Larry,

You troublemaker. Now I've wasted an evening trying to figure this out! Gardenweb searching is only moderately helpful (and doesn't go back far enough).

Looks like the first swap at Henrietta's was 05 and in 03 there was a spring swap probably at Black Hills Regional Park - probably one of the ones where police came...

I joined GW in 2001. I know I went to a swap in PA that I learned about in GW around that time that was very regimented. I don't remember the swap you describe - could it have been in 01 or 02?

Help us out old-timers!

I think the very first swap was at Cynthia's?

The first one I attended was the Spring Swap back in 2002 at Black Hill that either Alfie or Rustynails organized.

The first swap I went to was near Baltimore. It was in spring and on a rainy day. I think our hostess was Laurel. I think that might be the one that Larry described. I don't think it was the first swap, just the first one I went to. It believe it was between 2000 and 2003.

The first swap was in the fall of 2001, in a church parking lot in Temple Hills. Mary organized it. That was so much fun that there was another one in the spring of 2002 -- but I don't remember where, because I didn't go. In the fall of 2002, there was a swap at Black Hill park. In the spring of 2003, there was a swap at Laurel's house near Baltimore, in the rain, with people parked all along the street. In the fall of 2003, I'm 90% certain that there was a swap at Sandy Spring Friends School, organized by Professor Dirt and the lovely Mrs. Professor Dirt. After this my certainty level falls off considerably...

The earliest one I remember attending was the spring swap at Centennial Park in Howard County. That's probably the 2002 one, since I registered with GW in July 2001.

Cannot remember the year, but I started this event. I held the first swap across the street from my house in a church parking lot. it was cold. I was still working so it had to be before 2002.
I can not remember who was there except for Dawn, maybe Alfie, Charles(Blue Angel), and a few others who no longer participate.
We were about 12 or so that spring
iT WAS COLD AND UNPLEASANT. SO WHATS NEW?
And we have gone forward from there.
MAry

I remember the first swap well-holy cow look at what we've created! Y'know you've never really lived until you've driven on the Beltway with a carload of plants! Now I'm swapping descendants of some of those plants.

Hey I was there, too. I should have realized that Mary started it all. I remember the parking lot at the church. No police.

Larry, the hilly house near Baltimore where the swap was years ago was Laurel's house. Professor Dirt and I were at the chilly one in the park that fall, too. See you today

I remember one we did in Virginia a few years ago. It was kinda hard to find, and it rained that day so my car got covered in mud. There was a little pavilion of some kind there, and there were also a couple of booths set up by commercial plant shops.

So here's the list:

Fall 2001 - Temple Hills church - Mary
Spring 2002 - (Centennial Park in Howard County?) - ?
Fall 2002 - Black Hill Park - Alfie
Spring 2003 - Laurel's house in Baltimore Co. - Cynthia or Laurel
Fall 2003 - Sandy Springs Friends School - Professor Dirt and ChrisMD
Spring 2004
Fall 2004 - Sandy Springs Friends School - Professor Dirt
Spring 2005
Fall 2005
Spring 2006
Fall 2006
Spring 2007 - Burtonsville - Gardengramma
Fall 2007
Spring 2008 - Burtonsville - Gardengramma
Fall 2008
Spring 2009 - Burtonsville - Gardengramma

Mary - I was there at the first swap. If you look at the FAQ's, you'll see I was also the online organizer the year Rustynails went away. Funny to see my words live on.

Here is a link that might be useful: FAQ on Swaps

Are we sure there weren't any before then? The gardenweb domain was registered in Oct. 1995. I remember exchanging seeds with people in 1996 and 1997. I think there was talk of some kind of get-togethers back then, perhaps in Fredericksburg, VA. I had a different ID back then. I used the site from 96 to 99 or so, then stopped using it until 2003. There was a woman in Fredericksburg, I think her name was Lisa or Julia, who must have been quite a plantswoman because she talked about growing things that almost nobody else was growing back then, like Genista aetnensis.

I have the strangest impression the site was part of garden.com back then. Garden.com of course, folded, but they might have sold the discussion board to someone else. Or it could just be that garden.com had a messageboard that reminded me of this one.

Funny enough ivillage is owned by NBC so General Electric is now the registrar of the site. This has to be running some of the oldest CGI code on the internet because almost nothing has changed about it since those days.

More info:
Fall 2001 - Temple Hills church - Mary
Spring 2002 - (Centennial Park in Howard County ?) - ?
Fall 2002 - Black Hills Regional Park - Alfie
Spring 2003 - Laurel's house in Baltimore Co. - Cynthia or Laurel
Fall 2003 - Sandy Springs Friends School - Professor Dirt and ChrisMD
Spring 2004 - ?
Fall 2004 - Sandy Springs Friends School - Professor Dirt
Spring 2005 - ?
Fall 2005 - Sandy Springs Friends School - Professor Dirt
Spring 2006 - Burtonsville - GardenGranma
Fall 2006 - Aquasco near Waldorf - Vlad
Spring 2007 - Burtonsville - Gardengramma
Fall 2007 - Black Hills Regional Park - Avoirgold
Spring 2008 - Burtonsville - Gardengramma
Fall 2008 - Black Hills Regional Park - Avoirgold
Spring 2009 - Burtonsville - Gardengramma
I'm only counting the spring/fall Mag swaps because these have persisted as bi-annual events. Yes, there have been other swaps but as far as I know none have been repeat events. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I can help fill in those blanks!

I've been to all the spring swaps since 2004 (I joined in summer 03). Spring 2004 was in PG County south of the beltway--in Oxon Hill maybe? It may have been at a public park; there was a designated picnic area. Turnout was on the light side by the standards of the last few years but it was definitely a MAG swap, not a wildcat event.

Spring 05 was at Black Hills. The cops came, and I remember people saying they'd come two years earlier too.

Steven

"The cops came, and I remember people saying they'd come two years earlier too."
So what was it? Plant abuse? Illegal plants? Whoa, ILLEGAL PLANTS?? Er, when is the next swap?