While many take for granted the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts' place as a focal point of Hagerstown City Park, the Museum's very existence is remarkable and unlikely. A 1932 Baltimore Sun article explains the significance of this Museum's place in Hagerstown:
City Directories prove to be an excellent source for researching individual and family history. They fill the void over the ten years between United States censuses.
The first City Directory for Hagerstown, Maryland was published by John Randall in 1893. Earlier (1884-85) a combined directory for Hagerstown and its neighbor to the north, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, was printed.
Digital Maryland Collection
The 1875 edition of Boyd's Business Directory of the State of Maryland lists the occupations and businesses in the five largest cities in Maryland--Annapolis, Baltimore, Cumberland, Frederick, and Hagerstown--and all the smaller towns.
The Washington County Almshouse in Hagerstown was first opened in 1799 as a "poorhouse" . It was replaced in 1880 by the Bellevue Asylum on north Pennsylvania Avenue.
A 1937 photograph of Hagerstown, looking north from the steeple of St. John's Lutheran Church, shows many familar buildings and some replaced many years ago. Heidwohl Studio created this panoramic image using a cirkut camera.
Enslaved persons who were moved into Washington County, Maryland from outside the county were recorded in the land records of the county. Enslaved persons born in the county were not listed this way.
These Heidwohl cirkuts included church groups, fire and police departments, sports teams, school classes, clubs and fraternal organizations, college classes at Shepherd College, landscapes including views across the Potomac at Harpers Ferry and Shepherdstown, as well as the penal farm and the water treatment plant. The Cirkut camera captured a panoramic image by pivoting horizontally (along a vertical axis), while a roll of film moved across the film plane.
The land patents, also known as land grants, for the years 1730 to 1830, covering the area of the current Washington County, Maryland, are listed here. Patents are documents granting ownership rights to some previously unpatented property. They have the nature of a deed and contain a description of the property and conditions of tenure.
Polk’s Hagerstown (Washington County, Md.) City Directory 1935, published by Polk & Co. of Baltimore, Inc., lists the names, occupations, and residences of heads of households in Washington County, Maryland in 1935. It also lists the businesses, churches, government buildings, cemeteries, societies, education institutions, a guide to the streets, and other miscellaneous mentions.
1860 was thus the final census prior to Maryland's 1864 constitution which freed the enslaved of Maryland. Therefore this census lists those who were free prior to the outlawing of slavery. It contains a column for 'color', where each person is listed as W (white), B (black) or M (mulatto). This collection contains those persons listed as black or mulatto in 1860. Enslaved persons were not included in the regular census.