What's in a Name: Shepherdstown

Shepherdstown is one of a score of small villages that have come and gone along the old Gettysburg Road since the beginning of the 19th century. Like the others, it commenced chiefly as an overnight stop for travelers, then later grew modestly into a trading center for farmers of the vicinity. And like most of the others, the advent of the automobile gradually put an end to its commercial role, relegating it once more to being a sleepy residential hamlet.

The village took its name from William Shepherd, though if original settlers count for anything, it should have been called McFalltown, after a widow believed to be the first resident in the future village. Shepherd came in the 1820s, and in 1828 the village, though never incorporated, took its permanent name. In its first twenty years it grew slowly, reflecting the growing traffic along the Gettysburg Pike. By 1845 it had spread out for a quarter mile along the road, anchored on two hills and filling the small defile in between. On the southernmost hill stood Jacob Culp's tavern and hotel, which would remain under varying ownerships well on toward the end of the century. On the northern hill sat the 1845 Union Church, a non-denominational house of worship open to all, and including within it a primary school. A general merchandise store appeared in 1822, serving not only the surrounding farmers, but also the inhabitants of the eighteen homes built on and between the hills, until it burned in 1873, to be replaced by another store, portions of which still stand as a private residence. The post office operated in this store well into the present century, until discontinued in the 1950s.

In the 1850s Allen Township built one of its eight identical brick one-room school houses immediately behind the Union Church, on what later became York Street, where it stood until tom down in the 1980s. Meanwhile, more business opened in the village. A substantial shoe store opened across from the general merchandise shop, a doctor became resident in the village, and another inn and tavern briefly operated.

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