The Inn at Folck's Mill

**Scott Philbrook** (0:02)
Astonishing Legends Network.

**John Bolton** (0:07)
The views and opinions expressed by hosts and listeners on The Astonishing Dead Letter Office are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Astonishing Legends Productions, The Astonishing Legends Network, or any affiliated entities or guests.

**Forrest Burgess** (0:37)
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Join us weekly in Blanket Forteana as we dig through your intriguing messages to the Astonishing Dead Letter Office.

**John Bolton** (1:11)
Tonight's episode, The Inn at Fox Mill.

**Scott Philbrook** (1:16)
Well, tonight, we're headed up into the far western corner of Maryland, Cumberland, actually, right? Where the state pinches down to a thin neck between Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

**Forrest Burgess** (1:26)
Yeah, and I believe George Washington's first headquarters were around there, right?

**Scott Philbrook** (1:31)
Yeah, had to do a little research on this, but Fort Cumberland was there before there was a Cumberland, which is where General Edward Braddock launched his march on the French in 1755 with a young George Washington riding along as one of his aides.
But that whole thing was a disaster. Braddock actually got killed and Washington more or less held the retreat together, but they staged out of this particular spot. By the 1800s, it was a boom town. The National Road, as they call it, runs right through it, the B&O Railroad, which I opined a long time ago about being my first model railroad on a ton of episodes of our show. The C&O Canal, both dead end there, so coal, iron, glass, brewing, all that stuff. So for a while, it was the second biggest city in Maryland. They called it the Queen City, which is also what they call Charlotte here in North Carolina.

**Forrest Burgess** (2:18)
Right. The secret lies of Charlotte. Well, that battle, I believe, where George Washington had to take over and lead the retreat, is featured in the new George Washington movie or series that's come out.

**John Bolton** (2:31)
Oh, that's cool.

**Scott Philbrook** (2:32)
I want to see that.

**John Bolton** (2:33)
Yeah.

**Forrest Burgess** (2:33)
There's a lot of things like, it's just miraculous. His story is miraculous anyway. Just weird things happen in battle, which we're going to find out. And this area that we're talking about, this was also part of the Civil War.

**Scott Philbrook** (2:45)
That's right. The war came right up to the edge of town. There was actually an engagement, which Chris talks about in the letter tonight, on the east side of Cumberland in the summer of 1864 Artillery, the whole thing. They fought practically in people's front yards. Some of the locations are still standing, and a few of them, as is the case in a lot of places, are restaurants now because that's what happens.

**Forrest Burgess** (3:06)
That's always the best fate for a historic place, is to serve good food and brew.

**Scott Philbrook** (3:11)
You can sit in there and imagine what it was like in the days of yore.

**Forrest Burgess** (3:14)
Yeah. I do love seeing, again, buildings being repurposed and kept alive rather than just going to rot, because so many bonded places we check out are trying to be saved, but it costs a lot of private money. So not an easy thing to do. So I'm glad to see some commerce going on. In this case, there's a building on the east side of town, just off the interstate that's been a lot of things over the years, and our listener and author for tonight's story, Chris, didn't just eat there, he worked there as the brewmaster.
So there was a lot of late nights, and after the doors were locked, that's the kind of work shift and location that a lot of deadletters originate from. So there's a lot of things that we recognize, and I'm sure a lot of people who've worked in historic places that became something else, and especially restaurants, you're there after hours, and I'm sure a lot of things happen. That's a very common trope, I guess. Yeah, these are the hours where the activity dies down, the place stops being a restaurant, and maybe it goes back to being whatever it was in the past, because this is my other thought too. It's like Waverly, one of the most haunted locations in the world, when they have their massive Halloween party there with thousands of people, I'm sure these spirits just take a vacation, because it's like no one's going to hear or see anything crazy that they're trying to do. It's just part of it, so it gets drowned out, but when it's quiet, that's when things happen.