Walking Tour: Lost History of Frederick Douglass in Hagerstown

In 1879 United States Marshal Frederick Douglass traveled the rails to “Hub City," delivering an address at the Washington County Courthouse to benefit the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Future United States Representative and United States Senator, Hagerstonian Louis E. McComas introduced Douglass, who was greeted and escorted through town by the famous Moxley Band.

Learn more about the Hagerstown and Washington County connections to Frederick Douglass from "fugitive blacksmith" Rev. James Pennington to radical abolitionist John Brown to legislator John Francis Wheaton and lifelong friend Henry O. Wagoner.

Tour will include past and present sites from the Washington House to the Washington County Courthouse to Historic Jonathan Street and conclude at Ebenezer AME Church.

Meet outside of Cannon Coffee in downtown Hagerstown near the corner of Washington and Potomac Streets.

Available street parking. Total walking distance is two miles. Family and dog friendly.

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Tour will be led by local historian and author John Muller, author of Frederick Douglass in Washington, D.C.: The Lion of Anacostia and Mark Twain in Washington, D.C.: The Adventures of a Capital Correspondent.

Muller has presented widely throughout the DC-Baltimore metropolitan area at venues including the Library of Congress, Newseum, Politics and Prose, American Library in Paris and local universities. He is currently working on a book about the lost history of Frederick Douglass on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

He has presented “The Lost History of Frederick Douglass in Western Maryland” at various venues such as the Washington County Central Library in Hagerstown, Ebenezer AME Church (Hagerstown) and Frostburg State University as well as presenting the “Lost History: Frederick (Bailey) Douglass in Baltimore” at the Enoch Pratt Central Library in Baltimore City.

Muller has been featured on C-SPAN’s BookTV and C-SPAN’s American History TV, as well as in the pages of the Baltimore Sun, Cumberland Times-News, Spirit of Jefferson, Star Democrat, Washington Post , the television airwaves of WDVM (Hagerstown) NBC4 (Washington), WJLA (Washington), WMAR-2 (Baltimore), WBAL-TV (Baltimore), ABC-47 (Eastern Shore) and local radio stations WPFW, WAMU, WYPR, WEAA, Delmarva Public Radio and West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

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For more information about events and activities in Washington County and Hagerstown visit:

Civil War Heritage Area -> http://www.heartofthecivilwar.org/

Visit Hagerstown -> http://www.visithagerstown.com/

Washington County Museum of Fine Arts -> http://www.wcmfa.org

Harper's Ferry National Historic Park -> https://www.nps.gov/hafe/index.htm

Gathland State Park -> https://dnr.maryland.gov/publiclands/Pages/western/gathland.aspx

Western Maryland Room - Washington County Free Library -> https://www.washcolibrary.org/wmr

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