The narrow country road meanders through the softly rolling hills of northern Harford County, past thoroughbred horses grazing and beef cattle basking in the sun.

Wildflowers create colorful spots along the road's edges, birds chirp and the air smells like freshly washed laundry.

Time seems to be standing still in these parts of Harford, where farmland remains untouched by development. Travel through wooded hills and lush green valleys and you reach the shores of the mighty Susquehanna River just before it flows into the Chesapeake Bay. Here, bald eagles majestically glide through the skies and mallard ducks float on the rippling water.

The English explorer Capt. John Smith was on the mark when he landed on the shores of Harford County in July 1608, and wrote in his diary: "Heaven and earth never agreed better to frame a place for man's commodious and delightful habitation."

These scenic vistas and quality of life have kept families in Harford County for generations and have drawn droves of new-comers to the area, each searching for a small plot of land to call his own.

Aimee O'Neill is an eighth-generation Harford resident who wouldn't even consider living elsewhere. She said she left the county for four years while attending college and thought about making a new home for herself in another part of the country, but her roots called her back to Harford.

"My father's family arrived in Harford county right around the time of the American Revolution, and throughout history, it's been a family that has always participated in the community. That thread of family, that overt commitment to community and history, I couldn't re-create that any other place in the world - it brought me back home and it keeps me here," says O'Neill, 45, who lives with her husband, Jim Torre, and their two elementary school-age children in Forest Hill, a rural communfty north of the county seat of BeI Air.

O'Neill and her brother Patrick S. O'Neill operate O'Neill Enterprises in Forest Hill. The auction, appraisal, accounting and real estate company was started by their father, John H. O'Neill, in 1948.

Mr. O'Neill, a gregarious farmer, died in July of cancer at the age of 82. He spent more than a decade in local government during the 1960s and 1970s - first as a county commissioner, then as the first County Council president after Harford switched to a charter form of government In 1972.

Being involved in politics is an O'Neill family tradition. His father, Howard S. O'Neill, was a state senator and a grandfather, Thomas H. Robinson, was Maryland attorney general. Mr. O'Neill also was instrumental in the preservation of St. Ignatius Church in Hickory, a 210-year-old fieldstone and white stucco house of worship that is one ot the oldest Catholic churches in Maryland.

The O'Neills are descendants of Lt. John O'Neill, an Irish immigrant who was named as the first keeper of the Concord Point Lighthouse in recognition of his heroic defense of the city of Havre de Grace against the invading British fleet during the War of l8l2.

The lighthouse, built in 1827 on the spot where O'Neill made his valiant stand, is one of the oldest continuously operated lighthouses on the East Coast. And an O'Neill was always the keeper until the lighthouse was automated in the mid-1900s.

"We are a county that has always embraced family," says Harford County Executive James M. Harkins, whose county roots trace back to the mid-1700s. His seventh great-grandfather was a drummer boy in the Revolutionary War and one of the first Harford land-owners.

Harford incorporated in 1773 and a county seat was created at Harford Town, also called Bushtown or Bush. Court was held in one of the inns until 1782, when the county seat was moved to Bel Air. Bush was located on the main road between Annapolis and Philadelphia, now the intersection of Routes 7 and 136.

It was in Bush that 34 Harford County citizens met on March 22, 1775, to sign the Bush Declaration, a commitment to resist the British infringement on American rights. The closing words, "At the Risque of Our Lives & fortunes" is embellished on the official Harford County seal.

Local historians believe that Thomas Jefferson must have read the Bush Declaration, since there is much similarity in the text of the Declaration of Independence, which was drafted by him and signed by 56 representatives of the 13 colonies on July 4, 1776 -- 16 months after the Bush Declaration.

You can study Harford County's history in depth at the Historical Society of Harford County Inc.'s headquarters on Main Street in Bel Air. Located in the old post office, a landmark in itself, the society is a repository for Harford's history.

If you're looking for Harford artifacts, old newspaper clippings, photographs of days gone by, court records dating to the 1770s, or if you want to research your family's genealogy, this is the place to go.

Periodically changing exhibits further portray Harford's history, and next year, the society will open the Booth Room, a permanent museum of the Junius Brutus Booth Shakespearean acting family who lived for more than 30 years at Tudor Hail, a farm just outside Bel Air.

Junius Brutus Booth's children included Harford's most famous native son of the 19th century, Edwin Booth, who followed his father onto the stage, and the most infamous, John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

"Fortunately or unfortunately, however you want to look at it, the Booth family is known mostly for John Wilkes Booth and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, but we feel that people need to know just how prominent the family was aside from that incident," says Maryanna Skowronski, the historical society's administrator "They were America's most prominent theatrical family the precursors of the Barrymores and the Fondas. They ranked in stature with any of the British actors of the same time frame.

The Booth Room will house the society's extensive collection of Booth items, including books, photographs theater programs, clippings and scrapbooks "We have a quality of life that is rich in heritage, and we share a commitment to open-space preservation, parks and recreation, quality economic development and safe neighborhoods says Harkins.

"Our agricultural background offers a certain mystique to someone who enjoys open space, cornfields, safe streets and good schools. A good school system, more than anything, drives somebody to purchase a house in this county," he says.

Harford County public Schools consistently have ranked between second and fourth place out of 24 school districts in the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program tests, and SAT scores are consistently higher than the national average, says Don Morrison, a spokesman for the school system.

Good schools and open spaces were a major factor in Rob and Peggy Furlong's decision to make a home in Harford County.

Furlong grew up in the Dundalk area of Baltimore County and moved with his family to Joppatowne in 1980 - his junior year in high school. His wife grew up in Edgewood. The couple and their 6-year-old son live in a townhouse in Box Hill South in Abingdon.

A past president of his community association and treasurer for the Abingdon Elementary School PTA, Furlong says he enjoys living in the more densely populated southern end of Harford County because nearby Interstate 95 offers quick access to downtown Baltimore, where he works as a detective sergeant for the Baltimore Police Department.

"I have to fight traffic every morning to get to 1-95, but once I'm back at home, I only have to ride 10 minutes either north or south to enjoy open space," says Furlong.

A favorite fishing spot for Furlong and his son is Mariner Point Park in Joppatowne, a scenic open space along the banks of the Gunpowder River that is owned and maintained by Harford's Department of Parks and Recreation.

In contrast to the bucolic pastures in the north, development has mushroomed in the Interstate 95 and U.S. 40 corridors of Harford.

Here, farmland has made way for fast suburban growth. Census data show that Harford's population grew from 145,930 in 1980 to 226,565 in 2000. And along with a population explosion come problems of crowded schools, congested streets and a increased need for emergency services.

Balancing preservation of open space and development growth, while at the same time attracting new business to the county and providing an infrastructure that can handle an increasing demand, is a major challenge facing Harford's government.

"The line in the sand has been drawn. I have not upzoned one lot in the county since I took office. ... Building and development going on today is on land that was zoned 10 to 20 years ago," says Harkins.

Instead of continuing development growth in an already dense area, the county is redeveloping older areas such as the U.S. 40 corridor.

Reviving rust belt

About four years ago, private and public development communities joined to revitalize Harford's rust belt, a grimy 23-mile commercial stretch of U.S. 40 from the Gunpowder to the Susquehanna rivers.

The area, once slated for a life of mini-storage areas and big warehouses, now boasts four-story office buildings, technology companies and shopping centers. Work is not completed, but the area is slowly being transformed into a dynamic business destination.

The county is also attracting major businesses. Pier One opened a 350,000-square-foot warehouse and distribution facility in Aberdeen in August and construction of the first phase of the 73,000-square-foot Battelle Eastern Regional Technology Center is scheduled to be completed by next year. The $22 million project, which will bring about 150 high-paying jobs to the county, is being built at the Higher Education and Applied Technology Center in Aberdeen.

Battelle, the developer of the Xerox copying process and pioneer of bar code technology, has contracts with Aberdeen Proving Ground and major corporations and institutions of higher learning throughout the world.

Aberdeen Proving Ground, the Army's oldest active proving ground, opened in 1917 as an ordnance testing facility. The 72,500-acre military installation is Harford's largest employer, providing jobs for close to 7,000 civilians and 4,000 military personnel.

But agriculture remains the county's largest industry, and care is taken to preserve farm-land. Of the county's 235,676 acres (excluding Aberdeen Proving Ground), more than 90,000 acres are actively farmed. And about 50,000 of those have been entered into agricultural preservation programs.

After making a commitment to continue farming full time, Ned Sayre and his family - his father, Lawrason, and his brother and two sisters - entered their 42-year-old, 300-acre Black Angus beef cattle farm into Harford County's agricultural preservation program.

By selling the development rights to their Waffle Hill farm in Churchvllle, the Sayres have ensured that their land will continue to be farmed or that the gently rolling open space will be preserved for generations to come. We are on a fringe urban/rural area and try to maintain as much of the rural area as we can," says Sayre.

Saving open space

Preservation of open space is also much on the mind of Bob Chance, a former educator, conservationist, owner of the Environmental Christmas Tree Farm and founder of the Susquehannock Environmental Center in Bel Air.

The environmental center evolved from a small project started in 1972 by members of "the Bel Air High School Ecology Club. After 30 years, it is the oldest nonprofit recycling center in the country and boasts one of the largest volumes of oil recycling, Christmas trees, anti-freeze and textiles in the state.

"Harford County should be -very proud of its environmental education program and its approach to solid waste," says Chance. "Reclamation is taught in the school system and [the county] has a tremendous adopt-a-road program as well as state highway cleanup program," he adds.

Chance is also trail master of the Lower Susquehanna Heritage Greenway, a nonprofit project that aims to open the Susquehanna flood plain to the public, stimulate the economy of the river towns, preserve the natural diversity of its rich plant and animal history, and cultivate environmental education on both sides of the river.

"Twelve miles of the 38 miles are finished and they extend from Conowingo Dam through the Susquehanna State Park and Lapidum. It stops at Interstate 95 and then continues along the Havre de Grace promenade to Swan Harbor Farm and Swan Creek Point," says Chance. "The trail is a recreational tool for horseback riding, biking, birding, hiking, jogging, fishing or just wildflower walking. Since the trail runs through the dividing zone called the fall line [where the coastal plain meets the Piedmont regionl, you get a range of elevation, rock types, plants and migrating species," explains Chance.

Chance's hope for the future of Harford County?

"Allowing manageable residential growth that is compatible with an equal component of green space and recreation opportunities will be one of the biggest challenges for Harford in this decade," says Chance.

"But Harford is still a great place to live. We're bordered by the Susquehanna River, the Gunpowder River, the Chesapeake Bay and forest of the northwestern part of the county. If we continue to hold fast on the perimeters of the development envelope, recycle brownfield sites within that envelope and treat water as a precious commodity, Harford will continue to support and satisfy its diverse population," he says.

Says Aimee O'Neill: "Since there are generations past, there will certainly be generations to come in the future. In spite of growth and change, there is an affection for the county It's a county with character because people make it so."