08/12/2026
Local News: Pleasant View Church Celebrates 250 Years
Pleasant View Church of the Brethren is hosting a picnic to celebrate 250 years on August 15 at the Burkittsville Ruritan. There will also be a historic service and luncheon on August 16. Both events are open to the public.
The church’s rich history begins with a Revolutionary tale that ultimately led to the killing of one of its founders...
Peter Suman, a founder of Pleasant View Church of the Brethren, sailed to America from Germany on Sept. 26, 1749, at 19 years old. He married and settled near Burkittsville. It is said he also owned the land of the current Catoctin Creek Nature Center.
32 years later, Suman, a father of eleven, was caught up in a plot initiated by the Tories – colonists who supported the British Crown.
The plot called for British troops to come from Canada to free prisoners held at Frederick’s Hessian Barracks, then travel east to help the British in Virginia.
Suman and six co-conspirators met at the Harmony Grist Mill, north of Middletown, but a spy among them exposed the plot. The conspirators were captured on a farmstead nearby before being marched to the Frederick jail.
On July 25, 1781, Peter Suman, Nicholas Andrews, John George Graves, Yost Plecker, Adam Graves, Henry Shell, and Casper Fritchie were convicted of treason and sentenced under English.
Their sentence read: "You shall be carried from this place to the Gaol of Frederick County, and hence to the gallows of Fredericktown and be hanged thereon. You shall be cut down to the Earth alive, and your entrails shall be taken out and burnt while you are yet alive; your Head shall be cut off; your Body shall be divided into four Parts, and your Head and Quarters shall be placed where His Excellency— the Governor— shall appoint for public exhibition... So God have Mercy upon your Poor Souls.”
The executions took place on Aug. 17, 1781. Though the Warrant of Ex*****on was issued for seven men, only Suman, Fritchie and Plecker were executed. All three men were buried in unmarked graves in the Ausherman Cemetery near Pleasant View Church.
Read the August issue to learn more about Pleasant View Church of the Brethren’s history and its 250-year celebrations.
Article by: Abbie Ricketts
