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Moving - Perry Hall, Maryland

Hundreds of years ago, northeastern Baltimore County was explored by nomadic Indians who came south from present-day Pennsylvania to hunt for game in the bountiful Chesapeake Bay region. These tribes were dominated by the terrifying Susquehannocks, who intimated smaller Indian clans and held dominion over the area until Europeans settled Maryland in the Seventeenth Century. The Susquehannocks used present-day Joppa Road as a trail to the west.

In the meantime, enjoy a brief history of Perry Hall, MD.

A Brief History of Perry Hall, Maryland

Hundreds of years ago, northeastern Baltimore County was explored by nomadic Indians who came south from present-day Pennsylvania to hunt for game in the bountiful Chesapeake Bay region. These tribes were dominated by the terrifying Susquehannocks, who intimated smaller Indian clans and held dominion over the area until Europeans settled Maryland in the Seventeenth Century. The Susquehannocks used present-day Joppa Road as a trail to the west.

Captain John Smith encountered the Susquehannocks in 1608 when he made the first European exploration of the Gunpowder River. Smith's expedition initiated intense industrialization along the Gunpowder River, and by the Eighteenth Century, northeastern Baltimore County was the site of numerous mills, furnaces, and forges. A small settlement emerged near present-day Cowenton and Joppa Roads, home to woodcutter families who lived in cramped log cabins.

These squalid conditions contrasted vividly with the life of the Gough family, the wealthiest residents of northeastern Baltimore County. In 1774, Baltimore businessman Harry Dorsey Gough purchased a 1,000-acre estate called The Adventure. This estate included much of northeastern Baltimore County, and Gough renamed it Perry Hall after his family's home near Birmingham, England. He completed a mansion that became known for its great gardens and distinctive architecture, rivaled only by Hampton House near Towson. The painting on the right shows the grand Perry Hall estate around 1805. Gough's private driveway to Baltimore, which later became Belair Road, can be seen rolling into the distance.

One night in 1775, Gough was converted to Methodism by his slaves. Methodism swept the American colonies during the American Revolution, appealing to slaves and poor backcountry families who were left out of the economic mainstream. Gough frequently attended "camp meetings" near the settlement at Joppa Road and Cowenton Avenue, and he arranged for the construction of a chapel at the site. This is now Camp Chapel United Methodist Church. Gough and his wife Prudence also befriended Methodist minister Francis Asbury. It was at Gough's mansion where Asbury and other Methodist leaders stayed as they journeyed to Baltimore for the historic 1784 Christmas Conference. Asbury became the first Methodist bishop at this meeting, depicted in the painting on the right by Thomas Coke Ruckle; his friend Harry Dorsey Gough can be seen seated in the left foreground, and Prudence Gough is dressed in white in the right foreground.   Although Harry Dorsey Gough later left the Methodist religion, he remained respected for his work safeguarding Methodist pioneers during the American Revolution, when their pacifist views were unpopular.  Thousands of people reportedly attended his funeral in 1808.  Perry Hall has sometimes been called "the cradle of American Methodism.

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