Speaker Series – 1775 Bee Line March, May 14, Doug Perks

Historic Shepherdstown’s 2025 Speaker Series will continue with a May 14 talk by local historian and Jefferson County, WV, native Doug Perks about the history around the summer of 1775 Bee Line March.   The talk, which helps to kick off the celebration of the 250^th anniversary of the Bee Line March, will take place at the Shepherd University Robert C. Byrd Center in Shepherdstown, WV, at 7 pm on Wednesday, May 14.

This talk will focus on the stories around the remarkable 26 day 600 mile journey in summer 1775 of 95 Virginians known as the Bee Line March, under the command of Captain Hugh Stephenson, who set out from what is now Shepherdstown, WV to Cambridge, MA to join General George Washington.   In June 1775, the Continental Congress had established the Continental Army, which would include a Virginia company formed in Berkeley County, WV and which gathered in Shepherdstown (then Mecklenburg) for the journey to Cambridge.

The speaker, Doug Perks, recently retired as the Historian of the Jefferson County Museum.   He serves as Historian for the Elmwood Cemetery Association and is a Director of the Jefferson County Historical Society.   In 2023, he published The Civil War Years in Jefferson County, VA.  He was named a West Virginia History Hero in 2017 and in 2022 was named the Historian Laureate of Shepherdstown.

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The route of the Bee Line March was recently mapped by Jefferson County GIS and Addressing Department  and Historic Shepherdstown, using Henry Bedinger’s diary quoted by Danske Dandridge’s Historic Shepherdstown. See Bee Line March map