Maple Beer & Wine

About Bethesda

Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It is located just northwest of Washington, D.C. According to the 2020 census, the community had a total population of 68,056. It takes its name from a local church, the Bethesda Meeting House (1820, rebuilt 1849), which in turn took its name from Jerusalem's Pool of Bethesda. The National Institutes of Health's main campus and the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center are in Bethesda, in addition to several corporate and government headquarters. == History == Bethesda is located in a region that was populated by the Piscataway and Nacotchtank tribes at the time of European colonization. Fur trader Henry Fleet became the first European to visit the area, reaching it by sailing up the Potomac River. He stayed with the Piscataway tribe from 1623 to 1627, either as a guest or prisoner (historical accounts differ). Fleet eventually secured funding for another expedition to the region and was later granted proprietary rights to 2,000 acres of land in the nascent colony and became a member of Maryland's colonial legislature. Raids from the Senecas and Susquehannock resulted in the creation of the Maryland division of Rangers in 1694 to patrol the frontier.Most settlers in colonial Maryland were tenant farmers who paid their rent in tobacco, and colonists continued to expand farther north in search of fertile land. Henry Darnall (1645–1711) surveyed a 710-acre (290-hectare) area in 1694 which became the first land grant in Bethesda.