Editing Accident, Maryland (section)

==History==
Accident was one of the early settlements in the far west of Maryland. The name originates about the time of the 1786 land survey. Though the origin or meaning of the name is unknown, one popular story says that Brooke Beall and William Deakins, Jr.,{{efn|Deakins later served as a delegate to the [[List of delegates to the Maryland State Convention (1788)|Maryland State Convention of 1788]], to vote whether Maryland should ratify the proposed [[Constitution of the United States]].<ref name= manual>{{cite book |title= Maryland Manual 1914–1915: A Compendium of Legal, Historical and Statistical Information relating to the State of Maryland |author= Secretary of State of Maryland |publisher= The Advertiser-Republican |location= [[Annapolis, Maryland|Annapolis]] |year= 1915 }}</ref>}} friends from Prince George's County, were conducting separate surveys in the area at the time and "by accident" Deakins claimed land already surveyed by Beall.<ref name="MDManual"/><ref>"How did this spot get the name "[[Accident]]?"  Mary Strauss in ''Flowery Vale: A History of Accident, Maryland'',(Parson, West Virginia: McClain Printing Col, 1986), p. 1, provides an interesting
story of axe marks on a tree, and conflicting claims, {{cite web|url=http://www.whilbr.org/accident/index.aspx|title=A Pictorial History of Accident, Maryland, from the collection of Mary Miller Strauss|publisher=Western Maryland's Historical Society|access-date=March 29, 2008|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927221222/http://www.whilbr.org/accident/index.aspx|archivedate=September 27, 2007}}</ref>

When [[Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore|Lord Baltimore]] opened up the area, which he called Monocacy Manor, for settlement, in the early 1770s, Brooke Beall secured permission to survey {{convert|778|acre|ha mi2|abbr=off}}. It will never be known for certain how Beall came to choose this particular spot, but the surveyor was given clear instructions where to start. He was to begin "in the center between two bounded white [[oak]] trees, standing on the North Side of the South fork of [[Bear Creek (Maryland)|Bear Creek]]  in or near a glade about one Hundred yards from said Run, about one or two Miles above a Lick known by the name of the "[[Cole Mine Lick]]", about {{convert|4|mi|km|spell=in}} above the mouth of [[Broad Creek (Maryland)|Broad Creek]] and about {{convert|1|mi|km|spell=in}} East of a Ridge of the [[Negro Mountain]]."  [[John Hanson|John Hanson, Jr.]], later a delegate to the [[Continental Congress]], and President of the United States in Congress Assembled, on April 14, 1774, surveyed the land, finding that it only contained {{convert|682|acre|ha|abbr=off}}. For the next twelve years, nothing was done with the survey. The [[American Revolutionary War]] intervened, and it was not until February 15, 1786, that the land was granted by means of a patent to William Deakins. The following year the surrounding countryside was surveyed into military lots by [[Francis Deakins]], lots that were meant as compensation for the soldiers who served from Maryland during the Revolution. Each soldier who served for two years received one lot of {{convert|50|acre|ha|abbr=off}}, officers received four lots of {{convert|50|acre|ha|abbr=off}} each.{{efn|Mr. George Deakins was to receive 600 acres of land in Western Maryland as a payment of a debt from King George II of Great Britain. Mr. Deakins sent out two corps of engineers, each without knowledge of the other, to survey the best land in this area. Both crews returned and to their surprise, they had both marked the same Oak tree as their starting and returning points. Mr. Deakins chose this plot of ground and had it patented "The Accident Tract". Now called, the Town of Accident! Accident was incorporated in 1916.<ref>Scharf, J. Thomas (1882). History of Western Maryland. Philadelphia: Louis A. Everts</ref> }}
[[Image:Accident detail deakins 1787 02.jpg|thumb|right|Detail from the original Francis Deakins 1787 survey of lots westward of Fort Cumberland, Library of Congress. Reproduced in Edward C. Papenfuse and Joseph M. Coale, ''The Maryland State Archives Atlas of Historical Maps of Maryland'', (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), p.&nbsp;204]]

[[Kaese Mill]] was listed on the [[National Register of Historic Places]] in 1984.<ref name="nris">{{NRISref|2008a}}</ref> The [[James Drane House]] was listed in 1985.<ref name="nris" />