8-04-2025 4:26am

Power Lines "Dagger

Beneath the Yellow Line: Baugher's

By Susan Gordon | Photographs by Brandon Moffitt

Dwight Baugher of Baugher Orchard, a 4th generation farm in Carroll County, was speaking to me by phone. His voice was both full and lean, no nonsense, but I soon learned he could tell a powerful story of his farm, its history, and the generations who had made their lives and their living there.

Dwight said his farm is situated west of Westminster off 140 and it was still “country ground, rural countryside,” but the city and its suburbs were moving closer. He said that he farms a thousand acres in fruit, grain, and vegetables.

His great-grandfather started farming that ground in 1904, then his grandfather, his dad, then Dwight Baugher and now he has “3 teenagers who are expressing interest in returning, after finishing school, to farm this same ground.” He ended by saying quietly, “They are saying they want in and want to keep it going,” That would be the fifth Baugher generation on this piece of land.

Dwight spoke first of his orchards and of every kind tree, ones that bear apples, peaches, pears, plums, nectarines, cherries, tart and sweet, and then he listed the berries they grow in the fields, strawberries, gooseberries, currents, blackberries. Forty percent of his acreage is in fruit but he also grows vegetables; his tomatoes, cantaloupes, watermelons, and sweet corn are favored by his customers. He has a pumpkin patch so big you could get lost in it. He grows other crops like soybeans, grain, and feed corn because those three let him renew the soil so that it can offer the vegetables the nutrients they need.

Dwight’s farm provides its fruits and vegetables to the public in several different ways. There is pick-your-own fruit; he also has two retail stores that carry both fruit and produce and he also sells both of those through wholesalers in Baltimore and Washington, DC. “I have my hands in a little bit of everything, you have to diversify.”

And that became a thread that ran through our conversation, what it takes to be a good farmer in the mid-Atlantic region, and how, for him, the bedrock for being a good farmer is the back-bone strength of family, faith, and hard work.

Dwight was the youngest of the five children in his family and so he doesn’t remember his great-grandparents who began to farm here in 1904, but his older brothers and sister have memories of them. He spoke, with joy in his voice, about his grandfather. “He was my best friend; we were buddies.” He had the love of both of his grandparents, and their teaching. “My grandmother taught me how to crimp a pie when I was six; taught me how to put away cherries.” But his grandfather? “I was always going to him. I called him Pap. He would meet me when I got off the school bus. Pap showed me all the farm, the tractors, shop projects, and when I was six, he taught me how to count money.”

Dwight Baugher’s grandfather—Ed Baugher—opened Baugher’s Restaurant in 1948 because “we didn’t have enough road visibility at the farm and we needed to sell fruit.” He said in the 50’s Baugher’s restaurant was “a cool place.” It had a soda fountain where they “dipped ice cream and the teenagers came to hang out. You could have a burger and buy some peaches or come for some strawberries and get some fries.”

“Pap would come home from the restaurant, throw down a brown bag and say, ‘Count that, boy.’ And there I was, six years old, learning how to open the safe and count money. Then Pap comes in and checks your math. And, I’d get it right. I had a little pride in that.”

“Ed Baugher,” he said, “with his notebook and his camaraderie. He was the funniest, it was Romper Room.” Dwight Baugher paused, “See my dad managed the farm and Pap, the restaurant. He always showed up, every single day, in a white shirt and a bowtie. That’s what he wore when he dressed up, a bowtie, never a tie. But,” and Dwight laughed, “by 4 o’clock in the afternoon, he’d be under a combine with his bowtie on, wrenching on a piece of machinery, in a white shirt and a bowtie.”

“I sure wish I had more time with him.”

His Pap had a heart attack and died when Dwight was just 10. And in those 10 years, there are all these memories FINISH READING HERE