Soldiers Delight Natural Environmental Area is a nature reserve near

Owings Mills Owings Mills is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is a suburb of Baltimore. Per the 2020 census, the population was 35,674. Owings Mills is home to the northern terminus o ...

in western

Baltimore County, Maryland 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 cit ...

, U.S. The site is designated both as a Maryland Wildland (1,526 acres) and as a Natural Environment Area (1,900 acres) and is part of the Maryland Wildlands Preservation System. The site's protected status is due to the presence of

serpentine soil Serpentine soil is an uncommon soil type produced by weathered ultramafic rock such as peridotite and its metamorphic derivatives such as serpentinite. More precisely, serpentine soil contains minerals of the serpentine subgroup, especially an ...

and over 39 rare, threatened, or endangered plant species along with rare insects, rocks and minerals.

Amenities

of hiking trails have been blazed at Soldier's Delight. While pets are permitted, equestrians and bicyclists are not, to protect the fragile terrain. A visitor center is open every day from 11am to 3pm. Attractions there include environmental education programs, live animals, and a letterboxing activity. Bowhunting is allowed from mid-November to the end of January with appropriate permits and a reservation.

History

The early colonial records of

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...

describe the area as a hunting ground for Native Americans. In 1693, rangers in the King's service from a nearby

garrison A garrison is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a military base or fortified military headquarters. A garrison is usually in a city ...

patrolled the area calling the land Soldiers Delight. In the 18th century, King George II made gifts of

land grants A land grant is a gift of real estate—land or its use privileges—made by a government or other authority as an incentive, means of enabling works, or as a reward for services to an individual, especially in return for military service. Grants ...

upon Maryland's earliest settlers in what was then Soldiers Delight Hundred. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, Soldiers Delight was the scene of minor short-term fights between the Maryland Volunteers of the Confederate Army and the regular troops of the Union Army. After the Civil War and the emancipation of people who were enslaved, the great estates of the early families were reduced to many small farms and individual properties.

Geology

The area is mostly underlaid by

serpentinite Serpentinite is a metamorphic rock composed predominantly of serpentine group minerals formed by serpentinization of mafic or ultramafic rocks. The ancient origin of the name is uncertain; it may be from the similarity of its texture or color ...

, a rock that contains very little

quartz Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica (silicon dioxide). The Atom, atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen Tetrahedral molecular geometry, tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tet ...

and

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

-bearing minerals and consists mainly of serpentine. Weathered serpentinite is dissolved rock, transformed into thin,

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is usually defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a textural ...

- and

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

-poor soil which is easily eroded. This creates a land surface which is stony, unfertile and sparsely vegetated and is the reason that the term "serpentine barren" is used to describe these areas. A typical serpentine barren contains a variety of grasses and sedges,

bear oak ''Quercus ilicifolia'', commonly known as bear oak or scrub oak, is a small shrubby oak native to the Eastern United States and, less commonly, in southeastern Canada. Its range in the United States extends from Maine to North Carolina, with repo ...

Virginia pine ''Pinus virginiana'', the Virginia pine, scrub pine, Jersey pine, possum pine, is a medium-sized tree, often found on poorer soils from Long Island in southern New York (state), New York south through the Appalachian Mountains to western Tennesse ...

(an invasive species),

Eastern redcedar ''Juniperus virginiana'', also known as eastern redcedar, red cedar, Virginian juniper, eastern juniper, red juniper, and other local names, is a species of juniper native to eastern North America from southeastern Canada to the Gulf of Mexico an ...

grasses Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in ...

and some unique and rare wildflowers. Serpentine is valued as a decorative

building stone Building material is material used for construction. Many naturally occurring substances, such as clay, rock (geology), rocks, sand, wood, and even twigs and leaves, have been used to construct buildings and other structures, like bridges. A ...

road A road is a thoroughfare used primarily for movement of traffic. Roads differ from streets, whose primary use is local access. They also differ from stroads, which combine the features of streets and roads. Most modern roads are paved. Th ...

material, and for this area in

, a historic source of

chromium Chromium is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in Group 6 element, group 6. It is a steely-grey, Luster (mineralogy), lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium ...

ore.

Isaac Tyson Isaac Tyson Jr. (1792–1861) was a Quaker businessman from Baltimore, Maryland, who held a virtual monopoly on world supplies of chromium minerals during the mid-19th century and a very successful entrepreneur and industrialist. The son of Baltimo ...

, a 19th-century businessman from Baltimore, was one of the first to make the connection between the occurrence of chromite and serpentine barrens. He began mining chromite here in 1827. During the 19th century, Soldiers Delight and the Bare Hills district 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 ...

were the largest producers of chrome in the world. In Maryland,

chromite Chromite is a crystalline mineral composed primarily of iron(II) oxide and chromium(III) oxide compounds. It can be represented by the chemical formula of Iron, FeChromium, Cr2Oxygen, O4. It is an oxide mineral belonging to the spinel group. The ...

, a significant accessory mineral in the serpentine, was mined until 1860. Several old

mines Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to: Extraction or digging *Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging *Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine Grammar *Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun Mi ...

and

quarries A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to manage their safet ...

are still visible in these serpentine barrens.

Soils

The most common soil is Chrome silt loam, which occupies well-drained areas over serpentinite. In more moist settings Chrome grades to Travilah silt loam. Areas where serpentinite influence is weak or absent are limited in Soldiers Delight, but are easily recognized by their more luxuriant vegetation on the upland Manor loam or the floodplain Hatboro silt loam.

References

External links