Bee Line March Commemoration 2025
The 250th anniversary of the Bee Line March from Mecklenberg (now Shepherdstown) to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1775 was celebrated in Shepherdstown this summer. It was organized by the Bee Line March 250th committee comprised of several local organizations, including Peter Smith from the Rotary Club, Historic Shepherdstown, the Pack Horse Ford Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, the Adam Stephen Chapter of the National Society Sons of the American Revolution, and the Jefferson County Museum.
In April 2025 a display in the Historic Shepherdstown Museum opened to begin the celebration. It featured 15 rifles made between 1740 and 1840, including 10 signed Sheetz rifles. These were the kind of rifles that the marchers from Shepherdstown would have carried.
Sheetz rifle exhibit in museum
The Bee Line Marcher at the Historic Shepherdstown Museum
Also in April, a Historic Shepherdstown Speaker Series talk on the features of the rifles and how they were constructed was given by two former presidents of the Kentucky Rifle Foundation, History of the Kentucky Rifles, April 2025 – Brian LaMaster and Tim Hodges
In May, at another Speaker Series talk, Doug Perks, a Jefferson county historian, told the story of the remarkable 26-day 600 mile journey from Shepherdstown to Cambridge in the summer 1775 of 95 Virginians under the command of Captain Hugh Stephenson. The march is now known as the Bee Line March. That was followed in June 2025 by a day-long commemoration at Morgan’s Grove Park involving descendants of the original marchers.
Doug Perks – the Bee Line March
Bee Line March map – Mecklenburg to Cambridge
Bee Line Marchers and their Descendants
Travis Shaw, the director of education for the Piedmont Heritage Foundation, spoke at the re-enactment of the start of the Bee Line March at Morgan’s Grove Park in July 2025. This is a talk he gave at Lovettsville Historical Society in 2023 and it is used with permission. Travis Shaw – The Maryland and Virginia Rifle Companies, 1775
Wallace Gusler – Longrifles of Virginia and West Virginia. Talk by Wallace Gusler, former Master Gunsmith at Colonial Williamsburg. His presentation in Shepherdstown was sponsored by Historic Shepherdstown and the Kentucky Rifle Foundation.
