Brian Myers’ journey into the history of Montgomery County began with a personal realization: his very own ancestors had once lived on the same streets he rode down every day as a kid.
“My dad, Greg, is originally from Ellicott City, but we discovered that he had ancestors who once lived in this area. We drove by Tschiffely Square Road almost every day on Route 28 and never knew that it was named after my dad’s great-uncle Wilson Tschiffely’s family,” Myers said.
Myers’ second nonfiction book, “Hidden History of Montgomery County, Maryland,” was released earlier this year in February. It features 33 chapters covering several remarkable and unbelievable stories in the history of the county and of the residents who have lived in the area for the last four centuries.
A single odd story buried in the archives, about a bridesmaid catching fire at her own brother’s wedding, was all it took to ignite Brian Myers’ curiosity about what else had been left in the shelves of Montgomery County history.
“This wasn’t front-page news back in 1919, and it seemed like an afterthought. It made me wonder, what else is hidden within these pages?” Myers said.
Brian G. Myers is a graduate of the University of Maryland as well as Montgomery County’s own Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, Maryland. Upon graduation from college, Myers was already well versed in skills involving journalism that stemmed from his passions for researching and writing.
Myers’ book aims to bridge the gap between Montgomery County’s old and dusty headlines that never saw the light of day and modern-day readers. Myers hopes to prove that the strangest stories were the ones that never made the front-page news.
What began as a childhood fascination and dream with family ties became a lifelong mission to bring Montgomery County’s most forgotten headlines back to life.
Among the dozens of little-known stories Myers uncovered through his research, none seemed more surprising than the explosive 1920 murder case that ended in the last-ever public hanging in Montgomery County history.
“In 1920, a man named Vernon Thompson got into a violent argument with his neighbor Jim Bolton, which ended with Bolton shooting Thompson in the neck,” Myers said.
The story took an even stranger turn when Myers discovered that both the murderer and the victim were distant relatives of his, a twist that would blur the lines between the historian and participants.
“I realized so much more about Thompson’s motive and his mental health issues, not to mention that he and Bolton are both somehow third cousins of mine,” Myers said.
Myers’ interview with the descendants of Hattie Shipley, who survived the attack that killed three of her children, shed light on the silent burdens carried by past generations and the healing that comes with uncovering difficult truths.
Her granddaughter Betty only knew her grandmother as a kind woman and nothing more; she only found out about the tragedies through personal family research.
Though Montgomery County is now celebrated as one of the most diverse regions in the country, Myers discovered that its past tells a more complicated story, one marked by racism, antisemitism and homophobia well into the 20th century.
“If you weren’t straight, white and Christian, that could affect your ability to get a job, a house, or even go to a movie theater comfortably in this area,” Myers said.
Alongside stories of exclusion, Myers also uncovered narratives of resistance, such as Montgomery County’s quiet yet crucial connections to the famous Underground Railroad.
Some stories Myers believes may have been kept away from the spotlight due to the uncomfortable subject matters they may be describing.
One of those stories was that of Joe Acanfora, a Montgomery County science teacher who was fired in the 1970s for being gay. This story was largely absent from the county’s official historical record.
While Myers hesitates to label these omissions as deliberate, he acknowledges that some chapters of Montgomery County’s past are quietly excluded from mainstream historical narratives, possibly to preserve the county’s progressive reputation.
More than 50 years later, Montgomery County Public Schools has never issued an apology — an omission that, Myers believes, speaks volumes about the discomfort in addressing LGBTQ+ discrimination in public memory.
“There’s a lot of controversy right now and there was recently a Supreme Court case about whether LGBTQ+ texts should be enforced in schools. I personally think that teenagers in middle or high school could benefit from learning about what happened to Acanfora and getting to have more information about the LGBTQ+ history in our area,” Myers said.
One recurring theme in what he finds throughout his research is how Montgomery County’s communities have historically come together in moments of hardship, whether it was banding together to protect Garrett Park from typhoid in 1898, or raising funds for a family devastated by violence in 1920.
Myers found out silence often ran deep within families of this county; stories of early marriages, abuse, or death were routinely tucked away, only to resurface decades later through tools like Ancestry.com or hidden newspaper archives.
“While someone might discover something tragic about a parent’s past, it might make them appreciate how the parent turned their life around and made their child’s life so much better by breaking the cycle,” Myers said.
While state history makes its way into fourth grade classrooms, Myers believes Montgomery County’s own past, its various struggles and triumphs alike, deserve a permanent place in the curriculum.
In addition to advocating for LGBTQ+ representation through stories like Joe Acanfora’s, Myers also sees value in teaching how Montgomery County’s Jewish community grew from just a handful of families in the early 1900s to a vital part of the county’s identity today.
“I think older kids could also benefit from hearing about how the Jewish community sprouted up in Montgomery County over the past 100 years or so. There were only a few Jewish families in the county at the turn of the 20th century, and now we have dozens of synagogues, and around 10 percent of MoCo’s population is Jewish,” Myers said.
Since publishing his book, Myers has received an outpouring of support from Montgomery County residents, from newcomers eager to learn about their new home to longtime locals who see their own family stories reflected in his work.
At every event he attends, from the Gaithersburg Book Festival to local library talks, Myers finds himself not just revealing hidden history, but also collecting it as the people he shares them with share memories amongst themselves.
“To sum it up, I spent close to two years working on this book and more than 11 years before that researching my family in the area. In the several months since the book has been released, I’ve realized it’s just a drop in the bucket,” Myers said.
