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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
3 1833 02167 318 8
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Godwin 2 Vilablane Dr. By his mother, march 1- 1921 mother was there soysame old.
THE HISTORY
OF
GRACEHAM
FREDERICK COUNTY, MARYLAND
BY
Rev. A. L. Oerter, A.M.
-
Printed as part of Vol. IX of "Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society."
BETHLEHEM, PENNA. TIMES PUBLISHING COMPANY,
1913.
Jern Book Co- 15.00
1169798
COURTESY OF C. R. BECK
THE CHURCH AND PARSONAGE.
*
Graceham, Frederick County, Md. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH. REV. A. L. OERTER.
The congregation of the Moravian Church at Graceham, Frederick County, Md., was organized by Bishop Matthew Hehl on the eighth of October, 1758. Therefore, by special services, held from Wednesday, October 7, to Sunday, October 11, 1908, the congregation celebrated its Sesqui-centennial Anniversary, for which the writer prepared an historical account, compiled from the first Church Register, the Diaries, etc., in the Grace- ham archives, on which the historical portion of the following sketch is based.
INTRODUCTORY.
MODERN GRACEHAM AND THE VICINITY.
In the northern part of Frederick County, Maryland, fifty- seven miles west of Baltimore, on the line of the Western Mary- land Railroad-which, in 1867, desiring to extend its line to Ha- gerstown, was granted the right of way through land owned by the Moravian Church-lies the pleasantly situated village of Graceham.
The main street of the village ascends the gradual slope of a hill rising from the Moravian church and parsonage at its foot, which the geodetic survey has marked as being 449 feet above sea-level, until at its crest near the upper end of the street, about one-fifth of a mile towards the west, it reaches an elevation of 490 feet. Shade-trees on both sides of the street, and fruit trees in the gardens and orchards in the rear of the houses-some of the latter having been built, in part, during the early years of its history-and the absence of the toil and turmoil incident to towns in which factories or other great business enterprises are located, give to Graceham an air of peaceful repose, which seems in keeping with its early character as a Moravian church-settle- ment.
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The Moravian church and adjoined parsonage, the only ones in the place, are solidly constructed of brick, the former, the third church-edifice erected-preceded by the first in 1749, and the second in 1772-dating from 1822, and the present parson- age on the site of the original "Gemeinhaus" as it was called, from 1797. They stand in a spacious and well-kept lawn, bor- dered with locust trees and surrounded by a neat wire fence. The church-steeple, similar in style to that of the Central Mo- ravian church at Bethlehem, Pa., is one of the first objects to greet the eye on approaching Graceham from the east or north.
Crossing a hollow in the rear of the church, and the railroad track on the rising ground beyond, the cemetery is reached, sur- rounded by cultivated fields except on the western side, along which pass the trains of the Western Maryland Railroad. A place in which to appreciate Gray's beautiful "Elegy," for here
"Each in his narrow cell forever laid, The good forefathers of the hamlet sleep.
"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learned to stray; Along the cool, sequestered vale of life They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
"Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their teams afield! How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!"
They were the pioneers, whose "sturdy stroke," physical and spiritual, blazed the way in the wilderness and made Graceham possible. "They rest from their labors" in this peaceful spot, the mounds above their dust marked with the simple old-time tablets, now scarcely legible, while more modern monuments in- dicate the resting-places of those of their descendants and of others who have followed them into the land whence they shall go no more out.
In the early years of its history as a church-settlement, when Graceham and its vicinity were more dependent on home-indus- tries than is now the case, various trades and mechanical occu- pations were carried on by the citizens, some of which, in the course of time, succumbed to the force of circumstances, brought about either by the death or by the removal to other places of
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those who had followed them, or by the fact that there was no longer the same demand for the products of their industry.
While the town now consists chiefly of private residences, the visitor to Graceham arriving by the Western Maryland Rail- road will note, as he alights from the train, the large new ware- house and grain-elevator recently erected for the proprietor, a citizen of Graceham, by Graceham mechanics, on the site of the former warehouse built in 1869 and destroyed by fire in 1907, and the adjacent new hay-barn, built in 1912 on the site of the one burned down in IgII, and the neat little separator building. Advancing towards the town, and passing first the residence of the proprietor of the warehouse, and then the wa- tering-trough by the wayside, supplied for more than a hundred years by a spring in the adjacent field, the church and parsonage are soon reached, as also the post-office, in a house built in re- cent years on the site of the first house of Graceham, which was burned down in 1893, together with the second house, on the next lot, both of the original houses having been built of logs in 1782, now replaced by neat frame buildings. In the second house, enlarged in 1792, the first store in Graceham was opened, and was kept until the building was destroyed by the fire that consumed also the first house.
Farther up the street, both sides of which are occupied by dwellings, "the village smithy stands," not "under a spreading chestnut-tree," like the one immortalized by the poet Longfel- low, but partly shaded by a Carolina poplar, of which species there are a number, with other shade trees, along the sidewalks. A little farther on we pass a recently-built and up-to-date gro- cery-store, and then two large modern brick residences, oppo- site the second of which is another large brick building, erected in 1804 and '05 as a tavern, but now a private residence, with a frame building adjacent in which the owner of this property has a dry-goods store. This is on the corner of the main and cross streets, on the latter of which, a short distance towards the left, stands the Public School building, and towards the right a large two-story frame building, formerly occupied as a carriage fac- tory, together with a number of private residences, extending out to the Western Maryland Railroad crossing. Above the cross street there are several other residences and another store on the main street of the village.
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If visitors to Graceham are former residents or otherwise in- terested in the place, they will not fail to visit the old stone spring-house, built in 1828 on the site of a former one, in the hollow behind the church, and to drink of the pure and excellent water of the spring which still flows and fills its little stone basin as it did in the days of old. There is no saloon in Graceham, for water like that of this clear, sparkling spring deserves the testi- mony borne by the late learned and venerable Rev. Dr. E. V. Gerhart, who, after going to the spring and enjoying a glass of the water, exclaimed, "Pindar was right, 'vowp plorov,'" (water is the best).
Graceham is only about two miles distant from the Catoctin Mountains, a spur of the Blue Ridge extending north and south through the western part of Frederick County, parallel with the South Mountain or Blue Ridge, along the summit of which runs the line between Frederick and Washington Counties. Con- sisting of a number of interlocking eminences reaching an ele- vation of 1500-2000 feet above sea-level, with valleys and pla- teaus that afford room for farm-land, and pierced by several gaps through which intercourse between the fertile Manocacy Valley on the east and the beautiful Middletown or Catoctin Valley on the west is made possible-the Western Maryland Railroad also passing through one of them-the Catoctin Mountains present a succession of romantic scenery that sometimes borders on the sublime. Through the ravines mountain-streams dash over their rocky beds, the principal ones in this neighborhood being Hunting Creek, now supplying water for the recently-con- structed dam which furnishes the water-power for Thurmont's electric light plant, High Run, filling a reservoir on the moun- tains from which the water is led into the town, and Owen's (or Owing's) Creek, into which the water from the springs at Grace- ham enters, thus finally reaching the Manocacy River, a few miles away.
Favorite points in the mountains for excursionists are Hunt- ing Creek Falls in the forest, about five miles from Thurmont, at an elevation of about 1200 feet, where the creek plunges in several little cascades over an extensive and remarkable rock- formation, bordered and crowned with huge boulders, and sur- rounded on all sides by the untamed forest-wild; Chimney Rock
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and the neighboring Table Rock, on the very peak of the moun- tain towering some 1500 feet just beyond Thurmont, the former consisting of several superimposed boulders, and the latter be- ing a large rock the surface of which, about 75-100 feet in di- ameter, is perfectly level, surrounded by deep fissures, whose sides are as vertically straight as though purposely so made by the hand of man, and not by natural forces in some pre-historic convulsion.
At the foot of the mountains, on the Frederick and Emmits- burg turnpike, is the progressive borough formerly known as Mechanicstown, which eighteen years ago received its present appropriate name, Thurmont, and fifteen miles south lies Fred- erick City, the county-seat of Frederick County, with which Thurmont is connected by the Frederick and Emmitsburg turn- pike and also by the Washington, Frederick and Gettysburg electric railway, completed thus far, and connecting at Thur- mont with the Western Maryland Railroad.
Distant from Graceham a half hour's walk, or a three-minutes' ride on the railroad, Thurmont is a busy, thriving and growing municipality, with two banks, several dry-goods stores, drug stores, grocery stores and a number of other business places. There are eight churches in the town, the largest of which are Trinity Reformed and St. John's Lutheran churches, both fine buildings, erected recently in place of the former edifices. Our Moravian church, erected in 1874, is a neat, frame building with a steeple, situated on Water Street near its intersection with Main Street. The architect was the late Bro. John C. Traut- wine, of Philadelphia. On Altamont Avenue, in the western part of the town, nearest the mountains, some modern resi- dences command a fine view from their elevated location, and at its highest point are the churches of the German Baptists and United Brethren in Christ, and the U. B. cemetery.
Some of the largest buildings in the town are the First Na- tional Bank and Post-office building, the Albaugh building on the opposite corner of Main and Water Streets, with a large hardware and grocery store on the first floor and lodge-rooms of the Jr. Order U. A. M. and K. of P. up stairs ; theLycett build- ing, formerly the Central or Gilbert Hotel, erected in the year 1800 and now remodeled so as to furnish two store-rooms on
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the first floor and two suites of apartments on the second; the Masonic building, with a large store-room on the first floor ; the I. O. O. F. building, recently enlarged, in olden days known as the Academy ; the Public School and High School buildings, and others.
There are a number of fine, large residences in the town, some of them dating from former times and others recently con- structed, all attractive in appearance and furnished with modern conveniences. Carroll Street, running out from Main Street to the railroad station, is a beautiful street with residences on both sides placed back from the street, with lawns in front and con- crete sidewalks, which have been laid also on Main and other streets in recent years, during which there has also been notable activity in the erection of new residences and other buildings in all parts of the borough. With its well-paved streets, pure moun- tain air, excellent water-which has been analyzed by the Public Utilities Commission of Baltimore and found to be "pure, soft and wholesome"-and its recently-installed electric lighting plant, Thurmont is a favorite summer resort for residents of Baltimore and other places, while others proceed farther west and higher up among the mountains to Blue Ridge Summit, Buena Vista Springs, and other places at which there are large hotels and many boarding-houses.
A half hour's ride on the Western Maryland Railroad takes one from Graceham or Thurmont to the famous Pen Mar Park, through which the boundary line of Pennsylvania and Maryland passes, and from which there is a charming and extensive out- look over western Pennsylvania, and from one elevated point in- to the four States of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. High Rock, a half hour's drive from the park, over an excellent road, is said to be 2000 feet above sea-level. A path in the park leads down the hill-side to Glen Afton Springs, the clear, cool waters of which fill a large oval basin in a rustic pa- vilion and are pumped by an engine up to the Blue Mountain House, not far distant. A number of private cottages or bunga- lows in the vicinity are occupied by the owners during the sum- mer season, and a pretty little Episcopal church stands near by.
Its pleasant walks and drives, and its other attractions in the way of amusements usual at such places, make Pen Mar the oft-
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visited goal of numerous excursionists during the summer sea- son, and not only private picnic parties, but Sunday Schools, Reunions held by churches, Conventions of all kinds, etc., find the accommodations all that could be desired. At such times the extensive grounds of the park, which has not been despoiled of its natural adornments, are filled with thousands of pleasure- seekers, who all seem to have found what they sought, and to be enjoying themselves in a sociable and orderly way.
II
THE EARLY HISTORY.
THE HISTORY OF GRACEHAM MAY BE DIVIDED INTO Two PERIODS :
I. The Period of Evangelistic Activity. . 1745-1758
(a) In the Lutheran and Reformed Union Church on the Manocacy. . 1745 & 1746
(b) In private houses (Weller's and Am- brose's) 1746-1749
(c) In the first "Gemeinhaus," or church and parsonage 1749-1758
II. The Period of Regular Organization 1758-
(a) As a "free" or separate congregation 1758-1782
(b) As an exclusive church-settlement. 1782-1819
(c) As an open settlement or village. 1819-
THE PERIOD OF EVANGELISTIC ACTIVITY.
It is a far cry from the present modernized condition and ap- pearance of things in this section of country to the times when not only the mountains, but the valleys on each side also, were almost entirely covered with the forest that extended far and wide in every direction, only here and there broken by the farms and little log-cabin homesteads of the early pioneer settlers, who, while engaged in their arduous daily labors, or when going to their log-built churches or elsewhere, carried their rifles with them, to defend themselves against wild beasts or against In- dians who might unexpectedly attack them.
This was the case when, in 1745, thirty-one years before the Revolutionary War and the Declaration of Independence- Maryland, together with the other British Provinces in America, being still loyal to His Majesty, George II, King of Great Bri- tain and Ireland, and the proprietary domain of the Barons of Baltimore-John Henry Herzer, a member of the Moravian Church, came from Pennsylvania to officiate as a lay-reader and school-teacher for a community of Germans who had settled in this neighborhood, and had built a Lutheran and Reformed union church, between 1730 and 1734, on the banks of the Ma- nocacy River, the first church in this vicinity.
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Efforts, only partially successful, have been made to locate the site of this church. The Historical Account in the first Reg- ister of the Graceham congregation, written in 1762, only states that the church was "about two miles from here," but they may have been long miles, or the road through the forest may have been more direct than the present road. It has been considered most probable by those who have carefully investigated the mat- ter that the church was located on the old "Indian trail," later the State road, running in a southwesterly direction from Dou- ble Pipe Creek to Lewistown and through Fishing and Cramp- ton Gaps to the Potomac River and the Valley of Virginia- which would naturally have been followed by travelers through this section to Virginia-and that it stood "on the west bank of the Manocacy River, on the first knoll near the Woodsboro pike bridge, and in sight of 'Pohs Ford.'" (Rev. G. A. Whit- more's Historical Sketch of Trinity Reformed Church of Thurmont.)
This historic church, in which the first Moravian brother to officiate statedly in this vicinity held services, was built by a col- ony of Germans who were on their way to Virginia, but were so well pleased with this part of the country and with the liberal terms offered them by the Hon. Daniel Dulany, that they de- cided to remain in Maryland .* This colony of Germans had founded their settlement on the Manocacy fifteen or more years prior to the appointment of John Henry Herzer as their lay- reader and school-teacher. In those days, and subsequently, a large number of German immigrants, some of whom had previ- ously settled in Pennsylvania, and among them some connected with the Moravian Church, came into this part of Maryland and took up land here, either in the Manocacy Valley or in the moun- tain-valleys of the Catoctin range; among the latter the three Harbaugh brothers-sons of Yost Harbaugh (Heerbach, Her- bach), an immigrant from Switzerland, who had settled in Adams County, Pennsylvania-from whom Harbaugh's Valley obtained its name, one of the brothers being the grandfather of the late Rev. Dr. Henry Harbaugh.
*Mr. Dulany held a land warrant for 8983 acres in the Manocacy valley and offered 200 acres, subject to a rent of eight shillings per annum, to every family that would settle in western Maryland, and 100 acres to every single person, on the same terms.
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Although English settlers from other parts of Maryland and from Virginia had preceded the Germans, chiefly in the southern part of the county, the latter element gradually predominated, and testimony has been borne to the great efficiency of this ele- ment of the population in building up and promoting the pros- perity of Frederick County and other portions of the State, the city of Baltimore, quite a number of whose citizens are of Ger- man descent, not excepted. The German language was the one usually heard everywhere, even in Frederick Town, as it was then named in honor of Frederick Calvert, the sixth and last Lord Baltimore, the first house of the town being built in 1746 by John Thomas Schley, the leader and school-master of one hundred families from the German Palatinate, and the ancestor of the large and influential family of that name, including Ad- miral Winfield Scott Schley. Lutheran, Reformed and Mora- vian church services and schools were nearly all held in the Ger- man language until about the year 1830 or '35, prior to which date there was occasionally English preaching at Graceham "for the sake of our English neighbors," but all the church-records, diaries, etc., were written in German.
The Germans who built the first Lutheran and Reformed union church in this vicinity named their settlement, located about ten miles above Frederick, near the site of the present vil- lage of Creagerstown, and which soon became very prosperous, "Manocacy," whence, perhaps, the original name of the congre- gation now known as Graceham, but then as "the Congregation in Manocacy," (Die Gemeine in Manakosy,) unless it was derived from the official designation of this part of the county as "Up- per Manocacy Hundred," or from the fact that the land here was owned by the Hon. Daniel Dulany, and was known as his "Manocacy Manor." The original German name continued in use until the year 1785, when, after the first three houses had been erected, the name "Graceham" was given to the congrega- tion and incipient settlement, at a Conference of Ministers at which Bishop John de Watteville, then on an official visit to the Moravian congregations in America, presided, and expressed his earnest wish that Graceham might be a "hamlet" in which the grace of God would abound .*
*The late Rev. Dr. Joseph Siess, who was born at Graceham, has been cited as authority for the statement that the name "Gnadenheim" was at
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Recurring to the appointment of John Henry Herzer as lay- reader and school-teacher for the Lutheran and Reformed union- church, we remark that it was not unusual in those days, in ac- cordance with the liberal spirit prevailing among some of the religious denominations of Pennsylvania-largely through the efforts of Count Zinzendorf and others to promote Christian fellowship and a spiritual union among them-for Moravian ministers to fill vacancies and serve congregations of other Churches unable to obtain ministers of their own denomination, without intending to proselytize or to establish congregations distinctively Moravian, and in organic union with their own Church. In like manner, men who still retained their member- ship in the Lutheran, Reformed or Anglican Churches with which they had been connected in Europe, were affiliated with the Moravians in evangelistic work, the primary aim being to preach the gospel to those who needed their services, and not to increase the membership of the Moravian Church, which in those days scarcely recognized itself as a distinct ecclesiastical body-one of the causes of its slow growth and comparatively small membership in America.
In Bishop Hamilton's History of the Moravian Church we read, with reference to the "Pennsylvania Synods of the Congregation of God in the Spirit,"-which were the direct result of the pious efforts of men who were not connected with the Moravian Church, but who, "even in the midst of the deplorable confusion and destitution of the times could rise above the narrow bounds of denominationalism and plan for an improvement,"-that "At first the outlook for organic Christian union was very bright. Every German denomination in Pennsylvania-none of them being as yet organized for itself-was represented amongst the more than one hundred members who constituted the first four Synods. It seemed as though the confessional lines of Europe
one time in vogue; but this German name is nowhere mentioned in the Graceham archives, and while it may have been suggested previous to the bestowal of the English name, which is so given in the German diary that records the fact, and which was in regular and constant use thereafter, and while "Gnadenheim" may have been used in private conversation as the equivalent of "Graceham," and perhaps more acceptable to the mem- bers as Germans than the English name-wisely given-it was certainly never the official designation.
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might not necessarily re-appear in Pennsylvania. Provision was made to supply unchurched neighborhoods with preachers and school- masters and to fill vacancies where congregations desired it. Though Zinzendorf had been chosen as President, the men so appointed were by no means regarded as Moravians, but were classified ac- cording to their original connection. The furtherance of vital religion, and not of denominationalism, was the aim of the evangelists."
It was in accordance with this liberal spirit of Christian fel- lowship, and without the remotest idea of establishing a congre -. gation in organic union with the Moravian Church, that, upon application being made to the Brethren at Bethlehem, Pa., they sent John Henry Herzer as lay-reader and school-teacher for the Lutheran and Reformed union church on the Manocacy.
Itinerant evangelists affiliated with the Moravian Brethren- Nicholas Henry Eberhardt, George Soelle, Frederic Post, Fran- cis Boehler, Thomas Yarrel, John Leighton, Matthew Gott- schalk, Leonard Schnell, Samuel Herr, Richard Utley-had previously traveled and officiated from time to time, in Maryland and Virginia ; but the "Historical Account" in the first Grace- ham Church Register states, that "the first opportunity to be- come acquainted with the Moravian Brethren was afforded to the people in this neighborhood when, after the death of the Lu- theran minister of the union church on the Manocacy, the Rev. Candler, in 1745, near the Conewago River, in Pennsylvania, at whose funeral the Rev. Lawrence T. Nyberg, a Lutheran minis- ter of Lancaster, Pa., officiated, he was requested by some of the members of Mr. Candler's congregation, who had attended the funeral service and had been deeply impressed by the ser- mon on the atoning sacrifice of Christ Jesus, to procure for them a minister who would preach such sermons, or, at least, a lay- reader and school-teacher."
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