The lot on which this home was built was owned by John H. Hollahan from 1865 until 1920. It is not known exactly when this home was built but because Elroy Ashton Steele was living at this address when he was inducted for WWI on August 27, 1918, we know the home existed then. Pvt. Steele served in Company K 72nd Infantry, and in Battery F of the 32nd Field Artillery. He was honorably discharged on December 10, 1918, and his name is on the Honor Roll at Tydings Park. It is assumed that John Hollahan (sometimes Hollihan) built the home at some point prior to 1918.

In 1920 the home was sold by Margaret and James A. McLhinney (1863-1933) to Mary E. and Edward W. Mauldin. After Mary Mauldin’s death in 1937 Edward sold the home to George A. Davis (1885-1943) and Mary Davis, his wife. In 1959, the widowed Mary Davis sold the home to R. Madison Mitchell, Jr., and Shirley Ann Mitchell, his wife, the son and daughter-in-law of R. “Madison” Mitchell (1901-1993), the renowned duck decoy carver, and his wife, Helen Maslin Mitchell.

In 1918, while attending Baltimore Business College, Madison Mitchell began working evenings and weekends at his great-uncle's funeral home in Baltimore. His great- uncle was E. Madison Mitchell, who had worked in the funeral business in downtown Baltimore for several years when his business partner died in 1895 and the business became the “E. Madison Mitchell Funeral Home” on Fayette Street.

In 1920, Madison returned to Havre de Grace and got his funeral director’s license two years later. He married Helen Maslin in 1926 and they had two children, the late Madelyn Mitchell Shank and R. Madison “Mitch” Mitchell, Jr. Madelyn also became a licensed funeral director and worked in her father’s business with him.

Madison Mitchell was introduced to the art of decoy making beginning in 1924 by Samuel Treadway “Sam” Barnes, his cousin, who lived nearby at 726 South Washington Street. After Barnes passed away in 1926 Mitchell inherited his business and became a renowned decoy carver. He developed his own distinctive style influenced by local carver John Holly, while learning the art of mixing and blending paint from Captain Billie Moore of the Moore Family Homestead.

This typical white frame house became the home and business place of R. “Madison” Mitchell in 1959; he and his family lived in the upstairs and conducted his funeral business on the ground floor. Locals remember that Madison used to set up a train garden in their apartment above the funeral home every Christmas and he often sold Christmas trees in his back yard. He had a duck decoy business in the two-level workshop behind this house. Over the years, Madison trained many generations of decoy carvers, including some of the best known carvers today. For some of them, creating decoys was in addition to working in the funeral business—when it was slow, they were expected to work on decoys.

The red brick expansion seen today was added to the front of the funeral home in 1987 when the Mitchells bought the house just south of it (#127) from Jeanne and Francis “Whitey” Turner; the Mitchells demolished that home for the funeral home expansion.

William “Bill” Collins met Mitchell in 1972 when Madison Mitchell hired him as an apprentice in his funeral business but when things were slow, Collins learned to carve. He also served as a hunting guide and charter boat captain. Captain Bill bought the Madison Mitchell workshop in 1979 and reopened it as Upper Chesapeake Decoy Shop. In 1987, Collins moved the workshop onto the grounds of the Decoy Museum, where it can be seen today. As Madison Mitchell grew older his eyesight was failing so in 1987 William S. Smith II and his wife Julaine took over the funeral business and it became known as the Mitchell-Smith Funeral Home.

Madison Mitchell died in 1993 at age 91, having created tens of thousands of decoys in some 60 years, won deserved international acclaim, and inspired dozens of artists to take up his pursuit. Mitchell’s decoys are showcased in the Smithsonian Institution and elsewhere and locally in the Havre de Grace Decoy Museum.

In 2007, the Mitchell-Smith Funeral Home sold the business and property to 123 South Washington Street LLC, operated by Fred and Tara Zellman.

County Records
Built 1987. 2,726 sq ft, 2 stories with basement, 2800 sq ft lot, use commercial.