06/19/2025
HAREWOOD HOUSE — A LONG HISTORY
You might have noted the TV news about a house fire on Meeting House Road in Sandy Spring last night. Laytonsville’s firefighters joined with about 75 others to try to save this historic structure, located in a non-hydrant area roughly 4,000 to 5,000 feet from Olney-Sandy Spring Road.
Harewood House was built in 1793-1794 by the Stablers, one of the early founding families of the Friends community of Sandy Spring. Stabler family members still farm around Laytonsville and provide us with fresh corn, vegetables, and meat products at the Pleasant Valley farmstand just north of town.
Originally Harewood House was a simple hall-and-parlor log home, fitting the Quaker tenets of simplicity in all aspects of life. In 1821 the family added dining room and kitchen additions. Although additional modernization kept the building up to date, it retained its original appearance and much of its original doors, mantels, molding and hardware.
With any wooden building, fire is always a concern. After a barn burned down in the Hawlings River area in 1842, the Stablers became concerned about potential fires in this farming community and decided to do something about it by forming a fire insurance company. Citizens held a first public meeting in Brookeville in 1842, but it took several years to get organized and obtain a charter. The first president was Edward Stabler (1794-1883), and the organization meetings were held at his home — Harewood House. When the Mutual Fire Insurance Company was formed on March 10, 1848, Harewood House was Policy #1. The original policy insured the home for $900.
Edward Stabler was born at Harewood House in 1794. At age 14 he left Sandy Spring and went to work at his uncle’s apothecary shop in Alexandria, VA. There he learned to work with engraving tools. He began studies at the University of Maryland Medical School but returned to Sandy Spring, married Ann Gilpin (family of 10 children), took up farming, and became the town postmaster. He retained his interest in engraving, and in 1830 he began to manufacture seals and presses.
Edward Stabler designed and produced the first seal of the United States Treasury. Pull out a paper bill and look to the right of the portrait of Washington, Lincoln, etc. That round green image — that’s Stabler’s design. He designed many other seals for the US government and for various Maryland institutions and other states.
Harewood House had another identity after the Stabler family. President Truman’s Secretary of State, Dean Acheson (1893-1971), bought Harewood House. He and his wife Alice spent weekends in Sandy Spring and sometimes entertained there. Alice was a painter and liked to paint landscapes of the local countryside. If you own a copy of "Laytonsville From Crossroads to Community," look at the inside front cover. That’s her “Laytonsville” landscape with probably the old Mobley Farm as background.
177 years later, Edward Stabler’s concerns about the dangerous combination of wooden buildings and fire have played out in the unfortunate destruction that happened yesterday. Many thanks to all the firefighters, including our Laytonsville Company 17, for their efforts to save this old but historic building.
