Ellicott City, MD news and local guide

On April 24, 1771, three Quaker brothers from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, John, Andrew and Joseph Ellicott, bought land in the wilderness on the Patapsco River several miles above Elk Ridge Landing to build a flour mill, founding Ellicott's Mills, which became one of the largest milling and manufacturing towns in the East. In 1774 Joseph Ellicott bought the older Hood's Mill upstream, and the main road from Baltimore to the west shifted south to the new town, a route later part of the Baltimore and Frederick-Town Turnpike and the National Road. A post office named Ellicott's Mills opened on October 7, 1797. The brothers built sawmills, smithies, an oil mill and a distillery, and persuaded local farmers, among them Charles Carroll of Carrollton, to switch from tobacco to wheat, using plaster of Paris to restore worn-out soil. By 1840 the family had sold its interests in the mills and quarry.

More about Ellicott City

In 1830 Ellicott's Mills became the first terminus of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad outside Baltimore, and its granite station, now a museum and National Historic Landmark, is described as the oldest surviving railroad station in America. In August 1830 Peter Cooper's steam engine Tom Thumb raced a horse-drawn car on the return trip toward Baltimore and lost when a drive belt broke, though steam soon prevailed. The town became the seat of the Howard District of Anne Arundel County in 1839, and its courthouse was built from 1840 to 1843; Howard became a separate county in 1851. At the start of the Civil War, in April 1861, Union troops seized the experimental Winans Steam Gun at Ellicott's Mills. Sources Wikipedia: Ellicott City, Maryland