COLONIAL ERA

Beginning in the 17th century, European settlers began making their homes along Rock Creek and the Seneca Trail.  [W]  The area that we currently know as Montgomery County, as well as the land north and west, was part of Prince George's County until 1748.  At that time, Frederick County was formed, containing the area currently in Washington, Frederick and Montgomery counties.  [PR]

By the 1700s, the Native Americans had largely been driven away by encroaching settlers [A], and the old Indian trails evolved into roads.  In 1704, the Maryland Assembly decreed a standard width of 20 feet for all main roads and further ordered that roads be kept clear and fit for travel.  Notwithstanding government regulation, however, these roads were little better than trails -- rutted, often muddy, and providing travel that was slow and difficult.  Notches on roadside trees signaled destinations such as chapels, courthouses, and other roads.  [PR]

What we know today as Rockville Pike, together with Wisconsin Avenue (leading south to Georgetown and the Potomac River) and Route 355 (leading north to Frederick) was then known as the Great Road or the Rock Creek Main Road. 

The Great Road cut through miles of dense forest and natural meadows.  Here and there a traveler would pass fields of tobacco, the main crop, or of wheat or corn. 

Fertile soil, plentiful game, and many streams and springs made this frontier land desirable. 

It was a transportation artery for planters in the area whose livelihood depended on exporting tobacco to Scotland. 

Hogsheads full of cured tobacco were rolled down the road to the ports of George Town and Bladensburg. 

[PR]  [A]

Crossroads were natural places to build inns and other small buildings.  In the 1750s, Lawrence Owen operated a tavern or “ordinary” near the intersection of the Great Road and the Monocacy-Bladensburg Road (today parts of Darnestown Road, Route 28, Veirs Mill Road and University Boulevard).  These roads connected George Town to Frederick Town, both newly settled.  Owen’s Ordinary was likely somewhere in the center of modern-day Rockville in the vicinity of Courthouse Square.  It was probably a typical building of the time, one and one-half stories high and built of logs covered by wooden boards.  (The term “ordinary” was, at the time, a description of a fixed price tavern meal, and by extension also referred to the tavern itself.)  [PR]

Taverns were closely regulated.  The Maryland Assembly specified the kinds of food, drink, and accommodations that were to be offered and at what prices.  A 1780 Act, for example, stated that an ordinary in a county seat must have “six good featherbeds, with sufficient covering for the same, and stabling for ten horses at least.”  A person had to post a bond as security for honest dealing and maintaining good conduct before receiving a license to operate.  Ordinaries also served as gathering places for political meetings, elections, gaming and entertainment (except on Sundays when such pastimes were forbidden).  Because of their importance, their names tended to became synonymous with the settlements that surrounded them, so Rockville was known as “Owen’s Ordinary.”  [PR]

During the 1750s, however, the Rockville area was Maryland’s northwestern frontier.  The residents were descendants of settlers from England and Scotland.  Most property was owned by speculators who had purchased land patents from the Lord Baltimore and then lured tenants or purchased slaves who did the actual farming of tobacco and other crops.  Some tenants, including those who had been indentured servants, were able to eventually buy their own land.  Farms were generally small, and the typical planter’s house was a one or two-room cabin with a sharply pitched roof extended to cover a narrow front porch.  Homes were made of logs and sometimes covered by planks.  Tobacco was not only the main cash crop but it often served in place of cash.  Although the official currency was English shillings and pounds, tax assessments were in pounds of tobacco.  [PR]

In April 1755, British General Edward Braddock and his army marched up the Great Road, on their way to the first major battle of the French and Indian War (1754 – 1763).  Along the way, Braddock’s troops camped at Owen’s Ordinary.  [PR]

Charles Hungerford, operated a tavern from 1774 to 1777 at the northwest corner of what is now Rockville’s Washington and Jefferson Streets.  This was an excellent location because it was on a bend where the  Great Road turned north toward Frederick.  It was comparable in size and appearance to Owen’s Ordinary, and soon people began referring to the settlement as “Hungerford Tavern.”  [PR]

In 1774, some citizens met at Hungerford Tavern to protest British attempts to tax the colonies.  Tempers ran high as the townspeople spoke up in support of their Boston comrades who had recently held the Boston Tea Party.  On June 11, 1774, the assembled colonists passed what became known as the Hungerford Resolves, Rockville’s contribution to the events that led to the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution.  [PR]

Early in the Revolution, on September 6, 1776, the Maryland Constitutional Convention passed a bill dividing Frederick County into smaller governmental units.  The northern section became Washington County, while the southern part was named for General Richard Montgomery who died leading the American attack on Quebec on December 31, 1775.  [PR]

Soon after, the crossroads settlement at Hungerford Tavern was designated the seat of the new local government.  In May 1777, the first court sessions opened in the tavern.  The Court met there until March 1779, when it moved into a home converted for court sessions.  [PR]

By this time, Hungerford’s Tavern had passed in ownership to Leonard Davis.  Davis decided to sell and advertised the business as “26 by 20 feet, two rooms, and a very convenient bar-room, on the lower floor ... a kitchen adjoining the dwelling-house (and) three good well-furnished rooms on the lower floor, with an exceeding good fireplace, very convenient for the reception of travelers .…”  Jospeh Wilson bought and ran the tavern with his wife Sarah, who was Lawrence Owen’s widow, until his death in 1791.  By that time the settlement that we now know as Rockville was called Montgomery Court House.  [PR]

Dowden’s Ordinary in Clarksburg, Maryland; George Washington stopped here in 1755 on his way to join Braddock (Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress, undated photo)

Colonial taverns were generally 15 to 20 miles apart, a convenient distance.  For example, on the Great Road, a traveler leaving George Town could stop at Owen’s Ordinary before heading north to Dowden’s Ordinary in modern-day Clarksburg.  By the 1790s, more inns opened on the Great Road as population grew and passenger and mail coaches began making regular trips.  [PR]

“The Old Quarters,” a slave quarters on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda (Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress, 1939)

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HUNGERFORD’S TAVERN in Rockville

According to the Hungerford Civic Association website, the top drawing is entitled Out of Robb's window Montgomery Courthouse and was done by Benjamin Henry Latrobe in 1811.  The bottom drawing is a view of Hungerford’s Tavern from a circa 1910 postcard.

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