06-27-2024 Howard - Flipbook - Page 54
RETRO HOCO
BY MIKE KLINGAMAN Howard Magazine
French connection
Former stagecoach stop was named after the Battle of Waterloo
The Spurrier Tavern, a popular stagecoach stop for travelers, later became the Waterloo Inn. PHOTO COURTESY OF PEALE MUSEUM
In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte and his invading French army were defeated at the Battle of
Waterloo in present-day Belgium. Half a world
away, in celebration, a Belgian immigrant and
tavern owner renamed her establishment the
Waterloo Inn. More than two centuries later,
the structure is gone. But the Waterloo name
lingers near the Howard County crossroads
where the bustling way station that served
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson
once stood. The old Waterloo Inn has lent its
name to an elementary school, a fire station,
a police barracks, a park and a pizza joint,
several of which are located along Waterloo
Road, near Jessup.
The inn dates to 1771 when one Thomas
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| Summer 2024 | howardmagazine.com
Spurrier opened a tavern for travelers at what
is now the intersection of U.S. 1 and Route 175.
A roadside sign, near the Holiday Inn, marks
the spot.
“It was a stagecoach inn, a two-story building with dormer windows, a place to get a bite
to eat and maybe stay the night,” said Grover
Hinds, 80, a local historian in Ellicott City. At
its peak, the tavern could stable 80 horses, who
fed on oats from the owner’s farm. Washington is said to have stayed there on two dozen
occasions, including the somber night of July
18, 1795, when the nation’s first president wrote
in his diary: “Dined and lodged at Spurrier’s,
where my sick horse died.”
When Spurrier passed away, the tavern and
surrounding acreage were bought at auction
in 1811 for $20,000 by Rosie Stier Calvert, a
Belgian emigre who’d fled the tumult in her
homeland. Four years later, in the wake of
Napoleon’s defeat, she dubbed the place the
Waterloo Inn and established a post office
there.
“It was typical for an area to be named after
a post office,” Hinds said. When the inn closed
in the 1830s — as the B&O railroad replaced
the stagecoach as a means of travel — the post
office moved to nearby Savage.
“By 1840, there was nothing left named
Waterloo,” Hinds said. “But it has stayed in
peoples’ minds. There are still vestiges of the
name, for sure.”
