6 Best Sights in Havre de Grace, Baltimore

The conical Concord Point Lighthouse is the oldest continuously operated lighthouse on the Chesapeake Bay. Built in 1827, it was restored in 1980. You can climb up 30 feet for views of the bay, river, and town.

The Havre de Grace Decoy Museum, housed in a converted power plant, has 1,200 facsimiles of ducks, geese, and swans made from wood, iron, cork, papier-mâché, and plastic. Three classes—decorative, decorative floater, and working decoys—are represented. A festival during the first full weekend in May includes carving contests and demonstrations by retriever dogs.

The Ladew Topiary Gardens displays the life's work of Harvey Smith Ladew. The trees and shrubs are sculpted into geometric forms and lifelike renditions of animals such as a fox and hounds, swans, and even a sea horse. The 15 formal gardens cover 22 acres. Besides the amazing topiary displays are rose, berry, and herb gardens, and a tranquil Japanese garden with pagoda, lily ponds, and lush flowers. In summer there are special events such as concerts and polo matches. The 18th-century manor house is filled with English antiques, paintings, photographs, and fox-hunting memorabilia. The café serves lunch and light snacks.

One of the few 18th-century structures in Havre de Grace, Rodgers House is a two-story redbrick Georgian town house topped by a dormered attic. The town's most historically significant building, it was the home of Admiral John Rodgers, who fired the first shot in the War of 1812. Like most of the other historic houses in Havre de Grace, it's closed to the public but still worth a drive past.

The Steppingstone Museum is a 10-acre complex of seven restored turn-of-the-20th-century farm buildings plus a replica of a canning house. Among the 12,000-plus artifacts in the collection are a horse-drawn tractor and an early gas-powered version, manual seeders and planters, and horse-drawn plows. A blacksmith, a weaver, a wood-carver, a cooper, a dairymaid, and a decoy artist regularly demonstrate their trades in the workshops.

The Susquehanna Museum, at the southern terminal of the defunct Susquehanna and Tidewater Canal, tells the history of the canal and the people who lived and worked there. From 1839 until 1890 the canal ran 45 mi north to Wrightsville, Pennsylvania. It was a thoroughfare for mule-drawn barges loaded with iron ore, coal, and crops. The museum, in a lock tender's cottage built in 1840, is partially furnished with modest mid-century antiques that recall its period of service.