The Caroline County Historical Society
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Caroline History & Culture Events
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Hear Our Stories

Leaders for Freedom & Civil Rights
Bishop Alexander W. Wayman, founding AME Bishop, was raised in Tuckahoe Neck. Underground Railroad conductors Daniel Hubbard and Arthur Leverton barely escaped lynching. The parents of William Still, “Father of the Underground Railroad”, were born into slavery near the Choptank River. James H. Webb, a free black, farmed here before the Civil War.

Courageous & Creative Women
Nettie Dean Carter, prominent teacher, suffragette, and businesswoman – a century ahead of her time. Enolia McMillan, NAACP’s first woman president, started her teaching career in Denton. Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad ran through the heart of Caroline County. Anna Murray of Tuckahoe Neck helped Frederick Douglass escape north before they married and raised a family.

War Heroes
Capt. Quentin Walsh, USCG, captured the French seaport that secured D-Day. 2LT Louise Hollister was Maryland’s only Army Nurse casualty in WWII. Col. Peter Adams commanded Maryland troops at Yorktown. Col. William Richardson, “Father of Caroline County”, also saved the Continental Treasury from the British. Cpl. William H. Carney, 38th US Colored Troops, was laid to rest at Union Church after the Civil War.

Everyday Citizens
Captain C.C. Wheeler was illiterate yet built and operated a successful steamboat line. George Swartz and his mule loaded sailing vessels in West Denton in the 1930s. The Two Johns were vaudeville actors whose riverside theater scandalized the locals. Georgist Tax Rebels planned a colony at Gilpin Point. Robert Jacobs was a modern blacksmith at age 14.
Historic Buildings Preservation
Site of Barwick’s Inn (1775) Studied
Thee location of Barwick’s Tavern (c. 1775–c. 1790) was part of a colonial commercial cluster of now-vanished buildings that once included a government-mandated tobacco warehouse, a "jail", a ferry crossing and several buildings that all predated 1747. The site is...
James H. Webb Cabin Restored
James Webb, a free African-American farmer, built this hand-hewn log home in 1852. He lived here with his enslaved wife, Mary Ann, and their four children, Charles, Elizabeth, John and Ann, and Webb’s father, Henry. The Webbs were members of Mount Pleasant Church....
Ridgely Train Depot (ca. 1892) Restored
With its broad Victorian porches stripped away and surviving interior woodwork behind cheap wallboard and 1970s partitions, the 1892 depot was recommended by town staff in 2008 as a site for public toilets. As an alternative, the Society prepared concept plans for...
The Historic Landscape of Caroline County
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Museum Exhibits
Taylor-Brown House
Built for merchant-broker Solomon Brown in 1819 and later owned by the Taylors, an African American family. This house was moved twice by mule cart and survived the fire that leveled most of Denton on July 4, 1865, when balls of candlewick and kerosene were flung in celebration at a Civil War reconciliation picnic.
Painter’s Range
One-room dwellings were so common at the end of the 18th century that they housed roughly 85% of the inhabitants of southern Delaware and the lower Shore. They became less popular by the mid 1800s. By the time the log dwelling was built on Painter’s Range about 1828, one-room houses in rural areas were associated with “subsistence farmers”; i.e., a family scratching out a living on fifteen to thirty acres.
Chance’s Desire
Typical home of a “middling planter,” circa 1787, Chance’s Desire was a classic hall-parlor dwelling in which there were two rooms aligned end to end on the ground floor with a fireplace at each gable end. Parlor room with large “chimney breast” with thirteen hand-carved raised panels over the fireplace. Overhead were decorative floor/ceiling joists carved from local poplar trees.
Skillington’s Right
Skillington’s Right was built circa 1795, home of the Fraziers, a wealthy planter family. Once said to be the finest specimen of colonial architecture on the upper Choptank. The area along the Great Choptank River between Skillington’s and Edmondson’s Creeks has long been known as “Frazier’s Neck.” It was first surveyed in 1663 for John Edmondson.

WWI - The Great War
Built for merchant-broker Solomon Brown in 1819 and later owned by the Taylors, an African American family. This house was moved twice by mule cart and survived the fire that leveled most of Denton on July 4, 1865, when balls of candlewick and kerosene were flung in celebration at a Civil War reconciliation picnic.
WWII - Lost Lives
In the Lost Lives exhibit, visitors will recognize the names Corregidor, Cuadalcanal, Iwo Jima, Normandy, Tripolis Мопtе Cassino, The Bulge, Guam, and others. Together with the Letters Home and Romance, our WWII exhibits give visitors compelling and straight-forward insight into how World War impacted Caroline County families.

Sea Stories
Caroline County captains, sailors, and shipbuilders in the Age of Sail and the Age of Steam.

FDR on the Denton Courthouse Green
FDR’s visit on Labor Day 1938 was more than just a big day for Denton. It was also a carefully planned and orchestrated event in FDR’s battle to secure the New Deal.
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Caring, Sharing, Giving
The CCHS depends on your generous contributions to continue to promote and protect Caroline County’s rich heritage. Funds are used to operate the Museum of Rural Life, sustain our programming, and restore and maintain historically significant structures throughout Caroline County.