Bethesda, MD news and local guide

Most colonial settlers were tenant farmers who paid rent in tobacco, and tobacco farming was the way of life through the 1700s. Bethesda saw no fighting in the Revolution but supplied the young Continental Navy. Between 1805 and 1821 the Washington and Rockville Turnpike, carrying tobacco and other goods between Georgetown, Rockville and Frederick, made it a rural way station. The Bethesda Meeting House, a Presbyterian church, was built in 1820, burned in 1849 and was rebuilt about 100 yards south, and its old site became the church's cemetery. A post office was set up in 1852 with the Rev. A.R. Smith as postmaster. By 1862 a small settlement known as Darcy's Store, after the storekeeper William E. Darcy, had grown up around a store and tollhouse on the turnpike, with a blacksmith shop, church, school and a few houses. In 1871 postmaster Robert Franck renamed it Bethesda, after the meeting house. Sources Wikipedia: Bethesda, Maryland