Daniels on the Patapsco

We drove out to Daniels today - another area in the extensive Patapsco Valley State Park system - to walk along the river. Besides hiking, you can cycle, fish, paddle, picnic and swim there; we also saw evidence of horse back riding too.

Here are links to PVSP and the Daniels area:

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/central/patapsco.asp 

http://www.dnr.state.md.us/publiclands/central/patapscodaniels.asp

Daniels was an old mill town before Agnes came along though it was suffering a slow death before the storm in 1972. The dam still stands with a fish ladder that must be working as the river and its bank were full of folks fishing below as well as above it. 

There’s an active church remaining on a hill made of granite from a quarry below and the mill portion is now the province of a welding proprietor who seems to pride himself on being anti-historical and anti-social. 

I met a woman from the church who told me how he not only would not allow visitors attending a reunion to park on his property or see the old mills where they worked; but he put up 20 signs along a chain-linked fence threatening anyone who even took a picture. Why don’t we call him and ask him to lighten up! His number is on a photo. 

The history of Daniels as a mill town with churches, homes and a school will be told on Tuesday April 9th from 7pm to 9pm at the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park & Museum during the annual meeting of Patapsco Heritage Greenway when Nancy Pickard presents “Gone But Not Forgotten: History & Community in the Mill Town of Daniels, MD,” with photos of the textile mill and village nestled in a bend of the river four miles north of Ellicott City. 

For more details, visit http://www.patapscoheritagegreenway.org/