Names of Perry Hall Places
by David Marks
Historian, Perry Hall Improvement Association
Perry Hall was first identified by Harry Dorsey Gough, who named his l,000-acre estate
after his family's castle in the Staffordshire region of Great Britain. While "Perry
Hall" originally referred to the Gough estate and mansion, it identified the entire
community by the end of the Nineteenth Century. Before that? our village was often
referred to as "Germantown," where Irish and German immigrants settled on the
remains of the Gough estate shortly before the Civil War.
As presently defined, Perry Hall includes that region of northeastern Baltimore County
bordered by the Great Gunpowder Falls on the north, Philadelphia Road on the east, White
Marsh Run on the south? and the Baltimore Gas and Electric transmission lines on the west.
These boundaries have been set by the Perry Hall Improvement Association. Only the far
eastern region of Perry Hall is undeveloped, although this will soon become the Honeygo
community, with five thousand families moving into a Columbia-style "planned
neighborhood."
Immediately west of Perry Hall is Carney, named for Thomas and Mary McDermot Carney,
who operated a general store in the late Nineteenth Century. This building, known as the
Eight Mile House, still stands at the intersection of Joppa and Harford Roads. To the
north of Perry Hall, just across the Gunpowder River, are the rural, rolling hills of Glen
Arm and Baldwin. East of Perry Hall is Kingsville, named for Abraham King, who settled 290
acres of land near Harford County in the early Nineteenth Century. To our south is White
Marsh, which takes its name from the White Marsh Plantation established by Captain Charles
Ridgely in 1659. Ridgely is said to have named his settlement after the mists which
enshrouded the region in the morning. On older maps, the community appears as one name:
"Whitemarsh."
Many other places and landmarks are named after nature. Perry Hall's Honeygo area, for
example, is named after the stream which extends from the farms at Cross Road to bustling
White Marsh Mall. The stream appears in old records as "Horney Gold,"
"Honeygold," and "Hang Gold," leaving its current name a mystery.
Silver Spring Road also owes its name to the marshy environment which once characterized
the community
Our other major roads are named after the cities which they helped connect to
Baltimore: Philadelphia, Joppa, and Belair Roads. Before it became Belair Road, Perry
Hall's stretch of US Route 1 was the Baltimore and Jerusalem Turnpike, and before that, it
was simply Perry Hall Road, the private drive of Harry Dorsey Gough. Other thoroughfares
were named after industries (Forge Road) or major community centers (Chapel Road).
Perry Hall's founding families lent their names to places in our community. Hines and
Klausmier Roads, as well as Baker and Ferguson Lanes, were named after families which
immigrated to Perry Hall largely during the early Nineteenth Century. Soth Avenue was
named after the Soth Farm, which was across from present-day Perry Hall Elementary School
on Joppa Road. Halbert Avenue is named after "the Halbert Half Way House," which
was demolished when the Perry Hall library was built in 1963. Darnall Road owes its name
to the original 1683 land grants, "Darnall's Sylvania" and "Darnall's Camp
1000 Acres." When this area of central Perry Hall was developed, great care was made
to distinctively identify the original history of the neighborhood.
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