Jane Gilmor Howard, cookbook author, raised millions for starving Southerners

150 years ago, Jane (Gilmor) Howard led more than 350 Maryland women to collect the equivalent of $2.3 million dollars for the starving women and children in the South following the Civil War.  Additionally, she wrote a charity cookbook when she was 72 aptly titled Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen.  For several years in the 1840s, she and her husband Benjamin Chew Howard spent summers outside Ellicott's Mills at "Wyoming," near his brother Gov. George Howard's home "Waverly" at Marriottsville. One of their daughters attended the Patapsco Female Institute.

5 Maryland Governors and Howard County

Four governors lived in the county, and it was named for a fifth governor with extensive land holdings there - Col. John Eager Howard.  When the Revolutionary War hero lived in Jennings House (left) in Annapolis, his son George Howard was born in 1789, and would return to Jennings House (the official residence from 1777-1870) when he too became governor in 1831. Other governors: Thomas Ligon of "Chatham" in 1854; John Lee Carroll of "Doughregan" in 1876 and Edwin Warfield of "Oakdale" in 1904.

B & O railroad sheet music 1828 and Carrollton Viaduct

On July 4, 1828, Charles Carroll of Carrollton laid the 'cornerstone' for the start of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad between the planned Carrollton Viaduct and Mount Clare. The original stone is in the B&O Museum in Baltimore. Two songs were written for the occasion - Carrollton March and the Rail Road March.

Linwood, Mary Merrick and Jeanne Simons

“Linwood” was the home of a possible future Saint, at one time owned by the great-grandson of Martha Washington and would become a school for children with autism in 1955.  The cupola and flue system were designed to cool the summer house.  ...

Columbia's poetical street names

"Oh, you must live in Columbia!" is the title of an entertaining and very informative book, and a response to hearing one of many odd street names.  Rouse needed new names for a thousand streets, and the book goes into detail of how the names were chosen. And what names!  Topbranch Lane, Besthold Garth, Barefoot Boy, Fruitgift Place and so many more.

The names?  Historical homes - Oakland Mills Road, Oak Hall Lane, and Grey Rock Drive. Historical people - Gateway Center inventors: Thomas Edison, Samuel Morse.  Art works from museums, Whistler, Wyeth and Homer. ...

Doughoregan - bath house

The manor is known for its connection to Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), who outlived all the other signers of the Declaration of Independence, and it is still owned by the family.  It had 'nut-shell' sized bedrooms and an out building that contained a freezing cold bath (pool) where CCofC 'plunged head foremost' every summer day at 4 AM! ...

Howard County map c1860

This new blog will have monthly postings (if not more frequently) on interesting women of years past and historic houses in Ellicott City and Howard County, Maryland.  The information on most of the homes were presented in short two-five minute talks at the local Colonel Thomas Dorsey DAR chapter meetings. 

"Wilton" the home of William H G Dorsey is one of the buildings pictured around the Martenet's map of Howard County, c1860 from the Library of Congress map site.
Click to enlarge.

©2016 Patricia Bixler Reber