Biography

Jonathan Hager emigrated from Germany in 1736. According to the ship’s log, he was 22 years old when he arrived in the Port of Philadelphia. He purchased 200 acres of land in the area in 1739, which he named “Hager’s Fancy.” and built his first Maryland residence which is the current Jonathan Hager House Museum. The following year, he married German immigrant Elizabeth Kirshner. He purchased his second residence in 1747 which he named “Hager’s Delight.” Jonathan and Elizabeth raised two children- Rosanna and Jonathan Jr.

Jonathan Hager held many professions throughout his lifetime-farmer, gunsmith, soldier, Entrepreneur, and politician. Hager served as Captain of Scouts from 1757-1759 during the French & Indian War. He purchased thousands of acres of land by the 1760s and began laying out the plan for Elizabethtown, named after his wife who died in 1765.

In 1771, Hager was elected to the Maryland General Assembly, known to be the first naturalized citizen to hold public office in Maryland, and was re-elected in 1773. He advocated economic growth and the advancement of Western Maryland. He was a prominent Patriot figure in Western Maryland in the decade before the Revolutionary War, leading protests against the British, serving on committees of non-importation, observation and correspondence, and recruiting soldiers to fight.

Jonathan Hager died November 6, 1775, from an injury attributed to the construction of the German Reformed Church (now the Zion Reformed United Church of Christ) steeple. Known as the Father of Washington County, Hager did not survive to see the designation of Washington County nor the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Today, his legacy lives on in the city that bears his name, Hagerstown, a small town that grew from humble agricultural beginnings to an enterprising railroading community to today’s Hub City focused on growth and progress for its people.