Edmonston probably acquired its name from Captain James Edmonston, a member of a prominent Bladensburg family. He was called “Captain” because he owned a large ship. In 1742, he paid five shillings for a piece of land upon which the town of Edmonston eventually developed.

At the end of the19th century, there were still some agricultural activities in the area. Mr. Palestine’s dairy farm extended from the Anacostia River to the B&O Railroad tracks. In 1915, the Edmonston Elementary School was built on the farm. It faced Decatur Street, which at that time was a dirt lane with a narrow wooden bridge across the river to Hyattsville.

Proximity to the more highly developed Hyattsville and ready access to railroad and streetcar lines into Washington encouraged the steady growth of Edmonston. By 1924 when the town was incorporated, there were several hundred residents; at 49th Avenue and Decatur Street, there was a small neighborhood center with a few stores and a post office. Only the small grocery store remains today. The first items on the agenda for the new municipality were street paving and lighting, construction of a concrete bridge across the Anacostia River, and arrangement with the fledgling Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission to bring water and sewer pipes into the town.

One of the early mayors of Edmonston (1927) was Kinjori Matsudairi, the grandson of a Japanese feudal lord. His election received attention in the Philadelphia press at the time with the somewhat inaccurate lead, “Japanese Elected Mayor of American City for the first time in history.” His father, Tadaatsu, came to the United States in 1872 to study and stayed to marry an American woman and pursue a distinguished career in civil engineeing. Kinjori, born in Pennsylvania in 1885, was elected mayor of Edmonston a second time during World War II (1943).

Edmonston’s population is now about 1,500. It is still a small town, but one with a proud history and a promising future.