In 1890, five scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture paid $19,000 for 50 acres in Montgomery County for the purpose of building—according to the Washington Evening Star of May 17, 1890—“a cluster of villas, forming a suburb fashioned after the very pleasant ones of Boston and other northern cities.” They bound themselves by covenant “to build five or more private residences . . . to cost not less than $2,000 each” in their “suburb” to be called Somerset. Most prominent of the founders was Harvey Wiley, Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, who is known as the father of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. Although Wiley himself did not take up residence in Somerset, the other four founders did and commuted to work each day on the Wisconsin Avenue trolley that passed by the main entrance.
By 1905, there were 35 families in the settlement, but only a dozen were willing to contribute cash or labor for filling mud holes in the streets and repairing the wooden sidewalks. So, the Somerset Citizens Association requested municipal powers so as to equalize responsibility by collecting taxes from everyone. The Maryland General Assembly issued Somerset’s incorporation charter the following year.
