SIR JOHN'S RUN

Sir John’s Run Road is at the top of Warm Springs Ridge. It tracks the stream of the same name to the Potomac River where the stream empties. Steamboat inventor, James Rumsey, and his brother-in-law, Joseph Barnes owned a mill on Sir John’s. In May 1785, Rumsey hired Barnes to build a boat near Sir John’s Run which they tested where the stream enters the Potomac. In 1939, a group of local Rumsey enthusiasts commemorated this historic event by dedicating the area as Port James Rumsey.

Historians report that the ill-fated expedition of General Edward Braddock’s army in 1755 during the French and Indian War camped along the stream and that it was subsequently named for Sir John St. Clair, the deputy quartermaster.

For nearly 40 years in the 19th century, passengers coming by train to the springs disembarked at the riverside Sir John’s Run station and came overland by stage to the town.