Born in Annapolis, Maryland in 1727, John Beale Bordley became a successful Lawyer & Baltimore Judge, but is most well known for his research and publications on American farming practices. Convinced that American farming could be significantly improved, Bordley studied the works of leading British experts and experimented with different agricultural methods. Most notably, Bordley encouraged local farmers to frequently rotate their crops and to employ the use of manure as a valuable soil fertilizer.

In 1791, Judge Bordley and his wife Sarah moved to Pennsylvania, where they kept a house in Philadelphia and a large farm in Chester County. On his farm, Bordley conducted many agricultural experiments and published his written works. In the Bordley family memoirs one historian quotes, “When this independent farmer’s foreign beers, wines, porters and ales began to diminish in his cellars, he started a brewery of his own, and planted a vineyard. When his beer was fermented, he put it away in casks made by his own carpenters, from timber cut down out of his own woods, and he even manufactured his own salt from the Chesapeake Bay.”