Spencerville counted a hundred residents and Brown's Corner did not yet exist when T. H. S. Boyd published his History of Montgomery County in 1879. Boyd found Spencerville land "productive and yielding excellent crops of Wheat Corn, and Hay. Land worth from thirty to eighty dollars per acre." He went on to list the principal white males: Postmaster W. H. Spencer, Carpenter James Barnes, Nurseryman William H. Phair, Farmers H. S. Chaney, Louis H. Duvall, Joseph Harding, W. P. Miller, George Reigle, and three Stablers: Asa M., Caleb, and F. The numbers seem small, yet Spencerville loomed large for the time--as big or bigger than Bethesda, Damascus, Germantown, Laytonsville, Norbeck, Olney, and Sandy Spring village itself.

At the crest of Parr's Ridge above Brown's Corner the small Oakley public school opened in 1889 and educated area youngsters until 1933. In the 1950s the ridge was crowned with another landmark, a WSSC water tower, against which a local wag leaned a sign saying, "This rocket will never get off the ground."

A spanking new buckboard stands for sale on the porch of Phair & Lindsay General Merchandise, the durable heart of Spencerville. Signs advertise Cherry Cola, Mail Pouch Tobacco, Browns Household Panacea, Erbs Powder Oil Phinis and Varnish, Dry Goods, Notions, and an upcoming picnic and tournament in nearby Clarksville. Willard Kruhm ran the store in the early 1900s, and brother Arthur ran a blacksmith shop across the road. This c.1892 photo was made by a grandson of the town's founder, Hollowell Spencer. More than a century later a Spencerville country store still operates--one of the few remaining.

Robert and Mary Reading Miller square dance in the early 1950s. The popular couple belonged to the Dosey-Does, organized by Charlie and Mary Jo Williams and widely enjoyed by Sandy Springers. Bob Miller wears the expression of many a man who finds himself caught up in a square dance.

Long the spiritual core of Spencerville and Burtonsville, the Liberty Grove Methodist Episcopal Church rose in 1863 as one of the oldest Methodist church buildings in the Sandy Spring area. Many a church dinner was served in its basement--a tradition carried on today in Liberty Grove's popular annual Turkey Supper. Carolyn Milstead Rowles recalls the proud Sunday in 1960 when "the congregation marched together from the old church across the road to the new building, and it was dedicated."

Frayed end of an era: This was the intersection of Spencerville Road (Route 198) and Old Columbia Pike in Burtonsville c.1910. In this view looking west, Spencerville Road branches off to the right. The ramshackle building was a blacksmith shop operated by Horace Harrison and Joe Athey. The leaning light pole at left completes the scene of decay. Today the site holds the busy Burtonsville branch of the Sandy Spring bank.