Welcome to the Maryland Historical Trust's Summer 2018 Newsletter! Each quarter, we deliver the news you need to keep up to date on our preservation programs. 

2019 Maryland Sustainable Growth Awards Nominations are now being accepted for the 2019 Maryland Sustainable Growth Awards. Categories include: Leadership and Service; Sustainable Communities; and Preservation/Conservation. Nominate deserving people and projects to receive recognition at the 7th annual Sustainable Growth Awards Ceremony in 2019. Apply at https://bit.ly/2yvCDZU.

Take Our Survey! Thanks to everyone who came out to the regional public meetings for the statewide preservation plan! We've received great feedback so far. There's still time to register your thoughts by taking our online survey, available here: http://mht.maryland.gov/plan.shtml

Introducing the Architectural Survey Data Analysis Project

By Barbara Fisher, Architectural Survey Data Analyst

MHT has begun a multi-year Architectural Survey Data Analysis Project that will assess, county by county, the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties (MIHP) and other MHT Library assets. This comprehensive review will highlight documentation needs and inform and guide future MHT survey efforts across the state. We anticipate that the project will identify underrepresented historic themes, architectural styles, building and property types, as well as under-surveyed areas of the state, sites that may have become historic due to age and highly significant resources that need to be resurveyed or researched further.  

To begin, MHT will analyze documentation found in our Library, such as publications, compliance reports, historic structure reports, the MIHP survey forms, National Register of Historic Places nominations, the slides and negatives collections, architectural drawings, oral history projects, and vertical files. Data collected during the project (e.g. architectural style, building type, historic function, materials, date of construction) will eventually become searchable data in Medusa, our online cultural resources database. For example, a user will be able to generate a list of all the frame Greek Revival style churches in the MIHP, built during the 1850s, and organized by county.

Our project begins on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore with Worcester County, characterized by its agricultural and maritime landscape. To give you a sense of Worcester County’s architectural history, we have selected a few buildings from the MIHP to share with you. The examples below illustrate a typical farmstead, maritime tourism, and the business those economies produced.

Formerly located in the village of Stockton, Stockton Bank, a one-story, brick building, accented with rusticated stone trim, round-arched windows, metal cornice, and slate roof with metal cresting, was constructed in 1902. Although Stockton Bank was demolished in 1983, similar banks are found in other parts of the County, such as in Girdletree and Newark. These small-town, bank-designed buildings emerged in Worcester County around the early 20th-century due to the success of the local agricultural and seafaring economies at that time. Please note: MHT retains documentation on demolished historic buildings as part of the MIHP, and known demolitions are flagged in Medusa.

Located at Public Landing, the Mansion House, listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is a vernacular 19th-century “telescope” frame house constructed in two stages. Public Landing developed into a bayside resort in the late 19th-century and included a pier, boardwalk, and concessions. Originally constructed as a home for Judge Ara Spence, the Mansion House later served as a hotel to the resort where visitors could stay before traveling to the nearby barrier islands. However, during the 1933 Nor’easter, most of the resort was swept into Chincoteague Bay, except for the Mansion House and some of the surrounding cottages.

Located just north of Berlin, east of Route 113, the 42-acre Pennington Farm property consists of a typical bungalow dwelling constructed in 1935 and nine associated outbuildings. The outbuildings include a chicken house, gambrel roof barn, various sheds, a corn crib, two garages, and a horse corral. As evidenced by the various outbuildings, Pennington Farm participated in raising livestock, specifically chickens, and mixed crop-cultivation, common agricultural trends associated with Worcester County's past.

During the course of the Architectural Survey Data Analysis Project, MHT will share interesting properties and research findings from our MIHP records on Facebook, so stay tuned for more as we move forward!

OUR HISTORY, OUR HERITAGE: BLOG ROUND-UP