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 Allegany County Maryland

Welcome to Maryland American History and Genealogy Project we are in the process of building new State and County pages for the states where the coordinator has moved on to other projects. Allegany County is looking for a new Coordinator would you be interested? If so please contact Webmaster. Many of the present coordinators are always willing to give help and suggestions to newcomers, you can learn, I did and that was after 60!! Read our About Page and see what our requirements are, pretty easy!


Court House at Cumberland

Allegany County derives its name from an Indian word, Alligewi, a tribe name, or Oolik-hanna, meaning "fairest stream." Its area is 442 square miles, and it lies between Garrett and Washington, with the Potomac River separating it from West Virginia on the south. Its northern line is the Pennsylvania boundary. In this county is found the narrowest part of the State, and it is conspicuous by reason of the fact that coal mining and manufactures give occupation and support to the great majority of its people, whose number places Allegany next to Baltimore County in population. The coal fields cover 64,000 acres in what is known as the George's Creek (named after Washington) Coal Basin, west of Cumberland, between Dan's Mountain and Savage Mountain. The county is rich in other mineral deposits also, fire clay, cement, iron ore, Medina sandstone, etc.

The George's Creek Coal Basin is a part of that greatest of all coal deposits, the Allegheny field, which extends from Pennsylvania to Alabama. In Maryland the deposit is of a semi bituminous variety, highly prized for its peculiar qualities and unrivaled steam-making power.

The limestone and clay lands and the Potomac ''bottoms," in parts of Allegany, are exceeding fertile and produce potatoes, wheat, corn, buckwheat, oats and grass in large crops. Fruits, especially apples, flourish on the mountain sides. The county is very progressive and the standard of education, particularly among the miners, is high. Vast sums of capital are invested in Allegany industries, and some of these are among the most extensive of their kind in the United States. Tin-plate, leather, cement, lumber, machinery, flour, glass, and many other products of the county are shipped far and near.

Next to Baltimore, Cumberland, with a population of 17,128, is the largest city in the State, and is constantly growing in material resources and size. It is the business centre of a territory which extends into Pennsylvania and West Virginia. It is 178 miles from Baltimore and 149 from Pittsburg, and is reached by the Baltimore and Ohio, West Virginia Central (of which it is the eastern terminus) and Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroads, the latter a part of the Pennsylvania system.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal extends from Cumberland to Georgetown, 13. C. Fort Cumberland, where Braddock camped, was the starting point of the present city. Incident and legend, dealing with Indian, British, French and Civil Wars, cluster about Cumberland, and the topography and nomenclature of this region are suggestive. Frostburg, 17 miles westward of Cumberland, is a city of 5,274 population, on a plateau at an elevation of 1,700 feet above sea level. The second State Normal School is at Frostburg. Lonaconing, a mining town of 2,181 population, is in southwestern Allegany; Westernport, Midland, Barton, Mount Savage, Ocean, Flintstone, Orleans, Pekin are other towns.

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 Maryland AHGP

Source: History of Maryland, by L. Magruder Passano, Wm. J.C. Dulany Company, 1901.

 
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