Community Corner
Slavery in Germantown
This is the second in a series of four columns on the Civil War in Germantown.
Yes, there was slavery in Germantown. The Mason-Dixon Line dividing the slave-holding from the free states forms the northern boundary of Maryland. Since Maryland did not secede from the Union it was not affected by the Emancipation Proclamation, which went into effect Jan. 1, 1863. The enslaved people in Maryland were officially freed with a new state constitution on November 1, 1864. Many of the slaves in this area, however, walked to freedom in Washington, D.C., when emancipation was declared there April 17, 1862. Some also attached themselves to Union military units camped around Darnestown, Hyattstown or Rockville.
The tiny agricultural crossroads village known as Germantown came into being in the 1840s, when a road was created to connect Neelsville with Darnestown. Where this new road crossed the old Clopper Road, German immigrants and others built stores and a blacksmith shop. The location of this original town is where Liberty Mill Road and Clopper Road intersect.
Today, Germantown encompasses six square miles between Little Seneca Creek and Seneca Creek, Blackrock Road and Brink Road. This includes the 19th century towns of Middlebrook and Neelsville, as well as Germantown. According to the 1860 census, there were about 300 whites in 88 households and about 150 enslaved people of color living in what we now know as Germantown.
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Here there were no large plantations with hundreds of slaves as in the Deep South. Small farms grew wheat, corn and potatoes. Water-powered mills dotted the countryside to grind the grains, but transportation to market in Rockville or Georgetown was by horse, horse-drawn wagon or by foot. There was not a railroad through Montgomery County until after the Civil War and, other than some steam-powered farm machinery, the industrial revolution had not yet reached these parts. Farming was labor-intensive, and most farmers grew a variety of crops, raised pigs and chickens, and had a few milk cows and horses.
About 20 households in Germantown owned slaves. The number of enslaved people owned ranged from one to 22. The people who owned the largest number of slaves were John P. Waring with 22, Horace Waters with 21, and William Blunt with 15.
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The people held in bondage here were usually in family groups. Surnames of some of the enslaved people in Germantown include: Brown, Chase, Clarence, Deakons, Diggs, Disney, Duffin, Hall, Jackson, Magruder, Noland, Offutt, Prather, Smallwood, Smith, Thompson, Walker, Warren and Watkins.
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The Germantown Historical Society will celebrate its 20th anniversary with a showing of the new film, “Life in a War Zone: Montgomery County in the Civil War,” 7 p.m. Tuesday, May 17, at the historic Germantown Bank, 19320 Mateny Hill Road. Space is limited so RSVP to info@germantownmdhistory.org.
