The original white settlement of the area near Annapolis was at Greenbury Point, although the land is now mostly covered by the Severn River. In the middle of the seventeenth century, Puritans living in Virginia were threatened with severe punishments by the Anglican Royal Governor if they did not conform to the worship of the Anglican church. Then Cecil Calvert, the second Lord Baltimore, offered the Pilgrims generous land grants, freedom of worship, and trading privileges if they agreed to move to Maryland, which he wanted to have settled. In 1649 they started a community on a site at the mouth of the Severn River on the western shore of Chesapeake Bay.
The Puritans named their new settlement Providence. In 1650, Lord Baltimore, the overseer of the colony, granted a charter to the county that surrounded Providence. He named it Anne Arundel County after his beloved wife, Anne Arundel, who had died shortly before at the age of thirty-four. But the Puritans refused to sign an oath of allegiance to Lord Baltimore, in part because he was a Roman Catholic. In 1655 he sent the St. Mary’s militia, headed by Governor William Stone, to force the Puritans into submission. A battle between the two groups took place on March 25, 1655. The Puritans won the conflict, which was the first battle between Englishmen on the North American continent. Eventually, Maryland became a royal colony.
Over time a small community began to develop on the peninsula that is the site of present-day Annapolis. It was known as Anne Arundel Town, taking its name from the county. The settlement grew and by the late 1600s the population of the province had reached nearly 25,000 residents. People started to object that the then-capital, St. Mary’s, was too far away from where the majority of the people lived. Royal Governor Francis Nicholson decided a more centrally located capital was needed and chose the site of what is now Annapolis. He named the new capital Annapolis in honor of Princess Anne, who became queen of England in 1702. It was Nicholson who determined that the city be built on a grand baroque street plan much like the great capitals of Europe. Streets were designed to radiate from a circle that was to contain the capitol. In a second circle was built an Anglican church.
Before the Revolution, there were fewer than 1,500 people in Annapolis, yet it was the center of wealth, culture, and crafts until the 1770s, when it was surpassed by Baltimore. This walking tour will begin at City Dock, the heart of the historic district and of the colonial seaport...
The advantageous commercial situation of Baltimore pre-destined it to be a great city. Yet it was not laid out till 1730, nearly a century after the founding of Maryland. Scores of other towns had meantime been created and had perished.
There was an element of accident in the location of Baltimore. Had a single individual named John Moale possessed prophetic insight, the half-million inhabitants of the city would to-day be occupying a somewhat different situation. Mr. Moale owned land on the south side of the Patapsco River which he valued highly on account of the iron-mines it contained. When it was proposed to lay out a town on Moale’s Point, he hastened to the Assembly at Annapolis, of which he was a member, and had the proposal defeated. After Mr. Moale had taken this false view of his own interests, the petitioners who wished to build a town requested that it might be laid off on the north side of the Patapsco. Accordingly, on August 8, 1729, there was passed “ An Act for erecting a Town on the North side of Patapsco, in Baltimore County, and for laying out in Lots, Sixty Acres of Land, in and about the place where one John Fleming now lives.” l
By this act seven Commissioners were appointed to purchase the land and to lay it out into sixty equal lots. The owners first chose a lot, after which others were free to choose the remaining lots. In case the one who selected a lot should fail to build thereon within eighteen months a house covering four hundred square feet, any other person could enter upon the lot, after paying the sum first assessed. This was forty shillings an acre, and each settler paid his share to Charles and Daniel Carroll, the original owners of the land, either in money, or in tobacco at the rate of a penny a pound. Thus the original site of Baltimore cost something less than six hundred dollars in our present money.
In January, 1730, the town was laid off, beginning at the junction of what are now known as Pratt and Light Streets. The growth of the new town was slow. After twenty-two years had elapsed it contained only twenty-five houses.
This tour of downtown Baltimore takes you through the nuts and bolts of what that slow-starting city has become - the center of government, the headquarters of its largest corporations, a succession of towers that vied for the city’s highest. Our walking tour will start at the Baltimore’s first urban renewal project that happens to be right next to a church site that has been in the same hands as it was back in 1730 on Charles Street...
Baltimore west of Park Avenue has long been a center of commerce. The Lexington Markets has been operating since the days of the Revolutionary War. In the1800s the great department stores moved into the neighborhood to join the bustling factories and warehouses down by the harbor.
Our walking tour will start in the middle of Baltimore’s retail district at the intersection of Lexington and Howard streets...
Baltimore’s harbor has been one of the major seaports in the United States since the 1700s and one of the country’s biggest urban tourist attractions since a cultural renaissance in the 1970s.
Voters approved the first bond issue ($52 million) for Inner Harbor redevelopment in 1964. In addition, more than $14 million in city bond issues and $47 million in federal grants will eventually be approved for acquiring and clearing land surrounding the harbor basin. The clearing of 110 acres of land around the harbor began in 1967.
This walking tour of Baltimore’s Inner Harbor will start at Harborplace, on the corner between the two indoor shopping malls that started it all...
Only 1.5 miles from the Baltimore waterfront, this area was originally open farmland until northward development followed the construction of a streetcar line and created a building boom in the late 19th century. To the west Bolton Hill became a middle- and upper-middle-class enclave of about nine blocks by five blocks. These development trends brought notable figures to the neighborhood including F. Scott Fitzgerald who entertained, among others, Gertrude Stein and Juan Dos Passos at his 1307 Park Avenue rowhouse.
Predominately residential, the district contains the groupings of two- and three-story brick town houses and free standing homes. These residences are some of Baltimore’s finest rowhouses and largest mansions, including many fine examples of designs from local and nationally known architects. As a whole, the architecture of the district is characterized by simplicity of treatment, uniformity of scale, design and fabric, and high standards of design, materials and workmanship. Red brick, white marble steps, and high ceilings are found throughout Bolton Hill residences. From the 1950s through the 1960s Bolton Hill experienced an architectural revival with the revitalization of the parks surrounding the Francis Scott Key Monument and the green boulevards and fountains at Park Place.
Bolton Hill’s elegant 19th century row houses set among tree-lined streets and deep, leafy gardens qualified the neighborhood for placement on the National Register of Historic Places. Several groups of award-winning contemporary town homes and parks blend with the classic architecture of the relatively unaltered 19th century community. New Orleans-style balconies are fragrant with flowers and parks with fountains and sculptures are alive with neighbors, art students, dog walkers, and joggers.
To the east the city center expanded northward to the passenger rail lines provided by the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the cultural advantages provided by the establishment of the University of Baltimore. Our walking tour will start at the picturesque Mount Royal Station...
Baltimore - Mount Vernon Place
In 1810 the General Assembly of Maryland authorized a $100,000lottery to build a monument to George Washington. Robert Mills of Charleston, South Carolina, America’s first professional architect, won a design contest with a vision of Washington in classic Roman garb riding in a horse-drawn chariot with the requisite column. Mills won $500 for his efforts.
The monument was planned for Baltimore’s old Court House that was being torn down on Calvert Street between Fayette and Lexington streets. The owners of surrounding houses immediately howled in protest, convinced such a large stone column was bound to fall or them or at the very least inundate the neighborhood in lightning. Colonel John Eager Howard, Baltimore’s walking, breathing Revolutionary War hero, ended the debate by giving a chunk of his enormous estate, Belvedere, for the placement of the monument honoring his former Commander-in-Chief. The donated site, then called Howard’s Woods, was a hill well north of the Baltimore town of 1815, where a falling statue would hit the ground without casualties.
Colonel Howard died in 1827, and his heirs laid out the four park squares surrounding the Monument in the form of a Greek Cross. The squares running north and south from the Monument are named Washington Place, and those laid out to the east and west are named Mount Vernon Place. Over the years, “Mount Vernon Place” has come to refer to not only the entire square, but also the surrounding neighborhood.
During the 1830s and 1840s, the town of Baltimore, presumably cured of its trepidation over tumbling obelisks, steadily grew out to the Monument, and the area began to boast the most elegant townhouses in the city. Mount Vernon Place has wandered in and out of fashion through the decades but it has always been what Baltimoreans consider “the heart of the city.” The neighborhood retains its grand homes and monumental cultural institutions and out walking tour will start at the Washington Monument that started it all...
From its early beginnings in the late 1700s as part of the Burley Plantation, a 300-acre land grant dating back to 1677, Berlin was and remains an important place in the history of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The actual town was incorporated in 1868. At the time, Berlin boasted at least 12 stores and numerous light industrial businesses in industries such as milling, nurseries, lumber, orchards, brick-making and coal.
Agriculture and farming, however, were the mainstays of the economy. Located on the crossroads of two railroad lines, the town was perfectly suited to ship manufactured and agricultural products to metropolitan areas. The Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad, later to become the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railroad, connected Berlin to Salisbury and Ocean City. The Pennsylvania line intersected the town in a north-south direction.
Because of the rail lines, Berlin became one of the state’s leading shippers of strawberries, Harrison’s Nurseries became a world-leading supplier of fruit trees, shipping millions annually, and the brick factory, milling company and outlying farms were able to ship their products to distant markets. All of this made Berlin a viable economic center. Visitors from the urban areas west of the Chesapeake Bay also stopped in Berlin on their way to the new seaside resort, Ocean City. Today, many lovely old homes can be found on the railroad embankments.
The present-day streetscape contains few vestiges of that heady time in Berlin. Three times within a decade - 1895, 1902 and 1904 - the town was reduced to rubble by fire. The rebuilt post-1905 town retains an authenticity that twice attracted Hollywood, first in 1998 for the feature film Runaway Bride, starring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere immediately followed by the memorable children’s film, Tuck Everlasting.
Our walking tour will start a few steps from the Town Center - and return three times - and see a number of those Hollywood filming sites along the way...
Cambridge, the county seat of Dorchester County and the fourth largest town on the Eastern Shore, is one of Maryland’s oldest, settled in April of 1684. Located on the Choptank River, the land that was to become Cambridge was part of the Choptank Indian Reservation. In the early 1700s the town prospered from trade in tobacco, seafood, and muskrat.
The town incorporated in 1794 and was an area of growth due to the completion of the Dorchester and Delaware Railroad and a growing oyster and manufacturing industry. By the mid-1800’s the first large manufacturing industry was located on the east side of Cambridge Creek. Large lumber and flour mills supplied timber to the Central Pacific Railroad for building rail cars, in addition to packing thousands of barrels of flour. This lead to the building of large coastal vessels. made from local pine and oak, on Cambridge Creek. Skipjacks, bugeyes, and log canoes were just a few vessels that local builders developed, in order to meet the needs of those who worked and traded on the Chesapeake Bay.
The Choptank is home to some of the finest oyster grounds in the Chesapeake Bay where sailing skipjacks and hand-tongers still dredge for oysters. Oystering became so profitable that laws were passed restricting dredging of oysters in Dorchester waters to only citizens of Dorchester County. The Oyster Navy was armed to guard the oyster beds from poaching by residents of nearby Somerset County, Baltimore City, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. Conflicts resulted in at least one death.
This prosperity led Cambridge to become the home of governors, lawyers, and landowners. Their beautiful homes line High Street, Water Street, Mill Street, and Hambrooks Boulevard. The most famous resident, however, was Sharpshooter Annie Oakley who built her house at 28 Bellevue Avenue, on Hambrooks Bay. The roofline was altered so Oakley could step outside her second-story windows and shoot waterfowl coming in over the bay.
Our walking tour will start on the banks of the Choptank River and walk down the street that James Michener used as a model for his sprawling novel Chesapeake into the heart of the Cambridge historic district that was so designated in 1990...
Beginning with a Governor’s proclamation in 1668, the idea of establishing a port of entry at this spot on the Chester River had been kicked around for years. A court house was built here in 1697 and when that colonial port was officially decreed in 1706, it assured the founding of a town.
A broad main street (called High today, platted at 90 feet wide) led from the river to the chief public space, situated at the intersection of a crossing street (called Cross) where the places of public business and other amenities are located. The simplicity of this scheme, similar to what William Penn was doing in Philadelphia, is something of a rarity among Chesapeake ports. Other Chesapeake harbors, like Annapolis and Oxford, being closer to the Bay itself, have too uneven a coastline or irregular a terrain to permit a clear crossplan with neat rectangular subdivisions.
The economy down to 1760 had been highly dependent on tobacco, but a dramatic shift in the direction of wheat production brought about a new prosperity that resulted in increased population for the Town. Its location squarely on the most heavily traveled North-South road in Colonial America forged significant new ties with Philadelphia in the period just preceding the Revolution. George Washington is known to have made at least eight visits tot he town, including dining on May 23, 1791. At Worrell’s Tavern that operated at Queen and Cannon streets. Washington donated money and lent his name to the college, which opened as Maryland’s first and the first in the new nation after the Revolution, in 1782. He served on the board of directors and was given an honorary degree of doctor of laws in 1789. The bronze figure of Washington on campus was executed by Lee Oskar Lawrie.
After a post-Revolutionary period of decline and relative stagnation, the Town’s fortunes clearly began to rise again by 1860, the time when the existing Court House was built. Fruit growing and the coming of the railroad to Chestertown in 1872 partially account for this boomlet, which in turn helps explain the large number of buildings remaining from that period. The 20th century has seen modest growth within the town limits with little architectural change in the Historic District since the reconstruction of a commercial block, destroyed by fire in 1910. Rather, the approach of recent generations has been to preserve the old or to add and replace in architectural styles compatible with the Town’s past.
Our walking tour will start on the banks of the banks of the Chester River; the commercial wharves are long gone but the buildings and streets their wealth spawned remain...
In October 1749 Christopher Gist, an agent for the Ohio Company (land and trading) arrived at the junction of Wills Creek and the North Branch of the Potomac to erect a stockade and trading post. With the rumbling of the French and Indian War on the horizon in 1754 the little post was expanded into a hilltop fort on the west bank of Wills Creek called Fort Mount Pleasant. British general Edward Braddock arrived the next year to launch a campaign on Fort Duquesne (today’s Pittsburgh) and renamed the expanded fort for the Duke of Cumberland, head of the British Army.
The city took the name of its historic fort in 1787, after being known for several years as “Washington Town” since this was where a young George Washington accepted his first military command. Cumberland evolved into a “Gateway to the West” at the edge of the American frontier. A key road, railroad and canal junction during the 1800s. at one time it was the second largest city in Maryland (second to the port city of Baltimore―hence its nickname “The Queen City”). And when the Federal Government decided to fund the first National Highway, it was in Cumberland where the road began.
The surrounding hillsides provided coal, iron ore, and timber insured the prosperity of the community through the first part of the 1900s. But the Great Depression of the 1930’s hit the region hard. Then, as coal became less valuable as a resource and when industry converted back to peacetime operations following World War II, Cumberland went into a steady economic decline which continues to this day. Along with the economic decline, the population has declined due to an out migration of the work force. The population declined from 39,483 residents in the 1940 census to fewer than 22,000 today.
The result has been that Cumberland’s physical appearance remains much like it was in the 1930’s, which had been it’s heyday. Most of the buildings were constructed between 1860 and 1930. The architecture, both public buildings and residential dwellings, remains largely intact, save for altered street level entrances. Contributing to this quaint and antique appearance has been the historic preservation of the downtown business area as well as the Washington Street Historical Preservation District.
Our walking tour will start in the historic Western Maryland Railway Center, now a centrally located tourist center with plenty of parking...
The area was first mentioned in a grant to Henry Sewell dated 1649 in London, England. On a map dated 1673, the region is largely depicted as being inhabited by woodland indians with a fort located near the town known as “Fort Warwick”. After colonization, some of the earliest family names were Adams, Anderton, Melville, Pattison, Rix, Smith, and Taylor. These families settled into basically four land grants known as Bath, York, Carthegena, and Warwick. Warwick was situated between what is currently the Town of Secretary and East New Market. This area was largely owned by the Hooper family. The next group of families to purchase land and build residences were the Daffin’s, Ennalls’, Gist’s, Hodson’s, Hicks’, McKeel’s, Newton’s, Sulivane’s and Thompson’s.
Many of these families were seeking religious freedom and economic gain through the purchase of property. It isn’t unusual for families to have owned real estate in this area, but never living in the area until later generations, if at all. In 1790 the village of “New Market” was starting to appear on maps.
A post office was established in 1803 and shortly thereafter “East” was added to the town’s name, renaming the town East New Market in 1827. The town was incorporated under the session laws of 1832, and a town commission was instituted, predating by many years the adoption of that form of small-town government by many other jurisdictions.
The town grew with the introduction of the railroad in the latter part of the 19th century. This allowed agriculture to gain economic strength within the county. It was during this time that religious and educational institutions became even more established through their reputations as centers of learning and worship.
Our walking tour will start at the crossroad of this crossroads town and we’ll go aways in every direction...
There was nothing random nor serendipitous about the founding of Talbot Court House. It was not built on any navigable waterway and the site selected was not located on an established trade route. The name said it all - this was going to be a government town, centrally located to all sections of the county.
That court house was built in 1711; the county, named for Lady Grace Talbot, sister of the second Lord Baltimore, had been established a half-century earlier in 1661. From its very beginning as an English colony the county economy was based on tobacco agriculture and the bountiful harvest of Chesapeake Bay from its over 600 miles of tidal shoreline, the most of any county in the United States.
Talbot Court House was never envisioned as a bustling town - just a place to conduct occasional official business and move on. As such for decades the settlement consisted primarily of taverns and a few scattered houses. But in 1788 the Maryland legislature designated the village the “East Capital” of Maryland and renamed it Easton.
In short order Easton had become the largest town on the Eastern Shore. The founding families of the Delmarva Peninsula, which dominated the Eastern Shore social, political, and economic history - the Tilghmans, Lloyds, Goldsboroughs, Hollydays and Stevens built their principal seats of residence in town. Easton had the Shore’s finest bank, its first newspaper, its first Federal offices, its first brick hotel, its first steamship line.
This wealth and building boom brought skilled artisans to town as well and the early 1800s buildings of Easton, many of which still stand, were the equal of those found in the big cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Our walking tour will start in the historic Town Center where a Visitor Center has been created and parking available...
Once known as Head of Elk, named by Captain John Smith, Elkton sits at the northern headwaters of Chesapeake Bay. Its fortuitous location placed the settlement squarely on the principle north-south roadway in Colonial America. Its strategic advantages caused Head of Elk to be chosen by the British as the starting point for their attack of Philadelphia during the American Revolution. On August 27, 1777, three hundred ships carrying over 15,000 soldiers appeared in the Elk River. The British landed unopposed, stayed awhile in Head of Elk and marched to the nation’s capital which they occupied after pitched battles at Brandywine and Germantown. Four years later, the Marquis de Lafayette embarked his troops here in his pursuit of traitor Benedict Arnold. He was followed by George Washington who was marching his forces overland to ultimate victory at Yorktown, Virginia.
Elkton preceded Baltimore in the development of the flour-packing industry and was hailed by 1807 as an important wheat market, with trade having attained a level of 250,000 bushels per year. After the War of 1812, packet lines continued to run between Elkton and Baltimore, and the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad that began in 1832 further increased Elkton’s importance as a transportation center. Numerous mills were established on the Elk River, evidenced by still-surviving millraces, and the town thrived. Prosperity waned for several decades in the financially precarious times of the 1830s but the post Civil-War years brought new industries, including pulp mills, machine shops, fertilizer plants and canneries to the town, stimulating housing construction in the late 1800s. It was Elkton’s Golden Age.
Elkton achieved national notoriety in the the 1920s and 1930s when northern states began to pass more restrictive marriage laws. Maryland did not and a number of border towns became known as places to get married quickly and without many restrictions, or “Gretna Greens.” Elkton, being the northeastern most county seat in Maryland - and thus closer to Philadelphia, New York, and New England - was particularly popular. It was “the elopement capital of the East Coast” and thousands of marriages were performed there each year. Some of the celebrities who got married in Elkton included actresses Joan Fontaine and Debbie Reynolds, singer Martha Raye, political figures John and Martha Mitchell, baseball great Willie Mays, and televangelist Pat Robertson. Even after the quickie-marriage was eliminated when the state passed a 48-hour waiting period in 1938, Elkton continued to be a place to marry, and especially elope.
Our walking tour will start in the historic center of the old Head of Elk, only a few steps away from a marrying chapel...
Established in 1745 as a speculative land venture, Frederick has evolved over the years from a small, frontier settlement, to the second largest city in the State of Maryland. Two and a half centuries of growth has turned the City into an important regional center for commerce and industry as well as a convenient commuter location for those working in Washington, DC and Baltimore. Remarkably, because most growth has occurred within the 340 lots originally platted by Daniel Dulany, the Frederick Town Historic District remains relatively intact today and constitutes the largest, contiguous collection of historic resources in the state. As a result, the Frederick Town Historic District contains a broad spectrum of architectural styles that reflect our country’s built history.
In 1741 Daniel Dulany the Elder, an Annapolis lawyer and proprietary official, bought approximately 20,000 acres from Benjamin Tasker. Mr. Dulany sought to resell the land to German settlers. Using a portion of his extensive land holdings, Mr. Dulany created 340 lots along a grid plan. When Mr. Dulany sold these parcels, he stipulated that buyers improve properties by erecting structures within a specified period. After three years the town was so successfully developed that Frederick Town became the county seat for the newly created Frederick County. This act was significant because at the time Frederick County encompassed all of the area west of present Baltimore and Howard Counties to the east to the Maryland border to the west.
Due to its strategic location at the crossroads of early transportation routes, Frederick developed into a regional market center. A turnpike connecting Baltimore with the National Pike in Cumberland passed through the town along Patrick Street. A north-south route linking Gettysburg to Washington, DC also intersected the turnpike in Frederick. The burgeoning rail industry made its home in Frederick when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad built a freight depot (Carroll and East All Saints Streets) in the City in 1832.
Frederick played an important role during the Civil War. Several times throughout the war, both Union and Confederate troops marched through the City. Poet John Greenleaf Whittier immortalized Frederick resident Barbara Fritchie for her purported public defiance of Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson as he marched past.
The City continued to prosper and grow during the early part of the 20th century. As a result of limited demolition, the City’s historic core remains largely intact. As early as 1954, the Frederick City Charter included provisions directed toward historic preservation by establishing an historic district and an advisory commission. Because of the City’s careful stewardship of its built past, Frederick enjoys the largest, contiguous historic district in Maryland.
Our walking tour of this district will start in Baker Park, a lovely greenspace a scant two blocks from the City center...
After Congress authorized the National Road in 1806, Josiah Frost bought a tract of land lying across the decided route and set about to selling lots. His son, Mesbach, built a house on Lot 1 and settled with his new bride in June, 1812. The stagecoach line arrived in 1818 and the the Frosts rented their frame house to the Stockton Stagecoach Company, which adapted it for a staging tavern and called it Highland Hall. A village of supporting services rose slowly around the hostelry.
The settlement was originally called Mt. Pleasant by George McCulloh who had built in the area back in 1806 but since there was already one Mount Pleasant in Maryland, the name of the town was changed to “Frostburg” by the government when a post office was established there in 1820.
The National Road may have put Frostburg on the map but it was the railroad that brought prosperity. The iron horse arrived in the late 1840s making it possible to ship coal, that had first been discovered in the region back in 1782, in large quantities through the difficult terrain for the first time. The first mined coal in Western Maryland was taken from a location about a mile and one-half from Frostburg but The first shipment east by wagon was not made until 1820. There were also large brickyards and lumber mills in the area.
It was during the height of the coal mining period, between 1870 and 1915, that Frostburg developed most of its major institutions. The newspaper and churches were established during this period as well as the school system (1868), the fraternal organizations, banks and many local businesses. The Fire Department came into being in 1878, the water company began operation in 1884, and by 1895, both gas and electricity were available to the citizens of Frostburg. Public transportation to Cumberland and Westernport was established in 1902 by an electric railway and the Miners’ Hospital was built in 1913. A major factor in Frostburg’s economy was the growth of the State College. Originally legislated as State Normal School #2 in 1898, the facility was intended to train teachers for the public schools of the State.
Like many a Maryland town, the streetscape of the 21st century was greatly impacted by fires in the previous centuries. On September 5, 1874, a Saturday, fire broke out in the loft of Beall & Koch on Main Street, opposite of today’s St. Michael’s Church. There was no fire department in Frostburg at the time and at least 40 businesses were lost that day. A major conflagration in December 1917 burned away most of the commercial district. Many of the buildings that line Frostburg’s Main Street today were built to replace those damaged in that blaze and seem to march down the street in a unified brick guard against flames.
Our walking tour will eventually spend most of its time along the old National Road (today’s Main Street) but first we’ll walk through the residential part of town to the south, on Frost Avenue, where we’ll find some of the most consistently high-style homes in Frostburg between Broadway and Pine streets...
Founded in 1762 by Jonathan Hager (1714-1775), Hagerstown was originally considered part of Frederick County. That is until Hager ― known as the “Father of Washington County” ― laid the groundwork for the town’s separation from Frederick and the subsequent creation of Hagerstown as County Seat of Washington County. Hager immigrated to America from Westphalia, Germany, and arrived in Philadelphia in 1727. At this time, Charles Calvert was the proprietor of Maryland Colony and unlike other landowners, was offering large amounts of territory for a very small sum of money. Hager took the offer and in 1739 purchased 200 acres of land in Frederick County along the Monacacy River. Originally named Elizabethtown ― in honor of his wife, Elizabeth Kershner ― the name was later changed to Hager’s Choice (or Hager’s Fancy) and eventually became known as Hagerstown.
The Downtown Historic District is significant for its portrayal of the economic growth and development of the city, and for its architecture as a showcase of late 19th and early 20th century commercial styles when Hagerstown became a leading manufacturing city and a rail center in Maryland. This resulted in a great population growth and a commercial boom period that occurred between 1880 and 1920. This economic boom is reflected in the almost total redevelopment and transformation of the downtown commercial area during that period. Large hotels catering to rail and automobile travelers were built and commercial establishments were either remodeled or newly built to reflect the prosperity.
Our walking tour will start in Public Square, through which the National Road once passed, by walking north on Potomac Street to City Hall where you can view Little Heiskell, the symbol of Hagerstown...
In 1608, Captain John Smith became the first European to see the Susquehanna River, which in the Indian language meant “river of islands.” The City of Havre de Grace traces its origin to the day in 1658 when settler Godfrey Harmer purchased 200 acres of land that he called Harmer’s Town. TIn 1695, the Lower Susquehanna Ferry made its first crossing of the river from Harmer’s Town; it continued to operate for 170 years.
During the Revolutionary War this small hamlet was visited several times by General Marquis de Lafayette who noted in his diary on August 29, 1782: “It has been proposed to build a city here on the right bank and near the ferry where we crossed. It should be called Havre de Grace.” Three years later the town was incorporated and heeded his suggestion to become the “Harbor of Grace.” With its strategic perch on the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and its position near the center of the original 13 colonies, Havre de Grace was very seriously considered as the site of America’s new national capital but lost out to the Potomac River site by only one vote. As a result of that near brush with fate, many of the streets bear names such as Congress, Washington, Lafayette, Franklin, Revolution, et al. Havre de Grace boasts another early connection to Washington D.C., this one less dubious. Both were burned and laid waste by the British during the War of 1812. When the British sailed away after May 3, 1813 only two houses and the Episcopal Church had been spared.
In 1839 the Susquehanna & Tidewater Canal was completed on the Havre de Grace side of the Susquehanna River, boosting the town’s commercial fortunes. By mid-century, though, the railroad was usurping the ferry/canal in transportation importance, and a major shift in the town’s economic pattern began. Fish packing houses, ice plants, and a feed mill dotted the shoreline.
But what put Havre de Grace on the national radar was thoroughbred horses. The Havre de Grace Racetrack opened in 1912, when pari-mutuel betting was not legal in New Jersey, New York or Connecticut. Excursion trains brought loads of gamblers to “The Graw” every day. With the coming of Prohibition, the town developed a reputation as a “Little Chicago.” The track one of the best and most frequented race tracks in America and top stakes races attracted legendary horses like Man O’ War and Seabiscuit. Triple Crown Winner Citation was beaten here in the mud in April 1948 - his only loss. The Graw would make racing history only a little longer; it closed in 1950 and the grounds are now used by the National Guard. For the next few decades, Havre de Grace was suspended in a quiet slumber, bypassed by suburbanization. The railbirds were replaced by those hunting birds, infusing the Havre de Grace economy with sportsmen from up and down the East Coast coming to the town for the waterfowl. Watermen made their living hunting duck in sink boxes, shooting hundreds in a single day, and loading them on the morning trains for the restaurants and hotels in Philadelphia. Their life, and this period are preserved at the Decoy Museum on Giles Street.
Our walking tour of this water-influenced town will begin at the edge of the Chesapeake Bay in the small Hutchins Memorial Park where parking is as available as the long water views...
There are two ways to begin this tour. If you want to visit the Concord Point Lighthouse, the oldest continuous light in Maryland, it is about six blocks off the tour route. Leave the park on Congress Avenue, walking away from the water. Take your first left onto Market Street, walk four blocks and turn left towards the water on Revolution Street and turn right on Concord Street to the lighthouse:
Records from the early 1700s indicate a riverfront settlement named Beale Town was located where Hyattsville now stands. The settlement failed to gain traction and in 1742, for both economic and topographical reasons, the residents of the area petitioned the General Assembly to have a new town established one-half mile below Beale Town at Garrison’s Landing (later renamed Bladensburg). The Colonial legislature accepted the petition, and Beale Town’s days were numbered.
Christopher Clark Hyatt purchased a land parcel in the same vicinity in March of 1845. The location proved ideal with the coming of the railroad and telegraph. On the Washington Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, area farmland began to be subdivided into housing lots. By 1859 the tract was recognized as Hyattsville by the Post Office and cartographers. The Act of Incorporation of the City was signed into law in April 1886.
Hyattsville evolved into a prosperous village of homes designed in the modern styles of architecture from the day, with ornamented gardens and lawns. It proved popular first a summer retreat for Washingtonians andlater as a community for commuters to the nation’s capital.
In 1982, a portion of the residential area, much of it developed before or shortly after the turn of the century, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Hyattsville homes cover the spectrum from Victorian mansions to bungalows, foursquares and cottages.
The Main Street corridor in Hyattsville is undergoing a revitalization and this walking tour will take place primarily in the historically preserved residential area, beginning in the transition area between the two areas at the Municipal Building...
There was no romance involved in the naming of Laurel. Located on the fall line of the Patuxent River, the water powered an 1811 grist mill on the Patuxent River grew into a bustling cotton mill buzzing with hundreds of workers. So the town was called Laurel Factory, in recognition of its status as a mill town. The Washington Branch of the B&O Railroad arrived in 1835 and within a decade two large factories – the Patuxent Factory and Avondale Mill - had been built here employing between 700-800 operatives. The firm also constructed fifty blocks of two-story stone and brick houses for these workers, many of which are still standing.
After the Civil War, the fortunes of America’s cotton manufacturers waned and shifted. During this time the mill closed, was sold, and reopened. Steam arrived and broke the bonds to energetic streams like the Patuxent; factory owners could locate closer to sources of raw materials or affordable labor. The main cotton mill had closed for good by 1929; the Avondale Mill struggled on a bit longer.
As the most important town in Prince George’s County by the 1870s, Laurel began to move past its days as homes for mills and shed the “factory.” On June 14, 1875, the town name was shortened to Laurel. During this period Laurel was an economic and cultural center for the surrounding area that remained largely rural. Laurel is the site of many Prince George’s County firsts, including the first public library, first public high school, and first national bank. Laurel can also boast of Prince George’s County’s oldest continuously operating volunteer fire department, formed after a fire devastated the downtown in 1899.
The 20th century found Laurel morphing into a bedroom community for Baltimore and the soon-to-explode District of Columbia metropolis. Commuters could hop on a trolley every half-hour at Sixth Street and Main to reach the big city. By 1960 more than half the population held a government job.
Our walking tour will start at one of those iconic brick houses built for 19th century mill workers that now serves as the town museum. In its heyday, it was just downstream from the dam that powered the mill that drove the town but today is just a sleepy corner of Laurel by the river...
The first settlement on the banks of the Pocomoke River here evolved after Edward Stevens set up a ferry service in 1695. The cluster of structures at Steven’s ferry landing came to be known as “Meeting House Landing,” although there is no firm evidence that a primitive church stood on the site. A tobacco warehouse was built at the river and for many years the settlement took the common name, “Warehouse Landing.” It acted, more or less, like a bank, where planters could put their tobacco on deposit and write drafts against it to pay off debts, buy land, or transfer funds for goods and services. After the United States government formed in 1787 and created the dollar as legal tender, the warehouse lost its purpose. The name “Warehouse Landing” fell out of use by 1790, and the old building itself fell into disuse and was left to decay, though it stood as late as 1820.
The land on which Pocomoke City is located originally came from five tracts, four of which appear to have formed a common corner near the ferry landing. An important one was a tract known as “Wooten Underedge”, patented in 1682, but it was over 100 years later -- in the 1790s that about ten small lots were carved out of it and sold; then, about 28 lots were sold 1800-1809, a period of time when, also, about nine lots were sold from an adjacent tract of land, patented in 1670 as “Newtown”. After the warehouse closed, the village took n this historic name.
Newtown developed steadily as a shipping port for surrounding agriculture and lumber interests. In 1878 the name of the town was changed to Pocomoke City, reflecting the river that was the lifeblood of the community. No river in America of comparable width is as deep as the Pocomoke - as deep as 45 feet for a river you can easily throw a baseball across.
In 1880 a railroad bridge spanned the river and Pocomoke City was now on the main line between Philadelphia and Norfolk. A steady stream of travelers and goods flowed to the old river town. Prosperity continued for decades. During World War II, a sewing factory operated in Pocomoke, and, in 1942, the Birds Eye Division of General Foods Corp. constructed a chicken-processing plant which soon had up to 800 employees. The Chincoteague Naval Air Station at nearby Wallops Island relied heavily on Pocomoke City for housing and shopping.
But by the 1960s farm goods were moving by truck and not ships, even on a deep river, and Pocomoke City fell into decline. The Navy base closed, Birds Eye left town. Not only had its economic engines disappeared but so too had much of the town’s physical history. Although Pocomoke City is over 300 years old, it has almost no old structures - fires in 1888, 1892 and 1922 all laid waste to the town’s building stock.
Our walking tour will start on the banks of the historic Pocomoke River...
An historic river town, extending for approximately one mile along the east bank of the Susquehanna River, Port Deposit had several names prior to 1813, when the governor gave the town its present name. An inconsequential collection point for lumber floating down river from Pennsylvania at the time, the town was bypassed by the marauding British during the War of 1812 who bypassed the Town in favor of burning a warehouse across the river.
Within the span of a quarter century, however, Port Deposit had risen in importance in the lumber, grain, coal, whiskey, and tobacco trade, being the furthest point downstream on the Susquehanna River, and the furthest navigable point upstream for ships plying the Chesapeake Bay. While the lumber floating down river provided the country with building materials, one of Port Deposit’s own industries produced building material of unmatched quality. By the early nineteenth century the granite deposits of the town were, from an engineering standpoint, to have few rivals. It was, however, the tone and texture of the stone that made it a favorite aesthetic choice. The quarries, located north of the town, provided the granite used for many churches, schools, and buildings in Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia. Many of Port Deposit’s buildings, constructed of this granite, provide the town with an unrivaled tradition of stone masonry. With all the work available in the mills, factories, fisheries and lumberyards of Port Deposit the town grew into prominence, becoming the eighth largest city in all of Maryland on the eve of the Civil War. The town had its first bank in 1834 and for many years was the only place between Wilmington and Baltimore where banking could be conducted.
It was not, however, until 1889 that the first countywide free school system wasput into place. An outspoken critic of the school system was the industrialist, Jacob Tome who arrived in Town in 1833 penniless on a log raft and became one of the wealthiest men in the country. He personally subsidized the Port Deposit school system andafter his death in 1898 a boarding school for boys, considered the most beautiful “Prep School” in the United States was established on the high bluff overlooking Town.
The completion of the Conowingo Dam in 1927 and the rise of concrete as a building material instead of stone hastened the decline of Port Deposit. The Tome School for Boys closed in 1940 and the next year the sprawling campus was taken over by the U.S. Navy to become the principal training center on the East Coast during World War II. In 1947 the recruit-training section was closed, and thereafter used only sporadically by the Navy, finally closing in 1976. Industry revived briefly in Port Deposit in 1980when the Wiley Manufacturing Company occupied much of the water front to manufacture tunnels under the Baltimore Harbor for I-95.
Today Port Deposit retains much of its 19th-century character. Our walking tour of the granite buildings and historic structures in this one-street deep town will begin at its center in the Town Square and go in both directions...
The town of Princess Anne was created by an act of Maryland’s General Assembly in 1733. Located at a narrow point in the Manokin River known as the “wadeing place,” the land was well-elevated and conveniently suited for the purposes of a centrally located town in Somerset County. Twenty-five acres of David Brown’s “Beckford” plantation were purchased and divided into thirty equal lots with “Bridge Street” (Somerset Avenue) serving as the main north/south thoroughfare. The new town was named in honor of the 24-year old daughter of King George II.
The original courthouse was erected on the corner of Bridge and Broad streets. When it burned in 1832 the court buildings were relocated a block to the south on Prince William street. During the 19th century the town was expanded beyond its 18th century limits with new houses erected in each direction, a testimony to the prosperity of the age. At the time the Manokin River was navigable all the way to town bridge.
Princess Anne is distinguished by many fine Federal-style dwellings as well as mid-to-late 19th century Victorian houses and early 1900s commercial stock.
Our walking tour will start on the banks of the banks of the Manokin River; where there is a parking area and some off the Town’s oldest history...
Rockville began when Owen’s Ordinary, an inn and tavern, was established in this area around 1750. It functioned as the seat of lower Frederick County and in 1776 became the seat of Montgomery County when it was created. In 1784, William P. Williams subdivided 45 acres of his land into building lots and called it “Williamsburgh.” Fifteen years later, structures had been built on 38 lots. The Williamsburgh plat had legal problems and in November 1801, the Maryland General Assembly directed that the lots be resurveyed and a town erected “to be called Rockville.”
The town plan was recorded in 1803. Rockville grew from a convenient crossroads meeting place in the 1750s to become the legal and market center of the county. The tiny village was selected as the seat of local government in 1776 for its central location and the presence of taverns and inns to accommodate those with court business. Rockville was incorporated in 1860.
Rockville’s businesses were not separated from the residential areas as today. Craftspeople and merchants often lived on the second story or next to their businesses. However, proximity to the Court House influenced many hotels, inns, and businesses to locate along Montgomery Avenue, Commerce Lane (now West Montgomery Avenue), and Washington Street. The area consisted of a variety of uses, including brick institutional buildings, small frame residences, 19th century hotels, and small businesses. The area of North Washington Street just north of Middle Lane was the location of the earliest black settlement in the town.
In the 1950s, increased traffic, lack of parking, and economic problems led City officials to redevelop the 46-acre area by demolishing most of the old buildings and replacing them with an enclosed mall. The Rockville Mall was razed in 1995 in an effort to revitalize the Town Center.
Our walking tour will start at a house museum that 200 years ago must have fit it with the log homes and humble abodes of the village as one of today’s sleek modern structures would have...
Salisbury Towne was created by an act of legislation introduced by John Caldwell to create a county seat for Somerset County. Caldwell claimed that “there is a very convenient place for a town at the Head of the Wicomico River.” Its identical physical character and nationality of the founders have convinced most historians the village’s name was borrowed from the ancient cathedral city of Salisbury, England. A defect in the original town charter and the shallow harbor retarded growth for several decades. But by the 1750s Salisbury was a prosperous town, influenced in part by its chief promoter Caldwell who built the first dam on the east branch of the Wicomico and a bridge over the north branch.
During the 19th century, Salisbury was an active seaport, second only to the City of Baltimore and had been dubbed “the Hub of Delmarva. By 1817, the Downtown area had begun to emerge. The development concentrated itself along Bridge Street (Main Street), Dividing Street (Division Street), and Church Street. When the railroad lumbered down the Delmarva Peninsula in the Civil War it terminated at Salisbury, further enhancing its status as the destination city of the Eastern Shore. Incorporated in 1854, Salisbury became the seat of government when Wicomico was carved off from Somerset and Worcester Counties in 1867.
The face of Salisbury today was influenced by two great fires. The first swept through the central business district in 1860, effectively wiping away the City’s Colonial-era building stock. The commercial core was immediately rebuilt but on October 17, 1886 a small fire was discovered on Dock Street, now Market Street. The flames spread rapidly, so much so that the towns of Crisfield, Pocomoke City and Wilmington, Delaware loaded their fire department steamers on special railroad trains and sent them to Salisbury’s aid. It took 17 hours to control the fire but over 200 buildings were lost. Only one building survived in the center of the City.
Afterwards city zoning law required that important buildings be made only of stone and brick as Salisbury roared back. With the coming of the automobile and its central spot on the lower Eastern Shore cemented the city’s position as the largest city on the Eastern Shore. Our walking tour will start at that sole surviving building of the Great Fire of 1886 then explore the downtown area and finish in one of the original sections of Salisbury that has been made a historic district...
The town of Snow Hill was founded in 1642 by English settlers on the deep water Pocomoke River. In 1686 the Town of Snow Hill was chartered; in 1694 it was made a Royal Port by William and Mary; imported goods came through Snow Hill to be taxed. Exported goods included cypress lumber and tobacco. In addition, Snow Hill was the home of a thriving ship-building industry.
In 1742, the Houses of Assembly approved “An Act to Divide Somerset County and to Create a new County on the Seaboard Side by the name of Worcester.” Snow Hill was named as that new county seat. In 1793 the town was platted into some 100 lots. As Snow Hill gained economic importance, the Pocomoke River became more heavily traveled. Large ships called on the little port town, offering overnight service to Norfolk and Baltimore. With the increase in river traffic, Snow Hill grew in other areas: hotels and boarding houses sprang up, and the Richardson, Smith and Moore Lumber Company dominated the waterfront as the largest employer in the County. General merchandise stores, liveries, coopers, smiths, and wagon-makers all took their living from the river traffic.
After the Civil War, the railroad found its way along Maryland’s Eastern Shore, providing fast, inexpensive transportation of goods and passengers. As the technology of land transportation grew, the Pocomoke River was used less. Snow Hill went into decline: the shipyards closed, the boarding houses became vacant. However, the people turned to the agricultural industry, growing corn, soybeans and livestock. Thus, Snow Hill remains.
A disastrous fire in 1893 destroyed the original downtown area, and the early town and county records housed in the Courthouse. The replacement building stock stands largely intact today; Snow Hill, still the county seat, has the largest inventory of historic, stately homes on the lower Eastern Shore.
Our walking tour will start along the scenic Pocomoke River where a grassy greenspace has been established and there is plenty of free parking...
Rich in tradition and history, this region was first mentioned by Captain John Smith in his journals during his exploration of the Nanticoke River in 1608. This tract of land was a portion of ten thousand acres along the north shore of the Nanticoke River granted by Charles Calvert to Lord Baltimore. The entire tract was patented in 1664 as Nanticoke Manor. In 1671, the Colonial Assembly recommended this point as a ferry crossing.
A village on the western bank of the Nanticoke River in southeastern Dorchester County was known simply as “the town on the Nanticoke River” until being decreed by the Colonial Assembly as Vienna on July 11, 1706. The town thrived as a port capable of handling large ships carrying goods from England, and then also as a trade center when a tobacco warehouse was built in 1762. Vienna was the site of the first shipyard on the Nanticoke River.
Its importance to commerce and trade was evident when it was attacked by British vessels at least five times during the Revolutionary War, taking ships and provisions. The only Revolutionary military casualty on Dorchester soil, Levin Dorsey, died on these shores, hit by a shot fired from a British vessel. In the War of 1812, Vienna was again attacked by British forces.
Present day Vienna is no longer a commercial hub of Maryland. Much of the past architecture survives, and a determined effort has restored the physical qualities of many homes as our walking tour through this historic residential town will demonstrate...
Westminster originally consisted of more than 100 acres known as White’s Level. William Winchester, a literate indentured servant from England, purchased the land in 1764 for 150 pounds sterling (or $4.50 an acre) after working off his period of indenture. At that time, the town became known as Winchester, but was changed in 1768 to avoid confusion with Winchester, Va. According to local lore, Westminster was picked in honor of the name of Winchester’s supposed birthplace in England. Winchester, laid out the 45 lots to become Westminster, stretching from Old Washington Road to present day Court Street. It is the second oldest town in Carroll County. Germans migrated into this area from Pennsylvania bringing with them an architectural tradition of sturdy brick or stone farm houses, which they adapted to the closer quarters of town living.
Originally the land divided Baltimore and Frederick counties. However, in 1837, Westminster became the focal point of the newly designated Carroll County and developed as a trading hub. At this time, leather-making was the town’s principal industry. There were also many craftspeople and merchants. The town’s location along the main route to Baltimore accounted for its first major growth, and the coming of the Western Maryland Railroad (1861) turned Westminster into a virtual boom town during the last half of the 19th century.
The area nearest the railroad tracks reflects this surge of activity. Hotels like the Albion and the Charles Carroll emerged. Businesses sprung up and the telephone company and fire department moved into this section of town. Along Willis Street, the homes built on the “mansion sites” created from the estate of John K. Longwell can be viewed. Longwell, the son of Irish immigrants, was invited to come to Westminster to establish a newspaper in the interest of the new county. He became the most influential of Westminster’s citizens in business and politics.
Our walking tour will start near the center of town, split by Main Street and Liberty Street. A small metered parking lot, free on weekends, is available there...