Jonathan Hager establishes Elizabethtown

In 1739 German immigrant Jonathan Hager bought land in Western Maryland and occupied a stone house that he likely built himself (pictured at right). Originally having only one floor and an attic, the house was strategically placed over two springs, providing a secure source of water and natural cold storage. Elizabeth Kirschner, also a German immigrant, married him in 1740 and the couple lived in the house for several years. Within five years they sold the property to Jacob Rohrer and moved.

The Hagers next lived in a log built house on property called "Hager's Delight" where they had three children, though the eldest daughter died very young. As they raised their other two children, Rosanna and Jonathan, Jr., they faced the onset of the French and Indian War (known elsewhere as the Seven Years' War).  While some other families sought safety further east in the county seat of Frederick, the Hagers stayed.  Jonathan took the rank of Captain and served alongside other German settlers, though whether he served among active troops is uncertain. Hager's land investments had grown substantially and even before the conclusion of the war he "laid out" Elizabethtown in 1762, if the accounts citing that date are accurate.*  He named the new town in honor of Elizabeth who died in 1765, only in her early 40s, after a prolonged and serious illness.

Jonathan Hager as the "proprietor" of Elizabethtown determined how the major town buildings and roads would be oriented and offered small town plots (averaging about a quarter of an acre) for annual rent. In addition, Jonathan Hager continued to work at such diverse occupations as gun smithing, fur trading, farm management and politics. At first, his bid for election to the Maryland General Assembly seemed doomed. Though elected as a Delegate in 1771, the Assembly refused to seat him because he had immigrated rather than being a natural-born resident. However, they then forwarded a bill allowing a naturalized person to serve in the Assembly and a little over a month later allowed Hager to be re-elected and claim his seat.

Taking a keen interest in relgion, Hager often had travelling preachers from the Moravian Church at his home and actively supported the founding of several of Hagerstown's churches. According to several accounts he was supporting the construction of the German Reformed Church (now the Zion Reformed United Church of Christ) when he died in a lumber accident in 1775.

People called the community "Hager's town" as often as "Elizabethtown," and in 1813 the city council officially changed the name to "Hagerstown."

*See John H. Nelson, "What God Does Is Well Done," the Jonathan Hager Files (Hagerstown, MD: HBP Printing, Graphics & Information Services, 1997), 21-22.