Fort Frederick State Park

This French and Indian War-era stone fort was used during the Civil War as a picket outpost and was the scene of a Christmas Day skirmish in 1861.

FortFrederickwas built byMaryland’s colonial government in 1756 to provide protection to frontier settlers from Indian raids. Named for the last Lord Baltimore, distinctive quadrangle bastions were constructed at each corner of the fort. During the Revolutionary War it housed British prisoners. Just prior to the Civil War, Nathan Williams, a free black man, bought and farmed the property. In order to provide protection to the nearby Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Union pickets were stationed in and near the fort. In December 1861, during Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s three raids again Dam Number 5, the First Maryland Infantry, commanded by Col. John Kenly, was ordered to the area and established pickets between Four Locks and Cherry Run, including Company H posted atFortFrederick. OnDecember 25, 1861, this company engaged in a skirmish with Confederates on theVirginiaside of the river. The fort was also used as a picket outpost at other times during the war.

After the war, Nathan Williams continued to farm the property, demolishing portions of the fort. After his death in 1884, the property passed into the hands of his family who sold it in 1911. In 1922 the state ofMarylandacquired the property. In the 1930s, the walls of the fort were rebuilt and restored with the assistance of the Civilian Conservation Corps, a Great Depression-era agency created to alleviate national unemployment. Fort Frederick became Maryland’s first state park.