Westbound Day 3 Martinsburg, WV; Hagerstown, MD; Sharpsburg, MD 99 miles

I decided this morning that there is too much to see in this vicinity to try to do it in one day so I am spending two nights in Martinsburg.  I know that my great, great grandmother Sarah Miller Grove was born here and she and William married here in 1846.  They had 3 children here, Mary Isabelle who died at age two and is buried in nearby Darkesville, John William and Cynthia Hester both survived to adulthood and died in the early 20th century in Kansas(Cynthia died in the 1918 flu epidemic).  Spending an extra day here also lets me explore Antietam Battlefield in nearby Sharpsburg, MD.  William and Sarah had left this area by the time of the Civil War but oddly enough I just learned that in the Reformed Cemetery in Sharpsburg, MD are the graves of Jacob Graff and his wife Catherine Stalie Grove (see spelling change in earlier post).  They both died in 1819 and 1823 respectively long before the Civil War.  They are William's great grandparents.  My Grove roots run deep here so there was plenty to see.

I have visited Gettysburg Battlefield twice so I pretty much knew what to expect at Antietam.  Although January is not the ideal time for outdoor touring it does have its advantages.  I had the battlefield to myself.  What a cool experience to walk through the entire area alone. I kept thinking the only way this could be better is if Ken Burns was telling me all about the battle.   I got some great pictures that were not marred by other people and their cars, tour busses, etc.  Antietam was the bloodiest one day battle in the history of American wars.  Yes, much bloodier than June 6, 1944, invasion of Normandy.  Over 23,000 died in the battle at Antietam that day.  The battlefield is rolling hills and farmland and not marred (at least not yet) by encroaching development.

In Hagerstown I stopped briefly at a cemetery known as the Grove Family Cemetery. I'm not sure why the Find-a-Grave website calls this the Grove Family Cemetery.  There is only one Grove marker in the small plot situated in the middle of a cornfield surrounded by a gated fence.  Luther Grove is the only Grove marker in this plot. But I had to visit the place.  It was unique.  It literally borders the Hagerstown, MD airport and had it not been for this family plot I'll bet the airport would have expanded into this field.  Other graves in this plot were of the Brumbaugh family members.

This area is rich with American history.  The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal has a visitor center in Williamsport only seven miles from Martinsburg.  This canal plays into the Grove migration west as the family seems to have migrated west along routes that the canal followed which later evolved into the route US highway 40 follows west through the Alleghenies into Ohio and the west.

Martinsburg seems to be a fairly thriving city today.  I visited here in 1981 when we were on a family vacation that started in Warren, MI and went as far south as Virginia Beach and included visits to Gettysburg, Harper's Ferry, Washington DC, Skyline Drive and Martinsburg.  In 1981 I snapped a few quick pictures and spent the night but no real sightseeing.  The place now has a mall, all the required franchise eateries, big box stores, and over night accommodations all clustered along I-81.  The downtown area seems to be mainly surviving on the business that a county seat requires.  There are plenty of attorney's offices....and oh yes a brilliant architect no doubt....

Now that I have plenty of documentation on my Grove ancestors I have become curious about their movements around the region.  What drove them to go from Fayette County PA east to Martinsburg, WV and then back west again to Springfield, OH and on to Richmond, IN.  Were there family connections in those places?  I speculate that the reason William and Sarah went to Kansas was the opportunity for free land due to the Homestead Act.  This is pure speculation on my part.  But I want to learn what attracted them to the other locations.  In 1843 the B and O railroad came to Martinsburg which brought growth and prosperity.  William would have been 21 at that time.  Did he come to Martinsburg to work and then met Sarah?  Or was he already in Martinsburg since his father Shepherd appears on the 1840 census in Berkeley County?  I'm hoping this trip will uncover some answers.