Baltimore to Frederick town turnpike milestone - 10 M to B

The 10 mile marker stone, on lower Main Street under the railroad bridge, is testament to the Ellicott brothers who built a road from Baltimore to their new settlement of Ellicott's mills.  When the turnpike was financed it went from Baltimore through Ellicott Mills to Frederick to Cumberland and joined the National Road.

"The capital of the "Frederick town" turnpike company amounts to $500,000; and the company is authorised to open the great western road, as far as Boonsborough, beyond the Blue Ridge, and 62 miles from Baltimore. The angle of ascent will not exceed four degrees; the road has a convexity of nine inches, and on a breadth of 22 feet is covered with a stratum 10 inches thick of pounded stones, not exceeding three inches in diameter, over which are spread two inches of gravel or coarse sand. The first 20 miles next to Baltimore have cost at the rate of $9,000, and the next 17 miles are contracted for at the rate of $7,000 a mile.

Palmer, Thomas H. The Historical Register of the United States, Vol 3  Phila: 1814

By 1889 HL Mencken recalled: "From our house in Hollins street [Baltimore] to Ellicott City was but ten miles by the old National pike, but the road had no surface save bare rock and there were four or five toll-gates and six or seven immense hills along the way, so no one ever drove it if the business could be avoided.  One of the hills was so steep and so full of hair-pin bends that it was called the Devil's Elbow.  A hay-wagon coming up would take half a day to cover the mile and a half from bottom to top, and sometimes a Conestoga wagon from Western Maryland (there were still plenty of them left in the eighties) got stuck altogether, and had to be rescued by the plow-horses of the adjacent farmers.  At intervals of a mile or so along the road there were old-time coaching inns, and they were still doing a brisk trade in 25-cent country dinners and 5-cent whiskey.
Mencken, H. L. Happy Days: 1880-1892.  NY: Knopf: 1836, 1837, 1939, 1940; 2006 (Johns Hopkins U)

Historic National Road markers listed HERE

©2017 Patricia Bixler Reber
Forgotten history of Ellicott City & Howard County MD