South of the Lighthouse at the end of Concord Street there used to be a house owned by Myrtle Mason, the mother of Ralph B. Mason (1924-2012). In 1966 she sold it and the surrounding lots to Ralph B. Mason, her son. This included the former Yacht Club building, just north of the Lighthouse, which was already being used by her two sons, Ralph and Roger Mason.

There also were four or five small cottages on the land at “Conquest Point” that were built in the 1950s and rented out by Ralph Mason. Erma Lee McCauley lived in one for a short time in the early 1970s and Mark Ball lived in another in the late 1970s. And Margaret Carter’s best friend lived in one, where she allowed Margaret to keep her sunfish sailboat on “the little beach” there.

At one time it was legal to create “land” by filling in the water. Whatever land a person created by “fill” belonged to the land owner. A lot of the land at the point was created by Ralph Mason’s trucking business with fill—concrete boulders; old cars and trucks; construction debris; and whatever was available. Richard Wooten even remembers an old helicopter sitting on the property at one time—it too is buried under the landscaping of this now open area (after demolition of the cottages).

The Masons sold their 2-acre property in 1982 to Conquest Point Limited Partnership; they also sold a portion of it to the State of Maryland in 1986 for development of the Promenade. Jim Miller remembers pouring about ten gallons of gasoline on the Masons’ “big house” (after they had vacated!) so that the fire department could burn it down for training in the early 1980s. The Conquest Point Partnership had planned to build a 150-seat restaurant on the land but after much controversy and local opposition the Partnership sold the land to the State in 2006. The State turned it over to the City of Havre de Grace. All of this property is now part of a scenic park around the historic Concord Point Lighthouse.