Where is Weber’s Crossing and Why is It’s Image on our Logo?

(For those interested in local, railroad, horticultural, economic and wider history, more information will be added here as we can get to it.)

 

            Weber’s Crossing is a geographic and historic landmark in southern Garrett County, Maryland.  It is where old Gortner Road, later, US highway 219, crossed the B&O railroad line and the south branch of the Youghiogheny River (sometimes called the Little Yough) that runs from its headwaters in the Backbone Mountain range region south of the crossing.  Weber’s Crossing crossed the railroad line and the river, and was roughly equidistant between the extant Victorian railroad stations in Oakland and Mountain Lake Park/Loch Lynn. 

            From the mid 1800s for roughly 100 years, there was a small train depot called Weber’s Depot or Weber’s Crossing Depot that was part of an early business in the area started by Henry Weber (Johannes Heinrich Weber), a noted horticulturalist in his day and emigrant to the area from central Germany, via England and service throughout the world in the British Army in the mid 19^th century.  He founded, The H. Weber & Sons, Company, which lasted into the 1970s before ceasing operations when two of Henry’s grand-daughters, along with other business partners, formed a similar but separate business, Flowers by Webers, that finally closed in the late 20^th century.

            Weber’s Crossing Depot was a flagstop along the B&O railroad with scheduled stops regularly published in B&O station schedules along the line.  Henry’s youngest son, Ralph E. Weber, was trained and licensed by the B&O to operate the flagstop.  Several stops per day were made to load products into cars and to unload supplies that were needed for the business.  Passengers also embarked and disembarked at the small depot while freight was being loaded and unloaded.  We don’t know enough about historic railroad operations to know for sure, but think that a flagstop might have meant that additional stops, besides those published in the B&O schedules, were also possible, on an as needed basis.  During the B&O’s heyday, railroads connected Garrett County to the rest of the country and Canada, including to markets for the H. Weber & Sons in New York, Chicago and elsewhere.

            An old photograph of the Weber’s Crossing Depot appears in the central medallion of our logo for several reasons.  One is that Holyrood Meadery & Youghiogheny Cider House @ Weber’s Crossing is up the old road from the crossing and the old depot.  In fact, the old crossing road extended directly to the northern driveway of the site of our winery/cidery and meadery.  A second reason why a photo of Weber’s Crossing Depot is in the middle of our logo is that the historic property that they and our orchards are on, was the adult home of Ralph E. Weber and his wife, Mary Angeline Bond Weber, along with their six children who survived until adulthood.  The property contains the remnants of hundred plus year old apple orchards, that were planted by Ralph, possibly his father, Henry, and older siblings, as well as the next generation.  The first 3 generations of this family from Henry were professional horticulturalists.  (Collections about their work, including hybridizing especially carnations and chrysanthemums is held at the Bailey Archive and/or Hortorium of Cornell University, in Ithaca, NY, with a small collection at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC.)  Presently, we (including the great grand-daughter of Henry and and his wife, Katherine Schutz Weber, and the grand-daughter of Ralph and Mary) are in the midst of restoring the property, including the historic orchards of heirloom and cider apples.  Finally, another reason why an image of Weber’s Crossing Depot is in the middle of our logo is that, while so much working knowledge about apple orchards was lost in this country during the demographic transition from the late 1800s to the early 1900s, when the majority of its population migrated from agrarian settings in the countryside to work in city-based factories, the principal owner of Holyrood Meadery & Youghiogheny Cider House, learned a modicum of horticultural knowledge from earlier generations of her family.  (Little did she know as a child, while playing in her grand-parents apple orchards with apples that tasted like no other ones she could find elsewhere, what she would end up doing with it.)

            Today, the site of the Weber’s Crossing Depot is contained within a Maryland State Highway Administration utilitarian compound.  If present-day Weber Road continued straight south from State Route 135 to the river, the Depot’s site is at the end of that road and the railroad tracks.  The crossing road was destroyed by the SHA and replaced, we believe, in 1953, when it put in the 219 overpass high above it.  We will try to get a map of the original site posted here later, but approximate GPS location points for it may be:  39.394754 & 79.397769.