Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1948-06-10
BIZ Elsie White Haines

Montgomery County is fortunate
in having such an organization as
The West Montgomery County
Citizens Association, which inter-
ests itself not only in quest of inn
provements for the section border
ing the Potomac and it's tributary
streams in the western section Of
the county, but is striving to fol-
low traditions of that historic
section.
AT a dinner meeting of the
association at which the writer
was a guest, we heard with pleas
ure of the efforts of committee
headed by Col. l.. E. Smith to as
certain the names of old roads =
to find and mark places of historic
interest.
Those who love the county =
whose ancestors lived, worked and
fought to make the county the
outstanding one in the U. s. in
standards of rural living, should
be grateful to the committee for
making an effort to perpetuate
memorials to those old names on
maps and by markers. Do send
in any interesting information =
tradition or record you may have
of the vicinity either to the Sen
tinel, or to the association, whose
president is William C. Hanson Of
Mt. Prospect Farm, Gaithersburg,
Ri. or to Col. Smith, Gathers
burg, RID.
The association which numbers
$50 members will be delighted to
see in this issue of the Sentinel an
advertisement for bids for the con-
struction of 1875 miles of River
Road beginning at the end of the
macadam road one and one half
miles from Potomac toward Sen
eca." From earliest times the
road has been impossible in win
ter and almost so in summer, and
pleas for its improvement Rave
been heard for many decades.
Since the Colonial days of the
cid tobacco planters, with their
baronial estates and armies of
slaves "the red lands of Medley
from Potomac to Poolesville, have
been famous for good living. Ar
early historian says, "they feasteC
and frolicked and fox hunted ant
made the most of life in tn,
days before they denuded the for
ests and exhausted the land" TIL,
lovely old homes remaining in the
section attest their descendants
lived well, too.
Col. Smiths committee is es
pecially interested in stories of tho
old mills, and rightly so, for from
1900 to 1900 mills were usually i'm
portant centers which also contain
ed blacksmith shop and a store
cobbler's shop, etc.
The mill names seem to have
changed with each owner, for sure
| ly there could not have been 81
many different ones in the section
during the century. Ever hear OF
"Black Rock?" We have seer
mention of "Black Rock Mill
built in 1905, operated by renters
until it closed in 1905. 1t was
located IL miles above the bridge
On highway from Darnestown t.
Jacksonville near junction of "Big'
and Little" Senecas. This is de
scribed as a large stone structure
the ruins of which are in deeply
wooded gorge directly across the
creek from perpendicular cliff
most secluded and picturesque
This was contained in a letter tc
the late A. G. Thomas of Sandy
SPRING.
Does the committee know that
Seneca Mill, now owned by tn,
Pierpoints, built and operated foi
many years by Upton Darby and
his family, kept in it's books a
pretty good history of the neigh
borhood during the Civil War?
About 1900 the mill was sold tc
Wilson Tschiffely and operated by
his son until the latter's death in
1917 when Worthington Tschif.
fely, then 10 or 20 took it over.
Have you ever heard that Sen.
eca was once called Newport? Ac
eording to an early historian
John Garrett laid out a town he
called Newport on the west side Of
the mouth Of Seneca Falls on the
Potomac River % miles above
Georgetown"
Mrs. Berry, Gray did research il
the area along the Potomac II
1938-39 for the widely attended
pageant which revived highlights
from the lives Of the Chiswells.
Stephen Newton Chiswell 'wher