It is a pleasure to join all of you at Hampton Mansion to continue our year-long celebration of Baltimore County’s 350th Anniversary. And I am thrilled that the boys and girls from Hampton Elementary School will have the opportunity to learn more about our County’s history by helping us honor a group of people whose profession literally made Baltimore County what it is today — surveyors. Three hundred fifty years ago, when the first settlers arrived on the northern banks of the Chesapeake, Baltimore County was far different than it is today. Though it was named for Lord Baltimore, a very wealthy member of the British gentry, the Baltimore County of 1659 was a vast, largely unexplored wilderness that was more of a vague geographic approximation than a defined political entity. In the 17th century, Baltimore County was enormous, encompassing not only the Baltimore County we know today, but present-day Baltimore City, Cecil and Harford Counties, and parts of Carroll, Anne Arundel, Howard and Kent Counties. In the 350 years since then, the changes in the history of our County and our communities have been reflected in the changes to our borders and our boundaries. And professional surveyors were there every step of the way helping to record and shape the evolution of our County to the communities that we know today. Surveying is the science of determining the distance and angle between two points, and we most often associate surveying with the creation of maps. Dating back to the ancient Egyptians, the science of surveying has been an invaluable tool of countless civilizations. Some of America’s greatest minds, were surveyors, including three of our four Presidents on Mount Rushmore – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln. In addition, Benjamin Banneker, Baltimore County’s own original Renaissance man, who joins us here this morning, was among the early American surveyors who created the blueprint for our nation. The tools of the trade have changed considerably, but skilled surveyors are as invaluable today as they were in the 17th century. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, surveyors mapped Baltimore County for land speculators, who owned the vast majority of the County. Far less of our land was inhabited then, and people who did live here were concentrated in what we know today as Harford and Cecil Counties. As more residents arrived in the early eighteenth century, surveyors created “hundreds,” which were a primitive form of electoral districts. Surveyors helped build the roads that altered those districts and defined the areas that became some of our oldest communities, like Towson and Reisterstown. As the population grew, it became clear that our original boundaries encompassed a territory that was far too large to be governed effectively, and surveyors helped to divide it by creating smaller jurisdictions, including the counties that neighbor us today. And 100 years later, when the Industrial Revolution accelerated the rapid development of the port of Baltimore, surveyors were responsible for recording the separation of Baltimore City from Baltimore County. Looking at these maps behind me, you can see the history of the mapping of our County on display. For 350 years, using levels, benchmarks, theodolites (the-odd-o-lites), and more recently, Global Positioning Systems, surveyors have documented the changing borders, growing towns, and shifting populations of Baltimore County. Throughout our history, the legacy of the surveyor has been to create a snapshot of our County as it was at a particular moment in time. Those images range from the sprawling, unsettled wilderness of the colonial era to the 682 square miles of urban centers, suburban neighborhoods, and rural vistas that comprise the Baltimore County we now know today. As we celebrate National Surveyors Week, we express our gratitude to the men and women who have recorded Baltimore County’s proud history, and who will continue to do so for the benefit of future generations. The 350th Anniversary of our County is no small accomplishment, and thanks to our surveyors, we can see not only how far we have come, but how we got there. I thank Keith Bailey and members of the Maryland Society of Surveyors for joining us here today. I also thank Superintendent Gay Vietzke, Ranger Vince Vaise and the National Park Service for hosting us at the Hampton Mansion. Finally, I want to thank our living historians for lending a proper sense of historical perspective to today’s ceremony. Now, it is my honor to present this proclamation recognizing National Surveyor’s Week in Baltimore County.
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Courthouse 