Freeland

Freeland, Maryland, one of the small rural villages in northern Baltimore County that flourished along the Northern Central Railroad in the late 1800's and early 1900's, lies 1-1/2 miles south of the Mason/Dixon Line and 34 miles north of Baltimore. Isaac Morris owned land in northwestern seventh district before 1790, and in that year sold part of it to John Freeland, for whom the town was named. In its heyday, Freeland had a hotel, general store, post office, and train station, and like other villages along the railroad it was primarily a farming community that relied on the line for supplies and for shipping farm products to major cities. Today, the station building stands on a farm along Freeland Road one mile east of the Northern Central Hike/Bike Trail parking lot and is used for storage, while the general store and hotel survive as private residences. Just south of the parking lot are two Victorian houses ordered through the Sears, Roebock Company catalog in the early 1900's and shipped to the site, presumably by rail, for final assembly. About a mile north of Freeland is the tiny community of Oakland, the last railroad siding before the line crossed into Pennsylvania. The Hoffman Paper Mills and the Rockdale Powder Company kept warehouses there and used the sidings at Oakland and Freeland to ship their goods. A frequently repeated story says the Oakland public school closed on days when black powder was loaded onto rail cars because of its closeness to the sidings, making "black powder days" especially popular with the children. Oakland is now a small residential area, and its original schoolhouse serves the local Methodist church as a fellowship hall.

Maryland · United States