Sykesville's Mayors

From 2026 through 2027, Gate House staff will be researching our town's mayors to better understand how they shaped Sykesville. Look for a new person to be added roughly every three weeks!

1904-1907, 1915-1916

Edwin Mellor

Edwin Mellor was Sykesville's first Mayor. He was chosen for his continuous role in the community in business as well as socially. Mellor served three contiguous one-year terms as well as a second partial stretch during World War I until his sudden death in 1916.

Under Mellor, the Town organized its first volunteer fire department (in which, Mellor served), expanded the Sykesville National Bank (on which he was a director), and made plans to revise the Town's original charter.

In addition to his political decisions, the physical face of Main Street was shaped by construction of the Mellor and Sons Store, which, at the time, was the largest department store between Frederick and Baltimore.

Read more about his life here, or click on the links above for more information.

1907

Asa Hepner

Asa Hepner had both competed and collaborated in business and politics with Sykesville’s first Mayor, Edwin Mellor. Hepner was a Methodist and a republican, active in social and political organizations.

Hepner held a variety of jobs in Sykesville, from his teenage years as an apprentice brick molder, to his 1890s mercantile work, a later clay manufacturing business alongside Wade H.D. Warfield, and numerous investments in other enterprises including running a music store, serving among the directors of the Sykesville National Bank in 1907, serving on the Sykesville School Board for eight years, and becoming one of the original incorporators of the Sykesville Realty and Investment Company. Hepner also served sixteen years as the Sykesville postmaster from 1897-1914.

In the spring of 1907, Hepner was nominated for the position of Sykesville’s mayor. In the Westminster newspaper, The Democratic Advocate, the paper states that, “Under the new regime, the town is promised a new charter and street improvements which the rapid strides of the last few years demand.” One of the first actions was to hire a night watchman for the town.

This progress was to be short-lived, as in late summer, the federal Post Office Department insisted that Hepner had a conflict of interest and needed to give up either his position as postmaster, or his position as Mayor. Hepner resigned as mayor, and Wade H.D. Warfield (president of the council) was elected by council to fill the position of Mayor.

Read more about his life here, or click on the links above for more information.

1907-1908 (Completing Term of Asa Hepner, and serving an additional term)

Wade H.D. Warfield

By his first term in office as Mayor, Wade H.D. Warfield owned a substantial amount of property within the limits of Sykesville, and had already served on Town Council each of the first four years of the town’s incorporation. This well-known young, progressive, democrat businessman is responsible for building or heavily renovating more than half a dozen of the storefronts of Main Street Sykesville.

At the age of 25, Wade H.D. Warfield was already considered one of the most promising young businessmen of Maryland. Warfield’s business had taken off in earnest in the spring of 1889, expanding Main Street by constructing numerous buildings, and six new enterprises from manufacturing doors and windows, to hardware and paint sales, to grains and feed. By the age of 35, in connection with his agricultural ventures, he was appointed to serve on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s Dairymen’s Association, overseeing the trade of all dairy products on the B&O Main Line. In the same year (1900), Warfield spearheaded the formation of the Sykesville National Bank—Sykesville's first bank—which opened the following year with Warfield as the President of the board.

In 1904, when the Town of Sykesville incorporated, Warfield was named Town Council President. He also served as the president of the newly founded Sykesville Volunteer fire company, helping to finance the original engine for the organization.

In 1907, a conflict of interest between elected Mayor Hepner’s occupation as Post Master for the federal government and his role as Mayor caused Hepner to resign, and Town Council to appoint then-councilman Warfield to complete the term. Warfield’s most notable achievement as mayor was having arranged for creation of a fund to pave and maintain Sykesville’s streets. He won the popular election the following year to reprise his role as mayor.

Warfield continued to support the interest of Sykesville and its citizens in state politics, in particular promoting the inaction of prohibition and universal women’s suffrage. He served as a Maryland State Senator in 1915 on a platform of lower taxes and more efficient administration, at the same time as he incorporated his large milling operation under the Maryland Milling and Supply Company--then the largest industry of its kind in the state. The stress of his business and loss of a reelection campaign caused an attack which took him out of the public eye for most of the winter of 1919.

In 1922, Warfield planned to run for Congress, however, illness struck again, deeply impacting his businesses. Already having suffered several fires in his personal properties and businesses in the last couple years, Warfield cited his health for selling his home, his farm, the college which bore his name, the rest of his holdings in Marriottsville, and several other small holdings. He also gave up many of his board positions at this time. Evidence suggests that he suffered at least one and probably two strokes between 1922 and his death in 1935.

His family home, Chihuahua (Raincliffe), today is a recognized Maryland Historic Trust site, near Freedom Park, while the ruins of his personal home, Groveland, can still be found today in Sykesville. Additionally, he briefly owned the entire town of Marriottsville (from 1909-1917).

1909-1915

Dr. Daniel Sprecher

Coming Soon

1917-1918

George Schrade

George Schrade was born in Pennsylvania to German immigrant parents. As a young man, Schrade was a mechanic and the foreman of the L.P. Shultz and Co. Machine shop in Sykesville. For most of his career, Schrade ran his own blacksmith shop, but Schrade was also an early shareholder/director of the Sykesville Perpetual Building Association, joining on or before 1895 and serving as president on or before 1907 for a total term of about 25 years. Schrade also served as a director of the newly-established First National Bank of Sykesville (in operation 1907-1913).

The Building Association was formed in 1880 in Sykesville, originally serving as a project-by-project locally-funded loan entity for homes and businesses. Decades before the establishment of Sykesville’s first bank, this organization made the construction of Main Street, and its surrounding communities, possible.