OUR STORY

The Devilbiss family emigrated from Germany to America in the early 1700’s, entering through Philadelphia and then journeyed south.  They initially settled in current Frederick County MD (Devilbiss Bridge Rd, North of Walkersville).  Several sons of the original family fought for the Patriots in the American Revolution.  

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In 1907, William Devilbiss bought an approximately 90 acre farm which had been created from the Key family land grant from the King of England.  This farm was and still is adjacent to the Key family home.  William Devilbiss immediately began expanding the farm operation in Keysville by adding onto the original house and barn, both built in 1852.  Shortly after completion, he retired from farming, moved to a stately house in Keysville. His son, Charles, took over the farm.  Charles married the girl next door, Mary, from the Key farm; then owned and operated by the Baumgardner family.  Charles and Mary began farming and raising a family on the farm, having two sons, Roger and Paul, and a daughter, Sylvia. 

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On a hot April day in 1939, after working the ground in the field directly behind the house, Charles brought his team of horses and the ground working implement they were pulling in from the field.  He stopped at the house to get a drink of water.  The horses, having the same idea, took it upon themselves to continue to the barn where they knew there to be water.  Charles tried to regain control of the team of horses and was run over by them and the cultivating implement.  He would die days later in the farmhouse. 

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Mary and her two sons, 14 and 15 years of age picked up the proverbial reigns of the farm and continued its operation, then milking a dozen or so cows, raising hogs, chickens, wheat, corn, and hay.  Mary, Paul, and Roger continued to farm and expand their dairy operation and in the early 1960s installed a then, state of the art dairy house and barn, all while expanding the operation and acres farmed.  Both Paul’s son, Jerry, and Roger’s son, Rodney, were engaged in the dairy farming operation of the 1960s and 70s.  In 1976, Paul decided to quit milking and begin a beef, cow/calf operation. Throughout the 1970s and 80s the beef operation expanded which led to the need for expansion of acres farmed to feed the cows.  By the 1990s Paul and Jerry, were operating an approximately 400 head cow/calf operation and farming approximately 600 acres in Carroll and Frederick Counties. 

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Upon Paul’s death in 2005, Jerry assumed the beef cattle operation and downsized it by about 50%.  Jerry’s son, Mark, had also pursued employment off of the farm, but having grown up on the farm he assisted Jerry as needed.  On September 17, 2013, Jerry passed away unexpectedly.  Mark spent the morning of September 17 experiencing losing his father and that afternoon realized he had approximately 200 hungry and thirsty cattle intently staring at him.  Mark, with the help of his family and friends, immediately began drawing down the size of the current farming operation even farther.  Mark kept 15 cows and heifers and all others were sold. 

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Mark and his soon to be wife, Elizabeth were at a crucial juncture.  What to do with a lot of the farming infrastructure in place, or lack thereof, and if they were going to continue farming, what methods and approaches would they use were only a few of the questions.  Mark and Elizabeth decided they would continue the now 106 year family farm, but they were going to change the modality drastically and had a lot of upgrading and fixing to do.  Mark, not wanting to be beholden to corn, decided to try a grass-fed approach with his remaining 15 head of cattle.  Elizabeth decided she would toss aside her suburban lifestyle in Towson, MD and move to Keysville and become a Devilbiss. 

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Mark and Elizabeth immediately began striving to produce better quality forage for their cattle.  Implementing an aggressive weed mitigation program to remove harmful broadleaf weeds from both their pastures and hay fields.  They also began the undertaking of converting pastureland, which had been neglected for years, into hay fields which would produce nutritional hay for the cattle to sustain the non-grazing months of the mid-Maryland climate.  In the following years, Mark and Elizabeth would continue to tackle much needed repairs and upgrades to the farming operation equipment and facilities. 

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In 2018 Mark and Elizabeth applied for, were inspected, and were granted the license by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to sell individual cuts of their grassfed beef and farm raised hogs. They officially opened “shop” and adopted the farm name given to the property in the late 1800s, The Farm at the Pines.