Bicentennial Echoes on Patapsco Neck

As we approach the one-year anniversary of our lives being turned outside-in by the pandemic my wife and I spent an afternoon exploring Patapsco Neck area of Baltimore County. The brisk northwest breeze whipped up a chop on Chesapeake Bay as bright sunlight sparkled off the waves and an icy crust of snow on the shore. We explored North Point State Park and Fort Howard County Park, where we stumbled on a faint reminder of America’s 200th anniversary.

Alongside the massive concrete batteries that surrounded Fort Howard’s powerful artillery and sophisticated (for the time) targeting technology used to protect Baltimore’ harbor from the late 1890s through 1927, stands an otherwise common maple tree identified with a fading sign.

The sign reads:

THIS MAPLE was planted by the Patapsco Neck Bicentennial Committee in July 1976, after the tree was used in a display depicting the battle of North Point at the 1976 Dundalk Heritage Fair.

Today the mature tree bears witness to nearly fifty years of commemorative legacy in this historic community where the rhythms of the Bay’s tides touch a persistent agricultural tradition and the cycles of industry. During our brief afternoon visit we saw the preserved Bay Shore trolley station and amusement park fountain at North Point State Park, which escaped destruction during the second half the 20th Century when Bethlehem Steel owned the largely undeveloped site. Their protection became more secure when Maryland purchased the land in 1987 to create the park.  A walk along the shore revealed a crumbling riprap of clinker, cobbles, bricks, and scrap metal that hint at the old trolley right of way and the detritus of Baltimore’s once dominant industrial past.  We drove by Todd’s Inheritance, an 1830’s farmhouse listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973. The house site, which hosted the first Presbyterian worship service in the Baltimore area, is surrounded by land cultivated by generations of enslaved labor likely beginning in the late 1600s and crossed by a British invasion force of several thousand men who were crucially delayed at the 1814 Battle of North Point.  We ended our COVID-19 escape tour by exploring the ruins of the coastal defense batteries at Fort Howard Park informed by interpretative signs, placed since Baltimore County acquired the site in 1975, that sparked our historical and engineering imaginations while describing the complex operation of these weapons that were never fired in anger.

As a member of the team planning America’s 250th anniversary, this living legacy prompted me to take a closer look behind this tree and the community that continues to tell its stories and shape its future by remembering its past. The final report of the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration (ARBA) published in 1977 provides this brief description of the projects undertaken by the Patapsco Neck Bicentennial Committee:

PATAPSCO NECK BICENTENNIAL PROJECTS, PATAPSCO NECK, MD. FUND RAISING WALK - A - THONS, DANCES, CONCERT; HISTORICAL MARKERS PLACED; SPONSORED A SCHOLARSHIP; SOLD BICENT JEWELRY; COMPILED A SCRAPBOOK; PRODUCED A DRAMA, MUSICAL FESTIVAL; ETC. (LOCAL). WALTER STEALEY, CHAIRMAN; PATAPSCO NECK BICENTENNIAL COMMITTEE; 3141 YORKS WAY; DUNDALK, MD 21222. (# 33682).

There is also evidence connecting the first Dundalk Heritage Fair held in 1976 to the ARBA’s Heritage ’76 Bicentennial theme. What was supposed to be a one-time expression of the spirit of ’76 became a tradition still orchestrated each year for thousands of participants by the volunteer Dundalk Heritage Fair Association. Like hundreds of local history organizations, the Dundalk-Patapsco Neck Historical Society & Museum incorporated in 1970 during the lead up to the Bicentennial. It nominated Todd’s Inheritance for listing on the National Register—adding to the surge of such nominations in the mid-1970s. More recently the society contributed to the interpretative signs at Fort Howard Park some of which were placed as Eagle Scout projects. 

Although these groups appear to have received little or no funding from federal sources during the Bicentennial, they continued to strengthen the historical infrastructure of the Patapsco Neck communities in the years since. Evidently state agencies and organizations like the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and the Maryland Historical Society have partnered with these volunteers, as have federal agencies such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service.

The stories and storytelling are by no means finished.  There is a 2011 North Point Concept Plan developed by the National Park Service for the War of 1812 Bicentennial and the Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail that remains only partly implemented. America 250 presents opportunities for volunteers, business, and public officials across the country to tell their engaging local stories by partnering with others to boost community spirit and economies for generations to come. Plan now to join in as more Americans prepare to explore America anew—especially in the wake of the pandemic.