The Town of Manchester stands at the intersection of what were once two important Indian trails. One was a part of the route between the Potomac River and Susquehanna River; the other ran between Hanover and Baltimore. The first public road in what is now Carroll County was laid out along the latter’s route in 1737. The same road, much improved, is heavily traveled today as Maryland Route 30.

In 1765, a settler named Captain Richards received a land grant called New Market that sat astride that north-south route. Apparently, he recognized its strategic location for he laid out a town there. Spurning its current name in favor of his hometown in England, he named it Manchester. The town’s healthy growth proved his hunch correct.

In the nineteenth century, Manchester enjoyed a cultural and academic atmosphere as the home of two highly respected educational institutions: The Manchester Academy, founded in 1831, and Irving College, founded in 1858. Each attracted students from several states. But Manchester was not spared from the dissension that divided the nation during the Civil War. As a result, The Manchester Academy closed, and Irving College was seriously weakened, surviving only until 1893.

As a more upbeat legacy of the Civil War, Manchester received fame as the base from which the Union’s Sixth Army Corps under General John Sedgwich made its historic march to Gettysburg in 1863.

Although at one time Manchester was an important cigar manufacturing town with 400 employees in seven factories, it now thrives primarily as a residential community of about 3,200 people. It is an old town on the move. In 1987, the town used a $12 million grant/loan from the Maryland Department of the Environment to renovate its sewage treatment plant and construct an innovative spray irrigation field on a 170-acre town-owned farm. An additional $1.55 million grant/loan is funding a current water-improvement project. A 500,000 gallon water tank was constructed in 1997. Water exploration is continuing, and system control and data-acquisition by telemetry is in the planning stage.

The Manchester Master Plan adopted in 1998 calls for a population cap of 5,000. The town intends to grow in an orderly fashion under its provisions, but the residents are determined about one thing in particular—that the small-town characteristics that have survived for over 230 years will be maintained.