Ellicotts and Balderston

The Ellicott Brothers and Bartholomew Balderston

Almost 50 years after Joseph White established his grist mill on the Little Patuxent River in what would become the town of Savage, one of the largest milling operations would take a hold along the Patapsco River. The story of the Ellicott brothers, Quakers from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, that established the mill lands in the 1770s later known as Ellicott City, does not need repeating.  This story presents some little known aspects of this endeavor that readers may find enlightening. 

The initial presence of the Ellicott Brothers (Joseph, Andrew, Nathaniel, and John) – yes, there was a Nathaniel that is often forgotten, begins on the Baltimore County side of the Patapsco River in April of 1771 but did not venture into the Anne Arundel side of the river until the end of 1774.  Numerous tales exist of the Ellicott’s being on the south side of the river in 1771 due to the Maryland Mill Act of 1669 that allowed condemnation of 20 acres of land on each side of a river to benefit whomever would build a grist mill.  What few realize was that the Maryland Mill Act was repealed in 1766* resulting in the Ellicott’s eventual land purchases on both sides of the river. But they were not in today’s Howard County until the end of 1774.

Lower Mills

The presence of the four Ellicott brothers was first felt in Baltimore County when they purchased two tracts of land adjoining the Patapsco River on April 24, 1771.  Formerly called “Stout”, William Teal was sold his 50 acre plot known as “Teals Search” and William Williams, and iron founder, sold the other plot called Mount Gilboa containing 34 acres.  These lands would become known as the “lower mills”.  This is plural because in short time there was not only a saw mill and a grist mill but also a plaster mill and slitting mill for iron.   Ellicott & Co as they would become known began building their mills in 1772.**

Upper Mills

The Ellicott’s arrival in Anne Arundel County on the south side of the Patapsco River occurred when they purchased two tracts of land from miller Benjamin Hood on December 31, 1774 about 4 miles upstream of Teals Search and Mount Gilboa.  The four brothers, along with George Wall, Jr. of Bucks County, purchased one 20 acre tract along the Patapsco Falls called Hoods Haven (after James Hood, Benjamin’s father) containing a flour and saw mill with an 80 year lease from the then Governor of the Province to  “build Water Mills” to encourage construction of mills.  They also purchased the 40 acre Baker’s Delight and the 115 acre resurveyed Hoods Haven.  These were the first lands they bought in Anne Arundel County.

George Wall, Jr. sold his moiety (half share) in the mill site on January 21, 1777 to the four brothers and a few months later on April 24th Nathaniel exchanged his interest in the former Hoods Mills to his brother Joseph who built his homestead near the mill.  In 1778 on June 22nd Joseph exchanged his ownership in the lower mills for sole ownership of what was known as the upper mill.  Joseph died in 1780*** and his four sons took over ownership of the lands.

Bartholomew Balderston

That was quite an adventure in land buying from the Ellicott brothers.  But how did the remaining three brothers obtain lands at the lower mills on the Howard County side of the Patapsco River?  It turns out that a member of their Quaker Buckingham Meeting in Bucks County, PA likely preceded them to what would become Howard County’s Ellicott City. 

Meet Bartholomew Balderston, born at Bucks County, PA, in 1743 to John and Hannah.**** Balderston was the third-born and attended the same Friends Buckingham Meeting as the Ellicott family.  He happened to fall in love with Sarah Johnson who was not a member of the Society of Friends and in 1764 he was officially admonished by the Friends Meeting for their relationship. When he married her on June 24, 1764 it was determined at the March 4, 1765 Buckingham Monthly Meeting that “Balderston hath accomplished his marriage out of the Unity of Friends with one not of our Society, tho’ timely precaution to the contrary by several, and his wife was delivered of a child within less than seven months after marriage.” He was no longer welcome.*****

It is still undetermined exactly when Balderston, his wife Sarah, and their children Johnston, Mary, Hannah and John, moved from Pennsylvania to Maryland but it seems likely to be shortly after he left the Society of Friends.  He moved to the Anne Arundel County side of the Patapsco River and may have arrived before the Ellicott’s.  On December 8, 1774, Balderston sold 23 acres of Prestiges Folly and 7.5 acres of Good Neighborhood along the Patapsco River to the four Ellicott’s, the first lands the brothers owned in what would become Ellicott City. It seems these lands were used to house workers associated with the mills******.

On May 14, 1796, Balderston sold 0.52 acres of land from his Prestiges Folly for a “burying ground for the Society of the people called Quakers”.  On July 28, 1796, Jonathan Ellicott and others, all living in Baltimore County, sold 1.6 acres of land, from the 23 acres Balderston sold to the Ellicotts, to the Benjamin Rich and others living in Anne Arundel County for a new Elk Ridge Friends Meeting house.  Balderston and his family may not have been part of the Society of Friends anymore but his land provided everything needed to establish Quaker roots in what would become Ellicott’s Mills and then Ellicott City.  Ironically, his younger brother Isaiah became a minister of the Society of Friends in Baltimore and interacted with the Ellicotts frequently, but there is no evidence of the two brothers meeting each other again. Bartholomew Balderston died by 1803 – the exact date is unknown.

* John F. Hart. “The Maryland Mill Act, 1669-1766: Economic Policy and the Confiscatory Redistribution of Private Property”. American Journal of Legal History, 39,1, January 1995, 1-24.

** Martha Ellicott Tyson. 1865. A Brief Account of the Settlement of Ellicott’s Mils. Special Publication No 4. (Baltimore, Maryland Historical Society, 1871), 7.

*** Ibid., 57

**** Marion Balderston and Hortense B.C. Gibson, Balderston Family History, 1973, 25. John was often referred to in later family documents as “John the Immigrant”, an affectionate term since he was thought to be the first of the Balderstons to arrive in America.

*****Wrightstown Month Meeting. Births and Death 1716-1900. List of Members, 1827.  An account of the births and burials of the children of John Balderston and Hannah his wife. P. 23.  The other accounts are from the Buckingham Monthly Meetings, Society of Friends, accessed from Ancestry.com. U.S., Quaker Meeting Records, 1681-1935.

****** Tyson, 7.