Samuel Gray Farmstead

16603 EAGLE HARBOR ROAD (PG:87B-42)

The Samuel Gray Farmstead is located on the south side of Eagle Harbor Road, which historically connected Aquasco to the landing at Trueman’s Point and later the waterside communities of Eagle Harbor and Cedar Haven. It lies just outside the eastern boundary of the Aquasco Survey District, east of the John Wesley Church Parsonage Site. The two-acre farmstead is characterized by the dwelling house, located approximately 80 feet from Eagle Harbor Road in the northwest corner of the parcel. Once accompanied by rear outbuildings and a second bungalow-like dwelling to the west, it now stands alone, sheltered by woods from the same direction. The rear (south) cleared half-acre is still planted with crops. The chain of title can be traced to a grant from Henry and Elizabeth McPherson to George W. Morton and Harriet E. Morton Wood (1826–1911) from George Morton’s estate.89 Elizabeth was the daughter of George Morton, and Harriet and George W. Morton were the children of her deceased brother, Joseph. Harriet married Peter Wood, another large Aquasco landowner from whom the village’s other name of Woodville is derived. In the late nineteenth century, Wood moved her residence to Washington, D.C., and began parceling out her property, selling portions of it to African Americans like farmer Samuel Gray, to whom, in 1876, she sold a little over two acres.90 There was more than one Samuel Grey (or Gray) in Aquasco in the late-nineteenth century. Samuel F. Gray (born 1848) was 21 years old in 1870 and working on the farm of Robert Scott.91 He is next listed in 1900 at age 52,92 with wife Elizabeth and daughters Annie (1888–1970) and Ida (born 1890), heirs who conveyed the farmstead

SAMUEL GRAY amongst themselves in 1948.93 These family members are FARMSTEAD also listed together at the farm on Aquasco-Trueman Point Road in 1910.94 The property remains in the Gray family.

Like the Whitehall Tenant House (PG:87B-36-40), the Gray Farmstead is of classic I-house form with a center gable. It has regularly spaced fenestration, a center front door, and brick interior chimneys at either end. The roof and full-width front porch are covered with steel panels, and the original wall cladding is covered with wide aluminum siding. This is the northwest elevation, taken from Eagle Harbor Road in 2019.