The New International Encyclopædia/Hagerstown

HA'GERSTOWN. A city and the county-seat of Washington County, Md., 87 miles west by north of Baltimore: on the Baltimore and Ohio, the Cumberland Valley, the Norfolk and Western, and the Western Maryland railroads (Map: Maryland. G 2). It is the seat of Kee Mar College for women, opened in 1852, and has the Washington County Free Library. Hagerstown is of considerable commercial importance owing to its facilities as a railroad centre. The industrial establishments include machine-shops, flour and knitting mills, pipe-organ, cigar, match, furniture, and fertilizer factories; and agricultural implement, bicycle, spoke, and bending works. The city is governed under a charter of 1885, revised in 1895, which provides for a mayor, elected every two years, and a unicameral council. The electric-light plant is owned and operated by the municipality. Hagerstown was settled about 1740, and during the Civil War figured prominently as a base of operations. Population, in 1890, 10,118; in 1900, 13,591.