Hagerstown, city, seat (1776) of Washington county, north-central Maryland, U.S. It lies in the Cumberland Valley between the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains, 71 miles (114 km) northwest of Baltimore. In 1762 the town was laid out by the German immigrant Jonathan Hager and named Elizabeth Town for his wife, but it was incorporated as Hager’s Town in 1814. Hager’s House (1739) has been restored as a museum. Fort Frederick (1756), in a nearby state park, is said to be the only fort of the French and Indian War remaining with its original walls.
In the 1820s Hagerstown became a major stopping point on the Cumberland (National) Road to the west. During the American Civil War it was occupied alternately by Northern and Southern armies, and within 30 miles (48 km) are some of the war’s bloodiest battlefields, including Gettysburg, Antietam, and Harpers Ferry. After the war the construction of a spur of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1867 revived the town economically. It subsequently became a major transportation centre for the surrounding agricultural area and developed a significant manufacturing base. Services now predominate, although some small manufacturing industries remain.
Hagerstown Junior College was founded in 1946. Several thousand Confederates killed at Antietam and South Mountain are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery. Inc. city, 1839. Pop. (2000) 36,687; Hagerstown-Martinsburg Metro Area, 222,771; (2010) 39,662; Hagerstown-Martinsburg Metro Area, 269,140.