The lot on which this house was built was one in a parcel of land owned by a group of Cecil County and Havre de Grace residents in the mid-1800s. Some of them were siblings and included John and Alice Boyd, Andrew and Sarah Lyon, John and Drucilla McCullough, Catherine Bayard, and Julia Anne Bayard who collectively sold this lot to Julia Bayard in 1853. In 1885, Julia Bayard along with Jacob Tome (1810-1898) and his second wife, Evalyn S. Tome, sold this lot to Andrew Gleason (1834-1906) and his wife, Catharine. Jacob Tome was the well-known philanthropist who established the Jacob Tome Institute in Port Deposit in 1874. According to Andrew Gleason’s death notice in The Aegis & Intelligencer on May 25, 1906, Andrew Gleason was “one of the best known citizens of Havre de Grace,” and died at the age of 72 years. He had retired from the Pennsylvania Railroad Company and left four daughters.

It is believed that Andrew Gleason built this large house for his family in 1885 on the northeast corner of Centennial Lane and Franklin Street. The Insellbric Asphalt siding that he covered the house with is still on the house, and may be the only location in Havre de Grace with such siding. This house is shown on the 1910 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map.

In 1907 the heirs of Andrew Gleason sold this property to John T. Kennedy (1865-1914) and Mary E. Kennedy. Mary Kennedy sold the home in 1941 to her son and daughter, John Eugene Kennedy (1906-1973) and Katherine M. Prevost. In 1957, John and Agnes Kennedy and Katherine and Joseph R. Prevost sold the home to Dominick DiMauro (1884-1977) and Anna J. DiMauro (1912-2002). They are believed to have lived here with extended family members through the death of Dominick in 1977.

This is believed to have been an investment property with apartments for several years but the exact dates are unknown. During those years it is known that Otelia Jones Bullock (1919-1998) and her husband, Elmer E. “Bus” Bullock (1913-1973) lived in this house while they ran the Bullock Funeral Home at 552 Lewis Street (that is now known as the Lisa Scott Funeral Home). Bus Bullock inherited the Lewis Street property from his mother, Rosetta “Nettie” Bullock (1889-1936) in 1920. After Bus’s 1973 death, Otelia Bullock inherited and ran the Bullock Funeral Home on Lewis Street; it is not known whether Otelia continued to live here until her 1998 death.

Some neighbors and former residents have made comments over the years about this house—one report is that there were grapevines growing in the back of this house; another is that there is newspaper stuffed in the walls as insulation; and another is that there is still some charred wood in the attic left from a Christmas tree fire in 1991 (which is also why there is a section of new siding on the house).

In 1991 the widowed Anna DiMauro sold the house to Roy W. Bell (1935-2007) and his wife, Pauline, who sold it the same year to William A. and Deborah C. Carrico. They continued to use the house as an investment property; one of their tenants was Bettie Lieske Hinson who moved in here in 1992 with her husband, Michael T. Hinson and family. In 1997 the property was deeded to Deborah Carrico individually and in 1999 she added her new husband, Timothy Farrand, to the deed.

In 2003, the Farrands sold the property to their tenants, Bettie and Michael Hinson, who converted the house to being a single family home for themselves and their daughter, Cynthia Hinson Laubach. During the conversion, the Hinsons kept the original two sets of stairs from the first to the second floor, the large pocket wooden doors, and the original decorative French embossed cast iron radiators. Cynthia was born in this house, which also is now home to her husband, William Laubach. Both Michael Hinson and William Laubach are Chesapeake Bay watermen.

Bettie Lieske Hinson is the daughter of Lorna and Herman Lieske and the granddaughter of Grace Emma Rehrer. Older Havre de Grace residents may remember Grace Rehrer’s name for reports of her murder on March 18, 1962, in her home on Robinhood Road in Havre de Grace. She was survived by seven children and 12 grandchildren and the homicide remains a cold case now, 60 years later.

The small one-story cottage at the rear of this house facing onto Centennial Lane is part of this 6,000 square-foot property.

County Records
Built 1935. 2,580 sq ft, 2 stories with basement, 3 baths, 6,000 sq ft lot.