Gone But Not Forgotten: Masonville Was Bulldozed to Expand Roads and Railways

As part of a massive infrastructure project between Baltimore City and the B&O Railroad, the “tiny town of industrial workers” known as Masonville, The Sun reported in April 1953, “has fallen before the wrecker’s bar.” “Its two tree lined streets—Matson and Mavin—no longer resound to the cries of children playing in safety just off the heavily traveled Chesapeake and Frankfurst avenues,” the article continued, detailing Masonville’s doomed fate.

To expand operations at its ore and coal piers in Curtis Bay, B&O had bought out Masonville property owners, eventually deeding the land to the city for road and rail expansion. Later, the southern portion of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel I-895 highway would be built there.

Myril Johnson, now 83, was 10 when his parents sold their wood-framed Masonville rowhouse and moved to nearby Brooklyn. After the close-knit town of 200 residents all had been forced to relocate—many were related by blood or marriage—he and his cousins often rode their bikes back to their old neighborhood.

On one of his last trips, after his Matson Street home had been leveled, he chucked a brick at the street sign, basically all that still stood on the block, knocking it down and toting it home (see above photo.)

Founded in the 1890s, Masonville was famous for its swimmable cove—although as manufacturing sprouted, the water was said to turn blond hair green—its ever capable Masonville Athletic Club baseball nines, and its Five Sisters Tavern, popular among shipyard workers and merchant marine sailors. Today, the Masonville Cove environmental center sits on the reclaimed waterfront.

“Those aren’t things I remember, though,” says Johnson, sitting at his Linthicum kitchen table and turning the pages of a family scrapbook, which includes a photo of his 20-year-old Masonville uncle, who was killed at Iwo Jima. “People were hardworking and poor. They’d made it through the Depression. They looked after each other. If someone had a problem, an illness or whatever, other people would help them, gravitate toward them.”

One of a handful of surviving Masonville natives, Johnson hesitantly recalls a story about his now-deceased older brother, who had suffered from polio as a child. As a teenager, his brother and his friends would climb onto slow-moving train cars in the winter and push coal off the side until the railway police spotted them. At night, they’d return, filling up sacks to carry back so families could heat their homes.

“Was it stealing? Yes,” Johnson says, choking up for a moment, acknowledging teenage boys are known to do worse things on occasion. “There’d be 70, 80, 90, 100 cars full of coal going overseas, and they just wanted to give some to people in the neighborhood to stay warm.

Can I make a suggestion?” Johnson adds, humbly. “I think this story should be titled, ‘Gone, but not forgotten.’”