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Montgomery County Coin Club

March 1999 Bulletin - Early Web Edition

Feature Article - Feedback - MCCC Home Page

Next Meeting: Tuesday, March 9, 1999

Guest Speaker: to be announced

The Montgomery County Coin Club will meet at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 9, 1999, at the Senior Citizens Center, 1000 Forest Glen Road, Silver Spring, MD. The featured speaker will be announced later.

NumisRiddle of the Month

Why is strawberry jam like an ancient coin?

The answer appears later in this bulletin.


February Meeting Report

The Montgomery County Coin Club was called to order at 7:15pm on the evening of an unseasonably warm February 9, 1999 by President William C. Massey. Approximately 35 numismatists were present, including 3 YNs. Vernon Howard was welcomed as a visitor; he is the grandson of long-time MCCC member Joe Howard, numismatist and arborist.

President's Announcements

The MCCC needs a permanent Door Prize manager --- please volunteer! We also need a "Club Historian", to interview some of the more senior members, gather anecdotes, publications, or photographs from the early years of the Club, and organize that data before it is forgotten and lost forever. President Massey also invited any potential guest speakers to get in touch with him for future meetings.

Treasurer's Report

The MCCC balance sheet remains strong. Mail Bidders should contact the Treasurer to close out their accounts. Renew your membership soon!

Librarian's Notes

Several new books are available; members are invited to check them out. They include guides to paper money, Confederate currency, and other topics. A large run of Early American Copper journals is for sale in the MCCC February Mail Bid auction, to benefit the Library --- please bid generously.

February Exhibits

The MCCC Display Case was full of riches in February! Be sure to bring something old, something new, something borrowed, or something blue (but make it something numismatic!) from your collection to show in the MCCC Display Case next month.

Feature Attraction: Mary Gardner on

The 1994 Brookeville Commemorative Medal

The MCCC's honored speaker for February 1999 was Ms. Mary Gardner from Brookeville, MD. Mary is active in the town and has chaired many Brookeville civic activities, and in particular is the program coordinator of the Brookeville Academy. (MCCC member Joe Howard welcomed Ms. Gardner and noted that Brookeville is the home of a Montgomery County Champion tree. The tree is on a special bicentennial cancellation for U. S. postage.) Mary observed that the MCCC meeting was a first for her --- she made all the arrangements for tonight's talk via the Internet, and was happy to see the MCCC membership in person.

September 10, 1994 marked the town of Brookeville's Bicentennial. In honor of the occasion, and to raise funds for the restoration of the Brookeville Academy, the town had a medallion struck by the William A. Lynch company of Gaithersburg, MD. Mary displayed the original commemorative design drawings to the MCCC. They show the four original houses of Brookeville on the obverse, and a memorial plaque on the reverse. (The historic house in which Mary lives is one of the four, by the way.) The memorial plaque honors Brookeville's status as US "Capital for a Day". When James Madison fled the White House during the War of 1812, he stayed in Brookeville overnight, so the town was the nation's capital on August 26, 1814.

Ms. Gardner noted that each silver Brookeville commemorative is individually edge-numbered. The bronze (unnumbered) ones cost only $3. Originally the silver medals sold for $50, but they are now being discounted to $40. (Contact Ms. Gardner via agard (at) erols.com for bulk purchase discount information.) A total of only 300 of the silver medals were minted; one thousand bronze pieces were struck. (Alas, no gold, in response to one MCCC numismatist's question!) About 100 of the silver commemoratives have already been sold. As a special feature, a Brookeville resident has hand-numbered each silver medal's case.

The Brookeville Academy is depicted on the obverse of the commemorative medals. In preparing for the Bicentennial of Brookeville, the town created a reference volume, "The Book of Names" --- a compilation of the names of every single person who ever owned land in the Brookeville Historic District --- that is, every person who ever lived in Brookeville for 200 years. The book is thus something of a community genealogy, providing data on the age, sex, race, occupation, and dates when the landowner resided in Brookeville. Today, the Brookeville population is about 100; when the town was at its height it was the third largest town in Montgomery County with a population of about 250.

Mary also exhibited collectable commemorative Brookeville posters, signed and numbered, showing the incorporated (1890) limits of the town. The original 56 quarter-acre lots were laid out in 1794 and are plotted on the poster map, with an artist's depiction of the history of the town. In the style of 1860's maps, thirteen businesses with a historic connection to the town are depicted.

In response to a question from the audience, Ms. Gardner discussed the "Brookeville Bypass", which is a major local issue. The thoroughfare Georgia Avenue, two miles north of Olney, makes a tortuous turn as it goes through Brookeville. There has been a lot of press coverage (e.g., in the Baltimore Sun, the Montgomery Journal, and other newspapers) of the bypass issue. A bypass has in fact been on the Master Plan, but not approved, for the past 30 years. Maryland Governor Parris Glendenning announced two weeks ago that "The Brookeville bypass is dead." But traffic through the town will double by 2020 to 17,000 vehicles per day. (Today's estimate is 9,000 vehicles/day.) The current situation is "dreadful", Mary said, and children are at risk; there is no room for sidewalks, etc. Thus, in her judgment a bypass is needed. During the Bicentennial, for the first time in 200 years, Brookeville succeeded in getting Georgia Avenue closed for a day, and there were 4,000 visitors. So there is a lot of potential interest in visiting the town's historic district.

The first patent land ownership in the area was by James Brooke; upon his death his land was divided. One of the heirs, Roger Brooke, died in 1790 leaving no will and eight children. His land was further partitioned and one of the heirs, Deborah Brooke, married Richard Thomas who laid out Brookeville's original 56 lots on that inheritance. Other Brooke siblings owned pieces of land nearby.

The original town design named the part of Georgia Avenue in Brookeville "High Street". Other historic avenues include North Street, South Street, Spring Alley, Race Street, and Back Street. In 1800, 13 lots were sold in one day; many people bought three or four lots and put them together. Brookeville was an ideal place to build a little town, because it was situated close to running water, and water was very important. The Reddy Branch Stream is fast-flowing from which mill races (hence, "Race St.") could be created. That fact, and the presence of two springs, one at each end of town, made it possible to build two mills in town, one owned by David Newlin and the other by Richard Thomas. Brookeville was thus originally a milling town, and served a large area as a commercial hub. The town has long hosted a little post office --- until this very year when it was moved three miles up the road. President Thomas Jefferson appointed the first Postmaster in Brookeville in 1802, so the post office there survived 196 years, and formed a central piece of Brookeville's history.

Brookeville's Academy, a large stone building (shown on the obverse of the commemorative medal) sits in the heart of town and was built in 1810. It was one of the first private academies in the country, and offered a full classical set of courses for boys. The Brookeville Academy was owned by the Elks from the late 1800's to 1909, when St. John's Episcopal Church took it over. The town gained possession of it in 1989, and the Academy's restoration was finished in 1997. The building is open to the public, and visitors are welcome.

It was no accident that President James Madison retreated to Brookeville, Ms. Gardner suggested, as the town had several prior claims to fame. Brookeville resident Thomas Moore invented the portable icebox, Isaac Briggs was a local engineer who laid out the Mississippi territory, and Caleb Bentley was the first Brookeville postmaster. More importantly, perhaps, Mr. Bentley's wife was a personal friend of First Lady Dolly Madison. When President Madison stayed overnight in the town, legend holds that he brought the Treasury with him as he fled from Washington, and "ever after that we have honored that day in our history", Mary reported.

Brookeville is an incorporated town governed by a three-person commission. Elections are held in the traditional way, with a shoebox into which voters drop their ballots. Three elected commissioners choose a president for a two-year term. There are 50 families in town, but no police; at one time there was a constable, but now Montgomery County handles law enforcement. Commissioners are not paid, but the town levies taxes for trash collection, snow removal, street maintenance, lights, and so forth.

Ms. Gardner provided information about renting the Brookeville Academy, in a booklet which comes along with a short history of Brookeville. The town is inaugurating a series of courses in the Academy --- "Friday Night Specials", free and open to all, on the third Friday of every month.

Ms. Gardner's speech was applauded enthusiastically by all the MCCC membership present, and after she concluded a crowd formed around her to purchase Brookeville commemorative medals on the spot. Please contact Mary Gardner directly (agard (at) erols.com) to arrange to buy these attractive collectible items. Each silver commemorative comes with a fine Walking Tour Guide to Brookeville.


Other February MCCC announcements:


NumisRiddle Answer

Why is strawberry jam like an ancient coin?

Answer: Because it isn't currant! [or current --- get it?!] To suggest a NumisRiddle for future publication, please write to MCCC YN Robin Zimmermann, P.O. Box 598, Kensington, MD 20895-0598.



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Please send bug reports and suggestions for improvement to Mark Zimmermann via z (at) his.com. The MCCC Bulletin is copyright (c) 1999 by the Directors of the Montgomery County Coin Club.