Harford Legacy Farm Commemorative Book

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Eden Manor Farm est. mid-1700s - Forest Hill, MD Current Owners: Henry Benjamin Rigdon Original Purchaser: Watters/Risteau Family, then Mary E.W. Risteau Current Acreage: 223 Current Agricultural Products or Services: corn, soybeans, wheat, timber Preserved

Eden Manor Farm served as a militia training site for the Revolutionary War. Later, it became the home of Mary E.W. Risteau - the first woman in the Maryland House of Delegates, the first woman Senator in Maryland, and the first woman on the Board of Education. The east side of the farm (where the original store and homestead are situated) was platted in the late 1700s to be a town, with a store, blacksmith shop, livery stable, and homes. It was to be called Edentown but never materialized.

Swansbury est. 1750 - Aberdeen, MD Current Owner: Martha Barchowsky Original Purchaser: Martha Garrettson Smith Current Acreage: 86 Current Agricultural Products or Services: hay Preserved and Historical Designation

Built before the Revolutionary War, the farm was a "stopover" for many dignitaries as evidenced by the original pieces of furniture at Swansbury that were necessary to entertain such visionaries. The War of 1812 left a British cannonball as a family souvenir for its participation. The list of changes and challenges parallels the history of The United States of America. The farm's original footprint was much larger than it is now, reaching out to Rt. 7, one of the country's colonial main thoroughfares, and towards present-day Aberdeen. To take advantage of seeing who was traveling the main road, a unique architectural feature, the enclosed windowed room over the front porch, was added. Most people familiar with a "widow's walk/watch" know it was a topmost perch added to homes along waterways so that people could observe the comings and going of ships. The windowed observatory at Swansbury is the land version of the "widow's walk/watch."