Anne Arundel County will unveil a new roadside marker highlighting one of the County’s many historic sites over the Maryland Day Weekend. The event will be held on Saturday March 21, 2020 at the entrance to Historic Goshen Farm in Cape St Claire at 3pm. This is one of nine new roadside historic markers that will be installed across the County by Maryland Day Weekend. With nearly 4,000 historic buildings, archaeological sites, historic districts, cemeteries, and heritage communities, the County’s rich history is all around, yet many citizens might not know about, or appreciate the history they drive or walk by every day.
This new program, developed by the Office of Planning and Zoning and its Cultural Resources Division, will raise public awareness about some of the County’s most significant historic sites and enrich local appreciation for the depth of history that makes up our community’s past and present. The signs will encourage citizens and visitors to explore and experience Anne Arundel County history! A companion interactive map with locations, pictures and more information on each site can be accessed at www.aacounty.org/HistoricSigns.
Many of the signs mark publicly-accessible sites, where visitors can go to explore the County’s history in person. These include Goshen Farm (in Cape St. Claire,) the Commodore Isaac Mayo’s “Gresham” (in Edgewater), and Hancock’s Resolution (Bayside Beach,) the National Register Historic District of Woodwardville, a late 19th century railroad town on Patuxent Road, and the historic crossroads community of Friendship in South County, a bustling commercial hub with roots back to the 17th century. The Queenstown Rosenwald School in Severn is significant as it represents a landmark era in black education in the period before federal support of local education. This was one of two dozen schools built in the County with the support of the Rosenwald Fund, this historic site thrives as a vibrant community center today.
Some signs will mark historic properties that are listed on the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties, but that are privately-owned. Though not publically-accessible, they are important to understand the full range of Anne Arundel County’s history and development. The ‘high-style’ Asa Linthicum House in Jessup was built in 1860, and is architecturally stunning. This is one of the few surviving remnants of historic Jessup, a once vibrant Victorian-era town.
Signs also mark the location of an important historic sites that no longer survive, but profoundly impacted the economy and development of the area, like the 18th century Charles Waters Saw & Grist Mill at Bacon Ridge in Crownsville. Others will celebrate long-established heritage communities like the African American Enclave of Mill Swamp in Harwood, a community founded in the 1840s by freedmen working at the nearby Charles Bird mill site. Mill Swamp has a rich heritage surrounding education and has as its centerpiece the soon to be renovated Ralph Bunche School.
