This land was previously owned by George T. Lyon (1816-1891), his wife Maria, their son Andrew L. Lyon (1865-1942), and Robert Vandiver (1805-1885), who conveyed it to William Ford “Uncle Fordy” Barnes (1815-1885), along with the next door lot at 712 South Washington Street. The land was sold by Uncle Fordy in 1885 to one of his sons, William Hollis Barnes (1855-1899), who most likely built this house. Just months later, Uncle Fordy Barnes was returning home from attending a session of The American Mechanics when he collapsed and died on Market Street just outside the home of Captain William E. Moore. Uncle Fordy was a famous duck hunter and William H. Barnes’s brother, Sam Barnes, became a famous duck decoy carver.

William Barnes died in 1899 at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore of lockjaw, leaving his widow, Emma, and a son and daughter. However, 45 years later an ownership dispute arose between William Barnes’s heirs, which was resolved by the Circuit Court ordering the house sold by a Trustee. This occurred in 1945 when the house was bought by Charles and Ruth Pitcock (of the Pitcock Brothers Hardware Store family). They owned property elsewhere so sold it the following year to Lee and Margaret Davidson; the year after that it went to Lloyd and Helen Conner; and in 1950 new owners were Thomas and Dorothy Jaenicke.

Dorothy S. Jaenicke (1901-2003) was the granddaughter of Sam Barnes, Havre de Grace’s famed duck decoy carver, members of whose family originally owned this home. C. John Sullivan, the author of Waterfowling on the Chesapeake, 1819-1936, wrote of the time in 2001 when he was visiting the Havre de Grace Decoy Museum and Dorothy Jaenicke arrived at the Museum to donate a pair of her grandfather’s decoys. The Curator asked John Sullivan to look at the decoys, who wrote that they were the best pair of decorative canvasbacks he had ever seen. Dorothy surprised him further with the donation of the 1924 program and blue ribbon from the New York exhibition where her grandfather had won the blue ribbon prize for those exact decoys. No doubt this experience made John Sullivan’s day but the Decoy Museum must have been overjoyed by this generous gift. Although Thomas and Dorothy Jaenicke sold this home in 1956, and Dorothy has passed on, they will forever be remembered by Havre de Gracians for their gift of a piece of the city’s history.

New owners of this home in 1956 were Francis C. Topper and Dorothy Mae Topper. They had three children, Mary P. Yeargain, Catherine M. Topper Bubb, and Patricia A. Topper. After Francis Topper died in 1970, Dorothy Mae married John E. Mogan (1944-2017). John Mogan was an Army and Vietnam veteran who later worked at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Dorothy Mae Topper Mogan died in 2010.

After the death of John Mogan this home was conveyed to Patricia A. Topper, et al. in 2019.

County Records
Built 1860. 1440 sq ft, 2.5 stories, no basement, 2.5 baths, 5,000 sq ft lot.