From Terry Hartison:
As I was driving on Route 40 the other day from Baltimore to Harford County, I came upon a town that is spelled three different ways. Joppatowne, Joppatown or Joppa Town? The first thing that i thought was that there must be several thousand people living here with a spelling disorder, but than I saw Dion Guthries campaign sign and I saw that he spelled it “Joppatown”
I decided to do some research when I arrived at home and found out that Dion Guthri is spelling it wrong along with the people that run the Flea Market. All the maps read “Joppatowne” and 3 history books I found refer to it as Joppa, or the town at Joppa. I have a funny feeling that homes aren’t selling too well there if people don’t know where they’re moving to.
So would someone, or some group, please correct all the spelling errors in Joppatowne? After all, Joppatowne must be the correct spelling because there are two schools spelled this way, Joppatowne Elementary and Joppatowne High School.
Terry Hartison
It is funny that you should mention your confusion over those signs. I am a native of Joppatowne, and it has been a sore point for me. I believe that the different spellings you have seen (Joppa Town and Joppatown) are the results of Mr. Guthrie’s one man mission. I have even emailed him about this issue. Here is my email and his absolutely stunning response:
Please read the history of Joppa Town. You can call it whatever you would like or you feel comfortable with. I have live in Joppa Town for 47 years and I use to call the area what you call it. However if you would read the history, as I have, you will find “Joppatowne” was a development created by a developer in 1961 by the name of Leon Panitz Co and he has now passed. Joppa Town was founded in 1690 and established in 1712, as the sign states as you drive into our community. I prefer the history of our area and not honoring a developer . This is not an error on my part, it is my recognition of our history, which I am very proud . Should we call the area Rumsey Island or Foster Knoll or Joppa Farm? All these plus more, were just developments, as was Joppatowne. It is funny, because as I type this, Joppatowne come up miss spelled and when you click on the word Joppatowne to correct it, it comes up “ Joppa Town”, interesting. Also note that the Federal Government reconzies the area as “Joppa” as the post office is “Joppa Post Office”, which I don’t like and not many people do because Joppa is on the other side of route 40. Let me suggest something to you, drive across the Rumsey Island bridge and go straight to the Church at the end of Bridge Drive. As you enter the driveway of the Church at the end of Bridge Drive, look at the silver sign to the right, which shows the history of areas throughout the State (I Am sure you have seen them) you will notice on that silver sign “Joppa Town”. If you have a problem looking up out history, let me know as I have a printed out copy I can send you. Tell your neighbors as well, I think it is imperative that all our area residents know our history and if they want to call it Joppa or Joppatowne or Joppa Town, be my guest. I will live with our history and call it what it was founded, Joppa Town, which, by the way, just came up on my computer as spell correctly. If you would like to talk about it some more you can call me on my cell at 410-937-3358 at your convenience.
From: Melanie Denzer [mailto:mdenzer2@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2014 12:30 PM
To: guthrie, dion
Subject: Misspelled signs
Good afternoon!
I live and work in the Joppatowne community. Every day I see your billboard for re-election on route 40. It disappoints me to see that as a representative of this area, you don’t have the community’s name spelled correctly. This was the case during the last election, as well. It seems as if all of your signs have it spelled “Joppatown”. I know this is a small thing, but I am extremely proud to be a native of the Joppatowne area and previous instances of this misspelling have been from people who are dismissive of my community. I know this is not the case for you, and it is a simple error. However, I am sure you would earn the gratitude of many of my neighbors if you were able to fix this billboard in some way.
And here is my response to his ‘logic’:
I appreciate your quick response to my email. While I understand your position, I find that we are essentially discussing apples and oranges. True, Joppatowne is just a community/development along the lines of Rumsey Island and Foster Knoll. (‘Is’ as in ‘present tense’. They are all still communities.) The larger area is, indeed, Joppa. That is what we are all listed as under the US Postal code. The Joppa branch of the USPS is correctly located since the 21085 postal zone includes this whole area. Everyone I know is more upset by the ‘Joppa Town’ sign at the intersection of 40 and Joppa Farm than they are about the Joppa Post Office. In fact, I have never heard of anyone complaining about that. Box Hill is a large community that is located within Abingdon. Do we discard the name Box Hill? What about Red Pump? Magnolia?
Historically speaking, the colonial Joppa Town was centered in what is currently Rumsey Island. If we go by your argument, shouldn’t we then change Rumsey Island to Joppa Town? In fact, this area in general was also the location of Gunpowder Town and Foster Neck. Neither of these places exist anymore. Do we bring back those names?
For the record, the government indeed recognizes the entire 21085 area as Joppa. It also recognizes the Joppatowne community on its highway signs. We are listed under exit 74 on I-95 in the ramp for south on 152 towards Joppatowne. We are also a census-designated place. The government recognizes a large portion of the county as Bel Air according to the postal codes, but the entire area is not the city of Bel Air.
My point is that you could be either referencing the Joppa area or the Joppatowne community on your sign. It is one, or the other. Since you have also listed larger areas like Abingdon and Edgewood, I assume you really mean Joppa.
I would also like to mention that if you are indeed pushing for Joppa Town to become common usage, you should spell it as such on your signs. Not ‘Joppatown’. Which reminds me… Spell Check does not make an argument. My last name is often pointed out as misspelled through Spell Check. My program does not recognize Pylesville or Dundalk. Does that make these names less valid? It does not.
I hope this lessens your confusion somewhat on all the misspellings. It is, indeed, Joppatowne, a community in the greater Joppa area. Anything else is all a result of one man’s misdirected energy.
The Oldtimer’s, of Harford County know Joppatowne as Shell’s swamp.Panitiz & co. filled in the low areas the Sea turtles use to lay egg’s in the spring at Rumsey Island.
“The first thing that i thought was that there must be several thousand people living here with a spelling disorder, but THAN I saw Dion Guthries campaign sign and I saw that he spelled it “Joppatown””
Than I saw?
How ironical…..
Thanks for pointing that error out h, I must have been using the same spell check as the people that made the signs.
You have more errors than that in your piece!
Could you please point out the errors Cdev?
In paragraph 1 you have I as a lowercase, you misspelled Gutheries; leaving out the apostrophe. In paragraph 2 you left the e off the man’s name.
Thank you Cdev, it isn’t like me to submit something without proof reading it first. As far as leaving the e off of the name, I did that intentionally.
Never a wise idea when accusations of misspelling and punctuation are a foot…..
CDev is a regular dagger troll
Aren’t we all at this point?
I find Mr. Guthrie’s geographical and historical ignorance appalling. As one who spent the first 27 years of his life in Joppa, on Mr. Guthrie’s preferred side of US 40, just not in his narrow Joppatowne/Joppa Town/”Joppatown” world, I can assure his nibs that Joppa is and always has been a much larger area than his parochial vision can see. I am old enough to recall the radio jingles when Levitz created that part of Joppa now known as Joppatowne. I assure Mr. Guthrie that Joppa was larger than Joppatowne even then. Personally, I think it’s time to put the aging hippie out to pasture. Were I still living in the area, he would certainly not have my vote.