Post date: Apr 15, 2010 7:50:6 PM
Many years ago Native Americans established the confluence of the Potomac River and one of its western tributaries as an important meeting place. They called this tributary the Conococheague. Conococheague, or Connogochegue, as it was known at the time, was the northernmost extent of the range along the Potomac.
In 1735, Jacob Snively, James Johnston, Joseph Crunkleton, and James Rody made their "Conococheague settlement" a few miles away from the present location of Greencastle, Pennsylvania. Other people soon followed them, and in 1741, the court at Lancaster, Pennsylvania accepted their application for township status. The township is named for Antrim, Ireland, which indicates that the first residents were of Scotch-Irish descent. Antrim contains one borough (Greencastle), and six villages (Shady Grove, Wingerton, Middleburg, Brown's Mills, and South Pennsylvania Junction).
The Conococheague District was one of the earliest areas settled in Washington County, Maryland, and contained a portion of Lord Baltimore's reserved lands and manors. On November 9, 1767, the commissioners empowered by Lord Baltimore offered his lands for sale at the home of Col. Thos. Prather in Frederick Co. The manor contained over 11,000 acres.
M. Snively platted the village of Shady Grove in 1840. Its only church at the time was German Baptist or Dunkard. Middleburg, founded in 1812, took its name from the fact that it lies exactly between Greencastle, Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown, Maryland. It was home to the Middleburg Reformed Church.