Hager House (Hagerstown, MD) by Barry Richardson

Lithograph print; Limited edition of 1,000 S/N Jonathan Hager was the first American of German birth to occupy a seat in the Maryland Colonial Legislature; he was in fact the first naturalized citizen in that legislative body. As an American patriot, Hager also took a leading role in the events leading up to America's independence. Earlier he had laid out the Maryland town that carries his name, although he called it Elisabeth-Stadt after his wife. In 1739, the 25-year-old German immigrant Jonathan Hager built his house on the American frontier on a 200-acre tract of land he called "Hager's Fancy." The Hager House brochure by the Washington County Historical Society describes it as follows: Situated in Hagerstown's city Park, the Hager House is built of uncut fieldstone carefully fitted by the young German immigrant who had traveled to the wilderness of Western Maryland in search of adventure and possible fortune. Jonathan Hager had arrived on the shores of the new colonies in 1736, debarking at the Port of Philadelphia. Eventually, he chose to make his home in Maryland, where Charles Calvert, proprietor of the colony, was offering cheap land to those willing to settle in the western frontier.... In 1740 Hager married a German neighbor, Elisabeth Kershner, and presented her with the new house... Structurally impregnable, with protected water supply, Hager's home would have served as a frontier fort in case of Indian attack. The 3 1/2-story Hager house is constructed of solid stone walls nearly 2 feet thick. It is built in the German style around a single chimney in the middle of the house that radiated heat throughout the building. According to the Historical Society, "the large central chimney added warmth to the stone structure, while a fill of rye straw and mud between floors and partitions served as insulation against the cruel winters".