Andrew Lyon (1798-1887) of Cecil County and George Taylor Lyon (1816-1891) of Havre de Grace owned this parcel of land in the 1880s. Andrew and George were brothers and dry goods merchants in A. & G. T. Lyon & Company on St. John Street, from the 1840s through the 1880s. Andrew Lyon also was an election judge in Cecil County in 1850. In 1877 they sold this lot to James McLhinney (1832-1915), and his wife Alice (1830-1895), both of whom had been born in Ireland (and may have emigrated during the devastating Potato Famine of the 1840s). James and Alice had six children including a son, James A. McLhinney, Jr. (1863-1933), and in 1910 James Sr., as a widower, sold this house to James Jr. and his wife, Margaret M. McLhinney (1865-1943).

Harry Augustus Coy was living at this address when he enlisted for WWI in the National Guard July 17, 1917. Pvt. Coy was a Saddler in January 1918 and served with the 2nd Company PA Training and Headquarters and Military Police before going to the 103rd Military Police. He was overseas from May 1918 to August 1919 and was honorably discharged on August 6, 1919. Pvt Harry Coy is listed on the Roll of Honor at Tydings Park.

James McLhinney, Jr. and Margaret lived here with family until James died in 1933. Margaret lived another 10 years and devised this home in her Will to Thomas Hallahan and Benson Hallahan, of Philadelphia. Within only one month of the conveyance in 1944, however, Walter McLhinney (1896-1977) and Eleanor, his wife, purchased the home back from the Hallahans. Walter was one of eleven children of John and Sarah McLhinney and a WWI veteran. One of Walter’s sisters, Mary Alice, married William F. Abbott (1886-1924) of Abbott’s Ice House on Water Street.

At the time they bought this, Walter and Eleanor were operating the very popular McLhinney’s News Depot at 212 North Washington Street. Their son, John Eugene "Jackie Mac" McLhinney (1927-2012), became a partner in this family business as did another son, Charles Leo McLhinney (1931-2007).

Walter and Eleanor also had a daughter, whom they named after her mother, and she married Leonard E. Ferguson. In 1953, Leonard and Eleanor operated a residential and commercial electrical services business named the Ferguson Electric Company from this building (it later relocated to Water Street). Walter and Eleanor also had a son, Walter Francis McLhinney (1925-1945) who was killed in action while serving in the U.S. Army in WWII. At 19 he was the last boy from Harford County to die in WWII, having been injured three times. He was the older brother to Charles McLhinney. From 1951-1957 and again 1959-1961, Walter McLhinney served as Mayor of Havre de Grace.

In 1958, Walter and Eleanor McLhinney sold this property to their son, Charles, and his wife, Mary C. McLhinney. Charles continued to run the News Depot business until 1997 when he retired and closed the business. He died in 2007 and his daughter, Annie Cochran McLhinney, who had been living in California for about 30 years, returned to Havre de Grace and now lives in this home with her mother, Mary C. McLhinney. This means, remarkably, that ever since the house was built in 1877 the house has been owned by only one family, the McLhinneys.

County Records
Built 1935. 1800 sq ft, 1 bath. 2 stories with basement.