3 Best Sights in Frederick and Western Maryland, Maryland

Josiah Roberts, the one-time president of the C&O Canal, commissioned this Second Empire–style house on fashionable Washington Street in 1867, a few years after he was released from prison for being an alleged secessionist. The Allegany County Historical Society has its headquarters here today, and costumed guides lead guests through rooms of Victorian furnishings. A courting couch in the parlor has three sitting compartments—the young lady and her caller sat on opposite ends while two chaperones were perched between them. The museum hosts themed teas throughout the year.

In 1739 Jonathan Hager, an adventurous young German immigrant, built a stone home over two springs in a virgin forest. The Hager House and Museum still stands, a testament to Hagertown's founder and early-American life. The thick-walled home includes bedrooms, a sewing room, and a kitchen furnished with pieces from the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as a replica of the trading post that Hager operated. Guided tours include the indoor springhouse where the family preserved food and kept cool in summer. Coins, pottery, and buttons excavated from the property are on display, and Colonial-style gardens of fragrant rosemary, lavender, and thyme surround the home.

Taney began his law career in Frederick, but is best known as the Chief Supreme Court Justice who wrote the controversial 1857 Dred Scott decision. Taney's opinion, which said that slaves were not citizens and therefore had no Constitutional rights, helped move the country toward Civil War. The brick Federal-style home turned museum offers insight into Taney's life (his wife was the sister of his law partner, Francis Scott Key), middle-class life in the late 1800s, and the slaves he owned. A bust of Taney stands at Frederick's City Hall Plaza, a few feet from a plaque explaining the Dred Scott ruling.