Poolesville is a U.S. town in the western portion of Montgomery County, Maryland.

[3] It is surrounded by (but is technically not part of) the Montgomery County Agricultural Reserve,[4] and is considered a distant bedroom community for commuters to Washington, D.C.

Due to an historical anomaly, until 2010 the legal name of the town was "The Commissioners of Poolesville".

[5] Residents overwhelmingly voted to formally change the name to "The Town of Poolesville" in the November 2010 general election.

[7] During the Civil War, Union military leaders realized that the shallow fords of the Potomac River posed a threat to the capital city.

At certain times of the year, the Potomac River is shallow enough to cross and thus thousands of troops were moved to both Darnestown and Poolesville.

The Corps of Observation was established just outside Poolesville and soldiers were stationed near the river to monitor potential Confederate incursions into Maryland.

The old Poolesville Methodist Church cemetery contains the remains of approximately twenty soldiers who either were killed in action at Ball's Bluff or who died of illness while in camp.

Operating as the Seneca Schoolhouse Museum, it provides tours to schoolchildren so that they can experience a typical school day as it would have been on March 13, 1880.

[16] Poolesville lies off Montgomery County's main axis of suburban development along the Interstate 270 and Maryland State Route 355 corridor, separated from the contiguous Maryland suburbs of Washington by the rural lands of the county agricultural reserve, where new housing and commercial starts are restricted.

[23] Monacacy Elementary School[24] in Dickerson also feeds into John Poole MS. Two state highways serve Poolesville.

Maryland Route 109 proceeds northeast from the center of town, intersecting MD 28 on its way to Interstate 270 in Hyattstown.