It consisted of a blacksmith shop, a church and school, and a few houses and stores. īethesda did not develop beyond a small crossroads village through the 19th century. The church burned in 1849 and was rebuilt the same year about 100 yards (91 m) south, and its former location became the Cemetery of the Bethesda Meeting House. The settlement was renamed in 1871 by postmaster Robert Franck after the Bethesda Meeting House, a Presbyterian church built in 1820. A small settlement grew around a store and tollhouse along the turnpike by 1862 known as "Darcy's Store", named after the store's owner William E. īetween 18, Bethesda became a rural way station after the development of the Washington and Rockville Turnpike, which carried tobacco and other products between Georgetown and Rockville, and north to Frederick. in 1790 deprived Montgomery County of its economic center at Georgetown, although the event had little effect on the small farmers throughout Bethesda. The city avoided seeing action during the Revolutionary War, although it became a supply region for the fledgling Continental Navy. Tobacco farming was the primary way of life in Bethesda throughout the 1700s. Henry Darnall (1645–1711) surveyed a 710-acre (290-hectare) area in 1694 which became the first land grant in Bethesda. Most settlers in colonial Maryland were tenant farmers who paid their rent in tobacco, and colonists continued to expand farther north in search of fertile land. Raids from the Senecas and Susquehannock resulted in the creation of the Maryland division of Rangers in 1694 to patrol the frontier. Fleet eventually secured funding for another expedition to the region and was later granted proprietary rights to 2,000 acres of land in the nascent colony and became a member of Maryland’s colonial legislature. He stayed with the Piscataway tribe from 1623 to 1627, either as a guest or prisoner (historical accounts differ). Fur trader Henry Fleet became the first European to visit the area, reaching it by sailing up the Potomac River. History īethesda is located in a region that was populated by the Piscataway and Nacotchtank tribes at the time of European colonization. census, the community had a total population of 68,056. The National Institutes of Health's main campus and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center are in Bethesda, in addition to a number of corporate and government headquarters.Īs an unincorporated community, Bethesda has no official boundaries. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House (1820, rebuilt 1849), which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda. It is located just northwest of Washington, D.C. Bethesda ( / b ə ˈ θ ɛ z d ə/) is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States.
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