02-15-2024 Howard - Flipbook - Page 8
WELCOME
Clara and Ayla Benjamin, both of Columbia, enjoy the July 4th celebration at the Columbia lakefront. PHOTO BY PETER HAUSER/FOR BALTIMORE SUN MEDIA
S
et squarely between the nation’s
capital and Baltimore, Howard
County is a well-blended mix of the
bucolic, the urban and the suburban.
Spread out over 252 square miles
are sights as diverse as a quaint historic
district; high-tech research parks; a mall
with more than 200 stores; parks with
rivers and forests; a lakefront city center;
fields dotted with livestock; three arts
centers and two outdoor amphitheaters.
The county can boast of such accomplishments as having the first national
railroad terminus and one of the largest
planned cities in the country.
Demographically, the county is considered affluent, well-educated and diverse.
With a population of about 334,500,
Howard has a median household income
of $124,042 according to the U.S. Census
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| Winter 2024 | howardmagazine.com
Bureau. More than 63% of residents over
25 have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
And nearly half of residents identify as
racial minorities.
The way we were
The county’s first settler, a Puritan
named Adam Shipley, was granted a
home near the Patapsco River in what is
now Elkridge in 1687.
Farms, many planted with tobacco,
sprouted along the rivers, and the county’s farmers became its leaders. The
family of Charles Carroll, a signer of the
Declaration of Independence, acquired
13,000 acres of fertile fields and forest in
the early 1700s.
Once farms were established, mills for
cotton, lumber and corn, and furnaces
for iron dredged from the riverbanks
were built. The Ellicott brothers, Quakers
from Pennsylvania, arrived in 1772 with a
mission to convert farmers from tobacco
to wheat. They settled in a hollow on
the Patapsco River and sparked a vast
number of changes in the county.
Through their leadership, a road from
Baltimore to Frederick was started —
appropriately named Frederick Road.
The Ellicott brothers also aided the
beginning of the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad, with its first terminus in Ellicott
City.
During the Civil War, Howard County
sent its sons to both Confederate and
Union armies, splitting families and
communities. A portion of the Underground Railroad ran along U.S. 1 to Baltimore.