As I highlighted in the latest edition of the Monocacy Monocle, the number of requests I’ve received over the last few months to dig into the small log structure at the 4-way intersection has been surprising to me. To be honest, I’m typically biased towards the larger, more grand historic estates in the Ag Reserve – East Oaks, Aix La Chapelle, Annington, etc. But if we truly want to understand a more complete history of this land, it’s important to turn over all stones, not just the biggest or shiniest ones.
In the Monocle article, I dig into what I uncovered in my effort to understand more about the log structure, but I wanted to walk through the process of uncovering the information as I have in other exploration write-ups.
To begin with, there are actually a lot of pictures of the log structure in various historic databases I frequently use. Here are a few of my favorites:
To learn more, I began by searching in the Maryland Historic Trust files for anything I could find on the structure. In reviewing the write-up on the Beallsville Historic District, we learn that the structure was actually a log smoke house and that it was likely built around 1873 – the same time as a home that was positioned in front of the smoke house. This home was built for John Belt and Francis Griffith, who ran some kind of general store and the local post office out of (or near) the building.
With this information, I began searching for pictures of the home (which, according to the write-up, had been torn down in 1983). I started with a resource of old homes maintained by the county and came across this structure, which appears to be the right place.
To confirm, I went back to Vintage Aerial and looked for overhead pictures in Beallsville from the 1970s (when I know the home was standing) and came across this one. These two homes are definitely the same the place!
With an understanding of what the home looked like, I moved on to find more information on Lemuel Beall, who appears to have lived very close to or in the home built for Belt. Searching through newspaper archives on newspapers.com, I came across the story of the theft from the smoke house and subsequent fight between Beall and Henson Ames, leading to Ames’ death.
Unfortunately, the news seems to end (at least, the news that has been archived) with the homicide. I was unable to find any other information about legal outcomes as a result of the altercation and really not much more that shed light on Beall , Belt, Griffith, or Ames. However, we are able to zoom out a bit and get a sense of the full lives of some of these characters from the Find A Grave site. It is here we learn that Francis Griffith (1831-1908) served as Beallsville’s Postmaster from 1874-1897. Lemuel Beall, who had been born in 1814 and spent the majority of his life farming in the Beallsville area went on to live until 1881. John Belt, born in 1816 and long time merchant in Beallsville, lived until 1884. Few details of Henson Ames could be found.
