Local perspective: Remember the Perry Hall farmer this Thanksgiving
by David Marks
Many people don’t give a second thought to the food they eat – and I’m not talking about calories and nutrition.
I’m referring to the complicated process by which food begins on farms and ends up on our kitchen tables. Sadly, the role of the American farmer is simply lost to many people today.
In 1870, half the country’s population was employed in agriculture. Today, that number has fallen to less than 1 percent.
Thanksgiving is a perfect time to consider the importance of the American farmer. The United States is still the breadbasket of the world, supplying much of its corn, soybean, and wheat, but that vast supply of food is grown by a shrinking number of farmers. It is tougher to keep younger generations interested in farming, and many farms have been sold for development.
It is hard to imagine, but only a half-century ago, the land that now includes Perry Hall was mostly undeveloped. Farms and forests stretched from Joppa and Belair Roads out to the Gunpowder River. Perry Hall’s farming history is forgotten by many, but it is an important part of our past.
In 1852, William Meredith bought 900 acres of the Perry Hall estate from the Gough family. He sold the land to German and Irish immigrant families who established smaller farms and nurseries.This was “Germantown,” named for the industrious immigrants who cultivated the remains of the Gough estate.
By 1877, when the G.M. Hopkins atlas of Baltimore County was published, it showed a thriving settlement near the corner of Forge and Belair roads.
Perry Hall does not have particularly fertile soil, and many of its earliest crops were those that could grow in the rocky, clayish dirt. These included carrots, beans, leeks, celery, parsley, and onions. Farmers called these “stoop crops” because families crawled along the ground to weed and harvest the fields. Germantown farmers set up their stands at the city market on Friday evening, returned before dawn on Saturday to sell their vegetables, and arrived back in town past midnight on Sunday morning.
While northeastern Baltimore County was not a grain-growing area, many farmers planted a few acres of wheat, rye, oats, and barley. Grain was threshed by Fox’s sawmill, which was north of Walter Avenue on Belair Road. Residents often bartered with the Fox family, trading grain or small vegetables for lumber that was used during the cold winter months.
During this time of the year, families survived on vegetables and fruit that were stored in caves, both manmade and natural. Ice was cut on the Gunpowder River, then stored in underground hollows or icehouses on the farm. When the water was unfrozen, fishermen caught herring and carp on the Gunpowder River. Foxes, rabbits, squirrels, and quail were abundant throughout throughout the area, and some hunters bagged as many as 30 rabbits and 10 quail a day during the winter hunting season.
Farms diversified in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. Several canning houses opened in area, although these did not prove profitable. One made “Perry Hall Tomatoes.”
Another experiment, however, proved wildly successful: the “greenhouse,” where flowers were grown inside vast glass buildings and shipped to city residents. Many greenhouses were still operating in Perry Hall in the 1980s and 1990s.
For people of my generation, one of the last memories of Perry Hall’s agricultural past was the Berg dairy. The dairy and its ice cream shop were familiar landmarks along Joppa Road before they were demolished for what became Seven Courts.
Today, much of Perry Hall is developed. There are few working farms left.
But our community has a rich agricultural history that should be appreciated, particularly as we sit down to enjoy the bounty of a Thanksgiving dinner.
David Marks is a longtime community activist and author of a book on the history of Perry Hall.