Welcome to our First Annual Geocaching Trail- The Villages of Berkeley County, sponsored by the Martinsburg-Berkeley County Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB)
We hope you enjoy traveling the path that 16 year old George Washington took when he surveyed the area or following the road the Confederates took after their retreat from Gettysburg. Do you perhaps see yourself interacting with the local Indians or fighting with the Tories during the Revolution?
This trail is comprised of 14 cache sites of which you have to return with 12; the site at the Visitors Center (CVB) is mandatory.Each site has a code word that you have to bring back on either the geocaching rack card available for the Trail or on a piece of paper. Rack cards can be picked up at the I-81 rest stops or at the Visitors Center downtown. Bring your own pen.
Once these cards are turned in to the trail sponsor, the CVB, and verified and you fill out a very short information card, you will receive a trackable geocoin. The redemption address is 115 N. Queen Street, Downtown Martinsburg, WV. The center is open from 9 to 5 Monday thru Friday and 9 to 4 Saturday and Sunday.
Many Thanks to WVTim, GR8Caches and The Wandering Panhandlers for their guidance, support, cache page design and cache placement for the Villages of Berkeley County Trail. We hope you enjoy yourself!
Hedgesville - Town Spring
In 1832, as he was trying to sell lots, Josiah Hedges said that “people in the eastern part of Berkeley County lived longer than others…”
With that in mind you would think that the population of Hedgesville would have skyrocketed, but is was, and has remained, a small, but quaint, village.
There were residents, houses, churches and schools in this area prior to 1832, including George Washington who spent the night with local residents quite often.
In 1835 a petition was sent to the General Assembly asking that the town be incorporated.
Hedgesville is unique in that it was developed by Josiah Hedges as well as a woman, Mary Claycomb. She divorced her husband in 1812 and as part of the settlement “was also to receive at any time she asked a chaff bed with a feather bed to go over it and to live with whoever she pleased as a free, unmarried woman.”
John Westenhaver, a German was known for his love of spirits and his hospitality. He opened a distillery near the town spring. After his death, his executor sold off part of his land and he became the third developer-posthumously.
The town saw much action in the Civil War from the Battle of North Mountain where 1,500 Union soldiers were captured to divisions of churches and friends. The Methodist Church congregation was split in two by the war. The Northern sympathizers kept the Old St. Mark’s church building and the Southern sympathizers built a new building. The congregation reunited in 1942 and used the larger, Southern Methodist Church building. In another War episode the soldiers asked for ransom money to keep from burning the town.
There were three freedom-seeking slaves that made a famous escape from Hedgesville on the Underground Railroad in 1854. The three slaves made their escape from Hedgesville on foot, crossing the Potomac River, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, the National Pike, and several mountain passes, all the way to Greenville, Pennsylvania. They then went by train to Philadelphia, to the offices of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. They were then assisted to freedom in Canada.
In the 1890’s Hedgesville became a resort town with a large Victorian hotel, the Mt. Clifton, until the Great Depression.
While you are here looking for your cache and enjoying the shops and buildings, think back to what it was and enjoy!