Place:Joppatowne, Harford, Maryland, United States

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NameJoppatowne
TypeCensus-designated place
Coordinates39.415°N 76.356°W
Located inHarford, Maryland, United States
source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names


the text in this section is copied from an article in Wikipedia

Joppatowne is a census-designated place in southwestern Harford County, Maryland, United States. Serving as a bedroom community for nearby Baltimore, it was established in 1961 as a planned unit development (PUD). The population was 12,616 at the 2010 census, up from 11,391 in 2000.

Joppatowne is covered by the "Joppa" ZIP Code of 21085, and "Joppa" is a designated planning region for Harford County. The Joppa ZIP code (21085) extends north of Joppatowne, as far as Benson, just south of Bel Air.

The namesake of both Joppatowne and Joppa is the original town of "Joppa" (Jaffa, Israel). It was a major seaport in American colonial times and the county seat of the original Baltimore County until 1768. Its site is located within the boundaries of present-day Joppatowne.

History

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In colonial America there were three towns in the area of present-day Joppatowne, each established and abandoned in succession: Gunpowder Town, Foster's Neck, and Joppa. The first two were short-lived, but Joppa proved quite successful for some 50 years.

Gunpowder Town, or simply "Gunpowder", was a failed English settlement that pre-dated colonial Joppa, and was located close to it. This first attempt to establish an English settlement on the Gunpowder River was apparently abandoned because it proved to be a poor location. Though documents and records exist for the settlement, including official papers in the archives of the United Kingdom, nobody knows exactly where it was located. It was somewhere northwest of present-day Joppatowne, situated between the confluence of the Big Gunpowder and Little Gunpowder, at a place known as "Sim's Point". Its location cannot be accurately pinpointed because at that time the mouths of the Big and Little Gunpowder were about a mile further inland (above present-day U.S. Route 40). No trace of the town is known to have ever been found.

In 1706 the Provincial Assembly of Maryland chartered another town nearby, known as "Foster's Neck". It was located on the eastern bank of the Gunpowder River, at the stream later known as Foster Branch (or "Foster's Branch"), at the southernmost boundary of present-day Joppatowne. Again, though mill ruins are visible in this area near the stream, the town's precise location is unknown. Foster's Neck was intended to succeed the town of Old Baltimore (no relation to Baltimore City) on the Bush River as the county seat of Baltimore County. However, Foster's Neck was abandoned a year later, in 1707, reportedly due to an outbreak of smallpox. St. John's Parish of the established Anglican Church temporarily moved inland, to where the Officer's Club at the Edgewood area of Aberdeen Proving Ground is currently located. It relocated to Joppa in 1712. After the decline of Joppa following the designation of the city of Baltimore as the county seat in 1768, St. John's Parish was moved to nearby Kingsville in the late 18th century, where it has stayed. A new St. John's Parish Church was built by Edward Day in Kingsville in 1817 to replace the St. John's Parish Church at "Joppa Town" which has declined into ruins.



The original Joppa was a major seaport and commercial hub in the 18th century. The town proper was located on what is now called Rumsey Island, where the Big Gunpowder Falls and Little Gunpowder Falls meet to form the Gunpowder River. The only original building remaining is the Rumsey Mansion, once home of colonial patriot Benjamin Rumsey. Building foundations and gravesites are visible on the adjacent Church of the Resurrection property. Ruins of the original wharf and docks, as well as the town jail, were still visible until Hurricane Agnes swept through in 1972. The Old Joppa Site was added to the National Register of Historic Places as an archeological site in 1979.[1]

Joppa was the county seat of Baltimore County from 1712 to 1768. Present-day Harford County was part of Baltimore County until 1773.

Joppa's "mile wide harbor" on the Gunpowder River could accommodate the largest ocean-going ships of the day. Joppa was Maryland's most important commercial center in colonial times, with tobacco being the primary commodity crop and export. Long before Baltimore was established, this was one of the busiest ports in the western hemisphere.


Joppa was a vital hub for land transportation, and it was said that "all roads lead to Joppa". It was the original terminus for Joppa Road, which ran northwest to what is now Towson and north to York, Pennsylvania (prior to the York Road being built in 1810). Joppa Road connected to Rolling Road to points west. The original post road to Philadelphia also went through Joppa, and a ferry across the Gunpowder River connected to points south via what is now the community of Chase and Eastern Avenue. Many famous colonial figures invariably passed through and boarded at Joppa.

Economic growth was also stimulated via the establishment of various commercial enterprises just north of Joppa, which used water power generated by Little Gunpowder Falls. The most notable of these is the still standing Jerusalem Mill Village complex in Kingsville. It fabricated weapons for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.

As the state's primary port-of-entry and county seat of its most populous county, Joppa was the focal point of virtually all aspects of colonial life in central Maryland. Joppa was the hub for all communications and media of the day, and central Maryland's ground-zero for politics and elections. Many major horse races were held there. Many convicted criminals were publicly hanged there on the courthouse grounds in formal, sanctioned executions.

By the end of the 18th century, agricultural and other land development upstream caused the Gunpowder River and Joppa's harbor to silt up, making access by large ships impossible. Ellicott City's port suffered a similar fate. Baltimore became Maryland's major shipping port, and in 1768 the county seat was moved to Baltimore. Joppa went into decline, and by 1814 was mostly abandoned.

Benjamin Rumsey (1734–1808), the namesake of Rumsey Island and the Rumsey Mansion (the only colonial building that survived the decline of Joppa), was a delegate for Maryland to the Second Continental Congress, and the first Chief Judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, serving for more than 25 years (1778–1806). In 1768 Rumsey married the widow of Colonel James Maxwell. He had been the primary planter and landowner in Joppa, and commissioned the "Rumsey Mansion" to be built between 1720 and 1724.

Rumsey relocated from Cecil County to Joppa sometime around 1771, after having the Rumsey Mansion substantially renovated. Rumsey eventually acquired all the land where Joppa once stood, and all of the surrounding areas. This large estate came to be known as "Joppa Farm", a slave plantation. Upon Rumsey's death in 1808, Joppa Farm passed to his son John Beal Rumsey and/or his grandson Charles Henry Rumsey. Upon C.H. Rumsey's death, his children sold Joppa Farm to the Murray family. James Murray was the owner of Joppa Farm until it was purchased by Beulah Hare Chell in 1936. In 1961 the Panitz Brothers Company acquired the land from Beulah Hare Chell to develop a planned community Joppatowne. Maryland Historical Society records show the property was owned by the "Maryland-Virginia Joint Stock Land Bank" in 1936, during the heart of the Great Depression.

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