Mount Harmon is an historic home, located at Earleville,

Cecil County Cecil County () is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland at the northeastern corner of the state, bordering both Pennsylvania and Delaware. As of the 2020 census, the population was 103,725. The county seat is Elkton. The county was ...

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

, United States. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1974, and is currently open to the public.

Style

Mount Harmon is an 18th-century brick mansion built by Sidney George around 1788. It features a central door with a scrolled

pediment Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds. A pedimen ...

and pineapple keystone supported by Ionic

pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...

s. In the late 1920s a frame wing was built on the south gable.

History

The Mount Harmon Plantation estate and nature preserve covers some adjacent to the Chesapeake Bay, on a peninsula by the north shore of the Sassafras River. The plantation was created in 1651 as a land grant from Lord Baltimore to Godfrey Harmon. From 1760 to 1810 Mount Harmon flourished as a

tobacco plantation A plantation economy is an economy based on agricultural mass production, usually of a few commodity crops, grown on large farms worked by laborers or slaves. The properties are called plantations. Plantation economies rely on the export of cash ...

owned by the Louttit and George families. Mount Harmon eventually fell out of family hands and into disrepair. In 1963, Marguerite duPont de Villiers Boden, a direct descendant of the Louttits and Georges, rescued the plantation, restoring the Colonial Kitchen and Manor House. Mrs. Boden filled the house with 18th-century antiques, and restored the Tobacco Prize House as a reminder of the plantation's days as a tobacco shipping center for the Sassafras River area. After Mrs. Boden's death, her daughter Kip Kelso Boden Crist ensured the plantation's future by forming Friends of Mount Harmon, Inc.

Friends of Mount Harmon

Today, the Friends of Mount Harmon (FOMH), almost all volunteers, preserve and interpret the plantation for the education and enjoyment of its visitors. FOMH conducts house and kitchen tours, hosts Colonial picnics, Yuletide tours, and special events, as well as operating educational programs for schools and maintain

nature trail An educational trail (or sometimes educational path), nature trail or nature walk is a specially developed hiking trail or footpath that runs through the countryside, along which there are marked stations or stops next to points of natural, techno ...

s that wind around the property. Mount Harmon gives water access to canoes, kayaks, and boats. The formal boxwood garden is used for weddings, and the spacious Manor House grounds are open for festive events and corporate meetings.

References

External links

*, including undated photo, Maryland Historical Trust * *

Historic American Buildings Survey Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP) is a division of the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) responsible for administering the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS), Historic American Engineering Record (HAER), and Historic American Landscapes ...

documentation, filed under Earleville, Cecil County, MD: ** ** ** {{National Register of Historic Places in Maryland Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland Houses in Cecil County, Maryland Houses completed in 1788 Museums in Cecil County, Maryland Historic house museums in Maryland Protected areas of Cecil County, Maryland Historic American Buildings Survey in Maryland 1788 establishments in Maryland National Register of Historic Places in Cecil County, Maryland