Sharpsburg, MD was founded by Joseph Chapline in 1763, naming it after his good friend Governor Horatio Sharpe. Chapline was born in 1707 to wealthy British Immigrants. He built his manor, named
Mount Pleasant, just one to the west of the town.
It was dedicated
July 9, 1763 because it was thought that the ninth day of the ninth month would bring the town good fortune. By 1764, fourteen lots had been sold and four houses were erected as the first building in town. Some of these still stand today. Sharpsburg and nearby Elizabethtown (now Hagerstown) began to compete with one another for settlers until 1776, when Washington County was created and Sharpsburg lost to Elizabethtown as the country seat. In 1820, the population was 656 including 75 slaves and by the beginning of the war the population had grown to 1300. The town was situation in the very pro Union western
Maryland and had supplied the
Union with two companies but it had also supplied the Confederacy with troops.
Sharpsburg would meet its Civil War destiny on
September 17, 1862.