The following article is taken from page 438 of Historic Houses of Kent County, written by Michael Owen Bourne and edited by Eugene Hall Johnstone.  It was published in 1998 by The Historical Society of Kent County, Chestertown, Maryland.  It is reproduced here with the written permission of the publisher.
 

Historic Houses... is a glorious coffee-table sized book loaded with information relevant to genealogical research in Kent County.  Please click on the image of the book for more information regarding the book and the benefits of membership in the Historical Society.

Fair Hope Farm

Quaker Neck

c. 1820

Fair Hope Farm is a twentieth century name given to an old farm composed of parts of East Huntington, Tilghman’s Farm and Norris Forest.  The house itself stands on East Huntington and is an early nineteenth century frame farmhouse, two-and-a-half stories tall, five-bays long, with a two-part service wing which is one-and-a-half stories tall. The entire structure is one room deep.

The house is similar to others on Quaker Neck in form and plan.  Its plan consists of two rooms and central stairhall, with a dining room in what appears to have been the service wings. These are all located on the same level.  At ground level in the service wing there is a three-bay kitchen.

The dining room is reputed to be the earliest part of the house.  It has a fine early nineteenth century yellow pine corner cupboard.  The details of the stair in the main section appear to date from the 1840s, but the rest of the millwork is the product of Brognard Oakie, the Pennsylvania architect responsible for remodeling the house for Mr. and Mrs. Charles Stokes in 1935. ^[1]

The farm was owned in the early nineteenth century by Samuel Merritt ^[2] whose family lived on the adjoining tract of Godlington Manor.  During the period between 1836 and 1880, William Lamb owned the farm. ^[3]  In 1852 the house was listed as “in tolerable repair”, which meant that it was not new. ^[4]  For thirty years before the Stokes family purchased the farm, it was the home of the William T. Maslin family. ^[5]

K-89

1. Land Records, Lib. RAS 13, fol. 447.

2. Land Records, Lib. JNG 13, fol. 208.

3. Land Records, Lib. DCB 1, fol. 609.

4. Kent County Tax Assessment, 1852.

5. Land Records, Lib. JTD 11, fol. 29.