115 2nd St Crumpton, MD 21628

This vintage charmer is tucked on a quiet side street in the Queen Anne s County town of Crumpton. The historic village is located on a bend of the Chester River, and there s a small community beach and boat ramp where you can put in a kayak or canoe. The original section of the house was built in the 1860s; the first owner was Maurice Welsh, one of the two men who founded the town. Some floor boards in this section are 17 inches wide, most likely made from logs felled on the site. The two-story front addition, with higher ceilings and bigger rooms, was likely added in the early 1900s. The spacious living room has lots of light, while the bright and cheery new kitchen and enclosed heated sunroom add to the living space. There s also a dining room, laundry room, and full bath downstairs. Upstairs has 3 bedrooms and a half bath. A new, efficient propane tankless hot water heater provides central heat through baseboard registers. Roof, well, and septic are all in good working order. The landscaped yard features mature shrubs and trees, a pea gravel patio, and a new shed. The lot is bounded to the rear by the parking lot of the Methodist Church, and a beautiful (unbuildable) garden lot separates the property from the eastern neighbor. If you need more land, the triple lot across the street with three-bay garage may be purchased separately at an exceptionally good price. Crumpton is home to the nationally famous Dixon Furniture Auction, held every Wednesday since 1961. The town is just one mile off Route 301 for easy commuting north or south. This solid home has been reduced $15,000 and is an excellent value. HISTORY OF THE TOWN: In 1759, Henry McAllister from Oxford, MD, owned a farm at the bend in the Chester River that is now Crumpton. He started a ferry operation between the two shores (from Kent County to Queen Anne s). Fast forward a hundred years to 1859, when two men from New Jersey bought 1300 acres on that riverbend and platted it into 29x120 foot lots with the vision of creating a new Baltimore on the Eastern Shore. They named their five-mile-square creation Crumpton after William Crump, who owned most of the land in the area. In 1865, McAllister s Ferry was replaced by a wooden bridge spanning the river and in 1871, a tree-lined causeway of white oyster shells was constructed leading down to the ferry on the Queen Anne s County side. By 1885, the town had a population of 600 with industries including peach canning, fruit drying, two lumber yards, steamboat operations, and selling pearls extracted from the mussels in the Chester River; Tiffany s in New York was the main buyer. The town also had a creamery, a foundry, a hotel, and several general stores. At one point it was also known as a ship-building center. All of these industries were dependent on the river for getting in supplies and selling their products. The river also brought summer visitors and the famous showboats with onboard actors and bands. The original founders of the village had envisioned a commercial area in the heart of town, between Second and Third Street and Pine and Merchant. That never transpired. The only buildings built for commercial use were the hotel on the river at Front Street and Holloway Store on the corner of Broad and Second, both of which sit empty now. Other Mom-and-Pop businesses were run off the front porch or out of the living room of existing residences along Broad Street. As the river silted in over the decades and trains became the new means of travel and shipment, the businesses on the riverfront town slowly closed and the village became the sleepy settlement that it is today.