Perry Hall: Roads and Turnpikes
by David Marks
Historian, Perry Hall Improvement Association
It's hard to imagine Belair Road in its youth, when horse-pulled carriages and wagons
bumped along the narrow country road to the northern wilderness. Beneath the steady
drumming of wagon wheels, travelers could hear the whistling of grass blowing, the plowing
of country fields, and the distant gurgling of the Gunpowder River. Transportation wasn't
just movement between two points; it was an adventure, a test of slow endurance, and with
the quiet beauty of the country trek came the real possibility of getting stranded in the
wilderness.
The oldest of these trails is Joppa Road, an Indian path which stretched from
present-day Perry Hall to Towson. It was being used as late as 1697, when Charles Hewitt
testified to the county court that he saw bands of Indians near his Forge Road home. The
Indians traveled west on what is now Forge, Joppa, and Old Court Roads, on their way to
hunting grounds north of the village of Baltimore. They had been forced by Europeans from
their hunting grounds on the Chesapeake Bay and along the Gunpowder River.
Today, this path would begin at Perry Hall's Old Forge Road, then cross to Joppa Road,
and finish at Old Court Road in the Towson area. No route connects the entire trail today,
rather, its pieces make up these three major roads. Throughout history, the trail has been
alternately known as Court Road and Garrison Road, since the Baltimore County Rangers used
it as a "garrison road" for patrolling the area. Because the path eventually
linked Towson and Perry Hall with Joppa, our county seat until 1768, we now know this
trail as Joppa Road.
Belair Road began as the private drive of Harry Dorsey Gough, proprietor of Perry Hall
Mansion, into the town of Baltimore. The road was transformed in the Nineteenth Century,
however, into a major thoroughfare for traffic traveling between Baltimore and the
Jerusalem Mill in Kingsville. In 1810, convicts were used to develop Belair Road, as well
as Liberty and Philadelphia Roads, and they were housed in a jail off present-day Bucks
Schoolhouse Road. When improvements were finished to the road, it became known as the
Baltimore and Jerusalem Turnpike.
Like modern-day highways, turnpikes had tollgates situated at strategic points to
collect fares from travelers. A long pole swung horizontally from a post across the
roadway. Tollgates were privately-run, with gatekeepers given free use of the gatehouse, a
small plot of land, and a good salary for the day, sometimes as high as $300 annually.
Perry Hall's only tollgate was at Joppa and Belair Roads, where the animal hospital now
stands. The toll in 1903 was five cents for horses, ten cents for a horse and buggy, and
twenty cents for a wagon and horses. Stagecoaches frequently stopped at Bishops Inn, a
stone house which was demolished for the Kentucky Fried Chicken ten years ago. Barns and
an icehouse were right across from the inn, and it was here that weary travelers rested
for the night.
High toll rates sparked an anti-turnpike rebellion in the 1860's. Flooding in 1868
forced turnpike companies to raise their rates, sometimes as high as 60%. William Lambdin
of Perry Hall claimed that a ten-mile trip to Baltimore cost a farmer $26 every year, a
"heavy tax" which hurt his competition with western business. Protests often
became violent, and the military was almost called out to enforce toll collection on
Harford Turnpike.
By the turn of the century, private turnpikes were being replaced by streetcars and
more extensive county roads. Baltimore County sold its share of the Belair Turnpike for
$2,000, less than twenty years before, it had been valued at $12,000. By 1915, the
newly-created State Roads Commission had acquired the turnpikes and abolished toll gates.
This was primarily because of Governor Austin L. Crothers, who had made "good
roads" a central part of his campaign in 1908. Crothers pressured the General
Assembly to create a State Roads Commission and appropriate $5 million for new highway
construction. The county allocated its portion of the state money for the proposed
Washington-to-New York road system, now known as US Route 1. While Perry Hall residents
lobbied for Belair Road to share this designation, people in Carney and Parkville wanted
Harford Road to become part of Route 1.
The fight was intense. A 1909 article in the Union News declared that "the
Belair and Harford Road people [have] put on War Paint!" Over 200 Fullerton and Perry
Hall residents gathered at St. Joseph's Church to support the Belair Road designation,
while Harford Road residents held an opposition rally at Hamilton Hall. Ultimately, of
course, Belair Road became part of Route 1, even though Harford Road had a greater
population than Belair Road (4,690 people to only 2,240).
Bus service begin in Perry Hall in 1915, when the McMahon Brothers started a bus route
from Overlea to Bel Air. Smaller buses, often called "jitney buses," were
operated for a number of years.
Today, the Mass Transit Administration operates lines to Perry Hall and White Marsh.
Interstate 95, the John F. Kennedy Highway, was completed in the 1960's, while a smaller
spur to the Baltimore Beltway, Route 43, was finished in 1993. Belair Road remains Perry
Hall's "main street," with the State Highway Administration completing major
widening from 1995 to 1998.
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