The Historical Society of Baltimore County (HSBC) was founded in 1959 with the goal of preserving, interpreting, and illustrating the history of

Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland. The county is part of the Central Maryland region of the state. Baltimore County partly surrounds but does not include the independent city ...

for the benefit of present and future generations of Marylanders, and is a resource for those interested in researching both local and family history. As the HSBC describes it, they "continually accomplish" their mission "through the production of presentations, lectures, workshops, entertaining educational publications, historical tours, and exhibits.""About"
Historical Society of Baltimore County, accessed May 23, 2018. Centrally located in

Cockeysville, Maryland Cockeysville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The population was 20,776 at the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census. History Cockeysville was named after the Cockey family who helped establish the ...

, the Society operates out of the Agriculture Building, the former Baltimore County Almshouse, which was built in 1872 and used to house the poor and mentally ill of Baltimore County until 1958. A nonprofit organization, the Society maintains a library and research facility. Since 1966, the Society has published ''History Trails'', a county history journal which the Society defines as "semi-academic" and a "popular history publication." From 2014 to 2018, HSBC received an annual $12,000 operating grant from the

Baltimore County Executive The Baltimore County executive is the highest elected official representing the government of Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. The office was established with the implementation of the county charter for Baltimore County on November 6, ...

and Baltimore County Council, which are awarded to "organizations whose programs demonstrate significant impact on the quality of life of Baltimore County residents." In 2018, an

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

Heritage Preservation Program Grant workshop, for the

Maryland Historical Trust The Maryland Historical Trust is an agency of Maryland Department of Planning and serves as the Maryland State Historic Preservation Office. The agency serves to assist in research, conservation, and education, of Maryland's historical and cultur ...

, was held at the HSBC. It also partners with other museum organizations for programming.

The Almshouse Farm Site

Located on Baltimore’s County Home Property, the Historical Society’s campus comprises several buildings of various ages and states of repair. Chief of these is the

Almshouse An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) is charitable housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the Middle Ages. They were often built for the poor of a locality, for those who had held ce ...

which houses the offices and library. Other buildings are the Pest house,

Smokehouse A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is curing (food preservation), cured with Smoking (cooking), smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more.Barn A barn is an agricultural building usually on farms and used for various purposes. In North America, a barn refers to structures that house livestock, including cattle and horses, as well as equipment and fodder, and often grain.Allen G ...

The Almshouse

Constructed of local limestone in 1872, the Almshouse was damaged by a fire in 1919 after which it was rebuilt. The building has been used in several different capacities since 1958 when modern methods of caring for the indigent dictated its closing as a poorhouse. The Historical Society and various county agencies have been located in the Almshouse since 1959. During the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

, the Almshouse was used as a

fallout shelter A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designated to protect occupants from radioactive debris or fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion. Many such shelters were constructed as civil defense measures during the Cold War. Durin ...

; emergency supplies from that era still reside in the basement. The Almshouse was designated a Baltimore County Landmark in 1980.

The Pest House

The Pest House (referring to pestilence) was used to isolate residents who were ill. The two-story building with a slate roof was built shortly after the Almshouse. The exterior is in reasonable condition, but the interior suffers from decades of non-use and vandalism. In 2012, Preservation Maryland placed the Pest House on its list of threatened historic properties. The same year, the

Baltimore Sun ''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local, regional, national, and international news. Founded in 1837, the newspaper was owned by Tribune Publish ...

reported that the 1872 Cockeysville building, "built to house poor people who had communicable diseases" was a "boarded-up structure" but Preservation Maryland was the subject an effort to "preserve it as a center for county African-American history."

The Barn

The Barn is a modern structure, built on the foundation of a 19th-century barn destroyed by fire in the 1970s. It now house a farm museum, named in honor of Baltimore County Veterinarian Dickinson Gorsuch (1878-1970) whose bequest enabled the establishment of the museum in 1993 .

Collections

Artifacts

Objects from the museum collection of over 10,000 items, some of which are not on general display but can sometimes be seen in special exhibitions. There are also hundreds of archival collections.

Maps

The Society has a collection of over 500 maps and atlases."Map Collection"
Historical Society of Baltimore County, accessed May 23, 2018.

Library

The Society's library contains 4,000 volumes. HSBC Resources 2017

Photographs

More than 8,000 historic photographs reside in the Society's files.

Genealogy

The Society maintains 9,000 surname files, most of which can be found on-site, which often contain only one spelling of the surname. Also, for genealogists, maps which show the names of landowners and where they homes are located are available. Additionally, on the first Thursday of each month, the HSBC has free Genealogy classes and there are some inscriptions of gravestones.

Online database

Part of the 33,000 records are available in a searchable database which has a "Keyword Search", "Advanced Search" and "Random Images button" along with other catalog searches.

Other resources

The society's over 1900 vertical files on varied topics, library holdings, and photograph collection, are indexed online. Those who visit the society have to pay an entrance fee of $5.00 per visit for those who are non-members, with photocopies being 25 cents a page and a $5.00 fee for capturing images using a digital device or phone.

Activities

The HSBC has been a recipient of an award, in 2014, from the Costume Society of America and hosting, in 2009, the friends of Friends of Texas, Maryland. They also held joint events with the Baltimore City Historical Society on olice history and Baltimore's water history. Apart from this, its volunteers have researched a "progressive little town called Warren" submerged under the "waters of Loch Raven Reservoir" and doing genealogical talks.Edward C. Papenfuse,
Water, Water, Everywhere, but is it safe to drink?
, Reflections by a Maryland Archivist, Feb 5, 2014.

External links

Baltimore County Almhouse – Explore Baltimore Heritage

References

{{authority control Historical societies in Maryland Museums in Baltimore County, Maryland Genealogical libraries in the United States Cockeysville, Maryland