A Little Bethesda History
from William Offutt's Bethesda - A Social History
"For most residents of what became Bethesda, farming was the
way of life well into the twentieth century, and at least a
dozen barns remained in the middle of town when the New Deal
began. Some families had tenant houses on their property or
hired others to do much of the hard work and, perhaps,
thought of themselves as gentleman farmers, especially after
real estate speculators started buying nearby property. They
built some grand homes and involved themselves in politics
and civic enterprises. On the other end of the scale, there
were poor farmers in Bethesda, both black and white, whose
hardscrabble life was much like that of the first settlers
two-hundred years before them.
Along the Pike and the older roads, a small store
would sometimes appear on a slope-roofed front porch, and a
blacksmith might find enough trade for his forge and anvil
and settle down. William Darcy started Bethesda's central
business district when he opened a general store on the Pike
a couple of hundred yards south of the y formed by the old
road and the toll road. He soon attracted competition in the
form of a blacksmith and another store-keeper.
These early Bethesdans built churches and schools
and complained about the roads. In 1860 a County school
system began, under the leadership of William H. Farquhar,
and during the Civil War a school opened in Bethesda just
north of the Presbyterian Church. In the same era another
one-room school served the Concord-Cabin John communities.
The war soon closed both of them.
A few Bethesdans were only summer residents,
professionals or businessmen fleeing the city's heat and
humidity and enjoying large, frame homes with big verandahs
and spacious lawns and gardens. But most lived quiet, rural
lives affected more by the seasons and the weather than
anything else. Change came slowly as did almost everything
else."
