1. In 1608, this famed explorer from the Jamestown community in Virginia was the first European to map the area that would become Montgomery County. The name Cabin John is believed by some to be a corruption of his name. Who is it?
2. In 1748, Prince George’s County—established in 1696—was split to create Frederick County, which in turn was divided to form Montgomery. Which county is largest in terms of square miles?
3. Montgomery County was one of the first in the nation to be established by elected representatives. In what year was the county created?
4. The name of the new county broke with earlier traditions of naming counties for old world figures. Instead, it was named for a Revolutionary War hero, the first American general to die in the struggle for independence, mortally wounded in 1775 during an ill-fated attempt to take Quebec City. For whom was the county named?
5. The county seal is a reworking of the Montgomery family coat of arms. Featured prominently on the side of every county police cruiser, the seal carries what motto?
6. The county seat was known as Montgomery Court House until 1784, when William Prather Williams, a local landowner, laid out lots in town, and the village became known as Williamsburg. In 1801, the Maryland General Assembly voted to change the name to Rockville. For what nearby natural feature was the town named?
7. Before the arrival of the railroad, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, begun in 1828, was one of the county’s major transportation arteries. Where does the 184.5-mile canal system begin and end?
8. In what year was the Beltway completed?
9. At the end of the 19th century, the towns of Glen Echo and Washington Grove were summer camps associated with what educational movement, named for the upstate New York lake where it began in 1874?
10. Chevy Chase was named for the tract of land “Cheivy Chace,” patented by Col. Joseph Belt in 1725 and itself named after the ancient Scottish “Ballad of Chevy Chase.” It was founded in 1890 by what wealthy U.S. senator from Nevada?
11. When British troops burned the White House in 1814, President James Madison took refuge for the night in what Montgomery County town, earning it the title of “Capital for a Day”?
12. Gaithersburg gained the designation of “Science Capital of the United States” when what federal bureau moved to the area in 1961?
13. What county town declared itself the first nuclear free zone in the United States in 1982, thus affirming a tradition of peacefulness that began back in 1898, when it became illegal to harm any tree or songbird within the town limits?
14. The Riley family plantation, located along Old Georgetown Road near Rockville, was home to the 19th-century slave Josiah Henson, whose life became an inspiration for what Harriet Beecher Stowe novel?
15. What noted “Jazz Age” novelist and his wife are buried in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Rockville? Hint: The epitaph on their graves, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” was taken from perhaps his greatest work.
16. What 1930 John Dos Passos novel features a trolley excursion from Georgetown to Cabin John?
17. After the Civil War, former Confederate officer Elijah V. White purchased a ferry in the upper county and gave his name to the enterprise. Today, White’s Ferry is the last operating ferry on the Potomac River. What is the name of the ferry boat crossing the river, named by White in honor of his former commander?
18. What famed pitcher for the Washington Senators—and later manager for the Senators and Cleveland Indians—retired in 1935 to his farm near Germantown, became a county commissioner in 1938, ran for Congress and lost in 1940 and later moved to Bethesda and had a high school named after him?
19. In 1803, Thomas Moore, a county farmer, invented a device to help dairymen keep their milk cool when hauling it to market. The word he coined for his invention is commonly used today to describe what kitchen appliance?
20. From 1897 to 1912, Glen Echo was home to what noted founder of the American Red Cross?
21. The National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, the U.S. Navy’s principal center of medical practice, is dominated by a 20-story tower constructed between 1939 and 1942 from a design suggested by what U.S. president?
22. Montgomery College, founded in 1946, was the first community college in Maryland, but it was not the first college in Montgomery County. What was that college?
23. What department store opened in Silver Spring in 1947, becoming the first major “downtown” store to invade the Washington suburbs?
24. Development began in 1954 on what shopping center? Hint: For years it was the county’s largest and in 1963, it ranked fourth in size among the nation’s gigantic shopping hubs.
25. What 1964 movie starring Warren Beatty and Jean Seberg was shot on location in Rockville?
QUIZ ANSWERS
1. Capt. John Smith
2. Prince George’s County is 498 square miles, Montgomery is 507, and Frederick is 667, making it the largest in Maryland.
3. 1776
4. Gen. Richard Montgomery, born in Ireland in 1738, the son of a former British Army officer and member of the Irish Parliament
5. “Gardez Bien” or “Guard Well”
6. Rock Creek
7. Georgetown in Washington, D.C., and Cumberland, Md.
8. 1964
9. Chautauqua
10. Francis G. Newlands
11. Brookeville
12. National Institute of Standards and Technology
13. Garrett Park
14. Uncle Tom’s Cabin
15. F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, with the line taken from The Great Gatsby
16. The 42nd Parallel
17. Gen. Jubal A. Early
18. Walter Johnson
19. “Refrigerator”
20. Clara Barton
21. Franklin D. Roosevelt
22. Actually, Georgetown College (now University) was founded in 1789, when the port of Georgetown was still a part of Montgomery County. The first student, however, was not enrolled until November 1791, months after the town had officially become part of Washington. In 1904, Columbia Union College was founded by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Takoma Park, originally as the coed Washington Training Institute, which later became Washington Missionary College in 1914.
23. The Hecht Co.
24. Wheaton Plaza
25. Lilith
Mark Walston is an author and historian raised in Bethesda and now living in Olney.
