Quarry Farm Hike

In 1890 the owners of the Guilford & Waltersville Granite Company purchased 243 acres lying between Davis Avenue and the river. It came to be known as The Company Farm” or “The Quarry Farm.” The narrow-gauge Waltersville Quarry Railroad right-of-way, formerly leased by the company from Richard Davis, from whose estate the Quarry Farm property was purchased, ran right through the middle of the property. Davis had built a stone wall, remnants of which are still there, to mark the western boundary. The Waltersville owners did not operate a full-blown farm, but kept their work horses and mules on the farm, raised some beef cattle and cut hay and probably raised some corn. There was also some feldspar mining on the property. Our hike took us along the old railroad bed to the river, then downriver to the eastern edge of the farm, then back upriver to the western stone wall.