Anniversary Party

Jefferson Marks 250 Years With a Fitting Celebration

By Guy Fletcher

JEFFERSON—It’s almost impossible to imagine today, but there was a time, a couple centuries ago, when this peaceful village had the reputation for being a rather tough town.

“Who would suspect it to look at Jefferson today!” journalist Folger McKinsey wrote in May 1941 for The Baltimore Sun. “One of the quietest, most peaceful and orderly towns in all the world. One of the cleanest and neatest, too, as if every day one of its industrious housekeepers went out with a mop and broom and duster and put it in spick and span shape for the eyes of the stranger moving through in auto or motor bus.”

McKinsey’s 1941 view of Jefferson remains mostly accurate today, perhaps minus the housekeepers. Of course, the village has also changed greatly since his day, mainly through the growth of new businesses and housing developments that have sprawled far beyond the Jefferson Pike main street.

The entire story of Jefferson will be on display at its 250th-anniversary celebration, a day-long event on May 18. Activities include a 5K walk/run, parade, live bands and other entertainment, and a fireworks finale. There will also be walking tours, history displays, agricultural demonstrations and kids’ activities.

Celebration planners hope the events attract both locals and those from outside the area. “We welcome everyone,” says Jay House, one of the 250th organizers.

In 1774, surveyor Leonard Smith laid out 40 lots along the present Jefferson Pike on land owned by Eleanor Medley. Named “New Town,” the settlement served the needs of local farmers and people traveling along the pike road to the growing industrial region along the Potomac River near Harpers Ferry, then a part of Virginia. Twenty years later, an additional community called “New Freedom” was laid out by Elias Delashmutt on the west side of the already-established town.

Early maps, land records and newspapers often refer to the community as “New Town Trap.” The origin of the name is not documented, but legend was the name referred to travelers being “trapped” between two taverns, which operated on both ends of the community.

“[The town] bore the reputation of being a ‘very tough place,” McKinsey wrote in 1941. “That reputation even reached ominous proportions at one time when it was said of it that travelers here were often waylaid and assaulted and ‘sometimes foully put out of the way.’”

On Feb. 5, 1832, the Maryland General Assembly passed an act to combine the communities under the single name of Jefferson. It was an incorporated municipality, complete with a mayor and town government. But it was later “untowned” by the General Assembly for lack of compliance with its incorporation papers, McKinsey wrote.

“It has been ‘on its own’ for many years, a town practically ungoverned except by the rules and regulations of the county administration system, and yet independently governed by its own people,” according to McKinsey.

Stepping into the role of de facto local government has been the Jefferson Ruritan Club, which was founded in 1955 and since then has provided services and guidance to the community. Its center stands as a kind of city hall, only without the politicians or taxing authority.

In fact, it was the Ruritan Club that organized the 250th anniversary activities. House, a Ruritan since 1986 and whose father was a charter member, is looking forward to the May 18 events, which have been many months in the making.

“As always with our Ruritan Club, our members always step up when it comes to getting something done,” he says. 

For a complete list of 250th events and other information, visit jeffersonruritan.org/events/jefferson-250th-celebration.