Photo Timeline Album

[photos from top left]

June 1940
Dutch’s mother, Martha V. Langenfelder (far right) harvesting parsley

Circa late 1950’s
Rosedale, Maryland farm house – Dutch Langenfelder’s birthplace

Circa late 1940’s
Conrad John Langenfelder, Sr. on John Deere tractor at Rosedale Farm

Circa 1940’s
Langenfelder brothers — Gus, Henry, Conrad (Dutch’s father), and Nick– and their father John F. cooking beef at a Bull Roast in Baltimore County, MD

1976
Aerial photo of Clarksville farm; purchased by Conrad Sr. and Martha in 1956

March 1981
National Pork Producers’ Council President Bill Bueller presenting Dutch with Maryland’s Pork All-American award at Pork Congress in Kansas City

History

Six generations ago our ancestor, John Langenfelder, emigrated from Germany in the late 1840’s and settled in Baltimore County Maryland. At first, the small family farm produced vegetables and raised animals for his family’s use. As the farm passed down to the next generations, the family grew vegetables to sell at the nearby Baltimore City markets. Horse drawn wagons were used through the early 1900’s to transport the vegetables, later switching to small trucks after World War I. Fields were tilled using mule drawn plows until the late 1940’s when the 4th generation, Conrad Sr., purchased the first tractor.

To supplement their income during the Great Depression, the family began to raise extra pigs and sell the meat to neighbors and friends. Based on old family recipes, Conrad and his wife, Martha, began to make and sell sausage and scrapple which became so popular that they received requests for more. To meet the demand, more pigs were raised and the Langenfelder family farm gradually evolved from growing vegetables to raising animals and field crops.

Direct meat sales were discontinued in the late 1950’s, but the family maintained the tradition of sausage and scrapple making. Thirty years ago, Dutch and Pat Langenfelder and their children, Jennifer, Bill and Kristen, the 5th and 6th generations, relocated the family farm to Kent County on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to continue the legacy.