The Oaks

Built in 1856 by Caroline and Robert H. Hare, "The Oaks" was bought by sea captain Edward P. Dennis from NY and his Georgia wife after their 1857 wedding. Son Edward R. Dennis inherited it but in 1920 moved closer to Ellicott City. From 1946 Evelyn & Carl Meyers lived there 30 years.

MDLANDrec.net - Find your house history or family lands from home

Maryland land records online (deeds, morgages) allow you to trace back owners of your house or other historic buildings from home. Howard County separated from Anne Arundel County in 1840, so for earlier searches, use AA indices. The MDLAND site is also convenient for geneaology, to find your ancestor(s) home and other properties they may have owned. How to navigate MDLANDrec.net is explained with photos of each page, below.

Catalog kit houses ("Sears Homes") - online resources

Ready cut houses - where all the lumber was pre cut, then sent by train with everything needed to build a house. The first was Aladdin in 1906, then Sears, and today 'Sears House' has become the common term for all kit homes. Several good virtual talks have been taped, links below. Also links to catalogs (then used to pick a house, now to match an existing home) and information on some major companies, such as where their papers are archived. Images of similar styled homes with floor plan, for each company...

When a Sears House is not a Sears house

A local street is named for the Sears mail order kit houses: Sears House Court, Ellicott City. But, the 1921 house was actually by Gordon Van Tine Co. of Iowa. The wood was precut for every part of the house and numbered. Then the 'kit' was sent by train to be assembled by owner or local craftsman. More on the Sears House Court house (pictured); a small 2-family bungalow in EC, and some ways to detect if a house you've seen or own is a true kit house.

George Ellicott house

George Ellicott built a large stone house in 1789 across from their flour mill and next to his brother Jonathon. It was actually two houses or a back wing connected and a third portion for the kitchen. An 'observatory' was on the third floor. The first Marylander to write a cookbook (Elizabeth Ellicott Lea) in 1845, was born in this house. Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Hickory Ridge in Highland with Reip wall oven

The country home of Nicholas Greenberry Ridgely in Highland (Rt 108 between Ellicott City and Sandy Spring) was built in 1749 with an addition in the early 1800s.  It was later bought by Samuel Hopkins (nephew of Johns Hopkins) and renamed "White Hall."

Wealthy Kraft family's butcher shop on Main Street OEC

8081 Main St., a fine stone building, was built c1833 as a home then became a store.  In 1881 Dorothy Kraft bought the building for Kraft's Meat Market. The Kraft meat sign is seen on the first building.



Andrew Kraft (1836-1881) and Dorothy (1839-1916) were both from Germany - he arrived at age 15, she at age 6 and started working at the mills.  He worked for a butcher, then started out on his own. They married in 1858 and had a large family which continued the business after she died in 1916 as "one of the richest women" in the county leaving "$300,000 worth of property" to her family.

Bleak House - historic home ruin becomes a tot slide

On a hill off the east side of Rain Dream Hill near Wilde lake sits the shell of a stone house - "Bleak House" - once part of "Oakland." The wealthy George Riggs Gaither built the home for his newly married son George (who became a Confederate cavalry officer) and his wife Rebecca Dorsey.  As the home of a confederate, Bleak House was sold during the Civil War in 1863 and the family moved to a safer Baltimore.  During the Depression the home was deserted and was just a few wall fragments by 1960.  The ruins form a creative play space with a slide, a ramp and a few levels to practice stairs.  A small outbuilding, probably the dairy, is beyond the slide in the photo to the left.

"New Year's Gift" in Columbia and Glenwood

There are two "New Year's Gifts" in Howard County. "Linden Grove" was built by Capt. John Worthington Dorsey in 1817 near Ellicott City (now Columbia area). The other, "Villa de Speranza," (image on left) was built circa 1730 as a log house, with 1788 additions in the western part of Howard County.  

Commodore Joshua Barney home

The Revolutionary War and War of 1812 veteran's home has been vacant and has been on the Howard County top ten endangered sites.  It is hidden behind a subdivision at 7912 Guilford Road, Savage.  The house was sold at auction last month. The famed naval officer was born in Baltimore and went to sea at age 12.  During the War of 1812 he was assigned to protect the Chesapeake area, and he devised a fleet of shallow draft barges.

Colonel Gassaway Watkins and "Walnut Grove" family cemetery

Gassaway Watkins (1752-1840) fought in the Revolutionary War, and later as a Colonel in the War of 1812. He lived at "Richland" until his father-in-law Capt John Dorsey died and with wife Ruth (Dorsey) Watkins moved to the nearby Dorsey lands and built their home "Walnut Grove". He and his third wife are buried on a hill by their home (right side of photo), which was cleared, sodded and the site of July 15 Boy Scout Eagle Project commemoration. Links with more info at end of post.

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. 

Ann Tonge and Tonge Row

Tonge or Tongue Row was built in the 1840s, with one duplex completed each year by a widow, Ann Tonge.  The three lovely stone buildings reportedly have appeared in movies, such as the TV film Les Miserables in 2000 and the Pied Piper of Hamlin.

"Wilde Lake" - Laura Littman's Columbia sites photos: Old Oakland Farm, People's Tree and Wilde Lake

Once part of the vast lands of Charles Sterrett Ridgely's Oakland mansion HERE , the stone home "Old Oakland" was the farm complex for the estate. It is extremely close to the stone slave house, blacksmith building and other outbuildings HERE .  It must be the inspiration for the Laura Littman mystery "Wilde Lake"

Edith Clarke - first female electrical engineer

Edith Clarke (1883-1959), a gifted mathematician, was raised in the John R. Clarke home “Arlington”.  She attended numerous colleges including Vassar (1908) and MIT (1919) and had a variety of jobs with the longest at General Electric 1919-1945. Her abilities were finally recognized and she was advanced to an engineer – a job previously closed to women. She invented the Clarke calculator, patented in 1921. After retiring, she taught for ten years at the University of Texas in Austin, then returned to Maryland.

Oliver Cromwell Gilbert : a run-a-way slave's success story and 2 Walnut Groves

Oliver Cromwell Kelly was born in 1832 on "Walnut Grove" (owned by Gassaway Watkins), to Cynthia Snowden, the enslaved cook and freedman Joseph Kelly. Later he escaped from nearby "Richland" plantation in Clarksville, Howard County. Gilbert wrote an account of his flight to Philadelphia and his name change, then to several other cities as far north as Walnut Grove Quaker School in Lee, New Hampshire before returning to Philadelphia where he died in 1912.

Sarah Jane Dorsey freed in 1850, given land in 1869

Sarah Jane Powells (or Powell) Dorsey was born in Lisbon MD in 1828 (or 1832) and was freed in the 1850s by Thomas and Sarah Hood.  "Sarah Hood desires to manifest her regard for Sarah Jane Dorsey, colored, late their slave for her unwavering fidelity and general moral worth as a servant” and Hood purchased over an acre of land in 1869 where the Dorsey family would live for over a century at the home on Rt. 97, Cooksville, MD.

Dismal Mill then George Ellicott Jr.'s Ilchester Mill

Down stream on the Patapsco River from Ellicotts mill was a corn mill (which occasionally could grind flour) eerily called Dismal Mill, built in 1761.  By 1831 George Ellicott Jr. (1798-1869) had erected the 3 story stone 'Dismal Mill Factory' or Ilchester Mill at that site and constructed a 3 story home.  Ellicott sold his home in 1866 to the Redemptorists who started St. Mary's College. click to enlarge.

Ellicott City's Ligon and Chatham Streets ... and Gov. Ligon

Thomas Watkins Ligon (1810-1881) was Governor of Maryland from 1854-1858 as a Democrat when the Whigs/Know Nothing Party (honestly their name) had control.  Ligon married two daughters of landowner Charles Worthington Dorsey and Mary Tolly (Worthington) Dorsey - m1 1840 Sally Ann Dorsey (1817-1847) and m2 1854 Mary Tolly Dorsey (1825-1899).  Histories of "Chatham" and "White Hall" differ in books.  Chatham and Ligon streets lead south from Frederick Road (the old Baltimore-Frederick turnpike) to the Dorsey/Ligon property between St John's Church and Miller Library. They are buried in St. John's cemetery.

Charles Carroll's Doughoregan in 1874, with interior photos

The Manor in 1874 was described in Appletons’ Journal as being a typical Maryland 5 part home - center being only 30 feet deep, two wings with thin connecting passageways to a kitchen at one end and a Catholic chapel on the other at 300 feet.  Built on an "artificial knoll" it's story and a half was raised to 2 stories and a flat roof by Charles Carroll of Carrollton's grandson.