Mount Airy

In 1839, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad extended its line through Mount Airy Cut, and a village soon developed here. During the Civil War, Co. K, 14th New Jersey Infantry, guarded the railroad and National Road at Mount Airy. Pine Grove Chapel, built in 1846 and first called Ridge Presbyterian Church, served as a barracks.<br><br>When an old slave named Abaigail carried liquor from the Ridgeville hotel to sell to the soldiers, Capt. Jacob J. Janeway, the company commander, decided to make an example of her and the first soldier he caught buying liquor. He ordered the heads broken out of two barrels and the barrels placed over the heads of the two culprits, who were then marched up and down the track at the point of a bayonet, much to the amusement of the other soldiers and the passengers on a passing train.<br><br>On June 29, 1863, elements of Union Gen. David McM. Gregg’s cavalry division rode through Mount Airy in pursuit of Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s cavalry, which was thought to threaten Baltimore and Washington as it rode east of the Union army unchecked. On the same day, Gen. John Sedgwick’s VI Corps marched by here in the direction of Westminster to form the right flank of the Pipe Creek Line at Manchester.