burkittsville grew. Beginning in the early eighteenth century, the future Main Street was a part of the Monocacy Road. Beginning at a fork with the Great Wagon Road near Hanover, Pennsylvania, the Monocacy Road became a primary route for thousands of German immigrant families moving into newly-opened lands in the Piedmont and Valley Regions of Maryland and Virginia. At Burkittsville, this road ascended South Mountain and crossed the ridge through Crampton's Gap before heading on to Packhorse Ford, a natural crossing point over the Potomac River.

A segment of the 1807 Map of Washington and Frederick Counties, Maryland, by Charles Varle, showing the location of Burkittsville (marked by the residence and tavern of H. Burkett).

Early Settlements

Burkittsville lies at a transition point in the geography of the Middletown Valley. North of the village, the valley gradually narrows as South and Catoctin Mountains converge and the terrain becomes increasingly hilly with deep hollows shaped by tributaries of the Catoctin Creek watershed. To the south, the valley grows wider and flatter with large expanses of well-watered land. Broadly speaking, the northern part of the valley drew large numbers of German settlers who established small-scale farms, while the southern portions of the valley attracted English settlers who brought their plantation style agricultural practices from the Tidewater Region. Burkittsville was thus, from its beginning, a place of diverse ethnic communities of Germanic and English settlers as well as people of African descent who were initially brought to the region as enslaved laborers. 

In 1730, Maryland's Proprietary Governor, Benedict Leonard Calvert, issued a patent to Captain John Colville for 5,000 acres of land lying in the southwestern Middletown Valley. This tract, expanded a year later to 6,300 acres, was called "Merryland" and covered lands from the north bank of the Potomac River along the eastern base of South Mountain north to within a mile of Burkittsville. A few years later, another tract entitled "Forest of Needwood" was surveyed on the north end of "Merryland Tract," which ran even closer to the future village. Both of these tracts in time were settled by wealth planter families from Maryland's Tidewater region who primarily grew wheat through the use of enslaved laborers. In 1775, "Forest of Needwood" was purchased by Thomas Sim Lee, who served as Governor of Maryland during the Revolutionary War from 1779 to 1782 and again from 1792 to 1794. The close proximity to the Pennsylvania border and the rural, mountainous environment, encouraged some enslaved people to attempt self-emancipation. Newspapers from across Maryland in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries frequently included notices of freedom seekers who fled plantations on "Merryland Tract." 

"Old Needwood," the home of Maryland's second Governor, Thomas Sim Lee

A notice regarding freedom seeker Levin Evans who self emancipated from Merryland Tract in the summer of 1831.

On May 14, 1741, "Dawson's Purchase," the first land tract within the present boundaries of Burkittsville, was patented by Thomas Dawson of Prince George's County. This tract was shortly neighbored by other lands granted to speculators seeking to profit from increasing numbers of German and English settlers moving into the Middletown Valley in the 1740s and 50s. In 1789, Peter Gaver acquired portions of "Dawson's Purchase" and other neighboring tracts to create "Gaver's Recovery," a 197 acre farm centered on the western-half of the future village of Burkittsville. To the east were tracts named "Friends Goodwill" and "Addition to Friends Goodwill." By the end of the eighteenth century, portions of these tracts were inhabited by two merchants and farmers named Joshua Harley and Henry Burkitt who each sought to stake their claim on the lucrative commerce that was developing around the crossroads.

"Gaver's Recovery," now known as the David Arnold Farm

Friends Goodwill, the home of Henry Burkitt

Burkittsville is Established

By the turn of the nineteenth century, a growing community began to form around the crossroads where Joshua Harley and Henry Burkitt conducted their respective business and agricultural pursuits. There were enough settlers in the immediate vicinity to support the establishment of religious organizations, including German Baptists (Church of the Brethren), Lutherans, and Calvinists (German Reformed). In 1824, a post office was established and Joshua Harley was appointed its first postmaster. While the official name of the community in this time was "Harley's Post Office," varied usage of "Burkittsville" appear in documents as early as 1825. The post office was renamed Burkittsville by 1828. By this time, Ezra Slifer operated a tannery fed by the large spring on the Gaver's Recovery Farm. This tannery, and the associated industries it supported, became the industrial center of Burkittsville in the nineteenth century. Several houses in Burkittsville remain intact today from the 1820s, the first significant period of growth in the village. These include houses like the Cost-Horine House at 6 East Main Street, built by a wealthy landowner whose farms lay on the north side of town. These early houses display a transitional style as architectural tastes shifted from Federal to Greek Revival in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. In 1831, Henry Burkitt deeded a lot at the center of the growing village to the German Reformed and Lutheran congregations on which a shared house of worship called the "Union Church" was built. The congregations also shared a common burial ground on the north end of this lot which is still known as Union Cemetery to the present day. South Mountain Heritage Society now occupies the former Union Church building.

A plat of the eastern section of Burkittsville, recorded in the Frederick County Land Records in 1839.

Burkittsville as depicted by Isaac Bond on his 1858 Map of Frederick County.

By the middle of the 19th century, Burkittsville grew into a regional commercial and industrial center. Two large general stores operated at the town square, one containing the Post Office. A third store was located on the eastern end of the village, where two blacksmiths and two wheelwrights were also to be found. The tannery continued to expand under the ownership of Bavarian immigrant Michael Weiner who constructed a fine Greek Revival residence, known as the Tannery Master's House. Aside from the tannery itself, a cooper and wheelwright were located in the tannery yard buildings. The prosperous economy allowed the town citizens to erect a schoolhouse, a new Lutheran Church in 1859, and expand the Reformed Church in 1860. 

While the use of enslaved labor remained common in the Burkittsville area until the practice was abolished by the ratification of the Maryland State Constitution of 1864, a community of free Black residents began to grow along the eastern slope of South Mountain below Crampton's Gap in the 1850s. Rev. Thomas Henry established an African Methodist Episcopal congregation here in 1858 which became known as Ceres Bethel Church. At the same time, a school was established next to the church, both standing in time to be noted on maps of the Battle of South Mountain which occurred in 1862. 

The abandoned tannery office building in 1975, later restored into a private home.

The Civil War

As the nation broke apart into Civil War in 1861, Burkittsville's residents could not escape the devastation which the war brought to the area. According to documents from the period, Burkittsville's residents were mostly sympathetic to the Union, though there were slaveholders in the town and some residents did fight for the Confederacy. The war came to Burkittsville in the fall of 1862 as General Robert E. Lee drove the Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland in the hopes of capturing the U.S. Arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The Confederate Army took possession of Burkittsville on September 9, 1862 and established a garrison at the top of the mountain in Crampton's Gap. General Lee's battle plans included dividing his army into four parts, three to surround and capture Harpers Ferry and the fourth to capture Hagerstown. When these plans were discovered by General George McClellan on September 13, he quickly sent the Army of the Potomac west to strike Lee before he could regather his forces. On Sunday, September 14, the Sixth Corps of the Army of the Potomac under command of Major General William B. Franklin entered Burkittsville and opened fire on the Confederate soldiers positioned along the mountain below Crampton's Gap. The battle broke out at 3:00 pm and by nightfall, the Union Army had pushed the Confederates over the mountain into Pleasant Valley. The next morning, September 15, Harpers Ferry fell to the Confederate Army under General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson and two days later, on September 17, the armies clashed in the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg. Though a Union victory, both sides incurred major casualties. The Battle of Antietam remains the single bloodiest day on American soil. 

For the weeks and months following the Battles of South Mountain and Antietam, Burkittsville became a hospital. Over a dozen buildings in the town, including its two churches, school house, barns and outbuildings, and even houses were filled with hundreds of wounded Confederate and Union soldiers. The population of Burkittsville increased by some 500% overnight, putting a major strain on the town's resources and economy. The damage to surrounding farms and from the hospitals in the town stalled Burkittsville's economic growth for years to come. The army left Burkittsville, closing the last field hospitals on January 31, 1863. The war would again ravage the valley in the summer of 1863 during the Battle of Gettysburg and in 1864 during Gen. Jubal Early's raid.

An engraving of the battle for Crampton's Gap by A.R. Waud, published in Harpers Weekly in October 1862.

An Era of Growth

After the end of the Civil War, Burkittsville rebounded with new economic activity and growth. While the tannery continued to operate, a new industry grew in the late-nineteenth century. Outerbridge Horsey, a grandson of Governor Thomas Sim Lee, began experimenting with distilling rye whiskey in the 1850s on the farm his mother had inherited from the old "Forest of Needwood" tract. His initial operation was disrupted by the Civil War, but after spending time in Scotland and Ireland reviewing their modern distilleries, Horsey determined to rebuild his own business and employ the latest methods for producing a smooth whiskey utilizing local spring water and rye grain. Horsey's Distillery steadily grew into a major producer of rye whiskey, shipping their "Old Maryland Rye" up and down the east coast and even to markets on the west coast. In 1879, John D. Ahalt established a second operation called the Mountain Spring Distillery and began producing his own whiskey, branded as "The Antietam." Horsey and Ahalt purchased grain from local farmers and employed others in their distilleries to assist with whiskey production and delivering their products to market. This economic activity fueled a rebirth and initiated a new era of construction and growth in Burkittsville lasting from the 1880s through the 1910s.

Bottles from the Horsey Distillery

Ahalt's Mountain Spring Distillery in 1910

Burkittsville's citizens employed this economic growth in a variety of civic pursuits. Rev. William C. Wire of the Lutheran Church began holding classes for young women in the community at his residence on West Main Street at the end of the Civil War. In 1866, the Burkittsville Female Seminary was established, providing a rigorous academic curriculum for women, many of whom applied their education by becoming teachers, like Mollie Hightman who graduated from the seminary in 1874. She taught school in Burkittsville's two-room schoolhouse which began as a private academy just before the Civil War and was later transferred to Frederick County's public school system in the 1870s. A second institution of higher education for women was located at Tyrconnel Farm three miles south of Burkittsville. Known as Saint John's Female Seminary, this school was operated by Rev. George Lewis Staley who returned to the Burkittsville community after the Civil War, having served as the pastor of the Resurrection Reformed Church from 1846 to 1849.

New houses were constructed throughout Burkittsville during the last quarter of the nineteenth century while many older homes were updated to Victorian era aesthetics through the addition of porches, "gingerbread" trim, turrets, and dormer gables. ​The population of the village was at its highest in the 1890s. On April 6, 1894, the Maryland General Assembly passed an act for the incorporation of Burkittsville. Within the first years of the new century, further improvements came to the town as a public water system was built and its houses and buildings were updated to display the fashionable Victorian style. A new four-room school was built on the east end of town in 1914.

The new Burkittsville Elementary School, completed in 1914

Burkittsville's African American population developed two communities within a mile radius of the town. To the south, Coatsville grew around small lots which were purchased by families formerly enslaved on the farms of "Forest of Needwood" and "Merryland Tract" before the Civil War. One resident of Coatsville, George Whalen, attended Harpers Ferry's Storer College and returned to teach the children in that community. A schoolhouse was built in Coatsville in 1898 and named for Outerbridge Horsey. The Horsey School remained in use until 1959, five years after school segregation was struck down in the United States Supreme Court's decision Brown v. Board of Education. 

On the northwest side of Burkittsville along South Mountain, a second African American community flourished in the late-nineteenth century, centered around Ceres Bethel A.M.E. Church. This congregation erected a new church building in 1870. An early schoolhouse near the church was later replaced with a new building along Mountain Church road near the home of the Bruner family. Noah Bruner was a trustee of this school and three of his children became educators. His daughter Mollie Bruner taught in the "Burkittsville Colored School" for 35 years. Her brother, John, attended Storer College and appointed Supervisor of the Colored Schools in Frederick County in 1919, a position he held until his retirement in 1940. 

Horsey's School at Coatsville

Ceres Bethel A.M.E. Church on South Mountain

Transitions

In 1916, Frederick County voters approved a ballot question prohibiting the sale of alcohol. Four years later, prohibition became national law with the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. These laws brought a sudden end to Burkittsville's distillery industry. The increasing use of automobiles also contributed to a decline in local commercial activity, leaving agriculture as the sole driver of the town's economy. The collapse of local industry had the future benefit of making Burkittsville a time capsule. Fewer than five new houses have been constructed inside the town limits since the turn of the twentieth century. 

By the 1970s, growing interest in the community as a historical landmark inspired a grassroots effort to preserve the townscape and its rural context. In 1975, the entire town as placed on the National Register of Historic Places and the Burkittsville District Heritage Society was formed. A decade later, local citizens spearheaded the effort to have the farms bordering the town placed under conservation easements through Maryland's Rural Legacy Program. As a result of these efforts, Burkittsville is mostly surrounded by land which cannot be developed. 
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In 1999, Burkittsville burst into headlines across the nation as the town was swept up in the phenomena of "The Blair Witch Project."  The independently produced film cost around $22,500.00 to make and brought in $248.6 million over its release, making it among the highest grossing independent films in history. Though only a limited number of scenes were filmed in Burkittsville (most of the film was shot in Seneca Park), its narrative and characters were set in the village. While the initial impact of the film on Burkittsville was mostly negative due to film fanatics who vandalized several areas around the community, it is today recognized as one of the town's "claims to fame," even inspiring a sandwich at the Ruritan's annual summer carnival. The film's notoriety continues to bring tourists to Burkittsville each year. 

Today, Burkittsville is a quiet community of 170 residents who mostly commute to work within the DC/Baltimore Metropolitan Area. The town's houses and public structures are much admired for their historical integrity and architectural beauty. Dairy and crop farming continue alongside vineyards and a cidery on the historic farms surrounding Burkittsville. Community institutions such as St. Paul's Lutheran Church, the Burkittsville Ruritan Club, and South Mountain Heritage Society provide forums for citizens to gather, converse, celebrate, and appreciate the historic community of Burkittsville.

"Friends Goodwill," the historic and well-preserved farm upon which Henry Burkitt started his town over two centuries ago