Hager House, Birthplace of Hagerstown

The oldest structure in Hagerstown is the stone house that started everything. Jonathan Hager, a German immigrant, bought two hundred acres here in June of seventeen thirty-nine, and soon began building. He had arrived in the colonies in seventeen thirty-six through Philadelphia, and he bought the land from Daniel Dulaney.

Hager chose his site carefully: the house sits on top of two freshwater springs, which he incorporated directly into the basement, giving the household a reliable water supply and a cool storage space year round. In seventeen forty, he married a young woman named Elizabeth Kershner and the house was finished about then. The settlement became known as Hager's Fancy.

In seventeen sixty-two, Hager laid out a town on his land and named it Elizabethtown in his wife's honor. It was later renamed Hagerstown, but the family imprint remained. Hager went on to serve in the Maryland colonial assembly and was instrumental in making Hagerstown the seat of Washington County, which is why locals call him the Father of Washington County. The house, now a museum in City Park, was built the same year he got married. The town was known as Hager's Town until eighteen thirteen, when the city council voted to rename it Hagerstown. Hager also fought in the French and Indian War, serving out of Fort Frederick, and he died in seventeen seventy-five.