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.

In more recent years, of utmost importance to the future of Somerset has been a band of parkland on either side of Little Falls Branch, which prevents commercial development from overwhelming the town. The parkland has been acquired in pieces over a 20-year period by use of town funds augmented by state and federal open space money. Conversely, after fending off rezoning and development of an 18-acre tract in the town for 40 years, Somerset became the first Maryland municipality to de-annex property. Town residents axed the property fearing that owners of planned high-rise condominiums would take over the town government to the detriment of the interests of the existing community of single-family homes.

One of the town’s attractions since 1928 has been the Somerset Elementary School, where students attained the highest composite scores of all 792 elementary schools in Maryland in 1997 and 1998. The Town Council meetings were held in the school until the Town Hall opened in 1982.

Somerset has grown during its almost 100 years, but the similarities between the old and the new outweigh the differences. Architecture has changed but the character of the people has remained much the same. Scientists, lawyers, diplomats, government officials, successful people in all fields continue to find in Somerset what its founders set out to provide— a congenial and pleasant environment in which to bring up a family.