Did You Know? #21 We had our own Owings Mills for over 50 years! 

The land in the Guilford Mills and Quarry area near the Pratt bridge were patented in the early 1700s to Benjamin and Richard Warfield (Wincopin Neck) and to John Jones (Jones Fancy). The land that the mill and mill dam was operating on was Wincopin Neck and it basically covered the lands between the Middle and Little Patuxent Rivers down to their confluence at the end of the Wincopin Trails. The quarry and cemetery have always been on Jones Fancy, a much smaller patent of 131 acres.

The first known mills at Guilford were operating in 1744 by Richard Warfield’s son, Alexander. In 1750 the mills were run by Alexander and his cousin Elizabeth, now a Ridgely, who inherited her portion when her father Benjamin passed away. The Ridgely and Warfield families were involved in the mills until about 1794 when the Griffith et al. map of Maryland clearly shows three mills along the Little and Middle Patuxent River. White’s Mill, the predecessor to Savage Mill is just below the confluence of the two rivers, while the Owings Mills at at Guilford on the Little Patuxent River, and present-day Simpsonville on the Middle Patuxent River.

The Mills at Guilford and Simpsonville were both owned by Richard Owings and the three mills in Baltimore County that the town Owings Mills is named for were owned by Richard’s brother, Samuel Owings. The Richard Owings family lived near the upper mill and the area was known as Owingsville before those mills were purchased by Charles Ridgely Simpson in 1852 and became Simpsonville.

The Martenet map of 1860 shows Simpsonville as a fairly large community and at Guilford, Richard Owings son, Henry H. Owings, is the owner of the mill which is now part of Guilford Factory. In 1867, Henry H. Owings sold the Guilford Mill to Stephen Heath, who also ran the Laurel Mill.

These are just some highlights of the long and storied ownership of the Owings Mills in Guilford and Simpsonville. More details can be found in any of the editions of Lee Preston’s book “Archaeology in Howard County and Beyond”.  I highly recommend getting this book - Lee is a great researcher, writer and teacher.  

There were also a couple of legal cases - one brought by the decedents of Richard Owings against William Baldwin (who went on to purchase Savage Mills) and was thoroughly described in the 1852 Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of Appeals, Maryland (see below).