"Dr. B" and the Elkridge Heritage Society

The handsome Victorian on Elkridge’s Main Street now known as the Brumbaugh House was built around 1870 and began serving as a doctor's office in the nineteenth century. The home’s most famous resident, Dr. Benjamin Bruce Brumbaugh, started his own sixty-year-long career working and living at the house in 1919. Dr. Brumbaugh served thousands of Elkridge residents over the decades and the house continues to tell his story today. Since 1985, the Elkridge Heritage Society has operated the house as a small museum to share the long history of medical care in their community.

Born on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Brumbaugh graduated from the University of Maryland Medical School with degrees in both pharmacy and medicine. When the United States entered World War I, Brumbaugh enlisted as a doctor for the U.S. Army. He was stationed at Fort Meade in Anne Arundel County where three infantry divisions trained before deployment to Europe. Brumbaugh tended to many of the 400,000 servicemen who passed through Fort Meade during the war.

After his discharge the military at the war’s end in 1918, a former advisor from the University of Maryland shared the news that Elkridge needed a temporary doctor. The town’s regular practitioner Dr. Ericson had suffered a stroke and was unable to work. When his predecessor passed away two months later, Dr. Brumbaugh took over the practice permanently.

For nearly fifty years, Brumbaugh worked alongside his wife, Miriam Smith, who was herself a doctor’s daughter up until her death in 1958. Over much of that time, Dr. Brumbaugh charged just $2 for an office visit or ​$3 for a house call. Over the years, Dr. Brumbaugh (or Dr. B as many of his patients called him) became something of a local celebrity with an office full of patients from the early morning to late evening. He did not raised his fees until 1969—but then it only went up by a dollar. In a 1970 Sun interview, Brumbaugh explained:

“I’d rather treat them for free of charge than have them think I’m overcharging. I was never out for the almighty dollar. I work just to keep alive, not for what I can get out of it.”

That same year, the community recognized his fifty years of service to the Elkridge community. Nearly four hundred neighbors and long-time patients pooled $3,900 in donations to buy the doctor a brand-new Mercury sedan. Howard County even changed the name of a road off Main Street to Brumbaugh Street in his honor.

Dr. Brumbaugh served three generations of Elkridge residents and continued working until he was ninety years old. By one resident’s estimation, he brought “thousands” of Elkridge babies into the world. Dr. Brumbaugh never kept count but reportedly delivered ten children for one family alone. There are many area residents who still proudly call themselves “Brumbaugh Babies.”

The year after Dr. Brumbaugh’s death in 1985, the Elkridge Heritage Society and local Rotary Club bought the home to preserve the doctor’s office and waiting room. A group of volunteer residents helped turn the second floor into an apartment to help pay the mortgage on the new local history museum. Fortunately, their efforts have preserved Doctor B’s story for residents and visitors to continue to appreciate today.

5825 Main Street, Elkridge MD 21075

Original Emory Street Home of the "Sultan of Swat"

On February 6, 1968, the city paid $1,850 to buy four vacant, vandalized rowhouses on Emory Street—an unusual birthday celebration for famed Baltimore native Babe Ruth. Exactly seventy-three years earlier, George Herman “Babe” Ruth, Jr. was born at 216 Emory Street to George Ruth, Sr. and Katherine Schamberger. Katherine's parents leased the three-story rowhouse but George and Katherine didn't stay there long, moving first to Goodyear Street and then into an apartment above George's saloon on West Camden Street. In 1902, when Ruth was just seven years old, he was sent to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory located at the southwestern edge of the city on Wilkens Avenue.

Ruth went on to baseball fame, playing for the Orioles, the Boston Red Sox, and the New York Yankees and earning the nickname the "Sultan of Swat," before his retirement in 1935. His family's old house on Emory Street followed a more humble course. In 1960, some locals proposed disassembling 216 Emory Street and relocating it to Memory Stadium. "Sooner or later, the urban rebuilders are likely to call Emory street run-down or the area useful for nonresidential construction and that will be the end of Pius Schamberger's house," the Sun speculated in 1961. The newspaper had good reason for their prediction; Saint Mary's School, where Ruth first learned to play baseball, was torn earlier that same year.

In 1967, the building's owner recieved a court order to repair or raze the building. But when the owner scheduled the demolition for December 10, local residents protested and the city stepped in. On November 18, Mayor McKeldin put a stop to the demolition, saying "To allow such a building to pass from the Baltimore scene is to allow an important part of our past to go unrecognized." Next February, the Mayor's Committee for the Preservation of Babe Ruth's Birthplace purchased the block with donations from committee members and the membership of Junior Orioles. While some members of committee worried about the location in a "run-down area" and proposed relocating the building to Memorial Stadium, preserving the building in place eventually won out.

In July 1974, the "Babe Ruth Shrine" opened as a national museum with exhibits on the life and times of Babe Ruth. After Oriole Park at Camden Yards opened in 1992, museum attendance soared to over sixty thousand people every year. In 2015, the museum undertook a major restoration to create a new entrance on the Dover Street side block, improve bathrooms, and add an elevator making the museum more accessible to all visitors.

216 Emory Street, Baltimore, MD 21230

The Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC) collects, preserves, and interprets the history, art, and culture of Maryland. Originally founded as the Maryland Historical Society in 1844, MCHC inspires critical thinking, creativity, and community by exploring multiple perspectives and sharing national stories through the lens of Maryland.

As the oldest continuously operating nonprofit cultural institution in the state, MCHC houses a collection of 7 million books, documents, manuscripts, and photographs, and 350,000 objects in its museum and library located in Baltimore. MCHC also serves as a leading center of Maryland history education for people of all ages.

In January 1844, a group of Maryland residents gathered in the offices of the Maryland Colonization Society at the Baltimore City Post Office and established the Maryland Historical Society. They proposed collecting the "remnants of the state’s history" and preserving their heritage through research, writing, and publications. By the end of the first year, the Maryland Historical Society (MdHS) had 150 members. The group quickly outgrew their rooms at the post office and their fireproof safe at the Franklin Street Bank could not hold the growing number of documents and artifacts donated to the institution.

The new committee started work on a grand home for Baltimore’s new cultural institution, including space for an art gallery. They hired Robert Carey Long, Jr., who designed the Athenaeum, a four-story "Italian palazzo" style building with a unique feature for the preservation-minded historical society: fireproof closets.

Membership and donations increased during the 1850s after the society settled in the Athenaeum. Visitors came out for art exhibitions and donated paintings and statues to the society collections. Baltimore philanthropist, George Peabody donated to support the creation of an index of Maryland records in the London Public Record Office and, in 1867, established the society’s first publications fund. Additionally, the MdHS continued its work protecting state history and late in the nineteenth century the state transferred government records into their care.

Like many historical societies around the country, the Maryland Historical Society saw major changes around the turn of the century. Education became an important part of the group’s mission in many historical societies and women gained full membership. Annie Leakin Sioussat and Lucy Harwood Harrison were among the first female members of the Maryland Historical Society and spent decades volunteering their time and services. In 1906, the MdHS launched the Maryland Historical Magazine, a quarterly journal featuring new research and writing on Maryland history.

MdHS moved into its current home at 201 West Monument Street in 1919 soon after the end of World War I. The new building, the former residence of Baltimore philanthropist Enoch Pratt with a state-of-the-art fireproof addition, came as a gift from Mary Washington Keyser, whose husband, H. Irvine Keyser, had been an active member of the society for forty-three years.

As their predecessors had done after the Civil War, MdHS leaders started an effort to collect "the relics" of the recent Great War. In 1920, the state legislature formed a committee including former governor and historical society president Edwin Warfield. This group comprised the Historical Division of the state’s War Records Commission and served as the "official organ" of the federal government in collecting and compiling the military records of those Marylanders who served in World War I. The society initiated a similar agreement during World War II.

The society began expanding the Monument Street facility in 1953 and, in 1968, added the Thomas and Hugg building named after William and John Thomas. Designed by a local firm, Meyer, Ayers & Saint, the new building includes exhibition space, an auditorium, work rooms, storage space, and "to supplement the present Confederate Room--a Civil War Union Room." In 1981, the society added the France-Merrick Wing to the Thomas and Hugg Building.

Perhaps no other object in the holdings of the Maryland Historical Society attracts more visitors than the original manuscript of Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner. In 1953, Mrs. Thomas C. Jenkins purchased the document from the Walters Art Gallery for $26,400, the same price the gallery had paid for it in 1933 at a New York auction. Jenkins provided additional funding for its display in a carved marble niche. She had previously donated Key family portraits and a room for their display. One hundred forty years after Key penned his famous verse, state and local dignitaries gathered to rededicate this American icon on September 14, 1954.

A newly renovated and expanded Maryland Historical Society opened in November 2003, amidst much fanfare and publicity. The facility now includes the Beard Pavilion and the Carey Center for Maryland Life which features nearly generous exhibition space for museum and library exhibitions, and new storage space for museum collections. In keeping with the founders’ passion for telling Maryland’s story, the society’s leadership, staff, and volunteers carry out today’s mission, securing the institution’s respected place among contemporary cultural organizations. As it has for the past 164 years, the Maryland Historical Society remains the one of the premier institutions for Maryland history.

In 2020, the Maryland Historical Society changed its name to the Maryland Center for History and Culture.

“A History of the Maryland Historical Society, 1844–2000,” Maryland Historical Magazine, 101 (2006).

610 Park Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21201

Christian Mission Turned Immigration Museum

Baltimore’s Locust Point was a rapidly growing neighborhood between the Civil War and 1920. One major factor in the neighborhood’s growth was an immigration pier and depot built in 1867 by the B&O Railroad and the North German Lloyd Shipping Company. Over 1.2 million immigrants landed at the pier between 1868 and 1914, making Baltimore the third largest port of entry in the U.S. at the time (after New York and Boston). B&O extended their railroad tracks up to the pier for the many travellers who purchased a combination ship and rail passage. Most of the earliest immigrants came from Germany but, by the 1890s, a larger number of people came from the Russian and Austrian Empires.

Seeing the ever growing number of immigrants, the local German United Evangelical Christ Church decided in 1904 to build a mission house, known as Immigrant House. The mission offered immigrants room and board, clothing, help in finding work, English lessons, and religious ministry. Sailors from the North German Lloyd ships could also stay there when their ships were in port. By 1916, the pastor reported that 3,710 people had stayed at the mission since it opened 12 years earlier.

While “The Great Wave of Immigration” from Europe ended in Baltimore with the outbreak of the first World War, Immigrant House remained a boarding home for sailors until the 1930s and truck drivers until the 1950s. Since then, the building has been used for church offices, storage, daycare, and Sunday school. The original boarding rooms on the second and third floors remained unoccupied and unchanged, though in deteriorating condition. Baltimore City designated both the church and Immigrant House as local landmarks in 2006.

The Baltimore Immigration Memorial, Inc. (BIM), formerly the Baltimore Immigration Project, was established to preserve and publicize the history of the 1.2 million immigrants who came here. In 2006, this group led the effort to design and install a sculpture garden, Liberty Garden, at the end of Hull Street on the grounds of what is now the property of Under Armour. The immigrants had disembarked at Piers 8 and 9, which were once located nearby.

BIM and the Locust Point Community UCC have since worked together for the creation of the Baltimore Immigration Museum on the ground floor of Immigrant House on Beason Street, not far from the Liberty Garden. The museum’s initial exhibit tells the story of global immigration in the nineteenth century, with an emphasis on the U.S. and Baltimore between 1830 and 1914. The stories of Baltimore’s major immigrant groups are told, as well as the story of anti-immigrant movements of the past.

Future projects at the Baltimore Immigration Museum will focus on migration and immigration since 1914, including the history of the migration of African Americans to Baltimore from 1914 to 1970, as well as the “new” immigrants, both Latino and Asian, who have arrived in Baltimore since the liberalization of U.S. immigration laws in 1965.

1308 Beason Street, Baltimore, MD 21230

During World War II, the SS John W. Brown belonged to a fleet of 2,700 Liberty Ships transporting war materiel and allied troops across dangerous waters. Today, the ship is one of just two Liberty Ships still sailing and serves as a unique memorial museum ship based out of Baltimore.

During World War II, the SS John W. Brown belonged to a fleet of 2,700 Liberty Ships transporting war materiel and allied troops across dangerous waters. Today, the ship is one of just two Liberty Ships still sailing and serves as a unique memorial museum ship based out of Baltimore.

Liberty Ships were born in 1941 out of a an urgent need for cargo ships that could be built quickly during the war. Originally designed by the British, the U.S Maritime Commission modified the design to meet U.S shipbuilding standards, accommodate the shortage of ship-building supplies, and build as quickly and cheaply as possible. What was the result? A fleet of ships commonly known as “emergency ships” or “ugly ducklings” because of their basic appearance. Their name changed, however, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt told the nation that the fleet of ships would bring liberty to Europe. From then on, everyone called them Liberty Ships.

On September 7, 1942, Labor Day, the SS John W. Brown launched at the Bethlehem-Fairfield Shipyard. The Brown was one of six Liberty ships launched that day—each named after a different labor leader. The Brown is named after John W. Brown, a labor leader and union organizer from Maine who had died in an accident in 1941. Despite over 200 ships being lost to enemy combat, fire, collision, or other disasters, the ability of American shipyards could build Liberty Ships cheaply and at a large scale made it possible for supplies to continue reaching the allied forces fighting in Europe and the Pacific. Between the beginning and end of the Emergency Shipbuilding Plan, an average of 52 Liberty Ships were constructed per month at ports all over the United States.

SS John W. Brown made thirteen voyages over the course of four years in support of the Allied war effort. She pulled into ports in Iran, Central America, Tunisia, the Caribbean, and Brazil. In 1944, she directly participated in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of Southern France. Her cargo included U.S. troops going to and from Europe, prisoners of war, and a variety of raw materials, such as bauxite (an aluminum ore).

In 1946, the government loaned the Brown to the City of New York, where she became a floating maritime high school, the only one in the United States. For 36 years, thousands of students received training that prepared them to begin careers in the Merchant Marine. Students learned about maintenance and cargo handling in the Deck Department; how to operate the steam plant and auxiliary machinery in the engine department; and how to cook for their classmates and keep the galley stocked and clean in the Stewards Department. Students and instructors lovingly cared for the ship up until the school closed in 1982.

The careful maintenance eased the way for a group of volunteers, who formed Project Liberty Ship in 1988, to restore the SS John W. Brown to sailing condition. The SS John W. Brown returned to her home in Baltimore and was rededicated as a memorial museum ship. She honors the memory of the shipyard workers, merchant seamen, and Naval Armed Guard who built, sailed, and defended the Liberty fleet. Though usually docked in Canton, she shifts to the Inner Harbor and Canton occasionally. She also makes several Living History Cruises per year.

2020 S. Clinton Street, Baltimore, MD 21224

With thick buttresses, parapets, a crenelated roof-line, and a steel roof, the enormous 5th Regiment Armory has served as an imposing landmark between Bolton Hill and Mount Vernon since 1901. The building was designed by architects Wyatt and Nolting (who also designed the Pikesville Armory and Liriodendron Mansion in Bel Air among other notable buildings). In 1912, conventioneers to the Democratic National Convention packed the huge drill hall to nominate soon-to-be president Woodrow Wilson. Unfortunately, in 1933, a severe fire destroyed the roof and gutted the interior but the state soon rebuilt the structure and has continued to use the building up through the present. In addition to its role in training the Maryland National Guard, the armory has housed a military museum since 1982. The Maryland Museum of Military History contains artifacts and stories from not just the state’s National Guard, but from all Marylanders who served in the military. Over the last several years, the museum has opened new exhibits focusing on military history of today and yesterday. One of the new exhibits features the armed services from the 1991 Persian Gulf War to the present while another dives into the role of Marylanders in the War of 1812.

Watch our on this building!

219 W. 29th Division Street, Baltimore, MD 21211

Former Thomas-Jencks-Gladding House now part of the Walters Art Museum

Built around 1848 for Dr. John Hanson Thomas, the great-grandson of John Hanson, President of the Continental Congress, The Hackerman House represented the height of elegance and convenience in the mid-nineteenth century. Renowned guests include the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) and General Kossuth. In 1892, Mr. and Mrs. Francis M. Jencks purchased the home and remodeled it extensively under the direction of Charles A. Platt. The graceful circular staircase was widened and the oval Tiffany skylight installed in the coffered dome. The bow window in the dining room was added and the entire house was decorated in the Italian Renaissance style. Following the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Jencks, the house was used as headquarters for various civic organizations and fell into a state of neglect and disrepair. Mr. Harry Leo Gladding purchased the building in 1963 and painstakingly restored it to its former elegance. Willard Hackerman purchased the building at 1 West Mount Vernon Place in the late 1980’s from the estate of its last owner, Harry Gladding. Mr. Hackerman was concerned with the possibility that the architectural anchor of Mount Vernon Place might be converted to commercial use. Story has it that he took the keys and placed them on the desk of then-Mayor William Donald Schaefer. In true Schaefer fashion, the Mayor held a contest to determine the best use of the historic structure. The Walters won the competition with a proposal to convert the house into galleries for its growing and important collection of Asian Art. Hackerman House opened in the spring of 1991. Mr. and Mrs. Hackerman have generously supported the Walters for many years and his firm, Whiting-Turner, has been the contractor for many of our additions and renovations. Over the years, he was a friend and mentor to our directors and Board members.

Watch our on Gladding!

Watch on the Hackerman House! 

, Walters Art Museum

1 W. Mount Vernon Place, Baltimore, MD 21202