Remembering Sergeant Edgar Reed: A Rockville Veteran of World War I

In February 1918, Edgar Reed left civilian life in Rockville, Maryland, to serve in the United States Army. Before becoming a partner in Reed Brothers Dodge, he served in the Army Medical Corps during World War I. Photographs taken by his brother, Lewis Reed, preserve a personal record of those years.

the title Edgar Reed during his World War I Army service, circa 1918. Photograph by his brother, Lewis Reed.

Edgar was 27 when he entered the Army as a private on February 26, 1918. A resident of Montgomery Avenue, he had spent the previous eight years working for Rockville druggist R. W. Vinson.

According to Maryland Military Men, 1917–1918, his assignments included General Hospital No. 16 in New Haven, Connecticut, and General Hospital No. 11 in Cape May, New Jersey. He advanced to private first class on April 27, 1918, and was promoted to sergeant on February 14, 1919.

At Cape May, the Army had converted a seaside hotel into a military hospital. Leased by the War Department in December 1917, the Hotel Cape May became General Hospital No. 11 in March 1918. Enlisted personnel occupied tents behind the main building, transforming the resort property into a wartime medical facility.

Edgar Reed at the Hotel Cape May, New Jersey, in 1918, during its use as an Army hospital. Photograph by Lewis Reed.

The armistice of November 11, 1918, brought an end to the fighting, but Edgar remained in uniform until the following summer. On August 4, 1919, he transferred to the demobilization center at Camp Lee, Virginia. He received his honorable discharge on August 6.

Edgar Reed and companions aboard a train, identified in the family collection as their return home after World War I. Photograph by Lewis Reed.

That same month, Edgar joined his brother Lewis in the automobile business in Rockville. The enterprise established in 1915 as Rockville Garage took the name Reed Brothers Dodge, beginning a partnership that would help shape the dealership’s early history.

Edgar also became an active member of Rockville’s Henderson-Smith-Edmonds American Legion Post 86, retaining his connection to military service through the local veterans’ organization.

Remembered today as one of the Reed brothers, Edgar was also part of the generation whose lives were interrupted by World War I. His service record and the photographs preserved by Lewis place his story within the larger history of Rockville’s men in uniform, their return home, and their role in the town’s life after the war.