Off the Beaten Track: Discover Historic Sites Upcounty

If you like a short pleasant hike through the woods on old forgotten roads, there are a couple of local historic gems you can discover that have recently been enhanced by our Parks Department. Step back in time as you walk from your car down a shaded gravel path, listen to the birds, and maybe even spot some wildlife.

Kingsley Schoolhouse

Nestled in the woods at the edge of a clearing in Little Bennett Regional Park is Kingsley Schoolhouse.

The school was built in 1893 for children of families living in the Little Bennett Creek valley. Children from age 6 to 12 were taught there, and there are still people in the area who remember attending the school. The area where it is located was called “Froggy Hollow” because of the many frogs that could be heard peeping in the marshy area nearby.

The one-room schoolhouse has been restored and furnished by Montgomery County Parks. Typical of the small school buildings of the time, it is white clapboard with a red tin roof and sits on a stone foundation. Large windows let in the natural light since there was no electicity. A pot-bellied stove would have provided heat in the winter. Furnishings include children’s desks, a teacher’s desk, a slate blackboard, a globe and a Victrola. A playground used to be behind the schoolhouse and a bell in a tower on the roof announced the opening of the school day and the end of recess.

The exterior of the school can be seen any time the park is open, but now, for the first time, it will be open, with the help of volunteers, on the first Sunday of each month starting June 3. To reach the Kingsley School go north on Frederick Road (Rt. 355) and turn right at a traffic light onto Clarksburg Rd. (Rt. 121). Travel 2 miles and a small parking area will be on the left. The schoolhouse is then ½ mile walk on a gravel lane and across a rustic swinging plank bridge.

Old Hoyles Mill Road

Another interesting historic spot off the beaten track is the site of Hoyles Mill and the old Hoyles Mill Road ford. John Hoyle built a grist mill here in the first quarter of the 19th century. It prospered and was enlarged to include a saw mill it served the Germantown community for about 50 years. After the railroad came through in 1873 and the Hoyle family saw the advantage of placing a steam-powered mill in the new railroad town of Boyds, they sold the old water-powered mill in 1877. An ad for the sale in the Sentinel newspaper described “a large grist and saw mill, long known as Hoyle’s Mill” and said that “the mill property is also further improved with a comfortable frame dwelling house and outbuildings in good repair.”

Hoyles Mill road used to connect Germantown with White Ground Road in Boyds. It crossed Little Seneca Creek by way of a ford. You could still drive your car across the water of the Hoyles Mill ford until the road was closed in the late 1990s. Today the old road had been turned into a hiking and biking path and a bridge has been built for the path across the creek.

To get to the path, turn onto Kings Crossing Boulevard from Clopper Road. Go to the third circle and take the first right onto Crestmount Road, then an immediate left onto Bubbling Spring Road, and then take the first right on Hoyles Mill Road. There is a parking area a little way down the road on the right. The bridge across the creek is about a half-mile walk down the old Hoyles Mill Road.

The Parks Department has erected a historic marker next to the bridge that tells about the mill and ford, and has a picture showing how a mill works. The mill itself was about a quarter mile downstream. There is no longer any evidence of the house or the outbuildings, but the foundation of the old mill is still visible.