Funded in part by the Mary K. Bowman Fund for Historical and Fine Arts administered by
the Community Foundation of Washington County MD, Inc.

NEW---Hardcover copies for the 1850-1854 index are available for purchase.

The Historic Newspaper Indexing Project began in 1980 as an aid to patrons researching Washington County history and genealogy. An Index to Hagerstown Newspapers is a multi-volume subject and personal name index to local and regional news published in weekly and semi-weekly newspapers in Hagerstown, Maryland between 1790 and 1890. The printed volumes covering the period from 1790 to 1854 and 1860 to 1865 are already completed and are on the open shelves at The Washington County Free Library (WCFL) in Hagerstown and in the Reference sections of the county branches. Microfilms of the original newspapers are available for the public's use at the WCFL Information Desk at Hagerstown's Downtown Branch at 59 West Washington Street.

CURRENTLY INDEXING: WEEKLY CHRONICLE  JUNE 1855. 

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WHILBR Battle of Antietam and the Establishment of Antietam National Cemetery The burial places of the Confederate dead who fell at the Battle of Antietam, Monocacy and South Mountain in Maryland and The Washington Confederate Cemetery. Crossroads of War, Maryland and the Border in the Civil War, Catoctin Center for Regional Studies. Slaves and Free African Americans, Reports and opinions from the newspapers of Hagerstown, Washington County, and Cumberland, Allegany County, Maryland, 1790 to 1864 Hagerstown Newspapers During the Civil War with an Introduction to the Country Newspaper Hagerstown and Washington County Maryland State Archive Guides to Maryland Newspapers

150 YEARS AGO THIS WEEK IN THE CIVIL WAR [Image: Lincoln at Antietam (courtesy Library of Congress)] Civil War - Hagerstown Newspapers-Updated Weekly. The Hagerstown, Washington County, Maryland newspapers covered the events of the Civil War in their pages, not just the events at Antietam and South Mountain, but throughout the country. Editorials and letters to the editor from both sides of the conflict were printed. Slavery in Washington County, Maryland, Mid- 19th Century (1845–54) [Image: Article from Herald of Freedom and Torch Light, 1852] Washington County’s geographical location played a significant part in the slave trade in the region. The county was situated between slave-free Pennsylvania to the north and slave state Virginia (West Virginia in 1863) to the south. Cholera in Washington County, 1850-1853 by Melinda Marsden [Image: Article from Herald of Freedom and Torch Light, 1854] Cholera returned to Washington County again in the 1850s. The epidemic of Asiatic cholera in the 1830s spread panic in the local community, so its reappearance twenty years later was a cause for concern in the local jurisdictions.