Masonville: The Town that Disappeared Beneath the Railroad Tracks
When industry came to Brooklyn it brought needed jobs and tax revenue to Baltimore, but the community lost an important landmark in the process
Born in the long-since-gone village of Masonville, Horton McCormick grew up in a family of eight and was surrounded by dozens of cousins who also grew up there. These are his words, published with his permission. His narrative is an important piece of the Brooklyn story and I am grateful for his recollections and his willingness to share it with the world.
— Rik Forgo
By Horton McCormick
When you scan the landscape in the northern end of present-day Brooklyn, looking eastward from 9th Street toward Fairfield, you’ll see more than 50 separate railroad tracks that stretch out between Chesapeake Avenue and Shell Road. That’s where the heart of Masonville once beat. In 1952 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad started buying houses and land. The homes, many of them there since just after the turn of the century, were torn down, and the railroad yard was expanded. Just like that, Masonville was gone.
The 1910 Census listed Masonville as a small community of just 52 houses on the south side of the Patapsco River in northern Anne Arundel County. Baltimore City annexed Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, Fairfield, Masonville, and Wagners Point in 1910. Many street names were changed as a result. Mason Street became Matson Street. The city changed the name of Hospital Drive to Chesapeake Avenue, and Baltimore Street became Baltic Avenue, to name just a few.
The land on the south side of the Patapsco River from Hanover Street to Fairfield consisted of three parcels. The F.A. Furst Realty Company owned the first parcel from Hanover Street to about Ninth Street. Martin Wagner owned the second parcel from Ninth Street to Sun Street. The third parcel, home of the hospital and cemetery, was owned by the City of Baltimore.
It’s difficult to determine precisely when the original houses in Masonville were built. Early records indicate that the Johnson Lumber Company owned several of them and rented them to others. For example, some of the old timers still alive, Bill Johnson said that Masonville was known as Cracker Town and Curtis Bay was known as Puddin Town.
The Mason Family
Local legends say the name Masonville probably originated from Baltimore bakery magnate James. D. Mason. The Masons were a prominent Baltimore family, and James was a significant presence in the City of Baltimore and the State of Maryland. He founded James D. Mason & Company in 1820, and it was an unrivaled maker and supplier of ship bread, cake, and crackers in his bakeries.
Mason’s factory was on the northwest corner of Stiles and President Streets in Baltimore City, and the Maryland Steam Bakery was on West Pratt Street. Mason has a reputation for superior products, and the company’s trade extended westward to Indiana, as far south as New Orleans, and as far north as New York. The company later became James D. Mason & Sons, and the family took a strong interest in sailing and, in particular, yacht racing, and bought property in Brooklyn not far from the Patapsco River shores.
According to the 1893 Fairfield Journal, there were 51 houses in Masonville with a total population of 218 people; 66 men and 56 women. There were 51 males under 21 years old and 45 females.
Masonville was built on a small portion of land known as the J.D. Mason and S.G. Mason Estate, located between the F.A. Furst Realty parcel and the Martin Wagner parcel of land. The Mason family subdivided the land into 127 lots in 1916, each approximately in 16-foot by 50-foot lots with street names such as James Street and Graham Street. But Masonville’s growth was stunted after that and never reached the developer’s goal, likely because of the intense industrialization occurring in the area. The hamlet remained virtually unchanged from the early 1900s through 1952.
Masonville Proper
Masonville was located between Brooklyn and Fairfield off of Chesapeake Avenue near the bottom of 9th Street. The town had three primary streets: Matson Street (formerly Mason Street), Mavin Street, and Hollins Street. Matson Street ran north and south off of Chesapeake Avenue and ran for two blocks and into a field near the Patapsco River. Mavin Street ran east and west. It started near the B&O Railroad tracks, went east, and ended near the baseball field. Hollins Street was one block long and ran north and south as you entered Hollins Street from Chesapeake Avenue and ended at the railroad tracks. Masonville’s land can be seen on the right-hand side of route Interstate 859 as you approach (the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel) in the northbound lane at the large metal bridge just before the toll booths. All that remains of Masonville are railroad tracks and weeds.
In the 1930s, the nearby areas became industrialized. The shoreline stretching from Masonville Cove to Wagner’s Point became filled with companies like the Maryland Drydock and Shipbuilding Company, Weyerhaeuser Lumber Company, Gulf Oil Corp., and the Union Shipyard Company, which later became the Bethlehem Steel Shipbuilding Fairfield Shipyard. The Arundel Sand & Gravel Corporation Shipyard moved in next to the Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard, plus all of the other fertilizer, chemical, and oil companies located nearby Wagner’s Point and Curtis Bay.
The Union Shipyard Company was in the business of scrapping ships. On September 8, 1934, the passenger ship “Morro Castle” was en route from Havana, Cuba, to New York City when the ship ran into a storm and caught fire off the coast of New Jersey. One hundred thirty-five passengers lost their lives. After drifting at sea, the Morro Castle ran aground about 300 feet from Asbury, New Jersey, Convention Center. The ship drew thousands of sightseers and received national news coverage. The Morro Castle was towed to the Union Shipyard in Masonville and scrapped. The steel taken from the ship was stacked in huge piles in an area along Chesapeake Avenue and sold to other countries. Japan was the largest scrap buyer, and there were always Japanese ships loaded with steel to take back to the Far East.
My grandfather, Graham Harman, often said, “Those damn foreigners will be firing that steel back at us.” How true. World War II started a few years later.
The Depression was ending, and with the war in Europe expanding, many of the companies in the former Masonville began to develop to satisfy the demands for war goods and services. The Maryland Drydock Company began modifying ships for war. The chemical and fertilizer companies started to switch over to wartime products. And Bethlehem Steel Shipbuilding began building cargo ships in its Fairfield shipyard. The government built “Liberty” and “Victory” ships to carry military equipment and supplies to our European allies. The shipyard reached its peak in 1943 when it employed 46,700 workers. The shipyard built and launched more ships than any other yard in the United States. Many of the Masonville men worked for those companies.
Industry Arrives
The ships were constructed in the Fairfield shipyard, and most of the ship parts were fabricated at the “Fabrication Plant” on Curtis Avenue in Curtis Bay. Large steel sections of the ships about 30 feet long and 20 feet high were fabricated, put on flatbed railroad cars, and taken to Fairfield. Once there, large cranes would lift the sections and put them in place. Electric welders would fasten the parts to the ship, reducing construction time considerably. Laying the ship’s keel to its launch happened in an incredibly short 45 days. The first ship launched was the “Patrick Henry.”
With the sudden expansion of the industries and the large influx of people working in the defense factories, inadequate housing, and the increasing traffic volume became a significant problem. A new road — Frankfurst Avenue — relieved some of the traffic congestion on Hanover Street, Patapsco Avenue, and Chesapeake Avenue. It ran from Hanover Street, bypassing Masonville, to the Fairfield shipyards and factories.
I remember as a youngster watching the construction company workers as they graded the fields, marshes, and woods for the new road. The workmen unearthed a large graveyard, with many human bones and skulls lying on the ground. Some of the workers put bones and skulls on their trucks and tractors. It was a scary sight.
It turns out that these bones were from a gravesite for smallpox victims who died at the former marine hospital on the site. The Baltimore Sun reported on June 29, 1941: “A marine hospital occupied the site that is now being developed into the biggest shipyard on the Atlantic Seaboard: the Bethlehem Fairfield Shipyard. Discussing the old hospital, a Fairfield resident, Mrs. William Potts, said, ‘It was known far and wide for the great number of victims who died from smallpox. The City of Baltimore sent people from the city to the hospital to die. The great cemetery was a sight never to be forgotten.’”
The government relieved the housing shortage when they built the Fairfield Homes on Chesapeake Avenue and Shell Road. The government also built a large trailer park on the north side of Chesapeake Avenue at Shell Road for the defense workers. The park included a cafeteria and restaurant and eventually the Fairfield Grade School. The government also built separate homes for African Americans. Those homes were on the left side of Frankfurst Avenue and Childs Street, which led to the Maryland Drydock Company.
The government also built houses and apartments in Brooklyn at the top of the 10th Street hill and the surrounding areas for workers to live. After coming to Baltimore to work in the defense plants, families from Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, and many other states relocated and remained in the Baltimore area after the war.
Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, and Fairfield became boom towns, while Masonville and Wagner’s Point remained the same.
Good Ol’ ‘Ab’: Masonville’s ‘Otis’
Masonville also had some characters and light moments. Every person in Masonville knew Albert Leonard, better known as “Ab.” Ab was from 9th Street in Brooklyn but spent most of his time in Masonville. Ab was in his forties and too old to be drafted into the war. He was a quiet gentleman until Saturday night.
On Saturday night Ab would start at a bar in Fairfield, have a few drinks, then move up the road to the next bar. By the time Ab reached Masonville in the early morning hours, he was three sheets to the wind and very loud. You could hear Ab coming. He stood out in the middle of the street and preached. His sermons were loud and punctuated with profanity. His famous statement was, “Just as sure as Christ made little green apples, this will happen, and you can count on it.” After a while, the local policeman would come, put Ab in the car, and take him home.
Most of the winters were very cold. During one winter in the mid-1930s, the Patapsco River completely froze. Some of the older boys and their fathers walked on the ice from Masonville over to Fort McHenry, up to the Hanover Street Bridge, and then back to Masonville.
Masonville also had an athletic club and a baseball team. The “Masonville” team played teams from other communities, such as Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, Fairfield, and Wagner’s Point, and they played games on Sunday afternoons. Masonville’s claim to fame was the “Cove” swimming area and the “Five Sisters Tavern.” The internationally known tavern was made famous by shipyard workers, sailors, and merchant seamen. They visited the pub when their ships made port calls to the local factories.
After the war, the Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyard became the Patapsco Scrap Yard. Ships, tanks, and other military equipment were turned back into scrap metal. A large number of German and Italian army tanks and trucks that were partially destroyed in combat were shipped here to be scrapped. Hundreds of exploded ammunition shells were still in the Army tanks and trucks. As youngsters, we would spend lots of time searching war relics for souvenirs. We wondered how horrible the last moments of these soldiers’ lives must have been. Later, the shipyard became known as the Buffalo Tank Company. All types of steel storage tanks were fabricated there for peacetime use.
Masonville was a popular place during the summer months. It was close to the Patapsco River, and people from many parts of the city would come to swim at the “Cove.” If the swimmers had blonde hair and swam in the Cove, their hair would turn bright green. The Brooklyn Chemical Company plant was on 9th Street near Patapsco Avenue. The company would dispose of chemicals in the storm drain and eventually end up in the Cove.
The Cove was part of the F. A. Furst tract of land and later owned by the Arundel Sand and Gravel Company. The Arundel Corporation stored large amounts of sand and gravel in piles on the river bank. Tugboats with scows would bring the sand and gravel to the cove, dredges would unload the scows, and the sand formed large sand piles on the beach. Some large sand piles made an ideal place to sun and swim.
Cherished Memories
During the summer, a group of us youngsters kept our swimsuits on the picket fence in Buzz Jeeter’s backyard. We would go back and forth to the river several times a day, swimming, fishing, crabbing, or just hanging out. We would be in the woods or playing baseball if we weren’t at the Cove. We were usually outside. We also had a tradition that all the guys would go to the Cove on Holy Thursday and take the first swim of the year. There was a dog named Rex who belonged to the Packmayers. When they moved to Brooklyn, Rex would run away to Masonville. So the Packmayers decided to give Rex to Buzz Jeeter, and Rex became the neighborhood dog.
During the winter, the sand piles would freeze, and we would make skis from old barrel stays. You could ski or slide down the frozen sand piles as if you were snow skiing. When the snow was on the ground, we would sleigh ride until 4:30 or 5 p.m., then make snowballs to bombard the trucks that carried the shipyard workers from work as the trucks entered the tunnel on Chesapeake Avenue under the railroad tracks. There was always something to do and friends to do it with.
Most of the families in Masonville were related by blood or marriage, starting with the Graham Harman family. Graham was a descendant of Johannes Hermann of the Black Forest in Wurttemberg (now Germany) in 1734. The family migrated from Germany to England and then to the United States of America. They attempted to live in Western Pennsylvania; however, Native American uprisings forced the Harmans to move south to Maryland. The town of “Harmans,” in Northern Anne Arundel County, carries the family name.
Masonville never wholly recovered from the war. The shipyards disappeared, and the Cove gave way to industry. The Five Sisters have since died, and their tavern is gone. The people and factories have gone too.
I asked Bill Johnston, my cousin, my friend, and among the longest-living residents of Masonville before he passed, “Bill, if you had one last wish, what would it be?” Bill said, “I would like to live one more week in Masonville.”
