Catoctin

Catoctin Mountain forms the eastern edge of the Blue Ridge, running southwest from near Emmitsburg across the Potomac and into Virginia. Its name probably comes from the Kittoctons, an Indigenous people who lived between the mountain and the river. The long wooded ridge stands above the valleys to its west.

European settlers, including German immigrants, established farmsteads in the valleys around the mountain. Lord Baltimore had encouraged settlement by offering land and a three-year exemption from taxes. Iron ore was found in the 1770s, and a furnace was built to work it. Timber cutting consumed much of the woodland by the end of the eighteenth century; farmers also grew maize for distilling whiskey. The mountain's resources thus supported both farming and the emerging iron industry.