How Ten Mile Creek Got Its Name: Recollections of Norman Mease
Norman Mease is a Friends of Ten Mile Creek board member who was raised on a farm next to the Ten Mile Creek ford and has been farming there himself since 1964. We asked him to tell the story of How Ten Mile Creek Got its Name. He provided additional context when we asked how he knew.
Norman Mease shares his recollections
Ten Mile Creek received its name from the many travelers that used the Old Baltimore Road in the very early days that the American colonies were being settled. In the early 1700's many German settlers immigrated to the Shenandoah Valley through the port of Philadelphia and moved westward along a route that became known as the Monocacy Road into the valley. Here they were able to farm the rich Limestone-formed soils that produced bountiful harvests. They best way to transport these agricultural products to market was on rivers using small boats. Vessels called long boats were used to convey the products downstream on the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers for sale in the developing east coast cities, and for export to Europe. Good markets existed on the Potomac in Georgetown and Alexandria, and in Annapolis and Baltimore on the Chesapeake Bay.
The longboats could navigate the rivers fairly well, having some difficulty in a few shallow rapids depending on the water level in the rivers. However, a major impediment existed on the Potomac in the form of Great Falls. This made overland routes necessary so the long boats were offloaded at a landing at the Mouth-of-Monocacy onto wagons and carts for most of the remaining trip eastward. Some goods went via River Road to cities and ports on the tidal Potomac. However, the favored ports for export were on the Chesapeake Bay where most sailing ships would dock because it was much easier to sail up the Chesapeake Bay than to navigate the turns of the lower Potomac. Goods bound for the Bay cities and ports were taken overland using the Old Baltimore Road which became the equivalent of something similar to today's modern turnpike. Tolls were charged at some points and some local farmers were given contracts to maintain the road. There were no culvert pipes or bridges on the road then and all traffic would ford through water at every one of the drainage crossings.
The stream crossing approximately 10 miles east of the Mouth-of-Monocacy landing became a serious waypoint on the road and was then known, as it is today, as the Ten Mile Creek. This creek had, and still has, one very important characteristic for the early travelers: there is always water in the ford at the creek, even in times of very serious drought. While the mainstem of the creek may completely dry up, both upstream and downstream of the ford, there is always water in the ford provided by the confluence with the small creek to the west and immediately upstream of the ford. This stream has never ceased to flow. Travelers could depend on this ford as a source of water for their draft animals as well as live animals in the shipments of their agricultural products
Known today as West Old Baltimore Road, there has been little change to the roadbed in the vicinity of the Ten Mile Creek since the early days of its beginnings except for some widening. It is interesting to note that the road in the vicinity of the Ten Mile Creek ford will never undergo any significant changes in the future as it is protected under the provisions of the Montgomery County Rural and Rustic Road program in which it is listed as the number one Exceptional Rural and Rustic Road in the County.
Norman Mease Tributary
Much of my early knowledge of the history of W. Old Baltimore Road came by word-of-mouth to me from my parents who got the information from local farmers in the area whose family histories go back well before the Civil war. I did not pay much attention to it in my youth until the 911 system was implemented. By then I had inherited the farm and was busy trying to raise something on it and establish it as a home for my young family. The 911 system required that every address in the County be unique and that meant that Old Baltimore Road east of Rockville be distinguished from the road of the same name in the up-county area. One proposal was to change the name of the up-county road but the Historical Society was very much opposed to this. Finally, a compromise was reached in which adding the word West to the name of the up-county road would suffice. All this discussion generated a lot of articles in the local newspapers concerning the historical nature of the up-county road's name which I read with great interest. Not to confuse things, but I also heard that both roads were part of the same road in the early days but I do not have any knowledge of that. They would have been connected by part of Frederick Road which was heavily traveled in those early days.
With regard to water at the TMC ford, again stories told by old-time residents along with personal observations over a period of about 80 years which I believe support those stories. The area is known as the Black Hills of Maryland hence the name of the park around the reservoir is Black Hills Park. My parents bought the farm in 1932 during the depression when many farmers lost their land due to crop failure caused by drought. They told me that many of the fields in the vicinity of the farm appeared to be very dark (black?) in the late summer and this continued until 1936, the year I was born. That year the Potomac River basin experienced a drought-to-deluge condition in which a severe storm caused serious flooding in September. I believe flooding from that storm still holds the high-water record at Harper's Ferry and I was told the high-water mark on trees at the Ten Mile Creek ford was 8 feet.
In 1964 my wife and I moved into an old house adjacent to the farm and established our home there and began activities on the farm. I observed that during dry summer periods people in the surrounding area would come to the ford with all kinds of tractors and carts and light trucks hauling drums and tanks to load up with water. Even the fire department would come there to fill the tanks on fire engines. During a 40-year period I experienced drought about 3 times with the most serious being in 1968. That year the TMC completely dried up upstream of the ford leaving only a little water in small depressions. The fish and aquatic life would congregate in these wet depressions and the aquatic-feeding birds would feast on them. While there was water in the ford, downstream the water disappeared into the gravel so about 100 to 150 feet downstream of the ford there was no water visible, and the creek condition was the same as it was upstream of the ford.
In 1968 The County government offered financial assistance to farmers that year for hay and water and I received help with hay for my cattle but I did not need help with water. Indeed, I was a member of the Agricultural Board at the time and spread the word that water was available at the ford. The tributary that provides this water to the ford is the one that flows under my driveway. I have a 1-inch water line and pump that I used to pump water from this tributary up the hill for my cattle and to water my 1/4-acre garden. It has a capacity of about 5 gallons per minute and when pumping from the stream I estimated the stream flowrate downstream of the pump intake to drop by about 1/2 during the 1968 drought, meaning the stream flowrate was about 10 gallons per minute. This would be enough to keep water flowing to the ford, but not much beyond.