President Madison Spends Night in MoCo 201 Years Ago Tonight

     

Tonight, August 26, two hundred and one years ago (1814), U.S. President James Madison spent the night in MoCo. However, it wasn't a happy visit for him or for the United States.

Madison was in MoCo because the British had captured and burned Washington D.C. He escaped first to Virginia and then to Brookeville in Montgomery County, Maryland. The house in which he stayed still stands (photo above, on right).

Although it was a humiliating day for Madison and our country, the British left the next day after what is believed to have been a tornado stopped the fires they had set in Washington, and about six months later the War of 1812 ended in what most historians consider a stalemate.

But Brookeville and Montgomery County can claim to have been sort-of the capital of the U.S. for one night.