The first post of 2017 probably should be about the new year and any resolutions. I don't do resolutions. Quite pointless for me since they are usually forgotten or ignored. So, I generally just steer myself toward very generalized goals and just maybe, I find myself on a new path leading to good things like a healthy lifestyle and learning new things, etc, etc. Experience has taught me a lot and I just may not need a map for the coming year.
I like maps. And I can read a map fairly well. Usually. My sisters will tell you that I'm wrong since when we were in Ireland, we traveled for two hours but only covered barely an inch on the map. But I was driving then, and not looking at the map but looking at road signs. And now, I will never, ever, ever forget that there is a huge difference between the M4 and the N4. Still it was a lovely adventure driving through the spectacular Wicklow Mountains.
In its infancy, the Maryland colony was very different from the state of Maryland. Parts of the state were still part of the Virginia colony and there were only four counties, St. Mary's, Charles, Anne Arundel and and Kent counties, in the mid 17th century. By around 1660, Baltimore County became its own entity and as the state's population increased, the number of counties grew too.
One of the more confusing things I encountered in the family research was hundreds, a descriptive term found in the tax lists and in the early land patents. One would assume that it meant something very important in a geographical sense. There are several possible origins. It appears about the time of the Roman rule over Britain. One meaning could be a hundred families in a certain area. Or maybe it meant that there could be found in the area, a hundred warriors or fighters to serve in an army. Whatever it's beginnings, the term found its place in the early counties, each hundred with a constable or sheriff and a justice of the peace. Information can be found at Rootsweb.com, should you be interested.
I live very close to Old Court Road where it begins its journey from the Patapsco River through Baltimore County, almost to Towson, the county seat. Local history tells me that in my neck of the woods, it was once an Indian trail. One of the oldest roads in the state, it originally was part of a road that led a traveler from Annapolis to Old Baltimore, which was sited on Bush river in Harford county. From there, one could reach Philadelphia. The port of Old Baltimore eventually silted up and the new Baltimore sprouted and flourished at its present day spot in the Patapsco river basin.
It looks like I may be living in what was at one time the Upper Patapsco Hundred, since I am north of the river. Same hundred as my tavern owning ancestor. Lower Patapsco hundred was south of the river, and eastward was a different hundred altogether.
One can find copies of old maps all over the World Wide Web. A good collection resides at lib.umd.edu.
Looking at these old renderings of the colony with the Chesapeake bay and its tributaries, I am amazed how accurate they could be without the benefit of the satellite imagery that we have today. Not perfect, of course, like the one I saw with Delaware so shrunken as to be absolutely minuscule. Rather bizarre looking, really.
Old maps, even as late as 1877, sometimes bore the names of the landowners so you could easily see where the old homestead once stood. Quite useful for the amateur genealogist.
Some ask why this small obsession with the past and genealogy and family history. I could say that I like knowing where I'm from. But I think it is really quite simply just a love of history. And with that, whatever the early cartographers could teach me with their works of historical art.
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