Ijamsville, Maryland

Ijamsville, Maryland
Unincorporated community
250px
Ijamsville Location in Maryland
Coordinates:
Country	United States of America
State	Maryland
County	Frederick
Elevation	107 m (351 ft)

Ijamsville (pronunciation: /ˈaɪəmzvɪl/ EYE-əmz-vil) is an unincorporated community located 7 miles (11 km) southeast of Frederick, in Frederick County, Maryland, United States.

History

Founding and name

In 1785, a Maryland native named Plummer Ijams I moved to Frederick County, having purchased a tract of land called the "Paradise Grant" from the government. His family was originally from Wales, but emigrated to the Anne Arundel region sometime during the 17th century. The land he bought was located approximately 8 miles (13 km) southeast of the city of Frederick and cost Plummer one pound, fifteen shillings, and four pence per acre. Plummer established a plantation on his new land, growing primarily wheat and barley, with a small number of slaves. Plummer I had at least two children: a son named Plummer II, and a younger child named John (born in 1789). Plummer Jr. built a gristmill along nearby Bush Creek (which stood until demolished in 1994) while John enlisted in the War of 1812 and rose to the rank of captain. Plummer Ijams Sr. died on June 14, 1796, but his children and their family remained in the area well into the 19th century.

File:Railroad tracks in Ijamsville, MD.JPG

The railroad tracks which still run through Ijamsville

In the 1780s and '90s, a number of other settlers (including the Musetter, Montgomery, and Riggs families) established themselves nearby, purchasing land either from the government or directly form the Ijams family. One of the most important were the three brothers John, William, and Thomas Duvall, whose 130-acre (53 ha) tract of land became known as "Duvall's Forest". The Duvalls discovered large deposits of slate in 1800, and two quarries were operational by 1812, at least one owned by a man named Gideon Bantz. Veins of this unique blue-green or purple volcanic "Ijamsville phylite" "lie west and southwest of Westminster and extend southwest from Frederick County into Montgomery County" and are largely responsible for the community's early growth. Around 1831, the early B&O Railroad asked the Ijams family for permission to construct railroad tracks through its land. Plummer II accepted on the condition that a depot also be built, in part to ease the transport of slate into the local cities. The B&O then christened the heretofore unnamed community "Ijams' Mill and Bantzs' Slate Quarries". On March 13, 1832, four horse-drawn railroad cars travelled through the town on their inaugural journey from Baltimore to Frederick.

In 1786, the Ijams family requested that a post office be constructed on their land. This marks the first instance where the region was considered a community, before the arrival of the B&O. The office was finally constructed in 1832, and Plummer II served as its first postmaster. On June 22, 1832, the U.S. Postal Service shortened the town's name to "Ijamsville".

Expansion

Over the next few decades, the town expanded steadily into a "typically colorful mining town". An influx of Welsh immigrants who came to work the slate mines (now equipped with steam-powered processing equipment) led to the establishment of a residential section north of the railroad tracks. Most of the homes in this section had slate roofing from the Duvall slate quarry and wooden walls from Duvall's Forest. Many small shops grew up towards the center of the town, catering to the needs of residents. The most notable of these, A. K. Williams's General Store, housed the post office and B&O ticketing office. The building itself stood for over one hundred years before being finally demolished in 2015. In May of 1887, Ijamsville's Women's Home Missionary Society established a "Young People's Circle" which drew teenagers and young adults from the countryside into town. By that time, the town could boast a coppershop, carpenter's shop, wheelwright, stable, boardinghouse, shoemaker, milliner, and the gristmill and a sawmill constructed by the original Ijams residents (sold in 1874 to the McComas family).

File:Ijamsville Church main building.JPG

The Ijamsville church as it looks today

Resident Chris M. Riggs began a fundraising campaign in 1854 to construct a church in Ijamsville. Local Episcopalians donated a land lot to the cause, farmer Charles Hendry fired the bricks, and the women of the town made and sold quilts to raise the needed funds. On July 25, 1858, Ijamsville's Methodist Episcopal Church was officially dedicated and received its first two ministers -- the Reverends Thomas B. Sergeant and T. M. Reese -- who happened to be Lutheran. The church building was rebuilt in 1890 after a fire, but is one of the few original town buildings still standing today. The church's basement served as the local school until 1876, when a building adjacent to the church was constructed to house the few students. Pofessor Chasuble McGill Luckett was the school's first teacher, with other teachers (including some women form the Riggs family) riding in on horseback to help when needed.

Local farms continued to produce wheat, barley, corn, tobacco, and sheep. The town's flour and slate were well recognized in Baltimore and Frederick, two of the most important stops on the local railroad. Ijamsville nearly even developed a small pottery industry when potter Artemus Wolf came from Vermont to the town in 1863. He discovered that the soil near the Ijams's spring had the perfect clay content for firing and glazing. With local merchant Benjamin Franklin Sellman, he began selling "Wolf and Sellman" pottery that sold very well to the nearby towns and farms. Unfortunately for the town, when Wolf journeyed to Vermont in 1876, hoping to form a full-fledged company and return, he caught pneumonia and died. Sellman's store closed down shortly afterward, and no other potters ever came to Ijamsville.

Gallery

• Ijamsville Maryland.jpg

  Ijamsville at night

• Ijamsville Maryland 1.jpg

  Ijamsville, seen from the B&O Railroad old line

• Slate Quarry Fig 2 Plate XXIV WBClark 1898.jpg

  1898 photograph of "Slate Quarry" in Ijamsville

• Millstone at corner of Green Valley and Prices Distillery Roads.JPG

  Old millstone at the corner of Green Valley Rd. and Prices Distillery Rd.

• Ijamsville and Mussetter Roads sign at intersection.JPG

  Cow pasture at the corner of Ijamsville Rd. and Mussetter Rd.

• Ijamsville Church main building closeup.JPG

  A closeup view of Ijamsville's United Methodist Church

• Ijamsville schoolhouse, Ijamsville Church social hall.JPG

  The Ijamsville church social hall and former schoolhouse