Allegany County is acounty located in the northwestern part of theU.S. state ofMaryland. As of the2020 census, the population was 68,106.[1] Itscounty seat isCumberland.[2] The nameAllegany may come from a localLenape word,welhik hane[3][4] oroolikhanna, which means 'best flowing river of the hills' or 'beautiful stream'.[5] A number of counties and ariver in theAppalachian region of the U.S. are namedAllegany,Allegheny, orAlleghany. Allegany County is part of theWestern Maryland region of the state, and is part of theCumberland metropolitan area.
The western part of Maryland (including the present Allegany County) was originally part ofPrince George's County when Maryland was formed in 1696.[6] This county included six current counties, and by repeated splitting, new ones were generated:Frederick from Prince George's in 1748;[7] andMontgomery andWashington from Frederick in 1776.[8]
Allegany County was formed in 1789 by the splitting ofWashington County.[9] At the time it was the westernmost county in Maryland, but a split in 1872 createdGarrett County, the current westernmost county.[7]
A 10-dollar note from the Allegany County Bank from 1860.
Prior to 1789, the Virginia Commonwealth claimed the area of present-day Garrett and Allegany Counties, of Maryland. A 1771–1780 map of Virginias counties, shows Hampshire County, but the Virginia State boundary has Hampshire outside that boundary line. When conducting genealogical research, it is possible to find tax records for Hampshire County, Virginia included in Maryland records, and Maryland records in Hampshire County... Hampshire County was formed in 1758 by the Virginia Commonwealth and at its founding, included the present day counties of Garrett and Allegany Counties in Maryland, and Hardy, Grant, Mineral, and part of Morgan Counties in what is now West Virginia.[10]
In 1899,Theodore Roosevelt, then Governor ofNew York, passed through Allegany County on a four ½-hour “whistle stop” tour.[11]
According to theU.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 430 square miles (1,100 km2), of which 424 square miles (1,100 km2) is land and 5.8 square miles (15 km2) (1.3%) is water.[12]
Allegany County, Maryland – Racial and ethnic composition Note: the US Census treats Hispanic/Latino as an ethnic category. This table excludes Latinos from the racial categories and assigns them to a separate category. Hispanics/Latinos may be of any race.
As of the2010 United States census, there were 75,087 people, 29,177 households, and 17,959 families residing in the county.[20] The population density was 177.0 inhabitants per square mile (68.3/km2). There were 33,311 housing units at an average density of 78.5 per square mile (30.3/km2).[21] The racial makeup of the county was 89.2% white, 8.0% black or African American, 0.8% Asian, 0.1% American Indian, 0.2% from other races, and 1.6% from two or more races. Those of Hispanic or Latino origin made up 1.4% of the population.[20] In terms of ancestry, 31.8% wereGerman, 14.6% wereIrish, 11.9% wereEnglish, 11.8% wereAmerican, and 5.6% wereItalian.[22]
Of the 29,177 households, 26.0% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 46.0% were married couples living together, 11.0% had a female householder with no husband present, 38.4% were non-families, and 31.6% of all households were made up of individuals. The average household size was 2.30 and the average family size was 2.86. The median age was 40.9 years.[20]
The median income for a household in the county was $37,747 and the median income for a family was $52,680. Males had a median income of $42,322 versus $29,594 for females. The per capita income for the county was $20,764. About 9.6% of families and 14.5% of the population were below thepoverty line, including 18.3% of those under age 18 and 8.8% of those age 65 or over.[23]
As of thecensus of 2000,[24] there were 74,930 people, 29,322 households, and 18,883 families residing in the county. The population density was 176 people per square mile (68 people/km2). There were 32,984 housing units at an average density of 78 per square mile (30/km2). The racial makeup of the county was 93.02%White, 5.35%Black orAfrican American, 0.15%Native American, 0.52%Asian, 0.03%Pacific Islander, 0.19% fromother races, and 0.75% from two or more races. 0.76% of the population wereHispanic orLatino of any race. 29.0% were of German, 16.7% US or American, 12.8%Irish, 10.7% English and 5.3%Italian ancestry according to the 2000 census.[25]
There were 29,322 households, out of which 26.50% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 50.60% were married couples living together, 10.30% had a female householder with no husband present, and 35.60% were non-families. 30.10% of all households were made up of individuals, and 15.20% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.35 and the average family size was 2.90.
In the county, the population was spread out, with 20.60% under the age of 18, 11.20% from 18 to 24, 26.80% from 25 to 44, 23.50% from 45 to 64, and 17.90% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 39 years. For every 100 females there were 99.20 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.90 males.
The median income for a household in the county was $30,821, and the median income for a family was $39,886. Males had a median income of $31,316 versus $21,334 for females. The per capita income for the county was $16,780. About 9.70% of families and 14.80% of the population were below the poverty line, including 17.70% of those under age 18 and 9.50% of those age 65 or over.
As of 2010[update], Allegany County had a racial and ethnic population composition of 88.16% Non-Hispanic whites, 8.03% Blacks, 0.14% Native Americans, 0.76% Asians, 0.04% Pacific Islanders, 0.08% Non-Hispanics who reported some other race, 1.47% Non-Hispanics who reported two or more races and 1.44% Hispanics.
According to the county'scomprehensive annual financial reports, the top employers by number of employees in the county are the following. ("NR" indicates the employer was not ranked among the top ten employers that year.)
Occupying a middle ground between incorporated and unincorporated areas are Special Tax Districts, quasi-municipal unincorporated areas created by legislation passed by theMaryland General Assembly.[27] They lack home rule authority and must petition the General Assembly for changes affecting the authority of the district. There are eight Special Tax Districts in the county:
The library system was created in 1960, when libraries in Cumberland, Frostburg, LaVale, Pennsylvania Avenue School, and Westernport were merged to form a unified library system. The first of the libraries which would make up the library system was the Washington Street library, founded in 1924. The most recent addition to the library system was the Georges Creek library, which opened in March 2001. The Allegany County Library System currently has six branches: Frostburg Library, Georges Creek Library, LaVale Library, South Cumberland Library, Washington Street Library, and Westernport Library.[28]
Allegany County has been, since colonial times, an important node on the nation's transportation network as a key transition point in the movement of goods and people to and from the ports of the Mid-Atlantic and the agricultural and industrial production centers of the Ohio Valley and Midwest. The Cumberland Narrows, a naturally occurring watergap separating Wills and Haystack Mountains, serves as one of the few passages through what is otherwise one of the steepest rushes of the Ridge and Valley province. Because of this, Cumberland has been the site of both planned and completed transportation projects focused on connecting east and west.
On his fateful march fromAlexandria toFort Duquesne in modern-dayPittsburgh during theFrench and Indian War, British GeneralEdward Braddock and his men, including then-Lieutenant Colonel and Braddock's aide-de-campGeorge Washington, carved a road, closely following the Native AmericanNemacolin's Path, from the British encampment atFort Cumberland, through the Allegheny Mountains all the way to Fort Duquesne.[35] This road, known in early America asBraddock's Road, became the guidelines for the earliest sections of the Cumberland Road, or what later became known as theNational Road. Specifically, the section on Braddock's Road from Cumberland toUniontown, Pennsylvania was followed nearly exactly in the early construction of the National Road.[36] A monument to the start of the National Road now stands on Greene Street in Cumberland, very near the spot Braddock and his men began their expedition.[37]
In modern times, Allegany County is an important regional crossroads. It is crossed from east to west byInterstate 68 andUS Route 40, and from north to south byUS Route 220, which from Cumberland to theMason–Dixon line is part of the Appalachian Development Highway System'sCorridor O.
Public K–12 education in the county is handled byAllegany County Public Schools (ACPS). ACPS is governed by an elected, five-member Board of Education, plus an appointed superintendent. ACPS manages three high schools (grades 9–12), three middle schools (grades 6–8), 13 elementary schools (grades K–5), and one K–8 school, plus the Center for Career and Technical Education inCresaptown, and the Eckhart Alternative School inEckhart Mines.[38]
Allegany County is also home to three Christianparochial schools:Bishop Walsh School (Catholic) in Cumberland, Lighthouse Christian Academy (non-denominational) in Cumberland, and Calvary Christian Academy (non-denominational) in Cresaptown.[39]
Allegany County is home toFrostburg State University, one of the eleven member universities of theUniversity System of Maryland, and the only public, four-year university in Maryland west of theWashington–Baltimore combined statistical area. The university, founded in 1898 as the Frostburg State Normal School, FSU, as the university is known to students and alumni, now offers more than 40 undergraduate majors and has a yearly enrollment consistently over 5,000 students.[40]
A junior college experience is available in Allegany County with theAllegany College of Maryland, located in Cumberland. Allegany College provides more than 50 associate degree programs and more than 20 certificate programs, and has more than 3,500 enrollees and more than 16,000 registrants in its Continuing Education programs. ACM also operates a satellite campus inEverett, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles north of Cumberland inBedford County.[41]
The primary mineral resources extracted for use in Allegany County are coal, iron, sandstone, and limestone. Coal-bearing formations are concentrated in theGeorges Creek Basin in the western part of the county.
Drew Hankinson, AKA "Luke Gallows" (born 1983), American professional wrestler
Bob Robertson (Born 1946) - Played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman between 1967 and 1979, most notably as a member of the Pittsburgh Pirates. Robertson was born in Frostburg, Maryland in 1946 where he graduated from Mount Savage High School in Maryland. Robertson lives in LaVale, Maryland with his wife, Carolyn.
Sandy Creek may not be mentioned here. Here is a reference that it existed (the letter symbols at the end of the reference are defined in a table at the end of Keegan's book)A Third Rutan Family Index p 177 By James J. KeeganMaryland Listings:Peter Rutan - (1776-1848_ p/John Rutan-Catherine Jones of Morris Co. NJ; m (1) Elizabeth McIlrath (1771–1845) (2) Mary Webb (1788–1855) in 1846; he was living in Sandy Creek, Allegany Co. in 1880 and moved to Markleysburg, Fayette Co. PA in 1812; they later (lived) in Caroll Co. OH; GSNJ; LDS; MEACH
^"Find a County". National Association of Counties. Archived fromthe original on May 31, 2011. RetrievedJune 7, 2011.
^"welhik".Lenape Talking Dictionary. Archived fromthe original on September 11, 2012. RetrievedDecember 14, 2011.
^"Heckewelder here does not give the strict meaning ofhanne. The word in common use among Algonkin [i.e., Algonquian] tribes for river issipu, and this includes the idea of 'a stream of flowing water'. But in the mountainous parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginiasipu did not sufficiently convey the idea of a rapid stream, roaring down mountain gorges, andhanne takes its place to designate not a meresipu, or flowing river, but a rapid mountain stream."Russell, Erret (1885)."Indian Geographical Names".The Magazine of Western History.2 (1):53–59. RetrievedDecember 14, 2011.
^Alleghany, or as some prefer to write it, Allegheny,—the Algonkin name of the Ohio River, but now restricted to one of its branches,—is probably (Delaware)welhik-hanné or[oo]lik-hanné, 'the best (or, the fairest) river.'Welhik (as Zeisberger wrote it) is the inanimate form of the adjectival, meaning 'best,' 'most beautiful.' In his Vocabulary, Zeisberger gave this synthesis, with slight change of orthography, as "Wulach'neü" [or[oo]lakhanne[oo], as Eliot would have written it,] with the free translation, "a fine River, without Falls." The name was indeed more likely to belong to rivers 'without falls' or other obstruction to the passage of canoes, but its literal meaning is, as its composition shows, "best rapid-stream," or "finest rapid-stream;" "La Belle Riviere" of the French, and theOue-yo´ orO hee´ yo Gä-hun´-dä, "good river" or "the beautiful river," of the Senecas. For this translation of the name we have very respectable authority,—that of Christian Frederick Post, a Moravian of Pennsylvania, who lived seventeen years with the Muhhekan Indians and was twice married among them, and whose knowledge of the Indian languages enabled him to render important services to the colony, as a negotiator with the Delawares and Shawanese of the Ohio, in the French war. In his "Journal from Philadelphia to the Ohio" in 1758, after mention of the 'Alleghenny' river, he says: "The Ohio, as it is called by the Sennecas.Alleghenny is the name of the same river in the Delaware language. Both words signify the fine or fair river." La Metairie, the notary of La Salle's expedition, "calls the Ohio, theOlighinsipou, orAleghin; evidently an Algonkin name,"—as Dr. Shea remarks. Heckewelder says that the Delawares "still call the Allegany (Ohio) river,Alligéwi Sipu,"—"the river of the Alligewi" as he chooses to translate it. In one form, we havewulik-hannésipu, 'best rapid-stream long-river;' in the other,wuliké-sipu, 'best long-river.' Heckewelder's derivation of the name, on the authority of a Delaware legend, from the mythic 'Alligewi' or 'Talligewi,'—"a race of Indians said to have once inhabited that country," who, after great battles fought in pre-historic times, were driven from it by the all-conquering Delawares,—is of no value, unless supported by other testimony.Trumbull, J. Hammond (1870).The Composition of Indian Geographical Names. pp. 13–14. RetrievedDecember 14, 2011.
^Thomas, James W., and Williams, Thomas J. C.History of Allegany County, Maryland. Baltimore, Md.: Regional Publishing Co., 1969, p. 289.
^abBentley, Elizabeth Petty.County Courthouse Book. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2009, p. 128.
^Bentley, Elizabeth Petty.County Courthouse Book. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2009, p. 129.
^Bentley, Elizabeth Petty.County Courthouse Book. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2009, p. 126.
^Virginia Counties Map of 1771–1780; Henry Howe's 1845 History of Virginia.
^The last five National Origin figures are taken from the Long Form, which was given to less than 20% of respondents but then extrapolated to the whole. Besides this problem in making a comparison, the long form also limits people to only two stated ancestries, but unlike racial counts, if someone states two ancestries they are counted in both, while in racial counts they are grouped as "some other race."
.jpg)
_from_the_overpass_for_Maryland_State_Route_948_(Mountain_Road_Northeast)_in_Pratt%2c_Allegany_County%2c_Maryland.jpg)
