Elkridge Wedding

Elkridge is a census-designated place (CDP) in Howard County, Maryland, United States. The population was 22,042 at the 2000 census. Elkridge is located at the confluence of three counties, the other two being Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties. It is bordered on the north by Catonsville, on the east by Linthicum and the BWI Airport, on the south by Dorsey, and on the west by various small communities between it and Columbia.

Elkridge qualifies as the oldest settlement in its present county, when Howard was a part of Anne Arundel County. Its location on the Patapsco River was a key element in its growth. The settlement existed even before the Maryland General Assembly elected a law to erect a thirty acre, forty-lot town at Elkridge Landing to be called "Jansen Town" in 1733. Initially, the settlement was developed as a place where planters, who each had a wharf along the River, could bring their tobacco crop to be loaded on English trading ships. Later, Elkridge Landing was built as the seaport dock for the community. In 1825, Jansen Town burned, taking out all of the oldest buildings at the Landing and 9 out of 10 houses in the village.