Learn about the Germantown family that worked the land more than a century before Milestone took shape.
Germantown associates the name Milestone with a shopping Center and housing development, but the family that owned the land for more than 100 years before the company bought it has not even a street named for it. Walmart, Target, Home Depot and other stores now occupy the site of the large farm of William H. Benson. The Benson family’s ties to this area go back to the Revolutionary Days, before there was a Germantown or even a Rt. 118. The only roads at that time were Frederick-Georgetown Road (Rt. 355) and the Road to Monocacy (Clopper Road, Rt. 117). In 1777, William Benson purchased the land where the Clopper Mill ruins are today. There he built a mill on Seneca Creek. This mill came to be operated by Zachariah McCubbin who later tried …
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Kohl's
20918 Frederick Rd, Germantown, MD
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387183
/locations/8896220
New homes occupy the site of a once-thriving village
In Germantown there is a Neelsville Presbyterian Church, a Neelsville Middle School and a Neelsville Village Center, but if given a map, could you point out the village of Neelsville? Today, new homes occupy the site of a once-thriving village, located one mile north of the church, middle school and the shopping Center. Neelsville dates back to about 1800 and was on both sides of Frederick Road just south of the intersection of West Old Baltimore Road. This was a major crossroads in the early to mid-19th century, before Ridge Road (Rt. 27) was built and before there was a Germantown or even a Gaithersburg. In the mid-1860s Neelsville included a general store, a school, a blacksmith shop, an inn and 10 homes. It began with a Quaker family…
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-77.24883
11945 Brink Rd, Germantown, MD
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Susan Soderberg
1:51 pm on Thursday, December 13, 2012
Katie -- Quince Orchard Road is a fairly new invention. I am not sure if there ever was an actual orchard of quince, but you can find out more by comparing maps at the Montgomery County Historical Society library: montgomeryhistory.org. Susan more ›