Other Names: Brick Mills Landing, Hardcastle Mill House
The landing is located on the west side of the Choptank River, across from Melvill’s Warehouse, about three miles north of Denton. The landing was well known in the early years serving as a shipping center and served as the turning point for vessels on the river. At the landing is a circa 1790 Flemish bond brick mill house referred to as Hardcastle Mill House. “This house stands on part of a tract called Sayer’s Addition, the part re-patented under the name Luck by Chance (1787). In 1797 Luck by Chance was purchased by John Hardcastle of Caroline County, son of Thomas Hardcastle. A deed of 1802 (Caroline County Land Records) mentions John’s grist mill. In the accounting of the disposition of his estate in 1816, his brick mill house is mentioned.
The landing is identified on the 1875 Caroline County map found in The 1877 Atlases and Other Early Maps of the Eastern Shore, Maryland and “Index Chart of Natural Oyster Bars, Crab Bottoms, Clam Beds and Triangular Stations of Maryland surveyed by Maryland Shell Fish Commission in cooperation with U.S. Bureau of Fisheries and U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey,” 1906-1912. This may be the same landing as Road to Hardcastle Mill Landing.
(Choptank River Cultural Resources Inventory, 1999-2002)