Events

On Friday October 2nd, the Howard County Historical Society invited the Granite Historical Society to participate in their “Lunch Date with History” series. For 2026, the series has been emphasizing small cultural and historical organizations in Howard County and the Patapsco Valley. Granite Historical Society Treasurer, John Brantley, provided a short background on the history…

Granite Historical Society members hiked to the foot of Liberty Dam on May 31, 2026. A very flat, easily-walked trail follows the North Branch of the Patapsco north for 9/10s of a mile from Marriottsville Road to the bottom or base of the Liberty Reservoir Dam. Almost everyone in our hiking group had seen the…

Almost no one in Granite has ever heard of the Hamilton Quarry, including John Brantley, the hike leader, who has lived in Granite most of his life. Five or six years ago, he happened on a mention of the quarry on a mining map and then found one, single newspaper clipping from 1872 where a…

In 2014 Baltimore County bought property along Old Court Road (258 acres) that Bethel AME had once intended to develop.  That acreage is now called “Dogwood Surplus” and part of the County’s open space.  On May 18, 2025 our GHS hiking group spent time exploring the Marcella Chapel site and then hiked across the power…

On December 22, 2024, the Granite Historical Society hosted an Open House featuring the Granite Schoolhouse at 10612 Old Court Road. The Granite Schoolhouse opened in 1880 and served local students until in closed in 1942. The house was converted to a private residence by James & Helen Torrey (nee Gosnell) after they bought the…

The Granite Historical Society hosted an Open House on Sunday, May, 19th 2024 at the farmhouse and former laundry for Woodstock College. The home, located at 10820 Old Court Road in Granite, MD, is currently occupied under the Maryland Resident Curatorship Program. The history of the home, historic photographs, and the challenges of living as…

In 1890 the owners of the Guilford & Waltersville Granite Company purchased 243 acres lying between Davis Avenue and the river. It came to be known as The Company Farm” or “The Quarry Farm.” The narrow-gauge Waltersville Quarry Railroad right-of-way, formerly leased by the company from Richard Davis, from whose estate the Quarry Farm property…

Instead of the 2024 Spring Hike, the GHS sponsored a curated tour of the Diggs-Johnson Museum, known by most of us as the Cherry Hill Church, on Offutt Road. After failing into disrepair at the end of the last century, the church has been restored and now houses the Diggs-Johnson Museum. Ms. Betty Stewart, site…

The old Alberton Road, closed down after flooding from Tropical Storm Agnes wiped out the town of Daniels in 1972, remains mostly paved and serves as the state park trail. Along the route are plenty of foundations from houses that graced the Baltimore County side of the river before the flood. The stone remnants of…

The Patapsco River bottom, from just below the current Woodstock Bridge upriver to Possum Hollow, had once been part of the Woodstock Jesuit College grounds. John Brantley, who led the tour, began by pointing out where the original St. Alphonsus Church stood; the church was destroyed after a lightning strike in 1968. On the river…