Martin Thompson House on Darnestown Road, 1907
Route 28, Darnestown Road Circa 1907 – Martin Thompson House, owned by Lewis Reed’s maternal grandfather. Photo by Lewis Reed.
The home in the photo was owned by James Martin Thompson (1825–1902), Lewis Reed’s maternal grandfather. It was then called “Pleasant Hills”, which was located just opposite of the Thomas Kelly farm. In the early days, it was common practice for a family to give a name to their property. The house was accessed from Darnestown Road by a long tree-lined drive.
Route 28, in Darnestown is depicted in this photo before paving. What is now Route 28 is one of the earliest roads in the county, and was one of the main ways farmers in Poolesville, Darnestown, Dickerson, and Barnesville reached the courthouse in Rockville. Darnestown Road has existed since before the Civil war, and it remained a mud path for years into the automobile age.
Most houses in the Darnestown “Pleasant Hills” area were not very large and most were made of wood rather than brick. According to the 1860 Federal Census, Martin Thompson’s occupations were listed as Carpenter and Farmer living in Darnestown, Montgomery County, Maryland.
This photograph won an honorable mention in a contest sponsored by Rotary International for Lewis Reed.
The Reed Family (Blacksmithing in Darnestown c. 1870)
Philip Reed outside of his Blacksmith Shop in Darnestown, Maryland c. early 1900s. Photo by Lewis Reed
Philip Reed (1845-1918), father of Lewis Reed, was an early settler in Darnestown, Maryland. He was a Blacksmith. Blacksmiths were once important members of the Darnestown community. They provided a vital trade that continued up to the mid-20th century. Born in Darnestown, Maryland on March 17, 1845, he was raised in a family that survived on knowledge and hard work. In 1870, at age 25, his occupation is listed as a Cabinet Maker and Blacksmith. Darnestown residents of that time included a doctor, a merchant, a blacksmith and a wheelwright. It seems Philip Reed may not have considered his primary occupation as a Wheelwright, but I do know that he had a Blacksmith shop on his land and he worked with both cabinet maker and blacksmith skills.
A blacksmith is a metal worker who creates objects from iron or steel by heating the metal and using tools to hammer, bend, and cut it. Civil war armies used blacksmiths to shoe horses and repair things such as wagons, horse tack, and artillery equipment.
A wheelwright is someone who makes and repairs wheels. Early wagon and cart wheels were made of solid wood, but increasingly had iron parts, such as hubs and rims. It would not be unusual for one man to be both a blacksmith and a wheelwright, for wheelwrights were sometimes described as a cross between a carpenter and a blacksmith.
Reed farmhouse and blacksmith shop in Darnestown, MD (Route 118). Photo by Lewis Reed
Reed Photo Collection (1898-1960)
Lewis Reed, founder of Reed Brothers Dodge, was one of the most prolific photographers in Montgomery County at the turn of the 20th century. A self-taught photographer, he used a darkroom set up in his kitchen, sometimes working late at night to develop the negatives.
About This Collection:
Since launching this blog, it has been possible to explore an extraordinary archive: Lewis Reed’s photographs, taken across Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia, and well beyond. The Reed Photo Collection (1898-1960) highlights the images that have been researched and identified, gathered into 200+ blog posts that offer vivid glimpses of everyday life more than a century ago.
Featured subjects range from the Black Rock Grist Mill, Rockville Water Tower, and C&O Canal to the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair, Rockville Fair dirt track races, trolley cars, the Wright Brothers’ airplane, and the Quebec Bridge, once called the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Particularly striking are the images documenting the devastation of the 1936 Gainesville, Georgia tornado, one of the deadliest in U.S. history; many photographs in this collection have never before appeared in print.
Lewis Reed’s legacy
Lewis Reed’s photographs have become an essential visual resource for local historians and have appeared in respected publications as well as historical television programs, including American Pickers, Science Channel’s Impossible Engineering, Maryland Public Television, and the PBS American Experience series.
In Montgomery County, his work is woven into the landscape: if you see a historical marker by the roadside, there is a good chance it features one of his images. His photographs appear on markers such as the Andrew Small Academy and Origins of Darnestown markers, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station marker in Gaithersburg, From Trolley to Trail in Bethesda, the African American Heritage Walking Tour in Rockville, and the 19th Century Crossroads marker in Darnestown, as well as on an interpretive sign along the trail at Watters Smith Memorial State Park in West Virginia.
Early photographic “special effects”
One especially intriguing part of the collection is Lewis Reed’s experimentation with manipulated images. Long before digital cameras and Photoshop, he was creating imaginative “special effects,” a full century ahead of his time. His techniques included hand-tinting, double exposures, applied handwork, and playful compositions that introduce ghostly figures into the frame, all achieved with the limited tools of the early twentieth century. These experiments reveal not only technical skill but also a remarkable sense of creativity and humor.
Preserving historical authenticity
All images presented here are scanned from prints made from Lewis Reed’s original glass plate negatives, which were commonly used from the 1880s through the late 1920s. No digital retouching or alteration has been applied, preserving the photographs as faithfully as possible and maintaining their historical character.
Click here to step back in time and explore the lives, places, and stories captured through Lewis Reed’s camera.
Saylorsburg Lake House / Hotel of Horror
Saylorsburg Lake House, circa 1915. Photo by Lewis Reed
In anticipation of Halloween, I thought it would be fun to feature a photograph that Lewis Reed took of Saylorsburg Lake House Hotel, now the site of Hotel of Horror. The old Lake House Hotel, depicted in the photo above taken by Lewis Reed in 1915, was once a vibrant Poconos retreat and a popular hotel for tourists. According to local folklore, during World War II, many of the employees at the Lake House were called to assist in the Pennsylvania National Guard, leaving the local asylum with one lone security guard to watch over the entire building. The inmates escaped, made their way to the hotel and took it over. The insane patients performed experiments on the guests. What was once a renowned resort for the rich and famous, shown here in 2001, became a torture chamber.
The Lake House Hotel in Saylorsburg, site of Hotel of Horror, 2001
Today it’s the site of the Hotel of Horror, a haunted-house attraction open during the Halloween season.
Happy Halloween to all the readers of this blog!
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Copyright Notice
Reed Brothers Dodge History (1915-2012) by Jeanne Gartner is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Reed Brothers Dodge History 1915 – 2012 
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