Evidence found of Emmitsburg’s centennial celebration

James Rada
Emmitsburg Dispatch

(4/17) Emmitsburg was founded twice.

That might be the conclusion someone 100 or even 50 years from now might reach when looking back on the town’s history. Emmitsburg had a grand bicentennial celebration in 1957, but its centennial celebration was not 100 years before that in 1857, but only 71 years earlier in 1886, according to evidence discovered by The Dispatch.

Mike Hillman of the Greater Emmitsburg Area Historical Society has led the charge for years that Emmitsburg’s proper founding date was 1785. However, while he could show evidence that the town wasn’t founded in 1757, he couldn’t show that the town had ever celebrated any other date.

“I’ve always been troubled, in spite of the fact that we had all the facts, that I couldn’t come across any reference to a centennial celebration,” Hillman said. “Finding this has sealed my case.”

The lack of evidence to the contrary led to a contentious battle in town that ended with the Emmitsburg town commissioners removing the founding date of 1757 from its seal in 2006 and using instead its 1825 incorporation date.

The first piece of evidence was discovered in the files of the Catoctin Clarion. The Nov. 3, 1880 Catoctin Clarion notes “Emmittsburg will celebrate its centennial in 1886.” Then by checking 1886 editions of the Emmitsburg Chronicle, advertisements and articles were found about the town’s centennial, which was part of the town’s annual Fourth of July celebration. The June 19, 1886 Emmitsburg Chronicle noted, “Every citizen of this village should take an interested part in the demonstration, and by concert of action make it a united Centennial one.”

“I was always looking at 1885 because that’s 100 years from when the deeds were dated,” Hillman said. “I never researched 1886 for a centennial, but that’s probably when the first house was built.”

Though the Emmitsburg Chronicle also used a 1786 date for the founding of Emmitsburg, language used in a November 1880 series made it sound as if the town’s founding fathers were only changing the name of the town, not creating a new one. The Greater Emmitsburg Area Historical Society believes that a meeting to name the town, not rename it, took place on March 5, 1785 and resulted in an agreement between the town lot purchasers and Samuel and William Emmit.

The first known use of the name “Emmitsburg” appears in an Aug. 12, 1785 deed, five months after the meeting and decision to create a town, where Samuel conveyed 35 acres to his son William, “wherein the lots of a new town of Emmitsburg are laid out.”

Hillman said that many of the documents that could have helped end the controversy long ago were lost in the 1863 fire that burned much of the town.

“This is the closest thing to having the letter of agreement (signed by the original residents),” Hillman said. “Hopefully, it will allow us to start using a founding date rather than skirting the issue.”