Burkittsville

BURKITTSVILLE - Witch-seeking fanatics swooped into town carrying video cameras, tromping through residents' yards, even stealing souvenir dirt from the cemetery to auction it off on the Internet. That was the craze created by the movie "The Blair Witch Project" when it opened last summer. Don't blame residents for not leaping in ecstasy tonight - when the sequel opens. "We wish it would just go away," said Debby Burgoyne, who at first invited tourists to use her bathroom last year, because there are no public facilities in town.

Jayme Marshall and Myles Doherty love living between the cornfields of Frederick County and the mountains of West Virginia. Their home, more than 200 years old, sits along Main Street in Burkittsville. The town has 192 residents and is a country oasis for several Washington commuters, including Marshall and Doherty. The couple moved here six years ago, purchasing the Federal-style home for $177,000. Two years of renovations have cost them about $50,000. The 2,800-square-foot house is decorated with an eclectic mix of antiques and modern furniture.

BURKITTSVILLE -- The folks in this farm country hamlet south of Frederick have had as much as they can take of the attention generated by the film "Blair Witch Project." The last thing they want is to see things stirred up again by a sequel. Accordingly, they sent the producers of "Blair Witch Project 2" packing from a town meeting Monday, hurling insults after them. Yesterday, only a few residents of this town of 200 at the base of South Mountain would discuss the fracas, and most who did talk wouldn't give their names.

BURKITTSVILLE - Witch-seeking fanatics swooped into town carrying video cameras, tromping through residents' yards, even stealing souvenir dirt from the cemetery to auction it off on the Internet. That was the craze created by the movie "The Blair Witch Project" when it opened last summer. Don't blame residents for not leaping in ecstasy tonight - when the sequel opens. "We wish it would just go away," said Debby Burgoyne, who at first invited tourists to use her bathroom last year, because there are no public facilities in town.

If this is in regards to `The Blair Witch Project,' ah, it is fiction. However, we welcome you to our community. You'll see we have rich farm lands, mountains and a quaint village. So, we are looking forward to meeting you.-- Burkittsville town council's recorded phone message.BURKITTSVILLE -- It's been a ghost town here lately. "Beware this House is Haunted" is the scariest sight, and that's just an early Halloween decoration on one of the Victorian homes on Main Street.The really spooky occurrences -- tourists from Buffalo or Cleveland showing up to buy 21-cent postcards devilishly postmarked "Burkittsville" -- are gone.

BURKITTSVILLE -- A car pulls up to the intersection of Main Street and Maryland Route 17, known locally as The Square. The driver, knowing a couple of newspaper types when she sees them, rolls down her window."

BURKITTSVILLE -- A specter haunts the picture postcard hamlet of Burkittsville in the Civil War country of Frederick County and its name is "The Blair Witch Project.""The Blair Witch Project" is the summer's surprise superhit movie, a candidate for the scariest film to screech out the millennium with. Made for about $30,000 by a pair of post-graduate Gen-X moviemakers, the "B.W. Project" has racked up $36.1 million in three weeks at a rate that makes "The Runaway Bride" look like she's in a crawl space.

Thought last year's grunge hit "The Blair Witch Project" ended with the deaths of its three profanity-spouting, map-losing, witch-hunting rebels? It didn't. "The Blair Witch Project 2" began filming in Maryland this month, according to Andrea Thomas, manager of the Maryland Film Commission. Barbara Garner, an assistant manager at Seneca Creek State Park in Gaithersburg, said Seneca is being used as a location. Much of the first movie was shot there as well, she says. Many people assumed the wooded scenes were shot in Burkittsville, the tiny Maryland town that became associated with the film, spawned a Blair Witch souvenir market and more recently got pillaged by rowdy Blair Witch fanatics.

As Main Street becomes Gapland Road, shadows darken South Mountain, the long ridge of the Blue Ridge chain that rises just west of Burkittsville. All roads to Gathland State Park at the top are shaded.Except for paving, they are the same roads on which Northern and Southern troops fought the Battle of Crampton's Gap, which started Sept. 14, 1862, in downtown Burkittsville after five days of Confederate occupation, as part of a three-pronged South Mountain Union offensive. Two Burkittsville churches were field hospitals.

1998 Boordy Vineyards Chardonnay, Maryland ($11).Long a leader in producing high-quality white wines from French-American hybrid grapes, Boordy is making impressive progress with European varietals such as chardonnay. This medium-bodied chardonnay, which draws heavily on Boordy's newly restored Burkittsville vineyard, offers fresh apple and lemon flavors with good acidity, a well-balanced touch of oak and a peppery edge. It's a wine that Marylanders can serve with pride to out-of-state visitors.

Thought last year's grunge hit "The Blair Witch Project" ended with the deaths of its three profanity-spouting, map-losing, witch-hunting rebels? It didn't. "The Blair Witch Project 2" began filming in Maryland this month, according to Andrea Thomas, manager of the Maryland Film Commission. Barbara Garner, an assistant manager at Seneca Creek State Park in Gaithersburg, said Seneca is being used as a location. Much of the first movie was shot there as well, she says. Many people assumed the wooded scenes were shot in Burkittsville, the tiny Maryland town that became associated with the film, spawned a Blair Witch souvenir market and more recently got pillaged by rowdy Blair Witch fanatics.

If Burkittsville doesn't want the sequel to "The Blair Witch Project," Manchester might. Manchester Town Councilwoman Mary Minderlein made the suggestion Tuesday night, near the end of a routine meeting. The Frederick County town that was the locale for last summer's surprise hit movie sent producers packing last month at the prospect of being the location for the sequel, she noted, "so the Maryland film council is looking for another town. They want to hear from Maryland towns." "I had the idea that Manchester would be a good place, maybe, to have the movie, and we should put our hat in the ring, so to speak," she said.

BURKITTSVILLE -- The folks in this farm country hamlet south of Frederick have had as much as they can take of the attention generated by the film "Blair Witch Project." The last thing they want is to see things stirred up again by a sequel. Accordingly, they sent the producers of "Blair Witch Project 2" packing from a town meeting Monday, hurling insults after them. Yesterday, only a few residents of this town of 200 at the base of South Mountain would discuss the fracas, and most who did talk wouldn't give their names.

A man was killed yesterday when a tree fell on a bulldozer he was operating at a Frederick County construction site, said state police said. Charles Augustus Bartholow, 63, was knocking down trees and moving debris about 7:20 a.m. at a residential building site in the 4500 block of Burkittsville Road in Burkittsville, poilice said. One of the trees apparently fell and struck Bartholow in the head, police said. Bartholow of South Jefferson Street in Frederick died a short time later at Frederick Memorial Hospital, police said.

If this is in regards to `The Blair Witch Project,' ah, it is fiction. However, we welcome you to our community. You'll see we have rich farm lands, mountains and a quaint village. So, we are looking forward to meeting you.-- Burkittsville town council's recorded phone message.BURKITTSVILLE -- It's been a ghost town here lately. "Beware this House is Haunted" is the scariest sight, and that's just an early Halloween decoration on one of the Victorian homes on Main Street.The really spooky occurrences -- tourists from Buffalo or Cleveland showing up to buy 21-cent postcards devilishly postmarked "Burkittsville" -- are gone.

IT SEEMS ONLY appropriate that the southern Frederick County town of Burkittsville would select Severna Park's ToadNet as its Web site provider.Like filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Edward Sanchez, whose movie, "The Blair Witch Project," has put Burkittsville on the map, ToadNet founder and chief executive officer, David Troy, 27, knows what it's like be successful at a young age.He and his former partner, Ray Mitchell, started their first computer business in...

IT SEEMS ONLY appropriate that the southern Frederick County town of Burkittsville would select Severna Park's ToadNet as its Web site provider.Like filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Edward Sanchez, whose movie, "The Blair Witch Project," has put Burkittsville on the map, ToadNet founder and chief executive officer, David Troy, 27, knows what it's like be successful at a young age.He and his former partner, Ray Mitchell, started their first computer business in...

BURKITTSVILLE -- Some of the state's most hallowed ground, where thousands fell in the second-bloodiest battle ever fought on Maryland soil, will be given permanent protection from the developer's bulldozer today.The Board of Public Works is scheduled to ratify two contracts purchasing the development rights to farmland at the site of the Battle of South Mountain, where Union forces under Maj. Gen. George McClellan clashed with Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia on Sept. 14, 1862.By securing agricultural easements on the two properties, totaling 338 acres, the state will bring the amount of South Mountain property protected under its Program Open Space to more 1,000 acres.

BURKITTSVILLE -- A specter haunts the picture postcard hamlet of Burkittsville in the Civil War country of Frederick County and its name is "The Blair Witch Project.""The Blair Witch Project" is the summer's surprise superhit movie, a candidate for the scariest film to screech out the millennium with. Made for about $30,000 by a pair of post-graduate Gen-X moviemakers, the "B.W. Project" has racked up $36.1 million in three weeks at a rate that makes "The Runaway Bride" look like she's in a crawl space.