Frederick Town Barracks

Founded in 1777, Frederick Town Barracks became the first public building for the new state, with its twin limestone buildings completed two years later by contractor Abraham Faw and local craftsmen on strategic ground overlooking the Georgetown-Philadelphia highway and key crossroads below. Intended for Maryland troops serving in the Northeast, the site was instead opened by Governor Thomas Lee to military prisoners and, during the Revolutionary War, functioned as a prison camp, recruiting center, marketplace, and civilian rendezvous. Under Brigadier James Hamilton, 984 British prisoners arrived in December 1780 with 180 women and 247 children, the families living in outdoor huts, before the group moved five months later to Fort Frederick and Lancaster. In February 1792, 1,400 German soldiers took their place for the next 15 months, passing the time by waiting for peace, joining the Continental Army, working on local farms and in businesses, or deserting, while dozens of wives came from Germany, British paymasters in Lancaster provided regular pay, Major Frederich H. Scheer and 20 German officers lived in town with family and servants, and junior lieutenants rotated duty there alongside American guards under Major Mountjoy Baily. Peace freed the Germans on April 28, 1783, and two weeks later they marched away as local people wished them luck and cried. The barracks later served many roles: German prisoners captured by Americans were quartered there in 1782–1783 at what became known as the Hessian Barracks; Lewis and Clark used it in 1802 as a supply depot for the Corps of Discovery; United States troops, including the 6th U.S. Infantry and Maryland and Virginia militia, were stationed there during the War of 1812; the Agricultural Society of Frederick County held annual expositions there in the 1850s that evolved into the Great Frederick Fair; doctors, nurses, and volunteers cared there for soldiers wounded in Civil War battles from 1861 to 1865; and in 1868 the Maryland School for the Deaf took over the property, dismantling the west wing to make way for its Main Building.

Frederick, Maryland · United States