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The area between the Little Patuxent and Middle Patuxent Rivers was settled by Richard and Benjamin Warfield in 1702 when they filed a land patent for Wincopin Neck and enlarged the patent in 1735. The Guilford Mill dates back to at least 1744 when the first record of a grist mill in Guilford appeared which was owned by Alexander Warfield, son of Richard Warfield. This record was an agreement between Richard Green and Alexander Warfield (son of John) to build a grist mill with two mill stones, one of which was at Alexander Warfield, son of Richard's, mill. That was about 275 years ago in our community!
Over the next 100 years, Guilford Mill, operated as a grist mill and saw mill. In 1830 James Owings took over the mill from Zachariah Polton and turned it into cotton mill about 1833. Its success as a cotton mill wavered and in the 1850 Census of Manufacturers only a grist and saw mill owned by Henry H. Owings was listed and no activity was reported in the 1860 census of manufacturing for the mills. In 1867, Owings sold the land to Stephen Heath, a machinist and cotton mill expert, who later obtained a mortgage for the property from James S. Gary who owned the Alberton Mill. In 1870, Stephen Heath was the proprietor of both the Guilford and Laurel cotton mills.
In an interesting note, William Baldwin first tried to purchase Guilford Mill in 1845 before he became the owner of Savage Mill in 1859. The Guilford cotton mill operated until it burned down in 1890.
Molinographer (mill historian) wrote this about the history of Guilford Mill:
"John McGrain received a letter from L. H. Luckado of Guilford on February 14,1976:
I live next door in the stone house and there is a story with it in the days of the stone quarry which I won't get into now. As to your question on it, it was not a mill but was the machine and blacksmith shop to keep the quarry going. The mill stood 50 about 100 ft below the old B. & O. bridge on the south side of Route 32 and today only one corner of the stone foundation is left to be seen and was first a corn mill and gristmill, then became a cotton mill, then a store, the post office during the quarry days, and then burned.
The water wheel is estimated by me to have been 18 to 20 feet high and maybe 50 hp, and remains of the dam are 1/4 mile upriver, and part can be seen today. There was also a cooper shop that Columbia City just bulldozed down last year."
There is still a small wall left of that Guilford Mill just to the east of the Patuxent Branch Trail parking lot (see photos). Not only that, but upstream we still have a 110+ foot intact section of the mill dam on Columbia Association open space that is more than 150 years old (see Guilford Mill Dam). We are working with the Columbia Association and Howard County government to protect these historic sites.
Sources:
1735. Land Patent for Wincopin Neck - Richard Warfield. http://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/item.aspx?ID=S1189-1809 (it is called Wincopia Neck in the filing system)
1744 Oct. 6. Agreement between Richard Green and Alexander Warfield, Son of John, Partnership for Building Mill and Race. Mentions a mill stone at Alexander, son of Richard’s mill. Anne Arundel County Court (Land Records) RB 2, p. 0274, MSA_CE76_19. Date available 04/03/2006. Printed 01/20/2019
1849. James Owings vs William Baldwin and George Wheeler. December 1849 in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of Appeals - Maryland. Volume 8 Containing Cases in 1849. 1852. p. 337 Annapolis, MD
1871. The state gazette and merchants and farmers' directory for Maryland and District of Columbia.. Sadler, Drysdale & Purnell, Baltimore, pub 921 pages https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=bXdQAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover
1890 Aug 16. The Burning of a Cotton Mill. The Baltimore Sun. pg. 4
1976. McGrain, John. The molinography of Maryland : a tabulation of mills, furnaces, and primitive industries - Howard County Mills. In Maryland State Archives online - https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc4300/sc4300/000005/000000/000010/unrestricted/howard%20county%20chapter.pdf
Map above: This is the map of the 1735 Land Patent of Wincopin Neck made by Jody Frey and can be downloaded from https://jsfecmd.info/FREAK/Museum.html. You can tell it is bounded by the Little and Middle Patuxent Rivers and a line coming straight from Broken Land Parkway. This area covers a small portion northeast of the river from the Pratt Bridge to upstream of the mill dam and then straight northwest. It included the area of some of the early granite quarries but not the largest quarry just north of the Wincopin Neck boundary. For the source of the patent boundaries of Howard County see https://jsfecmd.info/FREAK/Museum.html
Map above: 1794 Griffith Map showing Richard Greens mill (see arrow) and Green's bridge crossing the Patuxent River.
Map above: Illustration of the relative position of Guilford Mill compared to the Mill Dam and Mill Race. The original mill in the 1740s may have been on either side of the river.
Map above: This map was generously re-drawn by Jerry Ueckermann showing the position of the Old Mill Ruin. The original map is available upon request. It does not seem to be available anymore from the MSA Website. Thank you, Jerry, for adapting this from a very busy plat.
Map above: This is the original plat of the 1735 land patent for Wincopin Neck. It is basically look from the north to the south (the top are is the confluence of the Middle and Little Patuxent Rivers). The area added in the 1735 patent - noted by x..x..x - included land east of the Little Patuxent River (aka Brown's Branch, North Branch and East Branch). This was downloaded from the Maryland State Archives and was erroneously called Wincopia instead of Wincopin- http://guide.msa.maryland.gov/pages/item.aspx?ID=S1189-1809
Map above: This is a portion of the 1878 Hopkins Atlas showing the Guilford Factory including the mill pond upstream of the dam and the long mill race leading downstream to the Guilford Mill. The map orientation is not quite to the north which skews the viewing a bit. You can see Murray Hill Road between the Earp houses on the left of the map which leads to Guilford Road which runs along the mill pond and the old Berger Road connecting to Oakland Mills Road and then back to Guilford Road. It is available from Johns Hopkins online library - https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2/32620/p.%2028-29%20-%20Gildford%20District%20%26%20Savage%20Factory.jpg?sequence=20&isAllowed=y
Photos (above and right) " Remaining Guilford Mill wall near Patuxent Branch Trail. Send photo permission requests to guilfordhistoryhoco@gmail.com
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