On Aug 22, 1977 an "Application Nomination" was received by the National Historic Registry to place the entire town of Port Deposit, Maryland on the registry. On May 23, 1978 the application was approved for register.

Port Deposit Nomination Application
prepared by
 George J. Andreve, Architectural Historian
Maryland Historical Trust (Spring 1976)

   Port Deposit, Maryland, located an the eastern bank .of the Susquehanna River, is a small town .of about 900 people. Early in the 18th century, this area became a river-crossing point and a large mill was established. In 1725, Rock Run (or Merchant's Mill) was built by John Steel. Still standing though now closed, it operated until at least 1913. By 1729, Thomas Cresap operated Smith's Ferry just north of Port Deposit, probably first known as Rock Run.

Adjacent to Port Deposit, Anchor and Hope farm was acquired by the Creswell family before l700 and was probably the area's first inn. When one of the family acquired the ferry operation, the village became known as Creswell's Ferry. Much .of the land in the area was owned by Philip Thomas. His tract extended southeast along the river from the ferry(about the middle of the present town and north to include Mount Ararat. When Mr. Thomas died in 18l1, his son purchased the various parcels from the heirs and had surveyor Hugh Beard draw a plat, Bated October 2l, l8l21 for the southern part of Creswell's Ferry. It showed a 33 feet wide street with only a few plats on the river side. On December 5, 18l2, Governor Winder signed a bill changing the name to Port Deposit. The town's first charter was signed by Governor Samuel Stevens on January l7, l825.

Much of the town's great prosperity during the 19th century resulted from its role as a port of deposit far raw materials including flour, potatoes, whiskey, lumber, grain and coal brought dawn the Susquehanna an rafts from Wilkes-Barre, Harrisburg and other Pennsylvania cities. North .of Port Deposit the river was not navigable so the town served as an exchange paint where the goods could be unloaded and reloaded on ships for Baltimore and other parts. Completion of the Maryland Canal (1812), contributed much toward the town's growth. prior to the canal's construction, most of the shipments sent downriver stopped opposite Part Deposit at Lapidum because the water was deeper on the western side. However, the new canal enabled barges to avoid Smith's Falls and directed their cargo into Port Deposit for transfer. As a result, the town established itself as an important processing and distribution center, having lumber mills, gin mills, foundries and other industries. This community was an important point on the [Susquehanna river and is one of earliest American trading routes].

Port Deposit is a small town in western Cecil County, Maryland. Its main street, running parallel to the northeastern bank of the Susquehanna River is a .4 mile segment of U.S. Route 222. Between Main Street and the river are the Penn Central railroad tracks, the railroad yard and, along about half of Port Deposit's length, industrial buildings and wharves. For about a mile beginning at the southeastern end of town, there are lots on both sides of Main Street. With few exceptions, the buildings are residential or small scale commercial structures. Most of the larger houses of the more wealthy businessmen were built during the latter part of the 9th century.

Behind the buildings on Main Street the land rises sharply, almost vertically, especially at the southeastern end of town. Cut into this terraced and landscaped hillside is a short residential street. Three streets with a few, scattered small houses intersect Main Street at right angles and climb the hill. At the northwestern end of Port Deposit is the mill at Rock Run and the granite quarry.

Port Deposit began as an exchange point for travelers. The main part of Anchor and Hope farmhouse was built during the early 18th century and served as an inn. Located on top of the hill overlooking the Susquehanna, the stone inn was built as a story building of three bays with a central entrance on each of the principal elevations. Though one of the doors was filled in to form a window and the second floor has been altered, the large first floor room retains most of its original features: small 6/6 windows; exposed, beaded ceiling beams; and a large rubble fireplace at each end of the room.. One of the most interesting features is the south end of the room which has a cooking fireplace with a two foot deep wooden lintel flanked on the right by a toll both and on the left by paneling and a boxed circular stair with a paneled door. The tollbooth has a three-foot wide door which slides vertically down so that tickets could be sold for the stage and the ferry. To the north of the inn is a Georgian addition which features a granite corner fireplace and paneled reveals with eared architraves on the first floor.

The town of Port Deposit, known as Creswell's Ferry until 1812, was built in the flood plain of the Susquehanna and prospered because of various industries. Merchants Mill (or Rock Run Mill), at the intersection of North Main Street and Md. Rt. 269, was built in 1731 and was still in operation in 913. Constructed of uncoursed rubble, the mill is a large, three-bay, 3 story building with a gable roof.
By 1789 the granite quarry north of the mill was in operation, and stone was shipped over a wide region. Port Deposit granite was in demand from the 1830's through the turn of the century.

This industry not only was an integral part of Port Deposit's economic prosperity, but it provided the town with a unique character. The bluish­gray granite was used in some way in almost every building, for some sidewalks, for retaining walls to protect against floods and ice jams and for the terraces and steps up the hillside. The movement to lay stone pavements began in 1837. Floods have been a continuing problem for Port Deposit residents, and one in 1886 partially destroyed the town's records.

Most of Port Deposit's buildings are simply designed and have a high basement for flood protection. Some of those facing the river from the northern side of Main Street sit back and are elevated from the street level. Others have a full-story stone basement which can be entered from the sidewalk, such as 240 and 246 North Main street. These are 1 story, three-bay frame dwellings on coursed rubble basements. Probably built during the first part of the 19th century, they are small, one-room­deep houses which have additions to the rear. Their porches have simple Victorian trim.

Though now somewhat deteriorated, 170 North Main Street is a square, 3 -story, brick house with wooden lintels. Its pyramidal roof is supported by a bracketed cornice. The porch is missing but the entrance, with fine Victorian double doors glazed at the top and paneled below, re­mains with its rectangular transom and sidelights. The bottom floor is actually a full basement Partially embedded in the hillside at the rear.

Another large house built on high ground with a stone retaining wall along the sidewalk is 32 North Main Street. It is a well maintained example of the Second Empire style with a shingled mansard roof forming the third floor. This house, and the one at 57 South Main Street, are similar in style and in their asymmetrical composition of forms in­cluding their large verandas. 57 South Main Street is unoccupied and has deteriorated, but its bracketed cornices, bay windows and central tower remain.

Throughout Port Deposit there are several groups of modest row houses. The most elaborate one is 88-94 North Main Street. These three story units are a combination of the Second Empire and Eastlake styles. They have mansard roofs, rather simple gabled dormers with openwork and bracketed porches nearly at street level. 

There are several Queen Anne style houses. At 89 North Main Street is a 2 -story frame example. It has a Tuscan one story porch across the three-bay facade and shingled gables on three sides. The front gable has a Palladian window. A larger 2 story house in this style is 42 South Main Street. Its design features a porch with turned posts and a medium-size gable with openwork in a fan design. The gable is shingled and has a half timber band underneath its windows.

Two noteworthy houses built about the turn of the 20th century are the Humphries Residence (68 North Main Street), a bungalow type built by one of the quarry owners, and the Gabbert House (73 North Main Street). The Gabbert House features a high stone basement, stone first floor, brick second and shingled gables with a palladian window in the front. The porch is supported by multiple Tuscan columns on high granite piers. The interior woodwork is chestnut.

Next to the Gabbert House is a 2 story cubical stone house (75 North Main Street). Its Federal woodwork remains on the second floor. The portico is Greek Revival with Doric columns at the lower level. The lower floor of this large portico is at street level and projects partially into the sidewalk. Many buildings on the southwestern side of Main Street have their first floor at street level and some have porches that extend to the street resulting in discontinuous sidewalks. Such is the case at the large McNeilly House (135 North Main Street) which was built about 18l2 but later remodeled.

Many of the inns which existed throughout the 19th century still stand but are used for other purposes, mostly apartments. Old Sorrel Inn (1803) at 158-160 North Main Street has been converted into twin houses. The building is l story frame over a granite basement which opens onto the sidewalk under the first floor Victorianized porch. Cornelius Smith, a farmer who had a partial interest in the stone quarry, owned the Falls Hotel (1813) in the center of town. This three-story stone building once had a two-story porch across its entire front. Mr. Smith lived it nearby Gerry House (1813). This box-like stone building has three floors and sheaves of wheat decorate the iron railing between the wooden columns of each of the two floors of the portico. The wheat design farmer. Gerry House shows with a flat roof, dentiled Federal dormers above, add floor (or basement1 is now demonstrated the owner's pride in being a good proportion and design. Its portico cornice and superimposed orders, and the much to the center of town. The ground a store.

Nearby, at the intersection of Main Street and Jacob Tome Memorial Highway (Md. RT. 276) ,is the Bank of Cecil. Built of concrete on a stone base during the first part of the 20th century, this building is an interesting and well-executed Mannerist design. Large keystones look as if they are slipping through their flat arches over windows and the front entrance; sills are supported on scrolled brackets; and a Doric entablature surrounds the building. Just north of Main Street on Tome Highway is Howard M.E. Church (18531. Now in ruins, it was built by blacks and was part of the underground railroad.

One of Port Deposit's most prominent citizens was Jacob Tome USIO-1898). Mr. Tome made his fortune during the last half of the 19th century, built the largest house in town and, at the same time, gave much to the people. Among other things, Jacob Tome operated a lumber business, a grain shipping firm which served Baltimore and Philadelphia, and several banks. His list of architectural accomplishments and gifts to the town are numerous. He built an elaborate stone villa (demolished for the Tome Memorial Swimming Pool which opened in 1948), a high school (the Tome Institute), a bank in Port Deposit, the Methodist Church and landscaped hillside terraces. Wings were added to the stone bank in 1899, and the building (now burned) was used for a public school. Money from Jacob Tome's estate built a boys' boarding school which closed in 1941 and was converted into the Bainbridge Naval Training Center, the stone steps (called "Jacob's ladder") up the hillside which connect the Boys' School to the town, and adjacent Adams Hall (52 South Main Street), a gymnasium built in 1905.

The Tome mansion (1850, remodeled 1869) was the largest house in Port Deposit. Remaining are the carriage house (80 South Main Street), now occupied by Keetley Motor Co., and the gas house across the street near the railroad tracks. Built by Italian masons, these buildings followed A.J. Downing's design principles. The gas house is Italianate, but the carriage house has Swiss features. The carriage house has a greater overhang and very deep V-shaped brackets. Both have openwork in the gables with finials on top and a central louvered cupola.

The Tome Institute (1894) was built across the mansion between Main Street and the railroad. This building, with three floors of brick over a stone basement, is the largest in Port Deposit. Essentially it is of Romanesque Revival design, but some Byzantine elements and corner turrets are included. The following is a  contemporary. description of the Institute, a public school building built by Mr. Tome:

Building No.1 is 119 feet by 80 feet, three stories and high basement. Up to the first floor the material is Port Deposit granite, above, pressed red brick of best quality with granite trimmings. The whole construction is massive and beautiful, and as fire-proof as a building not all iron and masonry can be made.

The cornice, peaks, and buttresses are sheathed with copper. Within, the general plan is broad and high hall ways running the length of the building, with classrooms opening on them and ending in broad stairways at each end of the building. The Manual Training Shops are in the basement, where are, also, spacious furnace rooms and a lunch room. There is,
on the second floor, a well equipped biological laboratory and on the third floor a large chemical laboratory, a sewing room, a constructive drawing room and an art studio. All these laboratories and rooms are well furnished and equipped. On the first floor, in addition to five classrooms, there is a large assembly room, a library and reading room, a supply and book room, a room for the Kindergarten, and one used as the Office of the Institute.

On the second floor are eleven classrooms, an apparatus room,
a teacher's room and the biological laboratory.

1 Isaac Edwards Clarke, A.M., Art and Industry. Education in the
Industrial and Fine Arts in the United states, Part III, U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1897), pp. 936-7.

The Jacob Tome Memorial United Methodist Church (l872) was built on North Main Street across from the old church, Nesbitt Hall (c. 1850). Like the other Port Deposit churches, it is Victorian and built of granite. Being of Gothic Revival design, it has a tower with bell-cote adjacent to the sidewalk. It dominates the vista along North Main Street. The five bays of the sanctuary, with small buttresses, run parallel to Main Street. To the rear is a hexagonal apse with stained glass windows.

Susquehanna River which was declared a public highway by the Pennsylvania legislature in 1801, by Maryland in 18l3.

The first bridge across the Susquehanna was built at Port Deposit. The bridge company, incorporated in 1808, was succeeded in 1812 by a group of appointed commissioners ,who settled the controversy over location and had the bridge (near Rock Run} finished by 1817. It burnt in 1823, was rebuilt in 1829-30, and rendered out of commission again in 1854 when a span was broken by a drove of cattle crossing over. The rest was washed away by a flood in 1857.

Port Deposit is well known for its granite quarry. A 200 feet rock wall paralleling the river and behind the houses on Main Street, provided good access to the granite without the necessary removal of worthless material as in underground quarries. Port Deposit's granite is light bluish-gray and contains an abundance of black mica. The rock was used by settlers of the area, but the industry came later. By 1816-17, there was a small quarry open in town near the Susquehanna bridge. The owners of the Maryland canal became interested, increasing production in 1829. The following year, there were new owners, Samuel Megredy and Cornelius Smith, who developed trade with Baltimore and other coastal towns. From 1832 to 1914, the business was dominated by Ebenezer D. McClenahan and his descendents. An annual output of 12,000-15,000 perches was achieved by 1837. Stone was shipped to Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Baltimore, Washington and Richmond. Philadelphia has twelve churches built of Port Deposit granite; Washington has three, and Baltimore has at least five.

Lumber was a dominant industry in Port Deposit. By 1840, the amount of lumber floated downriver was estimated to be 250,000,000 feet per year. Along the town's waterfront, logs were milled and reloaded on the deep draft vessels for shipment.

Jacob Tome (1810-1898} , a principal figure in the lumber and banking businesses, came from York County, Pennsylvania, in 1833. He was a fine example of the 19th century self-made business tycoon, acquiring his millions during Port Deposit's era of prosperity, the period from
1830 to 1870. Mr. Tome's father died when Jacob was 16; but, by the the age of 20 he was teaching in a one room school in Lancaster County, PA. by reading the text a chapter or so ahead of his pupils. His first job in Port Deposit was hostler at an inn, and then David Rinehart, a banker in Marietta, Pennsylvania, set him up in the lumber business. The firm of Rinehart and Tome, when liquidated in 1851 because of Mr. Rinehart's death, had assets of $100,000. The same year, Jacob Tome opened the Cecil County Bank with $25,000. capital; and, by 1863 as the Cecil National Bank, it had assets of $100,000. In 1859, Mr. Tome combined his with Baltimore interests to form the first steamboat line on the Susquehanna River. He organized and became a silent partner in another lumber concern, Bond Brothers and Company, which purchased timber lands in West Virginia and coal fields in Pennsylvania. He also founded the National Bank of Elkton, the Bank of Fredericksburg (Virginia), the National Bank of Hagerstown and the Citizens National Bank of Washington, D.C. Before he died, Jacob Tome was known in Port Deposit as "the banker."

Jacob Tome, a member of the State Finance Committee and an advisor to President Lincoln, eventually established himself as Port Deposit's foremost philanthropist. His lumber, grain shipping and banking businesses enabled him to build a stone mansion on the north side of East Main Street. It was demolished in the late 1940's for the Tome Memorial Swimming Pool, but still standing are the carriage house, now a used car and truck dealer, and a vacant gas house next to the Tome Institute, between South Main Street and the river. Jacob .Tome enhanced his view and the town's by terracing and landscaping the hill behind his mansion. He built the new Methodist Church (1872) on North Main Street and provided the Methodist Episcopal Church with a $65,000. endowment. His bank building was enlarged in 1899 and converted into a primary school. It is now in ruins as the result of a fire.

Jacob Tome's most noteworthy contributions were related to education. When business was slow, he went to commercial schools in Wilmington and Philadelphia to reduce his deficiencies in bookkeeping skills.

By the end of the century, he had provided for the community a school to educate white children. It was incorporated in 1898 and received $1.5 million from his estate. Beginning classes in 1894 with his wife as President of the Board of Trustees and organized by director from public school system. The curriculum included kindergarten through a one-year post graduate (high school) course. This was a progressive institution since it was modeled after the Training School attached to the Teacher's College (known as the Horace Mann School) in New York City. Higher classes were attended by students from neighboring towns. The school was not limited to any class of children; and special provision was made first for Port Deposit's orphans, then for those of the county and state. In 1902, part of the will was used to build a boarding and day school at the top of the hill, a site selected by Jacob Tome before his death. The gymnasium, Adams Hall, was built across from the Institute on Main Street in 1905.

Port Deposit was an important river town during the period of industrial expansion in the 19th century. By 1880, its population had reached 2000. However, by that date the town's prosperity was declining. Upriver forests had been devastated, and the lumber business declined. The first train stopped in Port Deposit in 1869. As the line was ex tended, business centers changed, and Port Deposit's importance as a shipping point on the river decreased. The canal was leased to the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company who made no real effort to maintain it. Construction in 1910 of a hydroelectric dam upriver effectively ended river commerce and the town's fishing industry.

There are many unique features connected with Port Deposit. Much of its architectural character was determined through extensive use of local stone for buildings whose designs followed current stylistic trends. Its rise to prominence, economically as well as an educational center, and its decline closely relate to the amount of commercial activity on the river and then the railroad's impact. By the 1920's, the quarry company was in financial difficulty, and in 1941 the Tome Institute closed. Its buildings on the hill were adapted for use as part of the now deserted Bainbridge Naval Training Center. Even so, much of 19th and early 20th century Port Deposit remains relatively unchanged and should be preserved.

MAJOR BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
Baltimore Sun. Articles July 16,1932, April 29,1975.

Clarke, Issac Edwards, A.M. Art and Industry, Education in the Industrial and Fine Arts in the United States, Part III U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1897.

History of Port Deposit at the l00th Anniversary of the Naming of the Town, July 4, 1913. Copy distributed by Wiley Manufacturing Co., Port Deposit, Md., June 7, 1974.

Johnston, George. 'History of Cecil County',. Maryland, and the Early Settlements Around the Head of Chesapeake Bay and on the Delaware River with Sketches of Some of the Old Families of Cecil County. Elkton, Md.: published by the author, 1881.

Maryland Geological Survey, Cecil County. Press, 1902.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins

Miller, Alice E. Cecil County, Maryland, A study in Local History. Elkton, Maryland: C & L Printing and Specialty Co., 1949.

The Upper Shoreman. Article, Nov. , 1966.

VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION
Following the town boundaries of Port Deposit, beginning at a point on Maryland Route 269 1.15 miles northwest of Maryland Route 276, then moving southwest 1,500 feet to the east bank of the Susquehanna River, then following the river bank southeast 1.8 miles, then northeast 500 feet [at this point leaving the actual town boundary and following an agreed upon boundary between the town and the Bainbridge Naval Training Center], then moving northwest following the rear property lines of the buildings on the northeast side of Main Street (U.S. 222) 2,400 feet until, then following the rear property lines of the buildings on the southeast side of N. Center Street 800 feet to the northeast boundary line of the town, then following the boundary line northwest of 1.3 miles to the point of beginning.

Port Deposit ** (added 1978 - Cecil County - #78001452) Also known as Port Deposit Historic District E bank of Susquehanna River 10 mi. (16 km) S of Mason-Dixon Line, Port Deposit (2800 acres, 192 buildings)

Historic Significance: Event, Architecture/Engineering Architect, builder, or engineer: Unknown Architectural Style: Queen Anne, Second Empire, Georgian Area of Significance: Architecture, Transportation, Industry, Commerce Period of Significance: 1700-1749, 1750-1799, 1800-1824, 1825-1849, 1850-1874, 1875-1899, 1900-1924 Owner: Private , Local Gov't Historic Function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic Historic Sub-function: Business, Single Dwelling Current Function: Commerce/Trade, Domestic Current Sub-function: Business, Single Dwelling