In 2025, the Shepherdstown community will be celebrating the 1775 Bee Line March with several events in the lovely Morgan’s Grove Park. It is important to note, however, that the park’s land has nothing to do with the Bee Line March.

The park is included in the 1999 National Register of Historic Places as the “Morgan’s Grove Historic District,” because of Alexander Boteler — the burning of his home, “Fountain Rock,” and as the “second” location for the historic Morgan’s Grove Fair.

The park is a quarter-of-a-mile west of Morgan’s Springs, which is private property. Morgan’s Springs is the location where soldiers, under Capt. Hugh Stephenson, set off to join General George Washington in the war against England.

The 1999 NR nomination includes a 1899 plat, deed book 87, page 230, plate #1141, showing the division of Alexander Boteler’s land (Fountain Rock). It also shows “Morgan’s Grove” — the original area where the 1880s fair began.

W.A. Morgan had offered his land for the fair, located southeast of the railroad tracks on the east side of current day Morgan’s Grove Road. The fair was here until 1899, when W.A. Morgan died and the fair organization needed a new location and bought the Fountain Rock property.

In 2019 and 2020, The Observer Newspaper published articles that originated from the Shepherdstown Community Club about the club’s history, with inaccurate information about their property, Morgan’s Grove Park, indicating it was the area where the 1775 soldiers left.

In early 2020, as the coordinator for the “Morgan’s Grove Historic District,” I gave to the SCC board members folders of information about the history of the park; and wrote letters to the club president, but, as of March 8, 2025 the club’s web site still features this misinformation!

Yes, the Bee Line March and the park are in the Morgan’s Grove Historic District, but the park has nothing to do with the march. The park is a public convenient place, and in 1988 the U.S. Army did hold a celebration in the park, but they were not celebrating the park as the location for the 1775 march. The U.S. Army presented the park owners with a plague that said, “near here,” referring to its quarter-of-a-mile distance from the Bee Line March’s historical location.

Why the SCC continues with this gross misinformation I don’t know, but it has to stop. Even Google maps changed the location of Morgan Springs to be in the park, and other sites with historical information need to be corrected; all this distorted history has come from the SCC and other community members.

The Bee Line is of county, state and national importance. And I think that our local historical association, Historic Shepherdstown Commission, and other regional historical associations, must require the SCC to revise or delete their version of Jefferson County history.

There is another way to further correct this situation — to delete the name “Morgan” from the park’s name, and for the Shepherdstown Community Club to rename the park with its historical name, “Fountain Rock.”

Although I am an artist, I respect history. In 1962, my parents bought the historic house, Falling Spring — land that included the 1740s stone house built by Richard Morgan, and the spring called Morgan’s Springs. In 1985, my mother gave me two acres of land bordering Falling Spring Road and Morgan’s Grove Road — the 1899 plat shows “Morgan’s Grove” to be my property.

Diana Suttenfield, of Shepherdstown