Coatsville, Petersville, and Knoxville Scenes

The communities which border Burkittsville to the south all share a common tie to a historic estate known as the "Merryland Tract." First surveyed in 1732 for Captain John Colville, Merryland extended from the Potomac River in the south to the Coatsville area in the north, bounded on the west by South Mountain and extended as far east as Petersville. Containing over 6,000 acres, the Merryland Tract was divided into 22 lots and sold beginning in the early-1770s, bringing many prominent families to the area and establishing the footprints of the modern-day communities of Petersville, Knoxville, Coatsville, and Brunswick. ​
Coatsville is the name of a scattered hamlet of houses which stretches along the base of South Mountain along Maryland Route 17. Much of the land on which Coatsville was built was made up of wood lots owned by the wealthy farmers who inhabited Merryland Tract lots around Petersville. Beginning before the American Civil War and increasing in the years after the war, families who had been enslaved on the Needwood Plantation and other farms were given lots from these timber tracts to establish their own homesteads. Coatsville is a historic settlement critical to understanding the legacy of slavery in the Burkittsville area.
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The Horsey School was at the heart of the Coatsville community for over half a century. Erected in the late-19th century on land purchased from Outerbridge Horsey, the frame schoolhouse was a center for education in the African American community until its closure in 1959. Among the teachers who served the Horsey School was George Albert Whalen, seen in the back row of this photograph with students at the school. Educated at Harpers Ferry's Storer College, Whalen was a respected teacher for thirty-nine years. George and his wife, Altie, built a stone house in Coatsville close to the base of South Mountain where they welcomed guests who enjoyed amenities including a tennis court. Photograph donated by Madeleine Butler.
Julia Ann Smothers was born around the year 1854 and lived in a stone house along the base of South Mountain. It is not known whether she was born enslaved or free, but she worked much of her life for the family of Charles O'Donnell and Matilda Jenkins Lee at Needwood Forest. Among the children she helped to raise was Joseph Wilcox Jenkins Lee, born on October 9, 1870. Julia died in 1945 at the age of 91 and was interred at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church in Petersville. Photograph from the Horsey Collection, donated by Sarah Horsey​.
Many of Coatsville's families were brought to the Burkittsville area in the late-18th century to work on the Needwood Plantation, owned by Maryland Governor Thomas Sim Lee. The governor's house, now known as "Old Needwood," dates from the late-18th century. After his second term as Governor of Maryland, Lee retired to Needwood in 1794 and remained here until his death in 1819. Needwood and its surrounding farms were primarily used to grow grain. Enslaved men and women worked in the fields in addition to serving in the household and many lived in cabins scattered across the extensive lands of Needwood. In the late-18th century, Governor Lee was the single largest slaveholder in Frederick County, holding as many as 200 African Americans in slavery. His will of 1819 lists 110 enslaved people by first name, they being divided among his children along with Needwood's land holdings. Photograph from the museum collection.
The house at Old Needwood is a unique work of Georgian architecture. The house incorporates "distyle-in-antis" porches on the front and rear elevations enclosing the space between the house's north and south wings. This photograph captures a pastoral view of Old Needwood in the 1940s. Photograph from the Horsey Collection, donated by Sarah Horsey​. 
Another of the historic homes associated with the Needwood Estate is "Needwood Forest." A house stood on this site in the early-1770s when an Anglican priest and educator, the Rev. Bartholomew Booth settled and established a private school here. In the short time Rev. Booth's school existed, his students represented some of the most prominent families of the mid-Atlantic colonies, including children of Charles Lee, Hannah Washington (sister of George Washington), Benedict Arnold, and Robert Morris. Rev. Booth was suspected of being a loyalist when the Revolutionary War broke out and was pressured to flee Frederick County, removing to "Delamere," a farm along Antietam Creek near present-day Devil's Backbone Park west of Boonsboro. Photograph from the Horsey Collection, donated by Sarah Horsey​.
Sheep graze among the fruit trees lining the south lawn of Needwood Forest in this early-20th century view. Upon the death of Governor Lee, Needwood Forest was willed to his son, William Lee. During the American Civil War, William's daughter, Mary Digges Lee Gouverneur and her husband, Samuel, lived at Needwood Forest. Mary wrote a memoir in which she recalled hiding the family's horses in the cellar of Needwood Forest when the U.S. and Confederate Armies passed through the area.
​Photograph from the Horsey Collection, donated by Sarah Horsey.
Governor Thomas Sim Lee's daughter, Eliza, inherited lands from Needwood on which she settled with her husband, Delaware Senator Outerbridge Horsey. Their son, also named Outerbridge, began experimenting with whiskey distillation in the 1850s, eventually building a successful company which touted the local rye and spring waters as the defining ingredients for his famous "Old Maryland Rye." The Horsey Distillery farm is seen in this 1940s-era photograph. 
​Photograph from the Horsey Collection, donated by Sarah Horsey.
In 1875, Outerbridge Horsey added a large new section to the older brick farmhouse he inherited from his parents. The new addition was designed in "Stick" or Eastlake style, a rarity in the Burkittsville area. Photograph from the Horsey Collection, donated by Sarah Horsey.
This photograph of the Horsey Distillery was published in the 1903/04 special holiday supplement of The Wine and Spirit Bulletin. The photograph was taken from a vantage point on the east side of Route 17 looking southeast. The large bank barn and carriage shed on the left are still located on the farm today, and the house can be spotted in the background near the center of the photograph. The distillery buildings can then be seen extending across the center to the right side of the photograph. None of these structures remain standing today, though the well that supplied water for cooling the whiskey after it was distilled is still present on the farm. 
This early-1970s photograph shows the ruins of one of the distillery buildings. With the passage of the Volstead Act and prohibition in 1920, Horsey Distillery and its counterpart in Burkittsville, the Ahalt Distillery, ceased operation. Periodic raids on the warehouses and their contents were covered by local newspapers throughout the 1920s until the Federal Government ordered their destruction. Photograph from the museum collection.​ 
Collingwood is one of the historic farms located between Brunswick and Burkittsville. The farm is situated on the east side of Route 17, south of Lee's Lane. Throughout much of the 19th century, the Morrison Family owned and managed Collingwood. In 1895, David O. Staley purchased the property. His son, Ira McDuell Staley, Sr., built the present house at Collingwood in 1910. The brick farmhouse with wife wraparound porches and a prominent turret is an example of Queen Anne architecture. Trees imported from England were planted in the yard surrounding the house. Two of Ira's sons, Ira McDuell Staley, Jr., and William Thaddeus Staley, managed Collingwood after him.
This turn of the 20th century frame dwelling on the eastern slope of South Mountain above the Horsey Distillery Farm is known as "Hidden House." Until the mid-1940s, this was the home of Joseph Wilcox Jenkins Lee, born in 1870 at Needwood Forest. Lee served in several diplomatic posts during the Roosevelt Administration in Central America. ​Photograph from the Horsey Collection, donated by Sarah Horsey.
Between 1904 and 1907, Lee served as secretary and later minister to Panama, Ecuador, Guatemala, and Honduras. He also led an expedition up the Amazon River to settle boundary disputes between Brazil and Bolivia in 1902. Lee returned from Central America due to illness in 1907 and retired to Hidden House where he wrote history and prose. Photograph from the Horsey Collection, donated by Sarah Horsey.
Petersville is a historic community which lies at the center of the old Merryland Tract. Settled in the late-18th century as the tract was subdivided into lots, the expanses of rolling farmland and the predominantly-English settlers resulted in the development of a more "tidewater" culture in Petersville in contrast to the mostly German communities that surrounded it. With the construction of a turnpike connecting Frederick to Harpers Ferry in the early-19th century (today's Maryland Route 180), Petersville enjoyed growth as a commercial center halfway along the turnpike's journey across the Middletown Valley. The wealth of its early families, built on plantations and the use of slave labor, led to the creation of several elaborate homes which remain standing today. Petersville's historic churches also preserve the legacies of its African American community. 
One of the oldest standing houses in Petersville is Barleywood, the home of the West Family built in the late-18th century. At two times in its history, Barleywood was the site of a school. From 1835 until 1841, Rev. Richard Phillips of St. Mark's Episcopal Church operated a female seminary at Barleywood. In the 1850s, Rev. George Lewis Staley, formerly the pastor of Burkittsville Resurrection Reformed Church, established "Linwood Academy," a school for boys. While this school was shortlived, he later established a female seminary at Barleywood which later transitioned to St. John's Female Seminary at nearby Tryconnel. Photograph donated by Thomas Claggett.​ 
St. Mark's Parish was established in 1800 to serve southwestern Frederick County and the southern Pleasant Valley in Washington County. Carved from All Saints Parish, the first vestry was elected in 1806 at Petersville and work soon commenced on a log church on a hill to the east of the village along the Harpers Ferry-Frederick Turnpike. This log structure was replaced in 1841 with a brick church which in turn was replaced with this Gothic Revival-styled building in 1894. At the time of the building of the present St. Mark's Church, the rector of the parish was Rev. Edward Trail Helfenstein, future Bishop of Maryland. ​Photograph donated by Grace Episcopal Church, Brunswick.
At its height, St. Mark's Parish consisted of four churches: St. Mark's, Petersville; St. Luke's, Brownsville; Grace Church, Brunswick; and St. John's, Burkittsville. The churchyard at St. Mark's Church in Petersville contains numerous monuments from the community's prominent families, including Francis Thomas, Maryland politician and congressman who served as the state's governor from 1842 until 1845. Due to the shift of population from Petersville to Brunswick in the early-20th century, St. Mark's Church dwindled and finally closed its doors in 1966. The church is today home to the St. Mark's Apostolic congregation. Photograph donated by Grace Episcopal Church, Brunswick​.
This stone building in the center of Petersville was built by Governor Francis Thomas to serve as a town hall, despite Petersville never being a formally incorporated town. The structure soon became a church, first used by a Methodist Episcopal congregation. In 1903, a Reformed congregation, founded under the auspices of Burkittsville's Resurrection Reformed Church was organized in Petersville. Faith Reformed Church purchased the former Methodist Episcopal Church and worshiped here until 1938 when the congregation disbanded. The structure has since served as a private residence. 
​Photograph from the museum collection.
St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church was founded in the early-1820s, supported with a bequest of $2,000.00 left in the will of Governor Thomas Sim Lee. The governor's wife, Mary Digges, came from an old Catholic family. Her father's conditions for the union insisted that Lee (an Anglican) consent to the family's children being raised as Catholics, which he agreed to. The Lees not only raised their family in the Catholic faith, but also converted or raised their enslaved families in the tradition. St. Mary's has long been an institution bridging the white and African American communities and was the site of a parochial school for Black children in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. The original brick church, erected between 1826 and 1828, was built by the families enslaved on the Needwood plantations. ​Photograph from the Horsey Collection, donated by Sarah Horsey. 
Under the direction of Father John Gaffney, St. Mary's Church was largely rebuilt in 1873, resulting in its present appearance. The subtle Romanesque influences of the church's door and window openings is matched with a neoclassical styled portico, reminiscent of the design of St. John the Evangelist Church in Frederick. Plaques inside St. Mary's Church commemorate the congregation's patrons, the Lees of Needwood, as well as the African American members who worked to build the parish. Photograph from the Horsey Collection, donated by Sarah Horsey.
This view of St. Mary's Church was captured in 1951 during the observance of the 125th anniversary of the founding of the parish. This photograph captures two elements of the church in their original appearance before renovations that occurred in the 1960s. The open belfry was later enclosed with siding and remains so today. Also visible are the original columns that supported the portico. These were replaced with square concrete pillars but have since been restored to their original appearance. Photograph from the Charles Graham Arnold Collection​.
The interior of St. Mary's Church is depicted here, again for the 125th anniversary observance in 1951. The large canopy that covers the altar remains intact today. Photograph from the Charles Graham Arnold Collection​.
Besides St. Mary's Church, another African American congregation existed in Petersville. Union Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1868 by free Blacks living in the community. The frame building, clad in board and batten siding, was constructed in 1868 and was nearly identical to Ceres Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, built two years later on South Mountain above Burkittsville. Union Bethel Church remained in use until the latter part of the 20th century before its congregation disbanded and the building was abandoned. The site is still marked by a cemetery. 
​Photograph from the Zirkle Collection, donated by Georgia Ann Zirkle.
The Colonial Revival-styled Howard Marvin Jones house stands near Barleywood on lands formerly owned by the West and Claggett families. Constructed around 1920, the house was built by Howard Marvin Jones and his wife, Mabel. The Jones were prosperous business owners who operated a hotel and general store in nearby Brunswick. The house remained in the Jones Family for almost half a century. The current owners of the house have carried out thorough restorations of the property and placed the house on the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties. This view of the house was taken in 1947 and shows a gathering of the family to celebrate Howard and Mabel's fiftieth wedding anniversary. Photograph donated by Joan Porter and Mike Wozny.​
Knoxville is situated at the point where the Potomac River exits the "Water Gap" where it passes through Elk Ridge (Maryland Heights) and South Mountain. Flayle Payne acquired a tract of land called "Payne's Delight" in November 1730. This tract ran along the north bank of the Potomac River just east of South Mountain and covered much of the area that Knoxville occupies today. Payne's family operated a ferry across the Potomac and promoted the improvement of roads passing through the area to the passage through the water gap to Harpers Ferry. When neighboring land, part of the Merryland Tract, was purchased by Barton Philpot in 1772, the description of the tract notes that it was "laid off for a town," which would become known as Knoxville. The arrival of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in the 1830s made Knoxville an important commercial hub and shipping point before the establishment and growth of Brunswick a few miles downriver. Many of the town's historic structures were built in the 1840s when the local economy was thriving from mills and an iron furnace built along the Potomac River. After the B&O built their extensive yards and shifted operations to Berlin (which was renamed Brunswick in 1890), Knoxville quickly lost its economic base and as a result, maintains its mid-19th century fabric today without the Victorian-era embellishments that characterize many other towns in the region. 
This postcard from the turn of the twentieth century shows the central commercial section of Knoxville. The large store and hotel on the right stood at the intersection between the Main Street (which was also the Harpers Ferry and Frederick Turnpike) and the road leading to Berlin, which would have only recently been renamed Brunswick a few years before the time of this photograph. The building in the center housed Knoxville's Post Office for many years. Photograph donated by Jody Brumage. 
A view of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Knoxville with the Weverton Cliffs of South Mountain visible in the background. The canal reached Knoxville in 1833 during an intense battle between the canal company and the B&O railroad over the narrow right of way between Point of Rocks and Harpers Ferry. This image of the canal was published as a postcard by Knoxville postmaster and storekeeper William Z. Main. Courtesy of Heritage Frederick​.
The earliest record of a postmaster appointment to the village of Knoxville is dated 1832 when Jonathan Benson was appointed. Benson was succeeded by Barton Garrott in 1835, but in the early-1840s, the post office was moved and renamed Weverton. This was lamented in an article published in Baltimore's The Sun in November 1845 which notes "we are at present subjected to some inconvenience for want of a post office. By hook or crook, the post office was removed, during Mr. Tyler's administration, from this place to Weverton." In 1870, Joseph Main was appointed postmaster of Knoxville and the town was then served by its own post office until 1987 when postal services were transferred to Brunswick. When Rural Free Delivery was enacted in the 1890s, the Knoxville route was one of the largest in the state. From 1904 until 1933, the route was served by Julia Shafer, one of the first appointed female mail carriers in the United States. This photograph of the Knoxville Post Office was published by The News (Frederick, Maryland) in January 1979.
J. Barker and Company of Baltimore erected an iron furnace in Knoxville in the mid-1840s. The furnace was designed to be fueled by coal, which was easily delivered to the site on the nearby canal and railroad. However, with the nearest source of iron ore being ten miles away, the furnace struggled and ceased operations for several periods of time before finally shutting down in the 1890s. This view of the ruins of the furnace was taken by William Z. Main. Courtesy of Heritage Frederick​.
In the late-1840s, ministers from Burkittsville's Resurrection Reformed Church began holding meetings in Knoxville in hopes of forming a new congregation. Their work resulted in the construction of Grace Church in 1851. The stone building stands on the hillside overlooking the center of Knoxville. During the American Civil War, Grace Reformed Church was used as a field hospital. In 1907, the congregation received $410.00 in a court of claims from the Federal Government reflecting damages inflicted upon the building during the war. Grace Church closed in the early-20th century and its building was converted to a private residence. The cemetery adjoining the church was shared along with the Lutheran congregation whose building stands in the center of Knoxville. Photograph from the museum collection​.
Opened in 1925, this four-room schoolhouse served Knoxville until 1940 when its students were transferred to the West Brunswick School. The former Knoxville School was later converted into apartments and remains standing today at the top of Payne's Hill behind the Knoxville Reformed Cemetery. An earlier two-room schoolhouse from the late-19th century still survives further down the hill along Cemetery Lane which has also been converted into a residence. Photograph courtesy of Heritage Frederick.​
Nanuearl (Bowers) Miller and her son, Ronald "Jack" Miller, Jr., outside their store, Miller's Confectionary, on the square in Knoxville. This photograph was published by The News in January 1979. Nanuearl and her husband, Ronald Miller, Sr., took over the business from Ronald's family who opened their first general store in Knoxville in the mid-19th century. The store was located in a three-story building which originally served as a hotel and tavern. 
Trinity Lutheran Church on Knoxville began its life in 1848 in the nearby village of Weverton. The stone church was built under the direction of the Rev. I. P. Smeltzer who was appointed as a missioner to help organize the congregation in the industrial town along the Potomac. The congregation was dispersed during the Civil War and the building's close proximity to the border with Virginia meant it was frequently used by both the U.S. and Confederate armies as they moved through the area. By the end of the war, the church had been partially burned and most of its furnishing destroyed or removed. Consequently, the Rev. William C. Wire began holding services in Knoxville at a schoolhouse and revived the congregation. In the 1870s, the church was taken down and its stones moved to Knoxville where the present Trinity Church was constructed. ​Photograph from the Zirkle Collection, donated by Georgia Ann Zirkle.
This view of a service inside Trinity Church captures a glimpse of the interior of the history building. For much of its history, Trinity was part of the Burkittsville Lutheran Charge and was led by ministers who traveled to Knoxville from Burkittsville. The church closed its doors in the 1980s and was later converted into a residence. The painting of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane seen in this photograph has been preserved and now hangs in the chancel of Saint Paul's Lutheran Church in Burkittsville. ​Photograph from the Zirkle Collection, donated by Georgia Ann Zirkle.
Tryconnell is a historic estate along Route 17 south of Burkittsville and north of Knoxville. The large farmhouse is actually a product of two eras of construction. The gabled section dates from the early-19th century and was built by the O'Donnell family. After the Civil War, the farm was purchased by the Rev. George Lewis Staley who had served as pastor of Burkittsville's Resurrection Reformed Church from 1846 until 1848. After purchasing Tryconnell, Rev. Staley relocated his boarding school for young women from Baltimore to Knoxville, establishing St. John's Female Seminary at the farm. As the school expanded, the need for additional classroom and dormitory facilities led to the construction of a three-story brick wing on the north side of the original farmhouse. This Second-Empire styled addition features a mansard roof with dormers which light the third floor of the addition. Photograph from the Hightman Collection.
This view of Tryconnell clearly shows the two main portions of the house. The original  Federal-styled house is visible to the left and the three-story Second-Empire seminary wing is seen on the right. By the time this photograph was taken in the 1890s, Tryconnell was the home of the family of Thomas Hightman. Later Victorian-era alterations to the house included porches and bay windows. In the twentieth century, successive owners of Tryconnell expanded the farm to become one of the largest in Frederick County. When Col. and Mrs. Lewis Rock of Dayton Ohio purchased Tryconnell in 1951, the tract contained 711 acres of land extending from Knoxville up along South Mountain towards Coatsville, all land which was originally a part of the Merryland Tract. Photograph from the Hightman Collection.
The town of Weverton was located less than a mile west of Knoxville along the Potomac River along the western base of South Mountain. Weverton was the venture of Caspar Wever who purchased significant tracts of land in southern Washington County as well as water rights on the Potomac River in the 1820s. His vision for Weverton was to create a great industrial town that would thrive from the water power provided by the river and benefit from the transportation arteries that came through it, namely the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Wever petitioned Congress in the 1840s to establish a national foundry at Weverton, noting the plenteous supply of wood for keeping a furnace burning and the water power as well as its proximity to the armory at nearby Harpers Ferry. Weverton suffered greatly in the economic turmoil of the 1840s and never fully developed to Wever's dream. The town remained a stop on the B&O, its depot seen here. Much of Weverton disappeared in the 1960s when US-340 was constructed on top of the original town site. Photograph donated by Jody Brumage​.