Germantown Then & Now: Button Farm Living History Center

We are so lucky to have the Menare Foundation’s Button Farm Living History Center right here in Germantown.

The Menare Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic sites related to the Underground Railroad and to education about the history of the Underground Railroad. It was founded by Anthony Cohen, who walked to Canada from Montgomery County in 1996 to explore the routes and places identified with the Underground Railroad. In 1998 he traveled again to Canada, embarking from Mobile, Ala. The name “menare” comes from a pass code used on the Underground Railroad, according to a 1937 interview with former slave Arnold Graston.

Button Farm Living History Center consists of 60 acres inside Seneca Creek State Park and is set up to depict a 19th century slave plantation. There is a 19th century barn, historic outbuildings and livestock pens, and a museum garden with plants and herbs that would have been found in a 19th century kitchen garden. Group programs there range from a four-hour simulation of the slavery experience to a two-day emersion experience. The farm is open noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays.

The site is named after the family who owned the farm when it was purchased by the state as a part of Seneca Creek State Park in 1972. But the farm has a much longer history that parallels that of Germantown itself. According to the application for historic designation for the farm, completed by Eileen McGuckian, “Button Farm tells the story of the ups and downs of more than a century of agricultural history in middle-western Montgomery County.”

The farm includes tracts of land with the not-so-promising names of “Barren Hills” and “Sprained Ankle,” originally part of the holdings of Thomas Hilleary, who built the nearby Black Rock Mill in 1815. The western part of what is now Germantown developed more slowly than the eastern part, where the major north-south passageway, Frederick Road, ran. So the farms of the Waters brothers on the eastern side were already almost a century old by the time the first house was built on the Button Farm around 1880.

William D. Hughes purchased the land from the heirs of Thomas Hilleary in 1878 and had built a house there by 1882. This first house is long gone, but the Hughes family barn is still on the farm. William and Elizabeth Hughes mainly grew wheat and raised some livestock. They had eight children.

William Hughes died in 1901 at age 70 after being attacked by a bull. According to the Nov. 22, 1901, story in the Montgomery County Sentinel:

“While hauling fodder to his barn and scattering it about the barnyard for the cattle, a bull known for its bad temper rushed at him. The Bull struck Mr. Hughes in the back, hurling his body into the air and then attacking again, Farm hands drove away the bull and carried Hughes into the house, where he died the following morning.”

The farm was put up for sale. An advertisement described it as:

“valuable real estate… consisting of two tracts of land, one of which was 271 3/4 acres improved by a comfortable 10-room frame dwelling house with a well of water at the door; a bank barn with stabling for 8 horses, and other necessary outbuildings.”

This is essentially the house and barn as they exist today.

William and Elizabeth’s son, Charles Wallace Hughes, purchased the property in 1902. He and his wife, Martha “Mattie” Biggs Hughes raised their children and grew wheat. Wallace Hughes also worked at Black Rock Mill, which had been purchased by his father-in-law, Americus Biggs. Wallace Hughes was also one of the founders and board members of the Western Maryland Federal Land Bank, part of the Federal Farm Loan Act passed by Congress in 1916 to save the small farms. Unfortunately, in 1925 Hughes defaulted on his own loan, which had been taken out to make improvements on the house and farm.

After a series of transactions, the farm was purchased in 1929 by a young couple, Florence and Deaver Carr. The Carrs had two young children at the time and would have five more during their stay at the farm. They were able to hold on to the farm during most of the Great Depression but fared no better than the Hughes had. The Carrs defaulted on their mortgage after ten years.

The farm passed through two more families before it was purchased by Ronald and Carolyn Button in 1944. Col. Button was recalled to active duty in the Army during World War II and worked at the Pentagon. He and his wife decided to settle on a farm in their retirement, moving into the house in 1954. They did extensive remodeling, introducing indoor plumbing and electricity to the house.

Button Farm was sold to the state in 1972 after the Buttons had moved to North Carolina to be close to their grandchildren. The farm eventually leased to Peggy and Larry Fallon, who raised their two children there and lived there until 2002 — the longest of any of the families.

The Menare Foundation received right of entry from the state in 2003, and signed a long-term lease in 2008.

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Montgomery County Heritages Days aren Saturday, June 25, and Sunday, June 26. Four of the 36 sites are in the Germantown area: The King Barn Dairy MOOseum, the Button Farm Living History Center, the Boyds Negro School and the Historic Germantown Bank (open Saturday only). For more information on Montgomery County Heritage Days go to: www.montgomeryheritage.org. For the month of June this column will describe each of these four sites.