In 1608 the area was inhabited by
Massawomecks and
Susquehannocks. On March 22, 1775, Harford County hosted the signers of the
Bush Declaration, a precursor document to the
American Revolution. Today, the waterways around Havre de Grace have become adversely affected by silt runoff, which is one of the primary environmental issues of Harford County. While today the site is a Maryland
National Guard military reservation, the land was used as the Havre de Grace Racetrack where racehorse
Man o' War ran in 1919 and 1920. |alt=Sion Hill.jpg During the 1900s the Bata Shoe Company employed numerous Eastern European
refugees at the
Belcamp factory. In the 1940s the
Susquehanna River tributary
Broad Creek was dammed to form the at what is now the
Broad Creek Memorial Scout Reservation. In June 1972
Hurricane Agnes overflowed the dam and flooded areas in many states. On the
County Health Rankings & Roadmaps by the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation with the
University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute, "prior to the 2016 report ... Harford's yearly rankings typically fell between ninth and 10th place, primarily because of the percentage of county residents who were obese or who smoked." Scenes from
Tuck Everlasting,
From Within, and
House of Cards were all filmed in Harford County. In 2011 the Office of National Drug Control Policy deemed Harford County a designated High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. The county was named for
Henry Harford (c. 1759–1834), the illegitimate son of
Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore. Henry Harford was born to Calvert's mistress, Hester Whelan, whose residence still stands as part of a private residence on Jarretsville Pike, in Phoenix, Maryland. Harford served as the last Proprietary Governor of
Maryland but, because of his illegitimacy, did not inherit his father's title.
Environmental history Harford County has environmental issues in three major areas:
land use,
water pollution/
urban runoff, and
soil contamination/
groundwater contamination. As the county sits at the headwaters of the
Chesapeake Bay along the
Susquehanna River, it plays a key role in controlling
sediment and
fertilizer runoff into the bay as well as fostering
submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) regrowth. The county has had to balance the needs of land owners to practice agriculture and/or pave land (creating
impervious surfaces) with effects of runoff into the bay. Harford County has been burdened by soil contamination and groundwater contamination since the creation of the
Aberdeen Proving Ground in 1917. The military installation performs research for the
U.S. Army, including weapons testing, and has released various chemical agents into soil and groundwater, including
mustard gas and
perchlorate. The bordering towns of
Aberdeen,
Edgewood and
Joppatowne have been affected by this contamination. Aberdeen Proving Ground contains three
Superfund priority sites . Groundwater contamination by
MTBE, a mandatory
gasoline additive, has also affected
Fallston. Harford County also faces controversy from residents living near
Scarboro Landfill and Harford Waste Disposal Center, the only municipal
landfill. The landfill, approved to triple in size in 2007, is the subject of complaints by neighbors of operating violations, such as large areas of open trash and blown litter;
leachate breaks which contaminate area residential wells and flow into
Deer Creek, a tributary of the Susquehanna River; and increased health problems. ==Geography==