Tours will be available on Saturdays and Sundays from 1-4pm May through December 19. School groups and private tours available year-round, weather permitting.
Constructed around 1780 on nearby Merryman Street, the Thomas Isaac Log Cabin commemorates the early stages of European development in the Patapsco River Valley. The site’s namesake, Thomas Isaac, purchased the structure in 1858 to expand his land holdings. The site served as important resource for city’s African American community in the 1870s, preceding the still-active St. Luke A.M.E. church as a meeting place. The cabin remained in the Isaac family until 1933. John Henry Stanton acquired the property and later willed it to his widow, Fannie Jackson Stanton, in 1963. By the 1970s, the building was vacant and boarded up.
In the 1980s, the cabin was dismantled and rebuilt at the intersection of Main Street and Ellicott Mills Drive. After the 2018 flash flood, the cabin was temporarily moved to Parking Lot F. After the construction of a new foundation, the cabin has been returned to its previous location at the intersection of Main Street and Ellicott Mills Drive.
The cabin’s small size and spare interior reflect the style of most homes from the end of the 18th century, lending visitors a sense of Howard County’s colonial past.
