Excerpt from Jonathan Hagar, the Founder of Hagerstown: A Paper Read Before the Society for the History of the Germans in Maryland, March, 1886

Mr. Wm. Eddis, from whose Letters from America, the above extract is taken, came to the province of Maryland in 1769, to fill an office in the gift of Governor Eden. By the law of the province it was necessary that he reside here three years before taking office. He spent a portion of these years in traveling in various parts of the country. His letters written to friends in England, and published in London, 1792, long after his return to that country, give us a most interesting and authentic account of the province at the period of his residence here from 1769 to 1776. After describing Frederick as observed in his travels west, he says, About thirty miles west of Frederick-town, I passed through a settlement which is making quick advances to perfection. A German adventurer, whose name is Hagar, purchased a considerable tract of land in this neighborhood, and with much discernment and foresight, determined to give encouragement to traders and to erect proper habitations for the storage of goods, for the supply of the adjacent country. His plan succeeded; he has lived to behold a multitude of inhabitants on lands, which he remembered unoccupied; and he has seen erected in places, appro priated by him for that purpose, more than an hundred comfort able edifices, to which the name of Hagar's Town is given, in honor of the intelligent founder. This passage was my first in troduction to Mr. Hagar, which resulted in the publication of a short article in The Tutor some years ago in which I brought together a few facts relating to him. Doubtless it was owing to this article that I was honored by a request to read a paper be fore you to-night. In doing so, I must beg you to remember that the material at my command is necessarily scanty, in isolated and widely scattered fragments, which can only be gathered by much patient labor, and often only by accident. There was during Mr. Hagar's life but one paper published in the province and that was engaged in the dissemination of foreign news more than in the recording of local affairs. Such facts as I have been able to gather I shall now lay before you, dwelling more at length upon those which appear to me to possess the most general interest, or to need explanation.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.