The former office building here of the DuBois Saw mill was all that remained of an extensive Saw and Planing Mill which was started by John DuBois in the 1860s as a Havre de Grace branch of his Binghamton New York DuBois Lumber Company. The company began as a steam saw mill with a log pond to the southeast where logs that rafted down the Susquehanna River from Pennsylvania were stored. By 1899 many buildings associated with the mill crowded the waterfront on Market Street between Bourbon and Fountain Streets. The 1894 to 1910 Sanborn Maps show this whole area as the J.E. DuBois Lumber Yard, Saw and Planing Mill. This Saw Mill Office was a reminder of the vitally important role played by the logging industry in the history of industry, commerce and transportation in Havre de Grace up until WWI.

A New Yorker who had relocated to Havre de Grace in 1866, Arthur Vosbury (1832-1889), was a partner in the Mill business. Vosbury also served as President of the First National Bank of Havre de Grace from 1883 to 1889. A local resident, Bennett Charshee, became an agent for the DuBois Mill when it first opened; he worked there for about 45 years. Another 40-year employee was Samuel “Lewis” Russell who also worked on construction of the Conowingo Dam in 1928.

The Mill suffered a major disaster (reported in the New York Times of June 12, 1883) when a huge fire struck the DuBois Mill, which by then had become the largest industry in Havre de Grace with 52 employees. Local men rushed the town’s small Holloway Chemical Engine to the mill and worked frantically trying to check the fire’s destructive advance. But the “ruthless flames” turned the factory and nearby buildings into a mass of blazing ruins as the conflagration spread to large piles of nearby lumber. With help from the Water Witch Fire Company (of Port Deposit), and others from Wilmington and Baltimore, as well as local citizens, three powerful steam pumpers pouring large streams of water on the flames finally subdued it. With the help of Cornelius Field from the parent DuBois Company, they rebuilt the lumber yard in 1884.

The Maryland Trust has noted the influence of Charles Eastlake’s 1872 style in Havre de Grace porches and properties and felt that the convenience of the DuBois Sawmill may have been responsible for the prevalence. The Eastlake style made use of machine-made ornaments added to existing structures as well as to newly built ones. This office served as a showroom for what the Mill was selling; it’s said that every room in this building had a different door and molding to display their product lines from which people could order.

The Evening Times of July 20, 1898, reported another disaster that befell the DuBois Sawmill. The mill was struck by lightning the previous day, demolishing about 30 feet of the huge smokestack and tearing off “the steam whistle.” The lightning also damaged the boiler and set fire to the mill in several places. The electric current ran along the telephone wires about 250 feet up to the mill office here, burning out the telephone and stunning Bennett Charshee who was sitting at his desk. While several people were in the office, Bennett was the only one hit, but he survived. The whole telephone system in the city was burned out that day. John E. DuBois and his wife, Willie, sold the property in 1923, although the mill probably ceased operating in 1912.

The new buyer was James W. Foster (1842-1932), a Havre de Grace native, member of the House of Delegates in 1900, and had been manager of the DuBois Sawmill. In 1926 James and his wife Emma sold the property to William E. Thompson, who owned the Thompson Motor Company in the 1920s. William and his wife, Mary, owned the home until 1941 when they sold it to Edward A. DeWaters, Sr. and June, his wife. Their son, Edward A. DeWaters, Jr. (1939-2008), later a well-respected Baltimore County Circuit Court judge, was only two years old when his parents owned this. It may have been at this point that the house was divided into apartments. Melanie Mackin Ledesma recalls living in the wing on the left wing of the house with a living and dining room that led to the kitchen in the early 1950s. She remembers a porch in the rear with a white-fenced backyard, trees, hedges, and flowering bushes. Others in her family lived in the Fountain Street side until they all moved across town in 1956.

The DeWaters family owned this through the death of June DeWaters until 1965 when Edward Sr. sold the home to Cornelius J. Smith (1918-2003) and Helen C. Smith, who were in the real estate business and owned several other rental properties in town. It appears that in 1972, David Malin took over the mortgage of the Smiths in payment for the property (confirmed by Cornelius Smith in 1998) and owned it until 2020. David Malin at some point constructed a two-story cinder block building on the south side of the large lot with exterior stairs. However, in 2018, he divided the 12,000-square foot lot of the DuBois building and sold 6,000 square feet of it with the cinder block building that now has the address of 310 Market Street. He continued to rent apartments in the DuBois office building.

In early 2016, this historic office building suffered a fire in an apartment in the rear of the ground floor and the charred section was never repaired. Eric Toliver and his Dad lived in another apartment but soon moved out. The building did not appear to be occupied, maintained, or repaired after that. The former DuBois Saw Mill Office was sold by 310 Market Street Corporation, run by David Malin, in April 2020.

This property was bought by Gyleen X. Fitzgerald and her husband, Ray, who designed a new home for this corner property. Gyleen grew up in Taiwan and Japan and is an avid quilter who gives lectures and workshops on quilting. She has appeared on The Quilt Show and Lifetime TV promoting finishing antique quilts and the new spirit of traditional quilting. She has brought another art form to the Havre de Grace Arts and Entertainment District. After demolishing the DuBois building, she and her husband built a large 3-story new home on this southwest corner of Fountain and Market Streets. They appear to have moved into it in late 2021.

County Records
Built 1935. 1881 sq ft, 2 baths, 2 stories with basement, apartments, 6000 sq ft lot.