Summit Hall: Historic House, Hallowed Home
Posted 1/14/2008

(reprinted from The Communique, Spring 2007, by Jeanne North)

Smokehouse - 1930's

Ice Skating at Summit Hall Pond - 1950's

Walking along a path at Summit Hall Farm - 1937

For Frances Kellerman, recalling tales of her home on South Frederick Avenue is sheer pleasure.  “I’ve lived here since 1947,” she says.  “My mother and father, Frank and Zoe Wilmot, bought this farm in 1936.  It was auctioned for $13,500, and at that time there were 135 acres. That was Depression time, and that was a lot of money. I guess they thought it was a good buy, and they’d been wanting to get a farm.”

Mrs. Kellerman pulls out a picture and says, “This is my Mother, that’s me, and this is my cousin.  He was an amateur photographer, and he set his tripod up over here and then went and got in the picture.”  That’s the way the Smoke House looked back in the 1930’s, she says.  Lloyd Miller, the photographer, took many photos of the buildings on the farm, many of which are now part of a vast trove of material in the archives of the City of Gaithersburg.

The original Summit Hall farmhouse, built of logs sometime between 1807 and 1812, had just four rooms.  Later, under the ownership of James Dezelm (later spelled DeSellum) the house doubled in size. Mrs. Kellerman takes a visitor through the house and points out where the original four rooms end and the additional front rooms begin.

The next generation of DeSellums added drama to the history of the house.  In June of 1863, during the Civil War, Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart occupied Rockville, arrested the pro-Union John T. DeSellum, and, en route to Gettysburg, “relieved” him of horses, forage and food supplies at Summit Hall. The next summer, when Gen. Jubal Early was planning an attack on the Capital city, he made his headquarters in the DeSellum home and in the process, took the remaining livestock and searched the house for weapons.  But the soldiers missed $3,000 in cash and bonds hidden hastily in the voluminous skirts of Sarah DeSellum.

After the deaths of J.T. DeSellum and his sister, Sarah, the saga of the venerable property continued.  The new owner of Summit Hall Farm was Ignatius Thomas Fulks, who took on the task of modernizing Summit Hall, bringing it into step with the Victorian era.  He attached two three-sided bays to the front of the house, added a porch and installed a decorative eyebrow window on the third floor between the bays.

After her Mother died in 1980, Kellerman says, the farm had to be sold and the City of Gaithersburg bought the property. “If the town hadn’t bought it, it would have gone to a developer.  So I was delighted when the town decided to buy it and I think they’ve made a very nice park here.  It’s for the benefit of all people,” she says; “They’re surrounded by apartments and they have to have someplace, and I think it’s wonderful.”

As to the importance of Summit Hall Farm to the City of Gaithersburg, Kellerman is unhesitating: “It’s about the most historical thing they have.”

• Gaithersburg Community Museum