During the 1880s, Darnestown was a thriving crossroads community that had grown during the 19th century to include a store and post office, blacksmith, schoolhouse, tavern, and church. Its growth and prosperity came from local grist mills, proximity to the Seneca Quarry, and the neighboring C&O Canal. Improved farming methods and the proliferation of slave labor encouraged farmers to grow tobacco, which was also sent down-river on barges. By 1871, Darnestown ranked ninth among the most populous towns in Montgomery County with a population of ninety-nine, and by 1879 the population had doubled to two hundred. Between the former location of Dr. Beall's house and the graveyard stand two champion trees, a Northern Catalpa and a Kentucky Coffee Tree, both native to the Midwest and likely planted circa 1800-1840, possibly by members of the Darne family. As one of Darnestown's oldest trees, the Northern Catalpa has witnessed much of the town's history. It is seventy-seven feet tall, has a trunk circumference of more than twenty feet, and a crown spread of eighty-five feet. As the largest known tree of its species in Maryland, it was listed as a State Champion Tree on the 2009 Maryland Big Tree Register and a County Champion on the 2009 Montgomery County Register of Champion Trees.