By Baltimore Sun, July 13, 1997
As a boy, Robert Linthicum slept in the house his great-great-grandfather William built and played ball in the overgrown garden that had flourished a century ago. Later, as a law student, he wrote research papers at the tiny, dark wooden desk his ancestors had used for bookkeeping.
Growing up a Linthicum in Linthicum, in an old family house in the 100 block of W. Maple St., Robert always felt a firm sense of belonging, a connection to his past, the tingle of being in touch with a reality not of his own time.
The history, stories and legends of his bloodline were woven through his life. And he often felt the weight of membership in one of Maryland’s pioneering families.
“You got a lot of comments,” said Linthicum, 28, a lawyer who now lives in Salisbury. “Such as: ‘Oh, you must own Linthicum.’ ”
Well, the Linthicums don’t own the town of about 10,000 anymore. But as founders, the family still permeates the town — through the handful of mansions members have built, the streets named after relatives, the descendants who still live there.
And the family’s heritage has become something like public property, embraced and passed down by generations of Linthicums and shared with town residents in popular periodic house tours.
Even the younger Linthicums treasure and boast of their lineage.
“I’m proud of my heritage,” said Bruce Kromminga, 26, Robert Linthicum’s cousin. “It also makes me feel that I need to live up to the people who lived before me.”
In April, Robert’s brother, James, returned from his home in England to get married at Turkey Hill, one of the family homes.
The first Linthicum — originally spelled Lins-combe, which roughly means “the place at which a rushing stream throws off a spray” — arrived from Wales in 1658, not too long after the Calverts came over to establish Maryland in 1634.
Thomas Linthicum was an 18-year-old farmer who came to America, like many others, for a better life. In Maryland, he married, developed land and had four children. When he died, he owned 1,200 acres of Anne Arundel County.
More important, he began generations of Linthicums who would become prominent Maryland farmers, businessmen and politicians, including J. Charles Linthicum, the congressman who sponsored the bill that made “The Star-Spangled Banner” the national anthem.
Marriage twined into the Linthicum brood the blood of other old Maryland families such as the Hopkins — of the Johns Hopkins University fame — and the Shipleys, for whom another county community is named.
Linthicum was formed in the early 1900s when five brothers, including J. Charles, started the Linthicum Heights Real Estate Co., and people began referring to the area by their name.
Owned houses
By then, the Linthicums owned several houses in the town, including one on Turkey Hill, named for the fowl that flourished there, and Twin Oaks, named for the trees on its front lawn.
The Linthicums “were always an influential Maryland family, producing congressmen and things like that,” said Francis O’Neill, a Maryland Historical Society reference librarian. “Anyone who owned a lot of land in those days could call a lot of shots in their neighborhood, and that’s what they did in Anne Arundel County.”
The family handed down its history through its stories. Kromminga, an assistant stockbroker who now lives in Baltimore, said the family was close, and someone was always recounting the family’s adventures.
He learned the most when he lived for a while with his great-uncle Sweetser Linthicum at another old family home in the 100 block of W. Maple St.
Sweetser, the unofficial family historian, told him about the time Mary Delmah Linthicum, Kromminga’s great-great-aunt, decided on a whim to pack her three children into a car and drive to Yellowstone National Park.
This was in the early 1920s when highways, still only intermittent, weren’t smooth and women rarely went on such trips alone. She got to Chicago before the car broke down.
Then there was the time Sweetser went to Berlin for the 1936 Olympics to watch his fraternity brothers compete in lacrosse. He had no money to get back to the United States, so he stowed away on a ship. Discovered shortly after setting sail, he had to work as a deckhand all the way back.
“These were people who tried stuff where, if you sat down and thought about it, you’d think ‘Oh, this is foolish,’ ” Kromminga said. “But nobody ever said that you couldn’t have this adventure.”
Family historian
Kromminga said such stories have provided lessons and inspired him to take over Sweetser’s role as family historian when his great-uncle died this year.
He said he intends to keep the family tradition of recycling first names in honor of older Linthicums. Sweetser, for example, is a common Linthicum name that began generations ago when a Sweetser married into the family and named her son for her family.
Some Linthicums found it difficult at times to live up to their name. Linda Linthicum Campbell, who grew up in the town, said she always felt watched.
“Anytime you do anything or say anything, you’re a Linthicum, and you’re supposed to act a certain way,” said Campbell, 50, who now lives in Herndon. “And people think you’re rich because you’re a Linthicum, and that’s not the case. But my brother just loved it. He ran for class president.”
Despite the childhood distress over her family name, Campbell is planning to keep the cycle of history going. Like Robert Linthicum and Bruce Kromminga and many other young Linthicums, Campbell holds the town close to her heart.
She is restoring Twin Oaks, J. Charles Linthicum’s residence.
“I’ll feel proud to be able to keep the place up and maintain the historical significance of the family,” Campbell said.