FARM HOUSE HISTORY:
The farm house was built in 1837 by David Specht. He was the original owner, having bought 250 acres of land from the estate of Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Architecturally, the house is a typical Maryland farmhouse, having been built as the center of the homestead. The exterior was built with clay bricks made by hand from materials on the property. The floor joists are solid trees with the bark still attached. On the second floor one room has the ceiling exposed to the roof with beams secured by tongue and grove with wooden dowels, the wood itself has hand honed marks from tools of the day. The house was heated by fireplace with each room, except for the kitchen, having a shallow hearth, the kitchen's fireplace was built for cooking. The rooms themselves have ten foot high ceilings with walls covered in horse hair plaster.
Researching the house's history revealed that David's brother, Jacob, had a run in with Union soldiers here at the farm. In preparation to attack the Confederate Army at Adamstown, Maryland, Union soldiers marched from Point of Rocks and tore down fences, clearing a pathway. The story goes to tell that Mr. Specht didn't like having his fences down and the cows running free so he built them right back up. As it turned out the Union did have to beat a retreat from Adamstown and when they came upon the Specht property they did not like that the fences were restored. In his book The History of Carrollton Manor, 1928, William Jarboe Grove surmises that had the Union not run out of ammunition, Mr. Specht would not have lived to tell about it.
Another little bit of history was the demise of David Specht himself. It was written that he went out during a bad storm to check on the house when a brick fell and hit him in the head. Since Mr. Specht there have only been six owners of the farm house and remaining land. We are known as the "Mathers Place", after the previous owners, Claude and Olive Mathers who owned the property since 1962. The farm name stayed MIOLEA, the name Claude chose honoring his wife, son and daughter. Son Michael, wife Olive and daughter Lea.
When it came time to renovate the house we were advised that the cheapest and quickest way to accomplish what we wanted was to tear the house down and build it from scratch. Knowing what we knew about the house we just could not bring ourselves to make that decision. It ended up costing more and took little longer to complete, but, you cannot replace the history, nor the hand craftsmanship that was put into this house and you'll never replace the hopes and dreams that first built and kept this house occupied.
We are mere stewards, keeping the place up so that generations from now, someone else will read the history and decide that the house and all it holds is too precious to tear down and build from scratch.
