This is the building I've been researching. It's a simple painted brick business duplex. It has housed candy shops, boot stores, lunch counters.... it has been a lot of things. In 1993 one of the owners was murdered in the store and the whole place torched. It has been sitting empty since. The city is about to move in on it and slap the current holder with fines. Boarded up abandoned buildings in the middle of the county judicial seat (Rockville, Md.) does not make folks happy.
But before they tear it down, before the current owner remakes it into a shoe store, a cafe, a dojo.... there needs to be a pause and some reflection. Just by looking at that burnt out brick shell you wouldn't know its historical value, but it is one of Rockville's last-standing buildings from the 19th century.
I traced the deed back to the family who built the store, the Dawson family. According to the papers, the lot was purchased from the widowed Rebecca G. Fields in 1891. But there's something very curious. I found old Montgomery County Sentinel articles that refer to the construction of the convenience store happening on that lot... in 1870.
In addition, I tracked down store ledgers that were kept by the Dawsons listing things like 10 yrds calico, 1 pound sugar, a dozen eggs, etc. Names of reputable town-folk also appear in the log, indicating they frequented the Dawson's establishment. The three existing ledgers are from 1870, 1876, and 1880.... all before the deed signed by Thomas Dawson.
It seems like Dawson's store was well in business.... 21 years prior to the drafting of their official deed on the land.
What a jumbled paper trail.
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