The original home here had the address of 601 Otsego Street but at some time in or after 1995 Harford County changed the address to 600-606 North Stokes Street.

William J. and Esther A. Reasin (1846-1920) probably built the home that was here in the 1880s when raising their children. William preceded Esther Reasin in death and when she died her heirs, S. Russell Reasin, Elizabeth I. Reasin, and Emily B. Reasin, sold this property to Michael P. Boyd (1860-1941) and Margaret Boyd in 1921. Michael was a WWI veteran having served in the Army.

Carey and Mary Lynn Snyder, still active in the real estate business in town, owned this large yellow home with a porch from 1956 to 1975 when they sold it to John Robert “Johnny” Duff (1935-2000). Johnny was a barber by profession but loved motorcycles, fast cars and drag racing. Jeff Horne remembers that Johnny would drag race his automatic AMX and brag about how it would shift through the gears faster than most stick shifts! Johnny even had a three-wheeled motorcycle in the 1970s.

Johnny used to work for Stan Rodia, Sr. next to Tim’s Tavern on St. John Street but when Stan Sr. died in 1973 Johnny opened “Johnny’s Barber Shop” at 465 Franklin Street. Stan Rodia, Jr. says, “Johnny was quite the character with his ’64 Buick Riviera and later his green ’68 AMC AMX that he raced all over the country. He hit a telephone pole with it and almost killed himself! They had to wire him back together at Johns Hopkins. . . but he made it back. Really great guy.” Charles Packard remembers the accident because he was on the ambulance crew that night and Johnny was hurt badly.

After he recovered, Johnny had a barber shop in his home here, along with a barber pole outside. In 1995, five years before he died, Johnny sold this home to EBA, LLC, of Bel Air. At some point not long after that the house caught fire and burned to the ground. The property, reaching back to Linden Lane has been subdivided into four 3,280 square foot lots with North Stokes Street addresses. The lots remain unimproved and empty but continue to be owned by EBA, LLC.

County Records
600-606 North Stokes Street, four 3280 square-foot lots.