This property is old enough to have been bought in 1830 by John O’Neill (1768-1838), the defender of Havre de Grace during the War of 1812. In O’Neill’s Will of December 12, 1837, he bequeathed a large lot on Franklin Street to Parker Mitchell, a family member.

It is believed that this federal-type house was built after 1838 and before 1860 by Parker Mitchell (or a member of his family). This Parker Mitchell was the father of John Parker Mitchell, George V. Mitchell, Frederick O’Neill Mitchell (1869-1939), and Charles W. Mitchell (according to the deed), who sold this property in 1860 to Joseph M. Simmons. However, in the MIHP inventory cited above from June 1977, the Parker Mitchell to whom O’Neill bequeathed the lot was said to be the “uncle of F. O'Neill Mitchell and John Parker Mitchell who began their canning business at Mulberry Point in Harford County in the 1880s.” More research would be necessary to confirm that he was the uncle.

In an attempt to research the Mitchell family further, an interview with Parker G. Mitchell, Jr. (1903-1985) was discovered. It was part of the Harford County Public Library’s Living Treasures Oral History Project; note that although the interview is dated 1994, that could be a typographical error for 1984 because Mitchell died in 1985. His father was Parker Mitchell, Sr. (1874-1958) and his mother was Minnie Gallup Mitchell and they raised Parker Mitchell, Jr. on Chestnut Hill Farm, two miles south of Perryman (just outside the Aberdeen Proving Ground). After college Parker Junior returned home and joined his father (Parker G. Mitchell, Sr.) and uncle (Frederick O’Neill Mitchell) in the canning business known as F.O. Mitchell & Bros, Inc.

In the course of the Living Treasures interview Parker Mitchell, Jr. described their shoepeg corn canning business of the early 1900s. The “older Mitchells” had started using shoepeg corn—the shape of the kernel was long and narrow, and it looked like the wooden pegs “a shoemaker used to use in a shoe.” That's how it got the name of shoepeg, he added. The ground was plowed and harrowed and planted with a two-row corn planter, all pulled by horses or mules; it was about 1911 when they bought the first tractor. He said all the corn was picked by hand in the fields and hauled into the canning factory in wagons, pulled by horses. Then the corn was husked and cut off the cob by hand. They did have a machine to fill the kernels into cans. Then they were cooked in a stationary or process kettle. But in 1921 they installed a continuous cooker—the cans rolled into one end, went on through like threads on a screw, and came out the other end all cooked. That was the first machine of its kind built. He said they still had that machine in the plant and it was still working well. About half of their workers at that time were “Bohemian people” they brought in from Baltimore; they lived in a row of shanties that they had at the factory during canning season.

The end of the F.O. Mitchell & Bros. Inc. business came in 1985 when Parker Mitchell, Jr. died. The above keyhole into the canning business is presented here because there were around 817 canneries for tomatoes, corn, and beans in Harford County at that time, and it most likely parallels cannery operations in Havre de Grace. The Seneca Cannery, for example, also had designated “Bohemian Employee Quarters.” However, most canneries ended much earlier, precipitated by the government taking over the farmland of the Aberdeen Proving Ground.

This Franklin Street house was sold by Parker Mitchell’s four sons in 1860 to Joseph M. Simmons (1824-1900). Joseph, a coal merchant, advertised in 1864 that he “keeps constantly on hand all kinds of white and red ash coal.” He also owned the Poe’s Point Fishery on the river.

About 20 years later Harrison Hopper (son of John A. Hopper, proprietor of the Hopper Hotel near the Lockhouse) bought this property and in 1890 he sold it to Charles H. Slicer.

That last sale, however, was disputed in the Circuit Court in 1904 because in 1892 a Court Trustee had sold some lots to James Cardinal Gibson, Archbishop of Baltimore. The dispute was that there were erroneous property descriptions in previous deeds, including that of Charles Slicer’s. The court awarded this property to the Archbishop who promptly sold it to Elizabeth Moseman Leffler (1849-1932) in 1904. In a 1916 telephone directory, Elizabeth Leffler was living in #518 and also had a store where she sold “millinery and notions.” That same telephone directory listed #520 as the residence of Dr. J. Clark Segar (1870-1931), a dentist who had come to Havre de Grace in 1893 and was active in several civic organizations. (Dr. Segar and his wife, Hattie, are known to have also owned property on Fountain Street.)

Elizabeth Leffler is believed to have lived here at first with her husband, Albert Leffler (1846-1909), but he died just five years after she bought it. They had six children, including Anna Leffler, who married Harry Taylor in 1919. Although Elizabeth died in 1932, it was another 10 years before her Executors (two of her children) sold this building to Louis Good and his wife, Myra. Louis Good was the son of Joseph Good who had begun his grocery store nearby at 550-552 Franklin Street around 1899.

This building originally adjoined the “Tin Front Building” at 522 Franklin Street, which was built in 1900 as a three-story brick commercial building that had a tin front applied to the façade. In its 1977 inventory, the Maryland Historical Trust stated that although other buildings in the city displayed some exterior tin ornamentation, this building was “the only one to have its front veneered entirely with tin.” Sadly, after a large fire in 1981, the remains of the Tin Front Building were demolished. On investigation, it was discovered that the very extensive damage was because the fire ran quickly between the original 12-foot ceilings and the 8-foot drop ceilings that had been installed and were not detected.

The Parker Mitchell House has open lots on both sides of it and now has several rental apartments, as additions were made at the rear over the years. In 1965 it was bought by Garnet E. Fender (a WWII veteran) and Ruth Shaffer Fender, his wife. After the 1976 death of Garnet, his widow sold it to Drew Shaffer Fender, their grandson. The apartment property, as well as the site of the former Tin Front Building, is now owned by Fender Enterprises LLC.

County Records
Built 1838. 3050 sq ft, multiple residence, 9,800 sq ft lot.