How Did Curtis Bay Get Its Name?

Well known for its steep sloping hills, Curtis Bay was an agricultural wonderland before industry found it in the late 19th Century. The Patapsco River ran very deep, close to the shoreline, and it was inviting for canneries, industrial alcohol and fertilizer factories, and coal and oil companies that needed to ship their products overseas. But where did the name “Curtis Bay” come from? There is no exact reference to a landowner by that name, but some clues are available in the first set of land grants Lord Calvert gave in the mid-1600s.

Paul Kinsey, an English yeoman farmer, was the first colonial Marylander to officially receive a land grant in what became Curtis Bay in 1663. Kinsey was awarded a 200-acre parcel on June 29, 1663, called “Curtises’ Neck.” It was situated on the western side of Broad Creek, which was eventually renamed Curtis Creek. While the reason for calling the area Curtises’ Neck is unknown, researchers speculate that the name was already used locally. Some suggest that a well-known pioneer tenant farmer may have established the name well before local history was recorded in colonial Maryland. Because this possible “Curtis” was never awarded a recognized patent on the land, his name never appeared on any legal documents of the day. A farmer or landowner by that name may have held a patent on the property at some point, but if such a grant were awarded before 1704, it would be lost to history. All the Anne Arundel County land records recorded before 1704 were lost to a fire in the Annapolis State House.

A view of the property that later became Curtis Bay Terrace in 1918. The landscape then had few trees and likely represented how the area looked when the original grants on the land were given in 1663.

It was a wise choice if Kinsey had any say in acquiring Curtises’ Neck. His property was on a peninsula with a sheltered cove on a deep creek, which emptied into the Patapsco River. Sailing ships threatened by intense storms in the Patapsco would have found a safe harbor there, and he had a considerable amount of shoreline. His farm would have had easy access to markets in Annapolis and the new villages rising near Sparrows Point and what would become Baltimore Town. His location was so desirable that 240 years later, the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service would buy it and build a station that would evolve into the U.S. Coast Guard Yard at Curtis Bay.

The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service staff in Curtis Bay. The Revenue Cutter Service was a branch of the Treasury Department, and its primary mission was to eliminate “rum runners” and bootleggers using Baltimore waterways.

Sixteen years after Kinsey received his patent, another British colonial and land speculator, George Yates, acquired an adjoining 250-acre tract he called “Denchworth,” perhaps named for the village west of London in County Berkshire. When Yates acquired Denchworth, the creek portion that became Arundel Cove had appeared on his patent as the “Cove on Curtise’s Creek.” The creek’s name had changed between Kinsey’s acquisition and Yates’s patent.

An approximation of Curtis’ Neck and Denchworth land grants superimposed over a mid-18th Century map of the Curtis Bay area. The overlay shows how these two crucial Hawkins Point properties helped set the area for growth. Curtis’ Neck, in white, had substantial frontage on Curtis Creek, a very deep protected cove off the Patapsco River. Denchworth, in gray, was an agricultural powerhouse. Curtis’ Neck eventually became home to the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, which patrolled for bootleggers and later became home to the U.S. Coast Guard Yard.

Land records show that Kinsey passed away by December 1687. By then, he had acquired substantial properties in central and southern Anne Arundel County. He acquired another tract from Yates called “Halbrough.” When Kinsey died, he left much of his land to his sister and heir, Elizabeth, and her husband, Richard Johns. A survey certificate shows that Kinsey also left her 250 acres called “Brandon” at Brandon Bay on the northwest side of Deep Creek in Arnold, Maryland, today. Kinsey’s and Yates’ parcels would be broken up into smaller tracts years later, and the area would later become known as Hawkins Point.

Curtises’ Neck and Denchworth were a farming force. Although hilly, it was still prime farming land, and it had the extreme benefit of being close to shore, where sloops could quickly be loaded and sail the harvest into Baltimore or Annapolis. It would be a prosperous two centuries for the area. But industry would find the area in the late 1800s, and nothing would ever be the same.

Sources:
The Brooklyn-Curtis Bay Historical Committee (1976). A History of Brooklyn-Curtis Bay, p. 44, Baltimore, MD: J.C. O’Donovan & Co. Inc..
Diamond, P. (January 1, 1998). “An Environmental History of Fairfield/Wagner Point.”
Robinson, R.J. (June 1, 1947). “The Beginnings of the U.S. Coast Guard at Curtis Bay,” Baltimore magazine.
Roberts, B.C. (February 1, 1982). “A Historical Affair: The U.S. Navy and Coast Guard Yard, Curtis Bay, Maryland,” Naval Engineers Journal.
Riffe, J.R. (2012). Fred C. Yates: The Man and His Lineage, p. 23, Bloomington, IN: Xlibris Corp.
[Newman, H.W. (1933). Anne Arundel Gentry, p. 528, Baltimore, MD: Lord Baltimore Press.