History of our Town

The Town of Kensington, Maryland is known to its citizens as the Town where "the train still stops and the citizens still walk". The history of Kensington started decades before the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad constructed the Metropolitan Branch line from Washington, DC to Point of Rocks, Maryland in 1873. The Metropolitan Branch line bisected property owned by Mr. and Mrs. George Knowles. The train stopped a Knowles Station in recognition of George Knowles' property. This Station facilitated commerce to Knowles and the other farmers in the immediate area. Soon after the death of Knowles, parcels of land from the estate were sold. A significant portion of the Knowles estate and some of other surrounding land in the vicinity of the Knowles Station provided the natural setting of several hundred houses that emerged into Kensington of today. The name, Kensington did not surface until 1894. By 1890, the village of Knowles Station, as it was known then, experienced rapid growth and its growing governance and infrastructure needs could not be accommodated by the County. In 1894 a bill was introduced into the Maryland legislature to create the municipality known as the Town of Kensington. The Town's governance is through a Mayor and four Town Councilmen a procedure continued through today.

Following the incorporation of the Town of Kensington work started to maintain the muddy streets with planks and oyster shells. Oil Lamps were installed followed by the first brick sidewalks. Cinders replaced the boards and oyster shells in the 1920s and by the 1930s the streets were paved. During these early days wind mills located at most of the properties facilitated hand pumping of well water into individual reservoirs located in the attics of Town buildings for household and business use. Wells and pumps were installed at all properties during the early days of World War I that was followed by a sewer system and in 1922 the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission took over control of the sanitary system. By the end of World War II the Town's infrastructure was completed. The Town's government maintains and improves its streets, sidewalks, lighting, parks, and municipal buildings.

Reference: Townsend, Wilson, L., Knowles Station and The Town of Kensington 1870-1963, Montgomery County Historical Society, 1963.

MORE HISTORY:  Kensington was once a land grant called Joseph's Park, later purchased by Daniel Carroll (a signer of the Declaration of Independence), who sold parcels to various farmers.  After the Metropolitan Line of the B & O came through the area stopping here at Knowles Station, the farming community grew quickly.

The Kensington Park Subdivision was created when Brainard Warner purchased property to the south of the station from Brown/Jones in 1890.  Mr. Warner built his own home on the location of the old Brown farmhouse and used it as a summer retreat from the big city of Washington, D.C.  The streets around his mansion were layed out with the curvilinear street patterns still seen today. He sold the surrounding land in parcels to his friends and others so they could build in the area, and created a "garden suburb" designed after his favored Kensington, England.
In 1893,  Warner convinced his friend Crosby Noyes, editor and publisher of the Washington Star, to donate books for the library he had built on the land he donated across the street from his mansion. Because of his great influence, Warner was able to convince others to name the town, the post office and train station "Kensington" when the town was incorporated in 1894. Warner organized a stock company to build the first town hall.  The Warner Memorial Presbyterian Church still sits upon a triangular piece of land at Washington, Connecticut and Calvert Streets that he donated and helped finance.   He was active in the establishment of the Kensington Electric Railway (known to locals as the Toonerville trolley) which traveled up the Parkway from Chevy Chase and through town on Howard Avenue.

From 1914 to around 1950, the mansion served as the home of Frederick McKenney.  After that, the mansion was sold and occupied as a nursing home. The Warner Mansion became the central focus for the surrounding area's listing on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1986, the Kensington Historic District was included on the Montgomery County Master Plan for Historic Preservation described as "a Victorian-era garden suburb."

Brainard Warner is still considered by many as the "the founder of Kensington."  His home and surrounding garden area remain as a beautiful reminder to the Town's long history.

Click here to see a map of the District. The shaded areas on the attached map represents the Town of Kensington's Historic District.

Contact the Kensington Historical Society for more information at:    http://www.kensingtonhistory.org/