Reip Bake Oven and Roaster, 1825 patent

A Reip metal wall oven still exists in a privately owned historic home, Hickory Ridge, in Howard County.  Elizabeth Ellicott Lea, daughter George Ellicott, had the Baltimore oven in her Sandy Spring home. Henry Reip obtained a patent for a 'Bake Oven and Roaster' in 1825, which he and his sons manufactured and sold for about forty years.  The oval oven, left, now at Hampton NHS (the birthplace of the wife of Gov. George Howard of Waverly) was made by the eldest son, Alfred Reip.

If you have an old home with a metal oven... keep it intact!  If you try to use it, do not make it too hot (not meant for pizza) or it will warp. Contact me with any questions.

Rebecca Garrett 'freed', then retaken 20 years later

Rebecca Garrett's mother was freed by Sarah (Cord) Anderson in her 1805 will.  Later, Rebecca spent about 20 years living free in Baltimore with her freedman husband William Garrett and ten children.  Thomas Anderson and son Isaac reclaimed Rebecca and some of her children in 1849.  She was freed by a Baltimore County court, but on appeal, was returned to the Andersons.

Daily summer commute from Ellicott City to Baltimore in 1889-90

Summer homes outside of Baltimore gave respite from the "inferno in Summer" but the ride on the B & O railroad train was "regarded as heroic" leaving them "hot, dusty and worn-out" revived by the mint juleps on the front porch.  H. L. Mencken (1880-1856) spent two summers at "Vineyard" on the hill by the Patapsco Institute.

Menchen at "Vineyard" in Ellicott City from 1889 to 1890

The Baltimore writer H. L. Mencken (1880-1954) spent a couple of summers as a child in a Civil War era home on the hill across from the Patapsco Institute.  His father and uncle commuted to Baltimore during the week, as Mencken explored the grounds. He wrote his remembrances in his book Happy Days: 1880-1892.