Making Perfect History

Dundalk Patapsco Neck Historical Society and Museum Inc.

The Beginnings

In the fall of 1970 Ben Womer retired from Bethlehem Steel Sparrows Point plant after 44 years of service. Before he retired he was head of the Sea Scouts, and was unable to find any written information of the area to share with the boys. He had the idea of collecting information of the area known as Dundalk.

Mr. Womer contacted a retired teacher named Irene White together they started the Dundalk Historical Society. The first meeting of the Historical Society was held in the Dundalk Methodist Church.

Their first guest was Mr. Alex Bomgardner, founder and president of the Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River in 1968. He helped them understand what all was needed to become an historical cociety and to be organized.

There was a lot of history here in Dundalk that has never been documented locally. Andmost of the information attained was from Enoch Pratt Library from the micro film department.  There were military men and farmers here in the Dundalk, Edgemere, Sparrows Point, and Fort Howard areas, both famous and unknown.

Around the same time, 3,000 miles away, Mr. Womer went to his daughter’s home in California and took his grandkids touring around San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge where there he found a Francis Scott Key statue. That is when he had gotten the idea of doing something here in the river below where the Francis Scott Key Bridge is located.

With Mr. Womer's efforts, in 1979, the first buoy was placed in the river to celebrate the Stars Bangled Banner from where it started with Francis Scott Key. Mr. Womer had received a resolution to place a buoy in the river representing where Francis Scott Key was located on the British ship named the Surprise while writing what later has become our National Anthem - with additional thanks to another person with Dundalk roots,  Ella Virginia Houck Holloway.

The first year the buoy had started being placed was April 1979 and taken out in September of that year. The buoy has since been placed there thanks to Mr. Ben Womer who was also advocated naming the Francis Scott Key Bridge after anthem author. The last week of May this year the buoy will be anchored for this summer.