History

We have found no bullet holes and have met no spirits even though Antietam Guest House has survived since 1856. It sits on Lot 74, one of the 187 lots laid out by Joseph Chapline in 1763 known as the town of
Sharpes Burgh.

The house at 111 West Chapline is noted on the Doubleday survey map of September 17, 1862, but we have found no other mention of the house in accounts of the Battle of Antietam and its aftermath. It is believed, however, that General Robert E. Lee and Confederate troops traveled through the field behind the house on the way to the battlegrounds of the Cornfield and the West Woods.

Legend has it that Robert E. Lee used the alley behind the Antietam Guest House as his shortcut to and from the front lines of the American Civil War's bloodiest one-day battle.

History confirms that the Battle of Antietam produced 23,000 casualties as General Lee's 40,000 Confederate soldiers clashed with 87,000 Union troops led by General George B. McClellan.

Located on the north side of northernmost street in Sharpsburg, the Antietam Guest House was the family home of a cargo boatman who worked on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal along the Maryland side of Potomac River some three miles west of Sharpsburg.

With an estimated construction date of 1856, the Antietam Guest House bore witness to the clash of  armies as the September 17, 1862, fighting began in a cornfield two miles northeast of Sharpsburg and continued past the Dunker Church and the Sunken Road to the Burnside Bridge a mile southeast of town.

There are no stop lights in this quietly historic town of 700 people. Located at the intersection of Maryland Routes 65 and 34 about a half-hour south of Hagerstown, Sharpsburg boasts a recently opened wine bar restaurant and a long-established Mennonite family bakery.
   Sharpsburg has one gas station, one bank and one convenience store. There are two bed and breakfast inns and two taverns plus a local artist's pottery shop, a popular ice cream shop, a delicatessen and a specialty souvenir store.

Also within a few blocks of the Antietam Guest House, are the historic Sharpsburg spring, the town hall, public library, town park and elementary school, plus a pharmacy, and an art gallery and framing business. The historic restored Sharpsburg train station houses an enthusiastic model railroad club.

An 1888 survey map shows the house on Potomac (now Chapline) Street, was owned by B. Bender, the Benjamin Bender who married Elizabeth Painter on June 11, 1861. In 1869, her father George Painter deeded Lot 74 to her. The 1870 census has the Benders and their 4-year-old son William living in the house.

An 1880 census report lists eight persons living in the small house: the Benders, five children, and Samuel Bender, Benjamin's father, then a widower.

Raleigh Bender, a C&O canal boatman for 35 years, was one of the nine children born to Benjamin and Elizabeth Bender. Raleigh Bender is the Captain Bender of Bender's Tavern and Antietam Café on East Main Street in Sharpsburg .

The 1922 Sanborn map shows the house and an outbuilding at the back of the property. A stone foundation remains. It is believed that the outbuilding as used to house canal mules. The standing summer kitchen is not noted on any of the three maps, which are displayed in Antietam Guest House.