National Register of Historic Places
Packhorse Ford
Sharpsburg vicinity, Washington County, Maryland
The record
- Listed
- June 15, 2015
- Type
- Site
- Address
- Potomac R. at Canal Rd., Sharpsburg vicinity
- County
- Washington
- State
- Maryland
- Contributing resources
- 1 site
- Coordinates
- 39.42961, -77.77976
- Reference number
- 15000349
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesUSGS Historical Topographic Map CollectionBarry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesBarry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
Packhorse Ford is a site on the Potomac River off Canal Road, near Sharpsburg in Washington County, Maryland. It was a natural ford shown on a 1736 map, used for road and pedestrian travel across the river.
Why it's listed
It was listed under criteria A, B, C and D, with state-level significance in transportation and military history; its period of significance runs from about 1730 to 1864, spanning the ford's early use to Robert E. Lee's retreat across it in 1862. It was listed in the National Register in 2015.
Physical character
The ford crosses a rock ledge reached by a footpath, with the C&O Canal's prism running alongside it. A wooden bridge of 1851 burned in 1861, its 1871 replacement fell in an 1889 flood, an iron truss bridge that followed was destroyed by flood in 1936, and the present steel James Rumsey Bridge was built in 2004.
Historical context
George Washington headed the Patowmack Navigation Company, incorporated in 1785 to open the Potomac to shipping, though it had failed by 1827. The C&O Canal reached the crossing in 1834, severing the wagon road approach and turning the ford into a water-filled barrier; Confederate forces retreated across it after the Battle of Antietam in 1862.