BA-33

Fort Garrison, (Oulton's Garrison, Risteau's Garrison)

Architectural Survey File

This is the architectural survey file for this MIHP record. The survey file is organized reverse-

chronological (that is, with the latest material on top). It contains all MIHP inventory forms, National

Register nomination forms, determinations of eligibility (DOE) forms, and accompanying documentation

such as photographs and maps.

Users should be aware that additional undigitized material about this property may be found in on-site

architectural reports, copies of HABS/HAER or other documentation, drawings, and the “vertical files” at

the MHT Library in Crownsville. The vertical files may include newspaper clippings, field notes, draft

versions of forms and architectural reports, photographs, maps, and drawings. Researchers who need a

thorough understanding of this property should plan to visit the MHT Library as part of their research

project; look at the MHT web site (mht.maryland.gov) for details about how to make an appointment.

All material is property of the Maryland Historical Trust.

Last Updated: 06-23-2004

BA-33 Fort Garrison Garrison Farms Court, east of Stevenson Road Pikesville

1695

This site was headquarters for a troop of mounted rangers appointed by

Governor Nicholson to patrol the Indian trails from the Patapsco to the

Susquehanna in search of hostile parties. The outpost was also called Oulton's

Garrison for commander Captain John Oulton of Oldton. A fieldstone building,

18 x 48 feet, with thick walls and a great fireplace remains. Its openings have

been identified as gunports. The property was acquired by the Baltimore County

Department of Recreation and Parks when the area was suburbanized in 1965.

The roof was restored following a campaign led by E. Frances Offutt. It is listed

on the National Register of Historic Places.

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Form lG-300 (Juf, 1969)

UNIT EC SlATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR t;,t. TIONAL PARK SERVICE

OF HISTORIC PLACES .

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I Baltimore Countv I NATIONAL REGISTER

INVENTORY - N OMINATIOH FORM FOR NDS USE ONLY

ENTRt t-..;UMBE.R I 0.t.. TE

(Type all entries - con iplele applicable sections) I i ~AME

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j Fort Garrison is located on the north side of Garrison 1Farms Court east of Stevenson Road, north of the Baltimore

:Beltway (~ear exit 21) and south of Glenrnai and Keyser Road, 'I·1ary la::id.

Fort Garrison is a rectangular, fieldstone building built in the 1690's approximately forty-eight feet long and eighteen feet wide with one stone fireclace on the east end-wall whose chimney is enclosed within th~t wall. Originally a one-story building with a steep roof, early nineteenth-century alterations raised the height of the fort building adding a second story loft and a wood shingle roof. The second-story windows on the exterior flare inward for twenty inches, creating larger interior openings. The door sills are raised thirty-seven inches above the ground. The ceiling height of the one-room fort is seven feet ten inches.

In a copy of the "Report on Inspection of Fort Garrison," October 28, 1963, from Dr. Henry Chandlee Forman, FAIA, historian ~nd architect, he described the alteration of the fort:

"After a hole had been knocked through the loft ceiling, the old loft partition of rough boards and battens was found to go through the ceiling in­dicating that ceiling, of machine-made laths and plaster, was put in later. The rough boards ex­tended to the rQof.

"'Fort Garrison' gives evidence of some an­tiquity, but just how old it is is difficult to judge from what is left. The rafters are pegged toge~her, and the collar beams are pegged to the rafters. The oak frames of the old louvers or loopholes, the casement windows, and the outside doors are held together with pegs about one inch in diameter. The loft floor is of random width oak boards, some 14 inches wide, held down by nails; the nails could not be identified as rose-headed. In fact 'no rose-headed nails in the building were lo­cated; but that does not mean that the edifice did not have them.

"It is possible that the shell of the structure served as a fort and that about 1800 the building \..;as entirel1r remodeled as a £arm outhouse. "

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STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

The sole remaining original stone blockhouse in Maryland, Fort Garrison was constructed following a 1693 order from Governor Francis Nicholson and his Council. It originally served as a stronghold against Indian attacks during the last decade of the seventeenth century and again in 1755 it was used during the French and Indian Wa_r.

As early as 1681 the Council of Maryland proposed sending a grQup of rangers to each county to watch for Indian attacks. At first, rangers were recruited on an emergency basis only; however, during the subsequent decade, the Council ordered tI'-at a fort be constructed in Baltimore County near the falls of the Patapsco River and near the Susquehanna River giving permanence to their function and a place for the rangers to live as well as defense against Indian attack. The site chosen for the garrison near the Slaughterhouse Run branch of the Jones Falls was convenient to two Indian trails, one used by the Senecas and one by the Delawares. Fort Garrison was the fruition of this order.

In 1694 John Oldton (Oulton, Olton) received an appoint­ment as Captain of the rangers. It is possible that Oldton supervised the construction of Fort Garrison. Oldton ( -1709), who had moved to Baltimore County before 1688, is most often associated with the fort which is sometimes called Oldton's Garrison. He also was granted a patent (1696) 1

for the land within the boundaries on which the fort was built.

During Oldton's command, Daniell Welsh, Henry King, Thomas Robards, Tobias Stanberry, Josias Bridges and Mosses Edwards, his six rangers, scouted Baltimore County looking for Indians and marking trails, some of which trails revolved in~o twentieth-century roads (e.g. Joppa Road and Rolling Eoad.)

Rangers were expected to use the fort as a garrison during the winter. Alternating weeks half of the rangers would explore.the frontier from Monday to Saturday, leaving

SEE CONTINUATION SHEET

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Form 10- 3-JOo 1July 1969)

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Nh TIOt~AL PARK SERVICE

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES

INVENTORY· l~OMIHATiOH FORM-

STA.TE

K:=.rvlanc l COUNTY

'Baltimore Coun tv I FOi? NPS USE 01-il Y

(Continuation Sheet) E~..iTR:Y NU•-ABER I OA.TE I

(Number nil entrlea)

Fort Garrison

#6. REPRESENTATION IN EXISTING SURVEYS continued

1965 County

Baltimore County Historical Society

Depository for Survey Records: Baltimore County Historical Society Agriculture Building 9811 Van Buren Lane Cockeysville, Maryland 21030 Code:

#8. SIGNIFICANCE continued

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24

the remainder to defend the fort. The government, in Annapolis, provided their supplies and pay, and also dispatched Bibles and religious books to the rangers to'~ead while '' ... Rang[ing] out upon P~blik Service ... '' (Archives of Maryland, Volume XX, 204).

Until 1698, when Oldton was relieved of his commission, no Indians threatened the garrison: life there in the 1690's was uneventful. After he left it is doubtful if the fort was used at all. The vanguard of settlement had reached, if not exceeded, its location, thereby ending its usefulness as a frontier out-post. ,

The garrison and the land it stood on changed hands several times before the fort again saw duty. In 1755, after General Braddock's defeat in the French and Indian War, Captain John Risteau, a Maryland ranger who owned Fort Garrison, reactivated it to defend Baltimore County. However, neither French nor Indian~ attacked the garrison. Without a threat of invasion and with the expansion of settlement the usefulness of the building as a point of defense again dwindled.

The significance of Fort Garrison as an example of a .Mary­land frontier outpost was unrecognized until the mid-twentieth century. !n 1965 Baltimore County Bureau of Recreation & Parks acquired the fort in order to preserve this remnant of Maryland's early history.

(1 of 2 continuation sheets)

Form 10-JJOo (Juiy 1969)

LJlilTED STATES DEDt,fHMENT OF THE INTERIOR N/, TIO!iAL P,\RK SERVICE

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES

INVENTORY. iWf.mlATIOt~ FORM

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COUNTY ... Bal tiljlore Countv __

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(Continr1ntion Slicct) ~----------~ ------------------~----____ __J ___ _ I (Ntimt.H•r ell entrlf"111}

Fort Garrison

RSFERENC.SS continued

"The Baltimore County 'Garrison' and the Old Garrison Roads," Maryland Historical Magazine, XVI (June 1921·), 105-149.

Henry Chandlee Forman, Early Manor and Plantation Houses of Maryland, Easton, Maryland: the Author, 1934.

, Old Buildings, Gardens and Furniture in Tidewater -------=--

Marvland, Cambridge, Maryland: [Tidewater Publishers), 1967.

Raphael Serrunes, Captains and Mariners of ·Early Maryland, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1937.

Rev. Hobart Smith, The Garrison Church - Sketches of the Historv of St. Thomas' Parish, Garrison Forest, Baltimore County, Maryland, 1742-1852, Rev. Etban Allen (ed.), no place: JLlmes Pott, 1898. ·

Matt Smith, "Fort Garrison Only Relic of Indian Defense in Area," Baltimore American, February 8, 1959.

The Sun (Baltimore) ,~August 23, 1961.

Land Records: (1) Baltimore County Courthouse, Towson, Maryland, Liber 4447 folio 90. ·

(2) Hall of Records, Annapolis, Maryland.

Archives of Maryland, Volume XX, Proceedings of the Council of Maryland 1693-1696/7, Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1900.

Forman, H. Chandlee, FAIA, Easton, Maryland: A copy of a "Report on Inspection of Fort Garrison" sub­mitt~d by Mr. John Sprinkle & Mr .. John McGrain, Chairmen of the Baltimore County Historical Suciety, before 1969. Permission for use dated October 25, 1970 to the Maryland Histo~ical Trust.

(2 of 2 continuation sheets)

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~ 9 I.'. 1, ~ ) F S 15 LI 0 GR,.'.. PH IC AL ;;; E F c R c IKE S -------__ -_-__ -___ -~-=~ · Recoraers: John K. 1·icGrain, Chairrr.an, Fort Garrison Co~-:..i.-ii t tee,

Baltimore County Eistorical Society, 9811 Van Buren Lane, Cockeysville, ~aryland; and Kancy Miller, Historian, Maryland Historical ~rust, P. 0. Box 1704, Annapolis, ~d.

\·;i l liarr. B. '.·ca:!:"ye, "?~e Old Incian ~-'.aq22ine, Volc:-:;e XV #3 (Sept.

Roads," 19 2 0)

~aryland His~crical

210/ 215.

I SEE CO~TINCATION SH~ET

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DEC 3 IS70

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Form 10-445 1. STATE Maryland HIS TOP.IC AIJ.ERIC.t-tl BUILD\ ~GS SlRVE i

(5162 i couNTY Baltimore INVENTORY BA-33

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TowN Pikesville v1c1N1TY Dist. III srnEET No. Stevenson Road

ORIGINAL OWNER

ORIGINAL USE

PRESENT OWN ER

PRESENT USE

WALL CONSTRUCTION

NO. OF STO ~ IES

2. NAME Fort Garrison

DATE OR PERIOD

STYLE

A RCH\TE CT

BUILDER

1695

3. FOR LIBRARY OF CONGRESS USE

4. NOTABLE FEATURES, HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE AND DESCRIPTION OPEN TO PUBLIC

Headquarters for a troop of mounted rangers who patrolled

the paths from the Patapsco to the Susquehanna Rivers,

as a protection against hostile Indians. A rectangular

building of field stone, with loft, gun windows, thick

walls, great fire place.

Surrounded now by a development; fort is owned by

Baltimore County under the Department of Recreation

and Parks.

5. PHYSICAL CONDITION OF 5TPUCTURE Endangered

~ 6. LOCATION MAP (Pion Optional)

3. PUBLISHED SOURCES (Author, Title, Pages)

INTERVIEWS, RECORDS, PHOTOS, ETC.

Interior Exterior

7. PHOTOGRAPH

19. NAME, ADDRESS AND TITLE c1F RECORDER

(First HABS Report) E. Frances Offutt HABS COMMITTEE OF BALTIMORE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY DATE OF RECORD July 29 t 1965

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