Early Settlements and
Land Patents

The Guilford area is mostly covered by7 original land patents – Wincopin Neck, Jones Fancy, Harry’s Lot, Ridgely's Forest, Hall's Lot, Warfield's Contrivance and White’s Contrivance – the earliest was Ridgely's Forest surveyed in 1686.   Ridgely's Forest was later incorporated into Harry's Lot.  Based on these land surveys and patents it is safe to say that the Guilford-Savage area was first settled about 1686 (335 years ago) and the first mill, a grist mill, was likely operating in current day Savage by 1726 (195 years ago). Please see the map below and an explanation of each land patent.

Ridgely's Forrest

Col. Henry Ridgely (1627-1710) had land surveyed and then received a certificate on June 3, 1686, for 264 acres called Ridgely’s Forrest “lying on the East Side of the North great Branch of Patuxent River at Huntington”. This area is basically what is now called the Huntington East area of Columbia.

Although a survey and certificate was issued in 1686, the patent was not approved until April 1, 1696 due to a land warrant not being found (the clerk dated it March 29th and instead of March 19th 1685), so in 1695 John Howard, Richard Beard, and Richard Snowden all submitted their land warrants assignments again granted to Col. Ridgely.

With Col. Henry Ridgely at Ridgely’s Forrest, brothers Richard and Benjamin Warfield patented Wincopin Neck in 1702 that was the on the west side of the river across from Ridgely’s Forrest. In 1722, Col Henry Ridgely’s grandson, also known as Col. Henry Ridgely (1690-1750) the surveyor, married Benjamin Warfield’s daughter, Elizabeth.  In 1734, this earliest land patent in Guilford was resurveyed as part of Harry's Lot.

Harry’s Lot 

Ridgely's Addition (Harry's Lot - Ridgely) was originally surveyed and patented in 1717 by Henry Ridgely for 110 acres and then when two other land tracts were resurveyed in 1732 and parts of them combined, it was re-patented in 1734 as Harrys Lot – Ridgely for 702 acres.  This land basically borders Guilford Road on one side and the Little Patuxent River on the other between Alberta Gary Church and Vollmerhausen Road and covers much of the town center of Guilford.

Wincopin Neck

Wincopin Neck was originally patented in July 1702 by Benjamin and Richard Warfield for 633 acres.  Due to some error discovered, it was resurveyed in 1732 and re-patented in 1735 as Wincopin Neck for 864 acres. Wincopin Neck is generally the land between the Middle Patuxent River and the Little Patuxent Rivers bounded roughly on the northwest by the BGE transmission lines, but the boundary in the mill area crossed the river to the north to cover the land to approximately Guilford Road but it did not include the quarries across the river.  Including this land indicated that there was either an existing mill or one planned to be built that required a dam that would create a pond needing access from both sides of the river.  On the quarry side to the north of Wincopin Neck was Jones Fancy.

Jones Fancy

Jones Fancy was surveyed in 1731 by Henry Ridgely and patented in Jun 1734 by John Jones for 131 acres "near to a place called Elkridge".  This was the tract of land that was farmed and quarried for almost 200 years since it was patented.  It was owned by Henry A. Penny, Sr. and Henry A. Penny, Jr (County Commissioner), among others, and was the site for the home of Reverend Willis Carter and first church.  But the current home of the First Baptist Church of Guilford is to the east of Jones Fancy in Harry’s Lot which was part of Ridgely’s Addition – Harry’s Lot.   

Hall's Lot

Hall's Lot was surveyed in August 1753 by Richard Shipley and  patented in Oct 1753 by Joseph Hall for 128 acres. "joining a Tract of Land called Warfields Contrivance".  The land is where Guilford Elementary School, the Federal Communications Commission,  and the Monarch Mills apartments on Oakland Mills Road.  While Warfield's Contrivance is on the eastern end of Hall's Lot, to the west is Jones Fancy and to the south and southwest is Harry's Lot.

Warfield's Contrivance

Richard Warfield, who earlier patented Wincopin Neck with his brother Benjamin, received a patent for Warfield's Contrivance in 1718 for 375 acres adjacent to the east of Harry's Lot (Ridgelys Forest).  Warfield's Contrivance was expanded to include vacant land and another lot in 1729 for a resurveyed patent of 836 acres.  This land is where Ridgely's Run Community Center and the Savage Quarry are located. 

White’s Fortune and White's Contrivance

South of Harry’s Lot is White's Contrivance which contains Savage plus some other adjacent areas. In 1726, Joseph White (1678-1733) had a survey done of White’s Fortune in from which it was clear that there was already a mill race and dam in what is now called Savage. It was patented in 1734, likely by Joseph White’s son, also named Joseph White (1720-1796).  White’s Fortune was included in a 1759 resurvey for Joseph White’s son to a larger piece of land called White’s Contrivance that was 801 acres but wasn’t patented until 1797 by Griffith White, Joseph White’s grandson. The White family continued to own this land until the Savage Manufacturing Company purchased it from them in 1823 to begin Savage Mill.

Owning Land

Owning land in Maryland’s early days required 1) a warrant issued by a government official to the County surveyor documenting the acres of land through a Certificate of Survey, 2) having a detailed survey of the land with a scale drawing of the tracts of land of interest and adjacent properties, and 3) patenting the land that was not already patented.   The land patents and surveys established the metes and bounds of property that passed from one generation, or owner, to another.  Many of the property records through the 1800s still identified the land patents which provided a fairly easy way of knowing the location of a specific tract of land.  It seems it wasn’t until the middle part of the 1900s that the buildings and homes were listed as the primary real estate transaction instead of the land.  This can make it difficult to determine when a building was constructed so we continue to look through other records to try to locate that information.

Finding Land Patents

This can be one of the most frustrating things to do because of all the false rabbit holes that the Maryland State Archives provides.  But here are the three most important sets of records you need: 1) Jody Frey's list of Howard County Land Patents by name that also include the owner and a date (http://jsfecmd.info/FREAK/HowardCountyLandPatents.html), 2) the Maryland State Archives Patent Index (S1426) found at https://msa.maryland.gov/msa/stagser/s1400/s1426/html/index54.html that allow you to search by the land owner (it is a pdf of the file cards for the patents) that includes a date and the folio (book) and liber (page), and 3) the actual links to pdfs of the books containing the patents based on the liber and folio found in the previous link http://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/series.aspx?id=SE23. 

For example, below is a card with Liber (book) F.F.#7 and folio (page) 374.  Go to the last source of information and search for anything in the page that looks like F.F. #7 within the patent date range. In this case, the liber looks like "FF 7" in the date range of 1716-1722.  It takes some practice and trial and error but it is a remarkable source of information to the original documents.  

Sources:

http://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/viewer.aspx?page=landrecords#mdlandrec 

http://jsfecmd.info/FREAK/HowardCountyLandPatents.html   Much thanks to Jody Frey for her incredible hard work in providing the details on Howard County’s land patents including a Google Earth kml file that I used for the creating the map.  http://jsfecmd.info/FREAK/index.html