Detour Maryland - The town was formally known as: Double Pipe Creek
Listed with “The Frederick County Landmark Foundation F.C.L.F # 245
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HISTORY
Detour is an example of an eighteenth century mill village that evolved into a small town with the coming of the Western Maryland Railroad. It was begun by Joshua Delaplane in the 1790's.
1794 Joshua Delaplane bought 600 acres straddling Double Pipe Creek and called it “Prosperity”. This is where the lovely historical mansion home is located high on the hill. This property was a mere two miles from Francis Scott Key's estate.
1835 George Henry Waesche purchased the property. After his death his son ran the businesses.
Approximately 1842 Daniel P Saylor became the proud owner of the mansion and surrounding property. He had a personal relationship with Abraham Lincoln. Rumor has it that Lincoln a christian but never baptized did allow Bishop Saylor to secretly baptize him in Double Pipe Creek
Prosperity Farm, the mansion house was built on the Frederick side. It is unknown if Joshua Delaplane or George Henry Waesche built the mansion house. But it is believed that Delaplane was the builder.
Several Carroll towns have undergone name changes, including the northwest town of Detour in the
Middleburg District. “Double Pipe Creek is a small village on the Western Maryland Rail Road, 51 miles from Baltimore and 17 miles from Westminster, the county seat of Carroll county. The elevation is 400 to 500 feet. The land is of dark red land and very fertile and well watered. It contained a population of 125, all white, and is located on the western line of Middleburg District on both banks of Double Pipe Creek, in Frederick and Carroll counties. Little and Big Pipe Creek unite about 200 yards south of the village, forming Double Pipe Creek, from which the village derives its name. Double Pipe Creek is a stream of considerable size, and would furnish water power for manufacturing purposes.
The earliest industry of the town was a sawmill operated from a dam across Double Pipe Creek just below the mouth of the two Pipe Creeks.
The land on which the village now stands and the surrounding vicinity embracing about 600 acres called “Prosperity,” was in 1794 owned by Joshua Delaplane, in which year he founded a large grist mill with a capacity of 100 barrels of flour per day, on the Frederick side of the stream of Double Pipe Creek. Joshua Delaplane was a manufacturer of some note in his day and carried on not only the grist mill, but a woolen mill, and a saw mill on the opposite side of the creek in Carroll county, with saw mill attached to said woolen mill. The woolen mill still stands, but no looms have made music within its walls for these many years, (since 1849).
At this time there was but one store in the village, which was a general store, and conducted by Charles
Hiteshew and Ephraim Stoner. Mr. McKinstry conducted the milling business for about one year, when
an epidemic of typhoid fever broke out in the neighborhood; Mr. McKinstry contracted the disease and
died. After Mr. McKinstry’s death, the milling properties were sold by his heirs to William Annan and
Ebenezer Annan, who occupied and ran the grist mill for five or eight years, during which time, the saw
mill washed away. The mill property was purchased by Thomas F. Cover, about 1868, who conducted
the milling business for about ten years, when he sold it to Calvin B. Anders. Mr. A. continued the milling business on a large scale, until January 4, 1883, when the mill was destroyed by fire. The fulling mill was used as a dwelling from about 1863 to 1886 when the building was converted into a school house.
He was a good friend of Abraham Lincoln and made many trips to Washington to consult with Lincoln in reference to slavery and having his church members exempted from the draft during the Civil War. When drafted they must furnish a substitute or pay $600. He helped raise the money on several occasions. He wrote out a form to be used in claiming exemption. Abraham Lincoln once paid tribute to Elder Sayler in the following expression: “A man with the natural ability of Daniel P. Sayler is capable of filling any position within the gift of the people.”
Elder Sayler had three daughters by his first wife. Margaret Ella married John Milton Cover and to her he gave the farm now owned by Caleb Wolfe. Mr. Cover built the brick house and barn on this farm. The other daughter, Anna E., who married Joseph Emmert, he gave what is known as the W. G. Edmonson orchard farm. He tore down the original log dwelling on his farm and used the logs to build a house for Anna. This log house was then cased with brick. James Shorb made a quantity of special nails to drive in the logs to hold the brick wall in place. He retained the land on the Frederick County side of the stream for himself, about 100 acres. The third daughter died young. Elder Sayler at this time had the town laid out into building lots and a plat made. A copy of the plat is to be found in an
atlas of Carroll County, published in 1877 by Lake Griffing and Stephenson. After the death of John Milton Cover, Margaret E. Cover married Doctor Wm. H. White, of Thurmont, MD. In order to protect the lot owners and to give title to the streets, roads and alleys of the town on July 7, 1883, Mrs. White and husband executed a deed conveying to Daniel R. Sayler, Richard Cheeseman, Husband of Catherine Pfoutz, Dr. Charles H. Diller (lot owners), and to William F. Cover (tenant on her farm),
Trustees, and to their successors in Trust for ever, to supervise the streets, ways and alleys of said Town for the general good of the citizens and the public to pass over. They shall have the right to open side ditches for proper drainage, to put in sidewalks of Brick, Plank or Gravel, and for these purposes they shall occupy all the ground lying between the lines of the several lots. And whereas; the land for the streets, ways and alleys of said town are intended, and are hereby conveyed in Trust to the parties named.” Recorded in Liber F.T.S. No. 60, folio 77 Filed November 20, 1883.
The extension of Western Maryland Railroad from Union Bridge to this place in 1868, created quite a
boom and the town was laid out by Elder Daniel P. Sayler, who had purchased in 1853 the lands
belonging to the Henry Waesche estate. The place prior to 1868 consisted of five or six houses. Double
Pipe Creek is located in a country of remarkable fertility, and offers advantages for manufacturing
enterprise equaled by no small town in Maryland. Abundant water power, and railroad connection
reaching into every state in the union, with a climate of unequaled salubrity and exempt from all
miasmatic influences. One of the conspicuous features of D.P.C. is the large number of spacious
business houses which it contains for the size of the town. Its merchants transact an extensive business
with the farmers in the surrounding county.
There is also some mention in the early records of the Church of the Brethren of their Annual Conference or yearly meeting, being held at Double Pipe Creek early in 1800. However, no minutes of the meeting have been found to verify it. Saylor eventually became the Bishop of the church of the Brethren. It was said that he did hold annual meetings in the mansion house.
Dr. Charles H. Diller came here in the spring of 1872, he having planned to locate in Jefferson, Frederick Co., MD. With an epidemic of scarlet fever in this neighborhood at the time and a scarcity of physicians, he was prevailed upon to locate here. The writer was present when he arrived with a spring wagon load of effects. He located in a room about the office in the warehouse. He was a handsome young man and soon several belles of the town became much interested in the young doctor. However, there was a pretty maid in the mansion on the hill, who sometimes came down to the spring for water barefooted. The young doctor son became interested in this barefooted maiden much to the chagrin of the two belles of the town. Her name was Anna Sayler, a niece of Elder D. P. Sayler, with whom she lived. The doctor married her and built the house where the writer now lives. The doctor in his early practice rode on horse back. The old grey horse named “Telus” was a fine one but after many years of service and abuse he sometimes would refuse to turn off at some side road when he wanted to go on home.
On June 1, 1889 Double Pipe Creek was deluged with water, and considerable damage was done to the
town. Besides the burning of the mill property, the town suffered a heavy loss in the burning of the
hotel (Flavona House) in November, 1892 owned by Frank Stoner, and Wm. H. Moser, Proprietor. On
October 24, 1894 the town suffered a much greater loss in the burning of the store and dwelling of F. J.
Shorb, also the store room owned by Frank Dotterer and occupied by T. J. Kolb & Son, also brick dwelling belonging to F. Dotterer and tenanted by J. Wright Barrick, and a black smith shop owned by Mrs. William H. Powell. Since the last named fires (1892 and 1894) the burnt buildings were replaced by large, spacious and handsome dwellings and store rooms.
Double Creek Division No. 36, Sons of Temperance, was incorporated by an Act of the Legislature passed March 3, 1847. The incorporators were John E. H. Ligget, Geo. H. Waesche, Isaac Dern, Eli Otto, Noah Pennington, Benjamin Poole, Martin Grimes, George Landers, James Thomas, Wm. Carmack, Abendigo D. Slick, Francis Carmack, Joseph Fogle, Jesse Anders, William Miller, Edward Carmack and Samuel Birely. Junior Order United American Mechanics, American Eagle No. 96, was incorporated on April 14, 1894. The incorporators, or charter members, were Wm. N. Fogle, F. J. Shorb, Ursa M. Diller, Charles Eyler, Frederick Myerly, John H. Miller, Charles Stambaugh, W. J. Arthur, James Warren, John Curfman, and many others.”
Double Pipe Creek was renamed Detour because the name was too long for Western Maryland Railroad
timetables. The new name reflected the local geography that forced the railroad and the creek to detour
around high places. There is also a story that Daniel P. Sayler suggested Detour from having seen so
many detour signs while traveling in the Middle West.
In the early 1900's the town contains twenty-four homes with a population about 100. There were 3 stores, a bank, grain elevator and coal yard, garage; blacksmith shop; church; schoolhouse, now closed since the consolidated school was opened at Union Bridge in 1930. In 1923, the citizens of the town and community, with the aid of the Fairfield Farms Dairy, built a three-phase electric power line from the crossroad near Keymar, a distance of about two miles at a cost of about $2,000. Those living in the south side of the Main street built a sewer line and have bathrooms all connected up. Thus the town has all the conveniences of a city. The town some years ago purchased a chemical fire extinguisher that on a few occasions rendered good services. The Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. serves the community. The Potomac Edison Co. furnishes the electric power. The town has one cement state road and three macadam roads leading to and from the town.
