Editing Catonsville, Maryland (section)

===Early settlement===
The earliest formal settlement of present-day Catonsville began in the second half of the 17th century. Incoming settlers at first followed streams by boat or trail, until embarking further uphill for uncultivated land, often using the aforementioned Native trails, as existing settlers took up most of the desirable land around major waterways. It is uncertain if Catonsville's earliest settlers came primarily via the Patapsco or Patuxent rivers. Settlers from the latter would have traversed Anne Arundel County, before fording the Patapsco River at Elkridge Landing. As the southern shore of the Patapsco River began to fill with settlers, others began to look northward, a movement which soon increased in rapidity through the latter decades of the century. By the year 1695, much of Hunting Ridge had been settled through land grants, and most of present-day Catonsville land comes from these original land grants.<ref name="keidel"/>