Darnestown Road, one of the oldest roads in Montgomery County, began as a trail used by the Seneca Indians by 1600, when Native Americans established villages, planted maize, and fished along the Potomac Palisades. The land that became Darnestown began to be settled in the mid-18th century by Scottish and Irish frontiersmen, many of whom became farmers. In 1749, one of the first settlers, Ninean Beall, acquired a tract called "Barren Hill" between Darnestown and Germantown, and the tavern keeper began a long lineage in the community. Beall's granddaughter Elizabeth Gassaway married William Darne in 1798 and inherited land originally named Mt. Pleasant. When the first post office was established about 1815-20, the town took Darne's name because he was the largest landowner. Darne was also a slaveholder who owned 18 bondspeople who worked the fields. During his lifetime, William Darne served as a State Representative, Levy Court Judge, and later as a director of the C&O Canal. After his death in 1845, Elizabeth inherited the property. The town was called Darnes or Darnes Town before eventually becoming known as Darnestown. Darnestown's greatest prosperity paralleled the rise and fall of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, which carried commercial goods from the mountains to tidewater and greatly reduced travel time. Construction on the 184 mile canal began in 1828 and reached Cumberland, Maryland, in 1850. Although railroads had already begun to surpass canal travel by then, goods in Darnestown continued to move by canal as farmers from surrounding areas brought grain to the town's mills, where it was milled and sent by canal to Georgetown. When railroads reached Germantown and Gaithersburg by the early 1900s, the canal's importance declined, and after it ceased operating in 1924, commerce shifted elsewhere and Darnestown's role as a crossroads center faded.