Fort Frederick State Park

About Fort Frederick State Park

The park borders the Potomac River and is crossed by the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The park hosts a number of annual events, including the Maryland State Fair, the Maryland State Fair and the National Park Service's annual general meeting. Historical exhibitions are held in the barracks and in the visitor centre of the fortress. Stone walls and two barracks were rebuilt at the site where Maryland conducted its border defense during the Civil War and World War II.

Live history is offered daily and guided tours are available upon request, as well as a variety of other events and activities.

Fort Frederick is unique in that it is a stone fortress named after Governor Horatio Sharpe and built to protect the English settlers. Most other forts of that time were built of wood or earth, but Fort Frederick was unique. The fort served as an important supply base for English campaigns and as an operational base for the US Army during the Civil War.

The Indian chief Pontiac forged a massive Indian uprising in Ottawa in 1763, several hundred settlers and militias sought refuge in the fortress during the brief uprising. Fort Frederick was used again after the American Revolution as a prison for Hessian, German and British soldiers.

In 1791, the fort was sold by the state of Maryland and the fort and surrounding land were managed for the next 131 years.

During the Civil War, Union troops were stationed at the fortress, guarding the C.O. Canal during the battles on the Chesapeake and Ohio rivers. In 1920, the state of Maryland began to develop the first park, and in 1922 they bought the fort again and bought it again.

A company, Civil Monuments, was sent to the park to reconstruct the ramshackle stone walls for archaeology and to find the foundations of the original interior buildings. Future plans included the construction of a museum, a visitor centre, a public library and a park museum. A map of the park was taken from the National Historic Landmarks Collection of the National Park Service.