Fort Frederick: Big Pool, Maryland
January 1, 2005
They say that what you do on New Years will be what you do all year long. For Laura and I, we celebrated with friends on New Years Eve, then went on an outing New Years Day. Our trip this time was to Fort Frederick, just west of Hagerstown, Maryland in the small town of Big Pool.
Fort Frederick was the Maryland Frontier during the French and Indian wars in the 1750s and 60s. It was used as a prison during the Revolutionary war. It was sold in 1791 and used as a farm for over 130 years. In the early 1920s, it was restored by the Civilian Conservation Corps. It is now a Maryland State Park run by the Department of Natural Resources.
The park adjoining Fort Frederick is called Big Pool. True to its name, there is a big pool of water that is actually a beaver dam. They have a camp ground and a place to rent canoes. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal runs through the middle of the park.
The fort from the distance
Gift shop
Out buildings
Peeping through the gate at the barracks.
And again
Nice looking baracks, eh? That's as close as we got to them.
The aformentioned gates
The restored walls
The barracks from the outside of the walls
One of the battlements
Another look
The CCC Museum
Front steps of the CCC Museum
Museum and the fort
The C&O Canal
Another look at the C&O Canal
Beaver dam at Big Pool
Potomac River
Looking downstream on the Potomac
Sunset at the Potomac