This piece of land was sold by Charles B. Hitchcock, along with the rest of Square 218, to J. Thompson Frieze (1826-1898) in 1875. Hitchcock was a toll collector on the Tidewater Canal for many years and was a Town Commissioner in 1867. Frieze was Mayor of Havre de Grace several times in the late 1800s. In 1877 Frieze sold this to Robert K. Vanneman (1853-1912) and his wife, Laura. Vanneman was a banker and also served as Mayor from 1895-1901. In 1889 Robert Vanneman sold 14 of the 28 lots in Square 218 (including this land) to Abram Prizer McCombs (1824-1916). It is believed that A.P. McCombs built this three-story house around 1890. McCombs was well known locally; he owned the Havre de Grace Iron Company and had purchased the Havre de Grace Republicannewspaper in 1868.

In August 1889 the Mayor and City Council agreed to allow John Faust & Son to construct a shoe factory at 701 Fountain Street that would be exempt from city taxes for 50 years. It was renamed Faust Schocke Shoe Company, as is shown on the 1899 and 1894 Sanborn Insurance Maps, but it went out of business quickly. This house, along with 212 South Stokes Street, 618 Bourbon Street, and 617 Fountain Street were fairly imposing Queen Anne Style residences, said by the Maryland Historic Trust to have been built for superintendents of the Shoe Company. Because A.P. McCombs and his family are known to have lived at the time in 120 South Union Avenue it is assumed that a factory superintendent lived in this home for a few years.

About nine years later, Gambrill & Melville Mills, manufacturer of cotton damask and other textiles, closed two mills elsewhere and moved into the vacated Shoe Factory’s premises. In 1902, A.P. McCombs sold this house to Robert G. Gambrill (1858-1941), one of two brothers who owned the Gambrill & Melville Mills. Robert and his wife, Mary, appear to have raised their daughter, Lenita, here and a 1916 telephone directory lists this as the residence of Robert Gambrill. Carrie Lawrence, in a Harford County Living History interview, recalled that her mother operated a loom for the Mill and that the two Gambrill brothers were the first Havre de Grace residents to buy an automobile!

In 1923, the Gambrills sold the home to W. Wilson Cooley (1876-1957) who had married Isabel Lamar Cooley (1880-1970) in 1905 and had a son, Franklin D. Cooley (1906-1989). Wilson and Isabel Cooley owned this home from 1923 until 1964, which is why some locals referred to this as the “Cooley House.” The Cooleys had divided the home into two apartments—they lived on the first floor and rented the second floor.

Jeanne Jackson Dell’Acqua remembers that her grandmother, Ethel “Betty” Hulett Jackson, lived in the second floor apartment from 1934 to 1950 (when she died) and Jeanne visited her here often. Ethel Hulett Jackson and William Andrew Jackson (1880-1954), had been the parents of Walter E. Jackson (1911-1983) who married Virginia Jackson and moved into 415 South Union Avenue in 1941 with Jeanne as a baby. Jeanne recalls that there was a chicken coop in the back yard here and today she still has some of her grandmother’s furniture from that apartment. Jeanne says there was a back staircase that went down to a landing with a door that led to an outdoor staircase that led to the side yard; however, she always entered the house through the front door, greeted the Cooleys in their living room by the fireplace, and went up the main stairs. In January 1940 a spark from the chimney ignited the shingled roof and caused major damage to the third floor, where furniture and other items were stored (including the Hulett family Bible that was destroyed).

Jean Bines DeBaugh recalls that her family (including her sister, Jackie Brandon) rented the second floor from Mrs. Cooley in the early 1960s. Jean says the house was beautiful—she loved all the wood as well as the fireplace in the living room but she found the servants’ bell under the diningroom table the most interesting feature. The widowed Isabel Cooley sold the home in 1964 to her son, Franklin Cooley, who sold it that same year to Arthur and Suzanne M. Gilbert who used it as an investment property until 1978. During those years, many architectural features of the home were obscured and the top floor was also made into an apartment. An exterior staircase was punched in at the first landing, the exterior was clad in asbestos shingles, and the wrap-around gingerbread porch was removed. For the next five years, the home was owned by Arthur and Lynn Johnson.

New owners in 1984 were the Maistros family, who opened their home to the Annual Candlelight Tour. They lived in the first and second floors and rented the third floor. One of the three fireplaces had an ornately carved wood mantle that rose to the ceiling. Gay Lynn Maistros had decorated the home with items from travels in Greece, Japan, and Germany when her father served in the U.S. Army.

By 1999, the home was owned by Gay Lynn Price and her husband, William Price. They set about restoring the house to its original splendor. Open to the 2004 Annual Candlelight Tour, many improvements could be seen. The wrap-around front porch had been carefully reconstructed by David Malin along with removing the asbestos shingles and exposing architectural details hidden for decades. Malin said he followed an old photograph of the house in recreating the porch. During the renovations, the pocket window in the dining room was exposed and restored along with a second-story fish-scale “skirt.” The original fireplace mantle in the living room exposed beautiful Italian tiles. This property received an award from the Havre de Grace Historic Preservation Commission in 2005.

Important features in the Prices’ completion of the restoration of the house included the plaster design in the parlor ceiling, pocket doors and natural woodwork, refinishing original hardwood floors, and reworking fireplaces in the parlor and dining room. And 2013 brought a complete renovation of the kitchen, the last room to be finished. The Prices continue to enjoy this home.

County records
Built 1935. 3311 sq ft, 2.5 stories, basement, 3 baths, 7488 sq ft lot, detached garage.