By Tina Barton
Melville Chapel is one of the oldest Methodist congregations in America. Carlyle Earp (1891 to 1970) is credited with having captured the early history, for which there is no reason to dispute. Letters and diaries from Francis Asbury, one of the prominent circuit riders in the early church (1700s) imply that the congregation was formed in 1772. The land records do dispute some intracacies of property ownership and chronology. However, because land records are sometimes not filed, or not filed promptly, the original history is worthy of being retained. Several people over the years updated the history that Earp wrote, but they left his wording of the early history largely unchanged.
The Google Drive at the link below contains several scans of the history and other documents in the Elkridge Heritage Society archives. It is still a work in progress.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qLjL6262Sh2bWwim7EeDwefB0dZO55Qz?usp=sharing
We propose slight modifications to the ordering of the acquisition of property, now that we have easy access to the Maryland Land Records for armchair historians. I suspect there were typos that were made that were carried along as the history was transcribed over and over.
The MIHP (Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties) document HO-383 repeats Earp’s history, while giving one deed hint in Howard County land record book 10, page 189. This is a rabbit hole, as we will describe later.
The actual deeds as recorded in the land records are in this folder so you can follow along if you wish to check my work:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LS6RC5xlvqrEeTlYWtDM0rPWisOh139x?usp=drive_link
The history states that Francis Asbury visited an early frame church, but we do not know exactly where that was. Then the history records that a second frame church was built near where Grace Episcopal Church is now, on Main Street (which was the Baltimore Washington Turnpike then), but it turned out to be built on what became the bed of the B&O Railroad in 1835 after the Viaduct opened. The history then goes on to say that the second frame church was then “moved up the hill” and may have been used as a library or school until it was sold to Grace Episcopal Church. How does this jive with the land records?
In 1824, the trustees of Melville Methodist Episcopal Church purchased a plot of land from Richarda Hopkins[1]. See the 1824 deed 10/263 in the link above. This plot is described as being 275 feet from the center of the Turnpike, southeast. If you draw it out, it will probably encompass the old burial lot at Grace Episcopal and extend over where the railroad tracks are. This lines up with the story about the second frame church being on land where Grace Church is now.
In 1833, the Viaduct was well on its way to completion and the B&O Railroad started gathering up rights of way from the various landowners of Elk Ridge Landing. The Trustees of Melville are included in that bunch (see deed 18/355). If the history is believed (no reason it shouldn’t) the very church building was on the bed of the tracks. The history then states that the second frame building was moved up the hill. But where? Legend says that Grace Church bought it for their first church. I dispute that, but it is not out of the realm of possibility.
In 1834, Melville Methodist Episcopal Church was incorporated. A transcription of that document is in the bunch of documents in the first link given above. This, among other things, makes it so that deeds can be in Melville’s name rather than the trustees. Also in 1834 (deed 19-146), Melville bought an acre or so of land from John Avalon Ellicott and his wife Mary. This land is described as on the road that leads from Selby’s Mill [2] to the Baltimore Washington Road (the Turnpike). This is what is today called Furnace Avenue, and is part of the current Melville property.
The history says that the first service was held in a brick church built on that site in 1835. That church lasted for 50+ years but was made of soft bricks that absorbed water. They also needed more space.
Now we come to the rabbit hole I mentioned above. The 1850 deed 10/189 says that Melville Church bought a small lot of land adjacent to the railroad tracks, and also adjacent to a lot of land set aside for a public burial ground. They bought it from William Mills, who also held the mortgage for Melville.
This lot of land is “uphill” from the old church (the second frame building) and was previously being used by the Elk Ridge Landing Lyceum. The Lyceum can be thought of as a library and place where educational lectures are held. It seems likely the Elk Ridge Landing Lyceum, which was incorporated in 1835, and obtained this land from Asher Earp and his wife Matilda in that year, used Melville’s second frame church building. Melville may have never used it at this site. It seems like they got their brick church building ready in time before the railroad came through. But since the Earps are known to be members of Melville (though I haven’t seen the names Asher and Matilda in the historical documents), it is possible that some deal was made that allowed Melville to continue to use the building until the brick church was ready, and for the Lyceum to take it after that. This would jive with the building being used as a library after Melville moved. I’m making this up however. It is equally possible that they moved the building up hill on their own land in the other direction from the tracks, and that Grace Church used it in time.
However that may be, Melville Church bought that Lyceum lot in 1850 from William Mills, as stated above. In that approximate location, the 1860 Martinet map shows a Sunday school. It is possible that Melville bought it for their Sunday School.
In the 1878 map, nothing is shown the location, and there is nothing there now. See the conspicuous white box between the tracks and the Melville Property.
We know this is the Lyceum lot because of court documents [3] we obtained when we were studying the Brumbaugh House history.
Where are we at now? In summary, we have shown the proper chronology through land records for when Melville started acquiring property for the current location of the church. But so far they only have one acre, whereas the entire lot as shown in the above 1878 map is about 2 acres. We don’t yet know when they acquired the cemetery land, but it appears it was before 1878. Also, the property should be in the shape of a backwards L when looking at it from Furnace Avenue. That Weems lot was subdivided, and in 1875, Melville acquired an odd-shaped piece of land from William L. Bians and his wife Elizabeth (deed 35/448). It was about an acre in size.
The Lyceum lot descriptions do describe the public burial grounds, but somehow Melville acquired it for their own parishioners. I have not yet found that deed, but when we find that, it will account for the entire 3-acre or so lot that is currently owned by Melville.
Melville did not sell their land across the tracks to Grace Church until 1878. Wanting to rebuild their church, it became expedient to sell. Grace Church, meanwhile, kept losing buildings to fire and wanted to be further from the tracks, so it was a win-win. Grace Church bought their original piece of land from the B&O Railroad in 1845. See the MIHP document for Grace Church, HO-382. It lists the important deeds for that church properly. We will cover Grace Church history more fully another time.
Did Grace use the second frame building? Did it burn down in 1855? Something doesn’t seem right with that story. Grace lost several church buildings due to them being made of wood too close to the tracks, and the first was in 1855. But how could it be Melville’s second frame building when Melville hadn’t sold to them yet? Did Melville move it onto B&O ground? Did B&O move it? What about it being used as a library? This is why I propose that the second frame building of Melville’s became the Lyceum, and Grace must have built their own wooden church.
Footnotes:
[1] Richarda Hopkins was the daughter of Dr. Richard Hopkins and Hannah Hammond Hopkins. He deeded land over to her that forms much of the village of Elkridge south of Main Street. Richard and Hannah also sold bits and pieces here and there, and William Hammond, Hannah’s father, sold bits and pieces of land before the land came to his daughter in 1824 (Deed 10/66). The land is “Part of Hanover,” a land grant originally formed, it is said, to be used for iron ore extraction. It came to the Hammonds, and the plan was to develop Elk Ridge Landing into a village. Richarda married Robert Dawson, so you will see many Hanover deeds being conveyed by the Dawsons too. Her brother Charles got a strip of Hanover around Race Road, so you will see deeds from him too. It takes a sharp eye and a clear head (of which I cannot maintain for very long stretches), but the Index of Anne Arundel County up until 1839 gives the name of the land as well as the “to” and “from”, so you can collect all the land deals that have to do with “Hanover, Part of” by browsing through the “H” Index.
[2] Selby’s Mill was near Stoney Run, which is closer to BWI Airport. It was also apparently at the mouth of Stoney Run where it meets the Patapsco River. There is an interesting web page about some archaeology done when parts of an historic mill were found in Patapsco Park. This would be up near the intersection of Ridge Road and Furnace Avenue. Very cool. It seems like around this time the Ellicotts were gathering up land to either build or expand the furnace that was at what we now know as Elkridge Furnace Inn. So perhaps that wasn’t the big business at the time.
[3] When we were researching the land records of the Brumbaugh House, we had trouble going back in time to find the original deed that broke out the property from the Hanover land grant. In 1860, the Martenet map said it was owned by Joseph Pettit, and in 1878 by his son Thomas, but we couldn’t figure out how they got it. The deed book and page for the Pettits was hidden in court documents where Joseph Pettit’s heirs sued each other. Perhaps studying the indices like I have learned to do would have helped, but we obtained the court documents and were able to go back in time to finally trace the Brumbaugh property to Richarda and Robert Dawson. The court documents were interesting however, and have been useful in showing the plat where the Lyceum was.