Hagerstown Mail, Hagerstown, Washington Co, Maryland Friday, 4 April, 1873 (communicated) Sketch of the Life and Death of George BEARD George BEARD, the subject of this sketch, who died on the 28th day of February just passed, was the only son of Andrew BEARD, and was a descendant of one of the earliest families that settled in the valley of Maryland. Before the red man was fairly ousted from his hunting grounds in this valley, Nicholas BEARD, the father of Andrew, emigrated hither. He was a native of Germany and first settled in Pennsylvania as most of the emigrants from the fatherland did at that time; but afterwards, for the purpose of acquiring cheap lands, removed to this locality, the then backwoods of America. This place, by common consent, received the name of "Beard's Church" and the "Beard's Church Settlement" from the fact that, at an early day, the fathers made provision for some sort of a house of worship and pitched upon this locality as a site for their church. Thus "Beard's Church" is a name and a place that in all probablilty will descend to the latest posterity. George BEARD was born, lived and died at or near the old homestead of the Beard family. Here he tilled the soil his father and his father's father tilled before him; here he raised his family, where his father and his father's father before him raised theirs; and here he is buried in the old graveyard of the church. He was the last and only survivor of the name, in whose possession remained any portion of the patrimony by descent from the old sire who nearly a century and a half before, had located here in the wilderness. True, there is, in the hands of other branches of the family a certain portion of those lands, but it was acquired by purchase. The first church building of this name has long since passed away. It was merely a blockhouse. I well recollect when a boy, the house that was pointed out to me, standing on the high bluff on the banks of the Antietam, that was said to have been built of the logs of the first Beard's Church. This ancient building has long since been demolished. It was in this old church that ZULIPHEN and SCHRADER, and the likes of them, held forth, immediately succeeding the war of the revolution. Some of them, it is said, practiced exorcism. It is said that they were of the soldiers that Wilhelm of Hesse Cassel had hired to the king of England to fight our forefathers in the revolution. He had made conscripts of many of the students of his university. Hence, they were men of parts. The fathers of those days replaced the old building by a new blockhouse which served as the Beard's church for successive generations. I distinctly recollect seeing the date of the building of this house; it was inlaid in the wood (which was black walnut) of the old stem-glass pulpit which stood on the northwest side of the church. This date was 1787 and around it were written with a pen or pencil the names of the worthies who had been chiefs in building this house of worship. Among those names were Nicholas BEARD, Francis PRETZMAN, Philip OSWALD and others. I can remember the old organ and organ gallery, and many other things connected with this second church, which, in time, had to give way to more modern improvement. The interior of the old church was remodeled; the stem glass pulpit, the old organ and gallery - indeed, the entire interior was gutted, and with it those ancient relics and records above mentioned disappeared, and the inside re-arranged after the newer style of churches. This state of things, however, did not long endure; the material of which the house was built was going to decay. The congregation, some years ago, resolved to take down this house too, and replace it with a more substantial brick building. The material of the old house was sold, and from it was built a house, standing to this day not very far from the forks of the roads leading to Hagerstown and Funkstown and not such a great way from the site of the other old building already mentioned. Thus, I close my reminiscence of the ancient Beard's Church. Of the new, I have nothing futher to say. Nicholas BEARD, the grandfather of the subject of this notice, took up and patented a large tract of land in this locality on which he and his posterity of generations lived. The patent name for this land was "The Dutch Lass". The old surveyors who usually named those lands, were very fruitful in the choice of names, generally selecting one from some circumstance or cause connected with the peculiar parcel in question; and, I have no doubt, "The Dutch Lass" was suggested in this case, because Beard was a German, in consequence of which the name was regarded as appropriate. Old grandfather Beard selected a very oddly shaped piece of land for his possessions. He employed a surveyor to run it out for him, as was the custom at that day. They started out, Beard in advance, and the surveyor following after, and whenever they came to a place that did not suit him, he would run it out of his parcel, and whenever a place suited, he would run it in. It is said that, when they were running lines in the vicinity where the Western Maryland Railroad now cuts through the ridge at WALTZ's, he thought they were approaching the mountain (at that time, the country was a wilderness) so he turned off short, and made a very sharp point of land at that place, which he afterwards corrected, by trading with the owners of the adjoining lands. Those adjoining lands had been subsequently patented by JOHNSTON and CHASE under the name of "Gleanings". This, likewise, was a significant name as it ws intended to include all that was left in the field over which land gatherers had been reaping a harvest. And now we say, in conclusion, in reference to the subject we have been considering, thus has passed away another of the ancient landmarks of civilization. What stupendous changes are wrought by time, and what an interesting chapter in the chronicles of the past might be written of but a single precinct, if the reocrds of families would be more carefully preserved. O. =============================== - Dorinda Shepley - Dorinda@MidMdRoots.com www.MidMdRoots.com