The house that was here from the late 1880s to the year 2000 at the southwest corner of South Union Avenue and Revolution Street was owned by ancestors of Amin Fareed during all those years. Amin says that he, his mother (Zada Lehman) and her siblings, as well as his great-grandmother and her siblings and their parents grew up in the house. The two-story frame house faced Revolution Street and their property began at the corner of Union Avenue and ran west. It extended south 120 feet, which today would be to where the parking garage begins. Amin remembers that it had yellow aluminum siding when he was young.

According to family history, Captain William Ward Virdin (1803-1871) sold this property in 1864 to Gideon Bosley (1812-1893), who was Amin’s fourth great-grandfather. Captain Virdin was best known in town for being Captain of the 453-ton “Susquehanna” steamer that ferried trains across the Susquehanna River. Gideon Bosley was also one of the trustees of the African Methodist Episcopal congregation who purchased the property and formed the St. James AME Church on Green Street in 1874.

Gideon Bosley, who may have worked on the steamboat for the Captain, deeded the property “with love and affection” to Eliza Bosley White (1836-1927, his daughter) in 1892 just before he died. She was married to Jesse White (1834-1890) who was a free man and veteran of the Civil War, 7th U.S. Colored Infantry. It is not known exactly when this house was built but it is thought that Jesse White may have built it in the late 1880s. After Jesse White died in 1890, an ownership dispute arose in the family and a court trustee sold the house back to Eliza White in 1893. One of her daughters was Cassie White, who had married Zechariah Brown in 1875.

In 1914, Eliza White was still living in the home and her granddaughter, Emma Jane Brown Lehman (1888-1978) and husband, James E. Lehman, also lived here with her until Eliza died in 1927. Eliza White’s Last Will and Testament left the home to her grandchildren: Lauretta Whitfield, Robert Brown, Carrie Ramsey, Olivia Stewart, and Emma Jane Lehman. A photo is shown of Emma Jane Lehman standing in their garden with the old George Baker Mansion (that became Harford Memorial Hospital) in the background. While some of the family lived elsewhere in town, in 1969 the widowed Emma Jane Lehman sold the property to her son, George Lehman (1918-1990), a WWII veteran. They both continued to live here with George’s sister, Delores Monroe Williams, and her family, which is how Amin Fareed grew up in the home until he was about 18 years old (he is Delores Williams’ grandson).

Emma Jane Lehman lived until she was 96 years old and died in Harford Memorial Hospital in 1978, just across the street from their home. She had four sons and three daughters, including Cortland Brown, George Lehman, and Delores Monroe Williams, and as many as five great-great-grandchildren.

This home featured prominently in a night of terror in 1986 that many Havre de Gracians remember when a New York fleeing felon, Frank Edward Green, shot four Havre de Grace law enforcement officers, killing one of them (Robert Pyle), and led 200 police officers on an all-night intensive manhunt through the town (The Aegis, Thursday, Sept. 25, 1986). Few residents got any sleep during his rampage with helicopters beaming powerful spotlights in their windows and sirens screaming. But the terror became much greater for the family living in this house. Amin Fareed, who was only eight years old, remembers waking up to commotion in the middle of the night and rushing to a bedroom window overlooking Revolution Street. He saw what looked like dozens of police with a roadblock—in a few seconds they started shooting in his direction and he could see a car run up into their front yard while bullets ripped through his house. His grandmother (Delores Williams) was downstairs and Amin remembers even today that “I thought she was going to die.”

Later, in news reports, police said that just short of their corner roadblock the fleeing car swerved out of control and in a hail of gunfire the car hit the railing on the porch of this house and was stopped right there. Green jumped from the car and fled but was caught moments later behind the Williams house. "I was so scared I didn't have time to think," reported Delores Williams, who said in the barrage of bullets one shattered a ceramic lamp, another hit the organ in the living room, and one more lodged in a wall at the foot of the stairs, just after she had run up them. George Lehman (Amin’s uncle), who also lived there, said it was so frightening he shouted to everyone inside to lay flat on the floor; he later found the bullet holes in the house. Frank Green is still serving four consecutive life sentences plus an additional 225 years.

Just four years later, before he died, George Lehman deeded the home to his sister, Delores Williams. She continued to live here but Amin says the house was deteriorating and needed a lot of maintenance. He recalls that even at a young age he was forbidden from the upstairs balcony for fear of its collapse—but he says nothing happened when he risked it! In 2000, Delores sold the property to Mark D. and Laura B. Richardson for Upper Chesapeake Properties, Inc. The fire department then burned it down as a training exercise in 2000 (as they often do with houses scheduled for demolition). It is now a grassy open lot that holds many memories for Amin Fareed and his family.