The globe-independent. (Hagerstown, Md.) 1943-19??, 1946-12-05
It's real name is Jerusalem.

Officially its name has never been
changed, though no one ever thinks
of it by any other name than Funks-
town.
Curiously enough, the man whose
name it bears-in a highly unortho-
doX fashion-has long since disap-
peared from the scene into the great
Western country" and not even a
tombstone in the village church
yard stands to remind the seeker of
the man who almost succeeded in
making the town that bears his name
the county seat of Washington Coun-
ty.
Back in the dim beginnings of our
county's growth, two men struggled
to bring the honor of being the coun-
ty seat to their own particular vii
lages-Jonathan Hager and the van
ishing Funk.
Of the two, Mr.. Hager seems to
have been the better politician. Mr..
Funk stayed, for the time being, in
Jerusalem, relying upon certain
promises of the fifth Lord Calvert.
Mr.. Hager hustled about between
here and Baltimore and kept the pot
aboiling-He won.
In her splendid book, "The Ante
tam and its Brides" Helen Ashe
Hayes paints an idyllic picture of
the Funkstown of the early part of
the century and stirring portrait of
its glorious past, when it was an i'm
portant stopping place on the great
wagon road that ran from East to
West.
A quietly picturesque hamlet today,
Funkstown is part, indeed, of col
orful past-including the Battle of
Funkstown," an affair certainly not
contained in the histories studied by
the county's children.
The little known battle occurred
in the early part of the last century,
around 1922, when a gang of Irish
laborers, known as Paddys, were i'm
ported to the locality-at that time
settled by sturdy and well behaved
Germans and Dutch-to work on the
turnpike being completed between
BoonSboro and Hagerstown. The
Celts were a wild and lawlesS crew,
guilty of many a misdeed, from stop
ping the United States mails on the
great Western road" in search of
lucre, to belaboring anyone who,
with or without cause, aroused their
ire.
Things came to a boiling point in
the sedate village of Jerusalem one
famous st. Patrick's day, when a
village wit elected to make an effigy
of a Paddy, which he paraded about
the streets. 1t was the wrong day
for it and the Irish weren't having
any.
They fell to with shouts of rage,
clubs, stones and mattocks - and
many a bare fist, one fancies-and
the fight was on. 1t became neces-
sary to call out the Hagerstown
Militia to quell the riot, which kept
up at an enthusiastic clip for twenty
four hours. The Battle of FunkstoWn
came at last to an end-and so in all
probability ended any further pa
rading of Paddy effigies on st. Pat
rick's Day, thereafter.
1t was through this same Funks-
town that many a famous person
passed on the great road and while
it is not recorded that George Wash
ington slept there, it was outside of
Funkstown, through which his route
lay, that he was met with a guard of
honor and escorted through Hagers-
town to Williamsport, then under
consideration as the site of the Ma
TONS capital.
One can imagine the throngs that
turned out to line the street of the
neighboring town on this important
occasion.
Henry Clay, travelling back and
forth on important business, fire.
quently passed through Funkstown,
as did many notable of the day
whose name has since become his
tory.
In the Washington County Library
there may be seen, on request,
poem by George Alfred Townsend,
famous Civil War correspondent, that
deals with the effect on an innkeeper
of Funkstown's post-bellum period,
of Mr.. Funk's total disappearance.
Too long to be reprinted here, the
poem traces the gradual decline of
the innkeeper and consequently of
is business, from the time that he
started trying to trace Mr.. Funk un-
IL several years later, when he de-
cided that it was Funk and Funk
alone who had started the War Pc