History of Havre de Grace

On May 3, 1813, during the War of 1812, Havre de Grace was attacked by British Rear Admiral George Cockburn. The American Lieutenant John O'Neill single-handedly manned a cannon to help defend the town. He was wounded, captured by the British, and soon released. In gratitude, Havre de Grace made O'Neill and his descendants the hereditary keepers of the Concord Point lighthouse marking the mouth of the Susquehanna River.

The early industry of Havre de Grace included oyster and crab harvesting, and extensive fruit orchards. Products were shipped to markets along the East Coast and upriver.

The town was the southern terminus for the Proprietors of the Susquehanna Canal and later the Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal, which bypassed difficult navigational areas of the lower Susquehanna River between Havre de Grace and Wrightsville, Pennsylvania, where it connected to the Pennsylvania Canal. It was built between 1836–1840, but operations on the canal declined after 1855 because of competition from railroads, which could carry freight more quickly. The Lock Keeper's house and remnants of the canal exist today as a museum.

Havre de Grace was a primary town on the Eastern Route of the Underground Railroad in Maryland, as slaves could cross the Susquehanna to havens in the free state of Pennsylvania, traveling on to Philadelphia and New York. Prior to 1840, escaped slaves from communities along the western short of the Chesapeake Bay came to Havre de Grace and often took the ferry across the Susquehanna River to safe sites in Lancaster and Chester counties in Pennsylvania. When "vigilance increased at the ferry", slaves were guided upriver to cross from Columbia, which had been established by Quakers. The town's different transportation routes enabled slaves to make their way to safe haven in the North.

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