Dickeyville Historic District

Last updated
Dickeyville Historic District
1879 Mill Dickeyville Bmore MD.JPG
Mill built in 1879
Baltimore osm-mapnik location map.png
Red pog.svg
USA Maryland location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
LocationBoth sides of Forest Park Ave. in the Gwynn's Falls area of Baltimore, Maryland
Coordinates 39°19′00″N76°42′18″W / 39.31667°N 76.70500°W / 39.31667; -76.70500
Area500 acres (200 ha)
Built1762 (1762)
ArchitectMultiple
Architectural styleLate Victorian
NRHP reference No. 72001494 [1]
Added to NRHPJuly 12, 1972

The Dickeyville Historic District is a National Register of Historic Places-listed community located just inside the western edge of Baltimore, Maryland, near the intersection of Interstates 70 and 695 and adjacent to Kernan Hospital. A small community of about 140 homes and a historic mill, the village is on the banks of the Gwynns Falls and lies at the start of the Gwynns Falls Trail, a 15-mile (24 km) walking and biking trail that is part of the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network. The village includes two main roads, Wetheredsville Road and Pickwick Road, and three smaller lanes, Hillhouse Road, Tucker Lane and Sekots Road.

Contents

The village flag of Dickeyville, created in 2016 Flag of Dickeyville, Baltimore, Maryland.png
The village flag of Dickeyville, created in 2016

History

The village grew up along the banks of the Gwynns Falls from the late 17th century. Among the area's first settlers was Richard Gwin [or Gwynn], a Welshman who reputedly traded with the Algonquian Indians from 1672.

One of the first of many mills on the Gwynns Falls was built in the vicinity in 1719 by Peter Bond, Gwin's son-in-law. In 1762, a gristmill and stone house was built by Wimbert Tschudi, a Swiss mill owner, and what is believed to be the ruins of this mill may still be seen on the banks of the Gwynns Falls today. In 1779, Wimbert's son, Martin Tschudi, patented a nearby plot of land called Sly's Adventure. The Franklin Paper Mill followed in the early 19th century, giving its name, Franklinville, to the village. In 1829, three enterprising brothers, John, Samuel, and Charles Wethered, converted the Franklin Paper Mill to the manufacture of woolen cloth. The brothers also built the Ashland Mill on the east side of the village, in addition to some 30 stone houses for workers, a church and a school, and named the village "Wetheredville". John Wethered was elected to the United States Congress as a Whig from 1843 to 1845.

House adjoining the old mill House 2 Dickeyville HD Bmore MD.JPG
House adjoining the old mill

In 1871, the Wethereds sold the property and Ashland Manufacturing Company to William J. Dickey, whose family came from the market town of Ballymena in the north of Ireland. He paid $82,000 for 300 acres (1.2 km2), three mills and many of the houses in the village. [3]

Under Dickey, the village again prospered and expanded. Many new homes were constructed for the millhands, a Presbyterian church and a manse were built, and a village store, owned by Dickey, sold everything from buggy whips to licorice sticks. In 1887, Dickey purchased an additional fabric mill in Oella, Maryland, which remained in operation into the late 1960s. [4] On his death in 1896, the name of the village was changed from Wetheredsville to Dickeyville. The Dickey family sold out to the Glasgow Mills in 1909, but with the decline of the textile business, work in the mills became harder to get. The Glasgow Mills closed and the formerly prosperous Dickeyville became a shanty town with a reputation for crime and low life.

In 1934, the Dickey properties, which included much of the village of 81 homes, three mills and the Wethered-Dickey mansion on nearby Forest Park Avenue (the mansion has since been demolished) was sold at auction for $42,000. A local development company embarked upon the restoration of the properties. They decided that the old buildings should be preserved and only the totally unstable would be demolished. The buildings that remained might be redesigned and modernized but in such a way as to preserve their historic character. New homes must blend in unobtrusively with the old. These requirements are initially overseen by the Dickeyville Community Association, a homeowners group formed in 1938.

A 1947 advertisement for houses sold by Philip E. Lamb described Dickeyville as a racially "restricted community". [5]

The Village was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1968.

Notable buildings

2412 Pickwick Road 2412 Pickwick Dickeyville Bmore MD.JPG
2412 Pickwick Road

The red house at 5131 Wetheredsville Road (built c. 1850) was the home of Billy Ware, who served as a soldier in the Union Army in the American Civil War and carried the colors of his regiment at the Battle of Gettysburg. The stone house at 5123 Wetheredsville Road (built c. 1810) was the home of Enos Humphreys, one of the founders of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.). One of the earliest meeting halls of that fraternal organization is still extant at 2412 Pickwick Road. The Presbyterian church 5116 Wetheredsville was founded in the 1870s and built in 1885. 5111 Wetheredsville was the home of the Ashland Mill superintendent. The springhouse and carriage house that served the property still exist at 2309 and 2305 Pickwick (respectively).

5107 Wetheredsville was built around 1810 and was, for many years, the home of the village lamplighter. The large home at 5101 Wetheredsville is the Mechanics Hall and was built in 1897 as a lodge for the Junior Order of American Mechanics, a union and fraternal organization. The building served as a village meeting hall, a concert hall for vaudeville and minstrel shows, and Madame Jolly's Waxworks, a show based on Madame Tussauds Waxworks in London before conversion to a private residence. A stage and footlights still grace one end of the main hall. Ashland Chapel, in the center of the village at 2331 Pickwick Road, was built on land given by the mill-owning Wethered family in 1849 as a house of worship for mill workers. The chapel, with its plain interior and lack of a slave gallery, became the Methodist Church. the small garden shed at one end of the property was originally a trolley stop. 5029 Wetheredsville (c. 1850) served as a home of the cow for the village dairy and a glove factory. 5027 Wetheredsville is more recent (built in the 1940s) but is known as "Little Mount Vernon" as it was designed to emulate that famous home.

5023 Wetheredsville was built in 1835 and served as the village apothecary and then as a candy store. The smaller homes at each end were built by the storekeeper for his newly married sons. 5016 Wetheredsville was the home of one of the mill-owning Wethereds; next door is the village dispensary and doctor's home, both built around 1840. The open area opposite 5017 was a trolley stop on the old Lorraine streetcar line, the railings are still visible. The nearby home at 5010 was built in 1810 for the Cherry Cough Syrup Co and later served as a tavern and a garage. 5008 Wetheredsville, built around 1865, was originally the village school. The last house on Wetheredsville road is 4901, built in 1865 for the Ashland superintendent, the grounds include the historic location of the Tschudi home. Martin Tshudi founded the first mill in the area around 1762. The graves of his wife and daughter can still be found on the hill. The Ballymena Mill (formerly the Ashland Mill) anchors this end of the village where Wetheredsville Road becomes a hiking and biking trail. The old woolen mill, built c. 1830, now houses commercial tenants.

2322 Pickwick was the home of the village shopkeeper, the old streetcar line ran inches from the corner of the home. 2332 Pickwick (c. 1832) is said to have been an Officers' Quarters at Fort McHenry before the home was moved to Dickeyville. The four-story rubblestone homes at 2411 and 2407 Pickwick date from c. 1860. 2405 Pickwick ( c. 1860) was the village store. The second floor was meeting room for the YWCA. 2415 and 2417 Pickwick date from about 1870 while 2407 and 2411 date from around 1860. 2412 was built in 1853 for one of the first IOOF lodges in the U.S. There was a tin shop in the basement. Later, it became a general store, with a Post Office and gas station. The one-story extension to the right was the pharmacy.

2435 Pickwick Road 2435 Pickwick Dickeyville Bmore MD.JPG
2435 Pickwick Road

2423 Pickwick, built in the General Grant style in 1872, was restored as a studio by noted Baltimore muralist R. McGill Mackall in 1932. He built a complete two-story house inside so that he could live here as well as work. The house has been occupied ever since by artists. The present owner, sculptor Barry Johnston, displays some of his bronze sculptures in the back yard. 2433 Pickwick (c.1875) was the home of Malcolm Moos, an advisor to President Dwight Eisenhower and reportedly had a direct telephone link to the White House. 2435 was built as a mill office in 1840. It also housed the village jail where offenders could be locked up in a windowless room on the first floor. In 1899, Teddy Roosevelt spoke from the wooden front steps (the main entrance to the building, now demolished). 2500 Pickwick is believed to date to 1790 and some say began as an Indian trading post. Known as "The Old Stone Row," the building served as millworker housing.

Current events

The Dickeyville Community Association, the Dickeyville Garden Club and the Dickeyville Poker Club maintain an active schedule of community events. Most noteworthy is the Fourth of July celebration that includes a parade around Ashland Chapel and a dinner-dance on Pickwick Road. A Halloween Bonfire night, Christmas caroling and other holiday events occur through the course of the year. The Garden Club hosts frequent lectures and meetings while the Poker Club continues its own, more recent, tradition of late night poker sessions. The village should not be confused with the "other" Dickeyville; Dickeyville, Wisconsin.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cockeysville, Maryland</span> Census-designated place in Maryland, United States

Cockeysville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 20,776 at the 2010 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Owings Mills, Maryland</span> Census-designated place in Maryland, United States

Owings Mills is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Baltimore. Per the 2020 census, the population was 35,674. Owings Mills is home to the northern terminus of the Baltimore Metro Subway, and housed the Owings Mills Mall until its closure in 2015. It is also home to the Baltimore Ravens' headquarters facility, and the studios for Maryland Public Television. In 2008, CNNMoney.com named Owings Mills number 49 of the "100 Best Places to Live and Launch".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hampden, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood of Baltimore in Maryland, United States

Hampden is a neighborhood located in northern Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Roughly triangular in shape, it is bounded to the east by the neighborhood Wyman Park, to the north by Roland Park at 40th and 41st Street, to the west by the Jones Falls Expressway, and to the south by the neighborhood Remington. The Homewood campus of the Johns Hopkins University is a short distance to the east.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oakland Mills, Columbia, Maryland</span> Village in Maryland, United States

Oakland Mills is one of the 10 villages in Columbia, Maryland, United States. It is located immediately east of Town Center, across U.S. Route 29.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oella, Maryland</span> Historic district in Maryland, United States

Oella is a mill town on the Patapsco River in western Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, located between Catonsville and Ellicott City. It is a 19th-century village of millworkers' homes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Washington, Baltimore</span> United States historic place

Mount Washington is an area of northwest Baltimore, Maryland. It is a designated city historic district and divided into two sections: South Road/Sulgrave to the southeast and Dixon's Hill to the north. The Mount Washington Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 with a boundary increase in 2001, with five contributing buildings and four contributing structures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maryland Route 145</span> State highway in Maryland, US

Maryland Route 145 is a state highway in the U.S. state of Maryland. The state highway runs 10.34 miles (16.64 km) from MD 45 in Cockeysville east to MD 165 near Baldwin. MD 145 connects the north-central and eastern portions of Baltimore County via Jacksonville. The first section of the highway was built from Loch Raven Reservoir to Jacksonville in the early 1910s. The remainder of MD 145 east to Baldwin was completed in the mid-1920s. The state highway was extended west to Cockeysville in the early 1980s in a maintenance swap. When MD 145's bridge over Loch Raven Reservoir was replaced in 2000, the old bridge from 1922 was preserved.

Odd Fellows Hall, Independent Order of Odd Fellows Building, IOOF Building, Odd Fellows Lodge and similar terms are phrases used to refer to buildings that house chapters of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows fraternal organization. More specifically, these terms may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milford Mill Road</span> Long road primarily situated in Baltimore County, Maryland

Milford Mill Road, Slade Avenue, and Smith Avenue are a long road mostly in Baltimore County, Maryland that runs through Milford Mill and Pikesville in the suburbs of Baltimore. The road starts out at the light rail stop in historic Mt. Washington Village in Baltimore city as Smith Avenue, and continues through Pikesville up to Seven Mile Lane before its name changes to Slade Avenue, and the road widens to four lanes. The road is known as Slade Avenue until Reisterstown Road, and from there, its name becomes Milford Mill Road until it dead-ends one block south of Rolling Road in an area known as Windsor Mill. It is one of the most heavily used routes in the northwest suburbs of Baltimore, as it is used for cross-county travel by motorists between the Pikesville and Randallstown areas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Village of Cross Keys</span> Planned community in Maryland, United States

Village of Cross Keys is a privately owned upscale area of Baltimore, Maryland. It is located off Maryland Route 25 between Northern Parkway and Cold Spring Lane, and is home to luxury condos and upscale small shops.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mill Green Historic District</span> Historic district in Maryland, United States

The Mill Green Historic District is a National Register of Historic Places listed community located in Harford County, Maryland. The district consists of a small cluster of privately owned historic homes and buildings including a historic mill. The district is located at the junction of Mill Green Road and Prospect Road. Broad Creek flows through the district. The historic district designation was established in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Windsor Mill Road</span> Road in Maryland

Windsor Mill Road is a road that runs through parts of Baltimore, Maryland and its western suburb Woodlawn. The road starts as a one-way street named Edgewood Street, then makes a slight left corner and becomes Windsor Mill Road. The road, which is approximately 7+12 miles in length, runs parallel to nearby Liberty Road and Security Boulevard, and is often used as an alternative to these routes. Though Windsor Mill Road has no interchange with the Baltimore Beltway, it crosses over the highway, and this point is frequently mentioned in traffic reports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lauraville, Baltimore</span> United States historic place

Lauraville is a neighborhood in northeast Baltimore, Maryland. The neighborhood is bounded on the east by Harford Road, on the north by Echodale Avenue, on the south by Argonne Drive and Herring Run Park, and on the west side by Morgan Park and Morgan State University, with East Cold Spring Lane passing through the center of Lauraville.

Lakeland is a neighborhood in south Baltimore, Maryland. Its borders are Annapolis Road on the east, the Baltimore city/county line to the south, a CSX/MARC Railroad line to the west, and the same railroad line to the north.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irvington, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood statistical area in Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Irvington is a neighborhood in the Southwest District of Baltimore, located between Yale Heights neighborhood to the west and the Gwynns Falls neighborhood to the east. It was historically nicknamed "Skulltown" for its three large cemeteries: Loudon Park, Mount Olivet and New Cathedral.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park</span> Park in Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park is a park in Baltimore, Maryland. It is the second-largest woodland park in the United States, constituting a contiguous area of 1,216 acres (492 ha). Envisioned as a "stream valley park" to protect Baltimore's watersheds, including the Gwynns Falls, from overdevelopment and to preserve their natural habitats. It is well known for the fact that over 75 bodies have been discovered in the park since the 1940s. It is also home to the Baltimore Herb Festival.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sabina Mattfeldt, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood statistical area in Baltimore, Maryland, United States

Sabina Mattfeldt is a neighborhood in the North District of Baltimore, located beside the Jones Falls, between the neighborhoods of Mount Washington (west) and Poplar Hill (east). Its name comes from the two streets, Sabina Avenue and Mattfeldt Avenue, where most of the neighborhood's homes are located.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gwynns Falls Trail</span>

Gywnns Falls Trail is a 15-mile (24 km) series of hiking and bicycling trails inside Baltimore, Maryland, named for the Gwynns Falls, whose course it follows, and the surrounding Gwynns Falls Leakin Park it passes through. The trail uses unique alignments, sidepaths on existing streets, and on-street sections. The trail consists of one 10.75-mile (17.30 km) mainline, plus a number of branches, including the Middle Branch Trail, the Hutton Trail, and the Dickeyville Trail. All of these trails carry signage designating them as the Gwynns Falls Trail; their individual names are designated on the mile markers designating their route. The entirety of the Middle Branch Trail, as well as the section of the mainline trail east of the Middle Branch Trail's northern terminus, are part of the East Coast Greenway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Purnell, Baltimore</span> Neighborhood in Baltimore

Purnell is a neighborhood in west Baltimore.

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. McCrae, Sheridan Jones (May 20, 2016). "Winning Flag Design Announced – Dickeyville, Baltimore". Dickeyville, Baltimore. Archived from the original on 2021-06-20. Retrieved February 19, 2024.
  3. Romaine S. Somerville and Catharine F. Black (March 1972). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Dickeyville Historic District" (PDF). Maryland Historical Trust. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
  4. "Heavy Fabric Give Way to Light New Blend". The Times (Ellicott City). March 31, 1965.
  5. "Baltimore Sun". Baltimore Sun . Retrieved 2024-06-18.