Historic home destroyed in fire

A historic Harwood farmhouse once called home by the head of security for the Manhattan Project was destroyed in a two-alarm fire early Wednesday morning.

A man driving down Muddy Creek Road noticed a large column of smoke in the distance at about 1 a.m., but couldn't identify where it was coming from, said Battalion Chief Matthew Tobia, a county Fire Department spokesman.

Firefighters followed the smoke a mile down Lansdale Road, along a muddy one-lane street tucked between hundreds of acres of cornfields and trees. At the end of the private roadway, crews found a large, three-story farmhouse engulfed at 4468 Lansdale...