The Somerset Historic District
Nelson House - c. 1910
One of the few examples of high-style architecture in Somerset, this multi-gabled, Shingle Style house was built around 1910 for Dr. James Nelson, a US Department of Agriculture entomologist, and his wife Annie. They had two children, Marian and Norman. Dr. Nelson was a member of the Town Council from 1912. His den had shelves filled with dozens of stuffed birds. The home had the highest assessed value of any in town at $3,500.
In 1917 the house was sold to Dr. C. C. Corley, a general practitioner who rented it to the Bureau of Entomology of the Department of Agriculture, which established its bee lab here. The side yard was filled with bee hives.
The Entomological Division of the Department of Agriculture had conducted apiculture studies and research since the 1880's from the third floor of a home in Drummond -- two streets away. The bee lab scientists began a study of bee diseases in 1907 and a study of the physiology of bees in 1908. When the project outgrew its space and moved to Somerset, the work accelerated under the leadership of Dr. Everett Phillips. In the summer, local students, including Elizabeth Swigart (Jesse Swigart, Mayor of Somerset's (1910-1912) daughter) and some of her friends, were hired on at $5.00 a month to help with the bees. By 1930, five full-time scientists, two clerks, and a librarian worked here and the annual payroll for the Somerset laboratory and apiary was over $26,000. The project moved to Beltsville in 1939. In early 2002 the US government proposed closing it -- and three other similar bee research laboratories. Ironically this came just at a time when two tiny spider-like parasites had been weakening and killing bee populations across the US. The Beltsville lab has been helping fight that fight -- their researchers invented a widely used wire-screen base for beehives. As the bees come in for a landing, mites fall through the mesh to the ground and cannot climb back into the bee colony as they could with the old solid bases.
When the Somerset bee lab was closed the Nelson house was sold to Mr. Aitken, a lawyer who also dealt in real estate. The Aitkens had four children, Ursula, Ernestine, Ben and Marjorie.
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