President Madison flees invading British Army, spends night in Brookeville

Brookeville

August 26, 1814

Categories: Government, Military, Politics
Tags: 1776 – 1816, Montgomery County

After fleeing Washington from an invading British army, President James Madison spends a night in Brookeville, MD. With his entourage in tow and a strongbox containing the entire U.S. Treasury, the President makes the small Quaker community the U.S. Capital for a day.

Brookeville is also the home of Thomas Moore (1760-1822), who with another local citizen, Caleb Bentley (1762-1851), is the founder of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. Moore also is credited with inventing the first refrigerator to transport and sell fresh butter.

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Savage Iron Works shows industrial growth

The Maryland and New York Iron and Coal Company is incorporated in 1837. Within three years, two blast furnaces, a puddling furnace and a rolling mill make the Mount Savage Iron Works the largest in the US. It makes the rails for the B&O railroad.

Baltimore earns the label of “Mobtown”

Gangs from the Know Nothing Party and Southern sympathizers riot in Baltimore during elections. In 1857 fighting kills 17 gang members and injures 67 in the most intense violence of the Know Nothing era. Riots in “Mobtown” make national headlines.

Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison begins his career in Baltimore

William Lloyd Garrison begins his abolitionist career, writing and coediting the newspaper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore in 1829. He is the most famous white American to devote his life to freeing the slaves. Photo shows Garrison (center) with two other abolitionists, Wendell Phillips and Englishman George Thompson.