USA > Maryland > Baltimore County > Essex > Short History Of Essex And Middle River, Maryland > Part 1
USA > Maryland > Baltimore County > Middle River > Short History Of Essex And Middle River, Maryland > Part 1
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A SHORT HISTORY OF ESSEX AND MIDDLE RIVER
GEORGE J. MARTINAK
A SHORT HISTORY OF ESSEX AND MIDDLE RIVER by George J. Martinak
First printing .
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. May, 1963
Second printing
ยท
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October, 1963
BALTIMORE COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY ESSEX BRANCH & BOOKMOBILE HDQRS.
REFERENCE
George J. Martinak
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The writer is grateful to a number of persons and institu- tions for assistance in researching material for this historic sketch of Essex and Middle River. The cooperation, interest, and, frequently, the enthusiasm and encouragement of the con- tributors to this account has made the task less onerous than it might have been.
Reverend Edwin Schell generously supplied valuable data about Middle River in the eighteenth century. Mr. Edward S. Foster provided important material concerning "Paradise Resur- veyed," and other early land records. The resources of the Enoch Pratt Library were drawn upon for Baltimore County history in general.
The personnel of both the Essex and the Middle River Libraries were especially helpful. Special thanks is due to Mr. Frederic W. Binns, Mrs. Frances Bourn, and Mrs. Samuel D. Morrone for the loan of clippings, books, and photographs, and for accounts of the libraries themselves. Other photographic aids and information were provided by the Martin Company, Mrs. Virginia Borsos, and Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Mathai.
Mr. John Banz, Sr., supplied data relative to early public transportation. Mr. John Guttenberger provided information about the early development of Essex.
Mr. Malcolm H. Dill, director of planning and zoning, Bal- timore County, and Mr. Leslie H. Graef, chief of comprehensive planning, made available information concerning industrial and port zoning.
Mrs. Austin McLanahan graciously provided an account of the Stemmers House, which she purchased in 1930.
Finally, Mrs. Rita Starka was invaluable for her assistance in typing the manuscript.
9 X63- 113456
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Page
Figure
1. Eighteenth Century Surveyor's Stone in Essex 5
2. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, 1907 . 8 .
3. Eastern and Mace Avenues, 1909 13
4. The First Home Built in Essex 13
5. Lots in "Rising Suburb of the East" 14
6. General Store at the Corner of Mace and Eastern Avenues . 16
7. The Original Essex School Building 18
8. Aerial View of Essex, 1927 21
9. Essex Methodist Church 22
10. Essex Bakery 25
11. Glenn L. Martin and Douglas Corrigan 28
12. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Middle River . 31
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter
Page
I. IN THE BEGINNING . .
1
II. ESSEX IS BORN . 10
III.
INDUSTRY SHAPES THE COMMUNITIES
19
IV. THE WAR AND AFTER: BOOM WITHOUT BUST 32
V. THE FIFTIES AND THE FUTURE 36
v.
1.
CHAPTER I
IN THE BEGINNING
The dim beginnings of Essex and Middle River, like many of Baltimore County's early settlements, are closely tied to the rivers and creeks of the area. These fingers of the Chesapeake Bay provided transportation when the only alternatives were wind- ing Indian and animal trails, many of which would one day become the routes of modern highways. Here, too, was an abundance of seafood and fertile soil, the latter well-suited to the Indian corn, and the later production of another New World crop, which played an important part in Maryland history, tobacco. Much of the history of this great peninsula is lost like the mists along the gently sloping banks of its quiet rivers.
Leonard Calvert landed at St. Mary's in March, 1634. Captain John Smith, exploring the bay in 1608 on the first of two such voyages, wrote that he had visited every river and cove from Cape Charles to the Susquehanna River." He no doubt included Back and Middle Rivers in his explorations.
Baltimore County, believed to have been founded in 1659, was originally divided into four parishes: St. Paul's, St. John's, St. Thomas's, and St. George's. Each parish was sub-divided into "hundreds," and all free residents who owned fifty acres of land or a "visible estate" of not less than forty pounds were in- cluded in the taxable segment of the population. By 1776 the four parishes encompassed twenty-one hundreds, and numbered 8,256
1 J. Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County. Philadelphia: 1881, p. 39.
2.
taxable citizens; the assessment that year was seventy pounds of tobacco each, figured at three and one-third cents per pound. 2
District division of the county came in 1798, with seven districts being established. By 1831 there were thirteen dis- tricts, and, finally, in 1898, the 12th district was divided into the 12th, 14th, and 15th." The 15th district, from those early days to the present, has always been the largest and most important economically.
At mid-seventeenth century, Baltimore County, included all of Harford and Carroll, and large portions of Anne Arundel, Howard, and Frederick Counties. The population of Maryland was less than 12,000, with Baltimore County containing about 2,000 people.
Colonial relations with the natives were generally good. The Yaocomicos, Nanticokes, and Mattawas, who inhabited the land between the two rivers, were tillers of the soil and peaceable. Laws promulgated by the Calverts gave equal respect to the rights of both white and red men. Largely because of this sensible and humane approach, there was little open warfare between the two races, although occasional clashes, sometimes sparked by the Susquehannoughs, are known to have occurred.
One such melee took place at Middle River in February, 1688. Two Nanticokes attacked Francis Freeman and Richard Enock, killing the latter. Hearing the news, a delegation from St. Mary's con- sisting of the Somerset County Sheriff and six aids, visited the "Emperor of the Nanticoke and demanded the killers." The emperor, after conferring at some length with his chiefs, agreed upon con- dition that the grave of the victim be opened to prove that a crime had been committed. The request was referred back to St. Mary's, and the Council there ordered Major Thomas Long, sheriff of Balti- more County, to comply.
2 Ibid., p. 812.
3_
Edward B. Matthews, The Counties of Maryland. Baltimore: 1907, p. 448.
3.
Having impressed upon the Indians that this was a most ex- traordinary request, and that it should not set a precedent, the body was exhumed and the suspicious Indians were satisfied. By this time, the fugitive Nanticokes had fled to the Susquehanna River. True to his word, the emperor had the renegades captured and turned them over to justice with a request that six members of the tribe be permitted to attend the trial; this was done. 4 There is no record of the location of the cabins of the unlucky Enock and Freeman, nor of any other such disturbance of colonial peace at Middle River.
Religious ministering to the Middle River settlement was satisfied by an occasional circuit-riding divine with prayer meetings held in the river cabins. By 1773 the population had grown sufficiently to undertake the establishment and support of a church. Charles Harryman, of Richardson's Forrest (described as being at the head of Middle River); Chaney Hatton, of Middle River Neck; Joseph Armstrong, of Middle River; Christopher Duke; Thomas Harryman; and Aquilla Hatton, of Back River Neck, deeded what was called the Orems Methodist Church on April 19, 1773. The parish, coming into existence two years before George Washington was commissioned by the Continental Congress as commander in chief of the colonial army, and a full decade before the treaty with England ended the Revolution, was of mixed political views. Christopher Duke refused to subscribe to the Revolutionary Oath, probably on pacifist grounds; he was fined for his independent views. A not unusual punitive action taken by the colonial gov- ernment at that time was the confiscation of the propery of dis- sidents. There is no record of such severe action having been taken against the Orems Church, although fines were levied and preaching was restricted.
Land was wealth to a greater extent in colonial Maryland than is the case today. Consequently, it changed hands fre- quently. Of particular interest among such transactions in the
4 Matthew Page Andrews, The Founding of Maryland Baltimore: 1933, p. 282.
4.
county was "Anderson's Addition," a tract of about sixty-six acres along Back River and Duck Creek. The original grant was to Danwell Palmer on April 7, 1698.2 In 1751, the tract was bought by the Principio Company; one of the persons to whom the deed was addressed was Laurence Washington, half-brother to George Washington. 6
Tracts granted by the Lord Proprietor of the Province of Maryland were the antecedents of Essex and Middle River. They included "Hazard," 1708; "Outlet to Bushey Neck," 1744; "Little- worth," 1753; "Long's Addition," 1746; "Cox's Privilege," 1776; and "Cox's Marsh," 1784. Paradise, later known as "Paradise Farm," bordered Duck Creek, as did Hazard; Cox's Privilege was in the area now known as Cox's Point.
But none of these lands were grants to the Taylors. Bits and pieces were acquired by the family over a period of many years. Richard Taylor owned Long's Addition as early as 1807. It was Elijah Taylor who finally consolidated the family hold- ings in Baltimore County. In 1829 he is recorded as owning more than a hundred acres on Duck Creek, Various other deeds of in- denture to Elijah date from 1833 to 1839. These ultimately included "Hillen's Addition," "Hazard," "Paradise," "Littleworth," "Long Thought," "Lot No. 70 of the Principio Company's Lands," "Cox's Marsh," and "Cox's Privilege,"8
On March 15, 1860, a special warrant was issued out of the Baltimore County Land Office to Elijah Taylor for a resurvey of "Paradise Surveyed." The tract was found to contain 1,218 acres, and the new patent was issued as "Paradise Resurveyed."
5. Land Office of Maryland, Liber C.C. No. 4, Folio 128.
6 Liber E.I. No. 9B, Folio 228.
Paradise Resurveyed, the Estate of Elijah Taylor Esq. (plat), R. W. Templeman, County Surveyor (Baltimore County: 1861).
Certification, R. W. Templeman, Surveyor of Baltimore County, Harch 8, 1861.
5.
Figure 1 .-- Erected long before the Revolutionary War, this surveyor's stone, near the corner of Mace and Franklin Avenues, marks a boundary point for "Hines' Purchase." The original patent of 261 acres was granted to Thomas Hines in September, 1736. when this area was called "Avalon Province."
6.
The plat, dated 1861, shows several buildings, among them being what is described as a "mansion house" at the approximate site of what was later known as Tutchton's Farm. The date of construction of this building is supposed to have been between 1750 and 1767. It was built of English brick and native stone. In 1870 it was rented to the Tutchtons, who farmed it for the greater part of half a century. The boundaries of "Paradise Resurveyed" were, roughly, Back River, Mace Avenue, Stemmers Run Road, Back River Neck Road, and Duck Creek.
The Revolution had little effect on the peninsula settle- ment. The Principio Company's Kingsbury Furnace, built in 1744 on Herring Run, at the head of Back River, produced iron for the scattered arms industry, as it was later to do for the war of 1812. The furnaces, using ore discovered in 1648, were built by a Colonel Sheridine in 1734. Principio was the leading colonial iron producer of the age. 9
Beyond the east arm of Back River, on Stemmers Run, stood the Stammer Mansion, said to have been built by the Principio Company's iron masters for Captain Augustine Washington, the father of George Washington. A large building for its neighbor- hood, it consisted of a central structure with wings at each side. Its weathered red brick came from England, perhaps also serving as ballast for the sailing ships of its day. In 1793 Captain Ullrich B. Stammer purchased the building and lands known as "Buck's Range" from Job Garretson. In 1850 Robert Howard, who is described as an "iron master," acquired the Stammer house. It is likely that the iron furnace on Stemmers Run was still pro- ducing at that time. 10
The house fell into successive stages of disrepair in the early twentieth century. In 1930 it was purchased by Mrs. Austin McLanahan, who had it dismantled, brick-by-brick, and rebuilt at
9 Maryland, its Resources, Industries, and Institutions. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1893, pp. 102, 103.
10 Walter B. Atkinson, (ed. ), The 300th Anniversary Book. Baltimore County: 1959, p. 176.
7.
Owings Mills. Up until the time it was moved, visitors were shown iron rings in the ceilings of some of its rooms from which Stammer was said to have slung his hammock.
Like many old houses, the Stammer house acquired its ghost story. Captain Stammer was engaged in the West Indies trade and was a man of considerable means, obtained, some thought, by free- booting. In this case, the ghost was said to be the spirit of the doughty shipmaster's wife, who, having died in the old house, somewhat belatedly discovered that her sea-going spouse had another marital commitment on some sunny Indian isle.
The area that would one day be Essex and Middle River was little touched by the Civil War. Well off the busy Philadelphia Road, it was a quiet backwater whose edges were hardly roiled by the great conflict. The Locust Grove furnace was in operation on Stemmers Run until 1869; it is likely that some of its pro- ducts found their way to the war.
The first Catholic Church to serve the area was Our Lady of Mt. Carmel at Middle River. There is no record of the date of construction, but the first baptisimal record is dated 1887. Earlier spiritual needs of the parish was administered by the Redemptorist fathers. Cardinal Gibbons appointed Reverend Francis Flanagan first pastor of the church in 1905.
The year 1895 brought the aura of the Gay Nineties to the area with the building of Hollywood Park at the east end of Back River bridge. Hollywood Park was the oasis at the end of the dusty car line. Aided by a Sunday closing law in Baltimore, the watering place flourished. To it the thirsty hoards from east Baltimore came, overflowing the Baltimore, Middle River, and Sparrows Point Railway cars, and cooled by the yet unscented breeze that rippled the water and bobbed the little fleet of "Floradora" row boats at Moffet's pier.
Hollywood offered something for everyone. James Barton and Charlie Chase acted there. There was a racer dip, a ferris wheel, and a chugging merry-go-round for the children. The older
8.
Lady. &. MOUNT CARMEL. R.C. CHURCH. & MidLE. RIVER.
190%
Figure 2. -- First Catholic Church to serve the peninsula, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Middle River.
9.
folks could sit under the trees at the big green picnic tables and enjoy the products of any of a half-dozen Baltimore breweries. Hollywood Park came to a flaming end in 1921. Essex residents lined Eastern Avenue and Back River bridge for a view of the blaze, watching the wooden structures flare up and crumble under the impetus of the breeze off the river. The charred black skeleton of the racer dip track stood as a grim monument to Joe Goeller's Bagdad on Back River for several years after the fire. The fire and Prohibition dealt Hollywood Park a mortal and double-blow. There was no recovery, and Hollywood Park went to seed in a dull succession of shabby taverns fringed by used car and junk lots.
10.
CHAPTER II
ESSEX IS BORN
Just as the Old Philadelphia Road was a main artery of the county's huge body in the uplands, Eastern Avenue became vital to the life of the peninsula. The avenue was once a shell road -- a name taken from the readily available oyster shells used in its construction. Old residents will dispute the term, depend- ing upon its usage; nearby Holabird Avenue, built of shells also, was called "shell road," but the name was not generally applied to Eastern Avenue, although the description fitted. In 1900 there were 110 miles of shell roads in Baltimore County; they included Bird River Road, Back River Neck Road, and Wise Avenue. 11
Over the varied surface of Eastern Avenue, or Shell Road, -- now smooth, now pock-marked, and the cycle repeating again and again, its flat body softened by summer heat, wrinkled by winter cold -- have rolled the vehicles of ambassadors, bishops, chiefs of state, and diplomats. Aorta of the peninsula, it has carried the life blood of industry and commerce to Balti- more County's heartland for more than half a century.
Damned and praised by its users, according to its state of health at the particular time, the bane of incumbent county and state politicians, and the fair promise of office seekers, re- gardless of the times, the avenue has brought life to Essex and Middle River. Along its sides, small business houses have clus- tered, shaping the communities for generations as main-street
11 Baltimore County Public Works Department. Progress and Accomplishments. Baltimore County: 1958, p. 26.
11.
towns, homes becoming family stores, family stores being swal- lowed up by super markets and spots of impending decay appear- ing as the less solvent small businessmen came upon hard times.
Once it had a toll gate (just west of the Mace Avenue in- tersection), and the levy was five cents for each conveyance. In the 1890's, its packed surface resounded to the swift clop of hooves as the smart trotting and pacing rigs from Prospect Park, across the river, raced one another on Sunday mornings.
Public transportation came to the avenue in June, 1895, with the opening of street car service by the Baltimore, Middle River, and Sparrows Point Railway, reaching as far as Back River bridge. Two years later the line was extended to Middle River. (The first electric cars in the United States were used in Baltimore in 1885. By 1899 all of the city's cars were electrified. )
On December 9, 1908, The Title Guarantee and Trust Company, Baltimore, issued a policy in the amount of $50,000 to the Taylor Land Company against the 1,200 acres of Paradise Resurveyed. The new development was to be called "Essex."
While Essex was coming onto the scene in June, 1909, to the sound of surveyors' hammers staking out $100 lots along Eastern Avenue, nearly a continent's span away a young auto- mobile mechanic was test flying a wood and cloth biplane which he had bolted and glued together in an unused church in Santa Ana. Glenn L. Martin was to write, twenty years later:
"I completed my first plane and taught myself to fly in 1909.112
12,
"Letter from Glenn L. Martin to Otis & Company, November 19, 1929.
12.
By the time he had written these words, Martin's place in aviation history had already been assured. The profound effect which he was to have on the development of Essex and Middle River was two decades into the future.
In Washington, the rotund William Howard Taft was in the White House, chief executive over a forty-seven state nation. The first Roosevelt, free from the cares of office at last, was off in Africa hunting big game. The United States Army had recently pur- chased an airplane, and the Army Air Force was born.
The first house in Essex, a development optimistically re- ferred to by the Taylor Land Company as the "Rising Suburb of the East," was built at Taylor and Dorsey Avenues. Its gabled, high-roofed, front-porched design was to become familiar in the area. Built for John Schuster, it is still standing, little changed except for the shingles which have long since covered its original German siding.
The extent of the new town was understood to be Mace Avenue on the west, Deep Creek Avenue (now called Marlyn Avenue) on the east, and two blocks to each side of Eastern Avenue. However, the limits had a certain elasticity, which they have retained to this day. In recent years, the town has been generally considered as the area east of Back River bridge to the west side of Middle River bridge, and south of old Philadelphia Road, then to the head of Back River.
From Paradise Resurveyed to Essex was not a single leap, nor even a series of quick steps. The community grew slowly. Land costs were low; five dollars down and five dollars per month would buy any lot in 1909, but money was scarce. Builders' mechaniza- tion of the day was characterized by the mule and the two-handled scoop with which foundations were scraped out. There was no mass production of housing. The leisurely way of life that was to mark
13.
HACE ANY
Figure 3. -- The northeast corner of Mace and Eastern Avenue, 1909. Note the developer's stakes, and the single- track street car line. Guttenberger's store was built on this corner in 1910.
Figure 4. -- This house, at Dorsey and Taylor Avenues, was the first residence built in Essex. The original owners were Mr. and Mrs. John Schuster.
14.
THE NEW ESSEX SUBURB. BUILDING LOTS FOR SALE OR LEASE 50x145 FEET PRICES $10000 AND UP, EASY PAYMENTS. DISCOUNT FOR CASH, TITLE GUARANTEED. THE ESSEX COMPANY. R. B. PUE. MANAGER.
210 UNION TRUST BUILDING CENTRAL SAVINGS BANK BLDO.
BALTIMORE
Figure 5 .-- Lots in the "Rising Suburb of the East" are offered for sale. The Essex Company represented the Taylor family, owners of the 1,200 acre tract that became Essex.
15.
the town for thirty years was reflected in the lot-by-lot, skip- plat growth of the community. While Eastern Avenue was among the first streets to be staked out (there were not many others), houses did not spring up there very readily. People who left the city to build "out in the country" wanted to be near public transportation, but they were not anxious to live on "main street" with its clanking, clanging trolley cars rattling past their front doors. And so it came to pass that lots which were available for two-hundred dollars on Eastern Avenue in 1909 brought up to twenty-thousand dollars less than fifty years later.
In 1911 an event occurred that was destined to slow the growth of Essex -- and pollute her shallow river -- to an uncalcu- lated extent. This was the building of a sewage disposal plant on the west bank of Back River, the beginning of the end for the broad, slow moving river. More than a quarter of a century was to pass before any significant action was taken by Baltimore to correct this situation.
Stores were slow in coming to Essex. Henry Guttenberger built his general store at the corner of Mace and Eastern Avenues in 1910. Guttenberger's nearest competitor was Frederick Josen- han, who had built along the avenue, a mile east, three years earlier. The latter became a local landmark as "Josenhan's Corner" -- a phrase familiar to people who did not recognize the name "Essex." (John Guttenberger and his sister Ann, who still operate the store, recall that Indians and Gypsies pitched their camps across the road from the store. Another early landmark at Mace and Eastern Avenues was a wooden shack, used for voting for the entire population in the area between North Point Road, Philadelphia Road, and Middle and Back Rivers.)
Harry Guttenberger was also the law east of Back River. Trial magistrate, coroner, and grocer, he was supported by a one- man police force, who occasionally had to be supported by rein- forcements from the Canton Police Station. Guttenberger dispensed
16.
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1
E
Figure 6. -- General store at the corner of Mace and Eastern Avenues, circa 1912. Note the hitching rack in front of the porch.
17.
staple foods and justice with a deft hand. An apocryphal story is told about a corpse found in the waters of Back River. Dis- patched to the Guttenberger parlor and court room, the derelict was searched and yielded eleven dollars and an ancient pistol. The magistrate, having weighed the merits of the case, fined the body eleven dollars for carrying a concealed weapon and confiscated the gun, thus closing the case.
Children came to Essex, touching off the seemingly endless Baltimore County school building program. The first school was established in the business office of the Taylor Land Company at the southeast corner of Eastern and Taylor Avenues in January, 1913. Twenty-eight pupils attended the single-room school. A graduating exercise was held in 1917, the class consisting of two girls, Mollie Haberkam (now Mrs. John B. Banz, Sr., and still an Essex resident), and Gertrude Hughes. The building was later sold to Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Hill; it was torn down when the shopping center was built in 1940.
St. John's Lutheran Church ceremoniously laid its corner stone at Franklin and George Avenues in September, 1913, with the Reverend C. E. W. Hartlage as pastor. In the same year, the Essex Methodist Church was built at southwest corner of Eastern and Taylor Avenues. To the east, the older Middle River, out- distanced by the ambitious Taylor Land Company developers, grew in a more leisurely fashion. In 1918 there were only twenty- five homes there.
18.
SMALL FARMS FOR SALE
TERME TO SUIT YOU ESSEX CO. DER H. CHO CRIDE TEVET BUILDING BALTIMORE
Figure 7. -- The first Essex School. Originally built as a sample home and used as a real estate office, the building was at the southeast corner of Eastern and Taylor Avenues until 1940, when it was demolished to make way for a shopping center.
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