St. Michaels first emerged amid the American Revolution, when British land agent James Braddock established a speculative street grid upon 20 acres he had purchased near the Miles River. Over time, the town became more of a reality, after settlers began constructing dwellings along Braddock’s basic plan. They soon took to calling it “St. Michaels” in honor of an Anglican church that had resided in the region years prior to the town’s founding. Nevertheless, the settlement’s earliest inhabitants were Methodist, giving St. Michaels a unique identity when compared to its neighboring communities. In fact, Braddock himself helped construct the Methodist church at the center of the town square. Even though the surrounding environs of Talbot County entertained a large agricultural economy, St. Michaels itself thrived on commerce generated from the Chesapeake Bay. Shipbuilding was one of the earliest industries to emerge, specifically servicing the fisherman that operated all along the state’s Eastern Shore. As many as six different craftsmen constructed commercial vessels shortly following the founding of the nation, building all sorts of small ships. The most prominent kind was a type of fast schooner that soon came to be known as the “Baltimore Clipper.” The Baltimore Clipper later rose to prominence during the War of 1812, as their speed and size made it easy to avoid British ships prowling the coast. Some Baltimore Clippers even acted as corsairs, harassing British merchant vessels as they attempted to cross the Atlantic. One resident named Thomas L. Haddaway was one such local who engaged in successful pirating raids, launching his own schooner mere days after war had been declared between the two countries.

St. Michaels played a much more prominent role in the War of 1812, when a fleet under the command of Admiral Sir George Cockburn sailed up the Chesapeake Bay. While the admiral’s ultimate objective was the District of Columbia, he struck at various defensive installations throughout the region first. Due to the presence of its vibrant shipyard and local battery of cannons, St. Michaels was among the places Sir Cockburn assaulted. In the early morning hours of August 10, 1813, Admiral Cockburn sent a landing party ashore to wreak havoc. With darkness covering their tracks, the British soldiers engaged a militia company just to the south of town. Scaring away the militia, the marines made short work of the cannons that protected the harbor. They then gave the signal for the main fleet to start bombarding the town. But the ships failed to do any substantial damage to either the town or its shipyard. Many stories abound of why Admiral Cockburn’s men botched their attempt to destroy St. Michaels. The most enduring attest to how its residents ingeniously hung lanterns on high tree branches as a means of confusing the British out at sea. Thinking the town to be further away, most of the sailors missed their shots. As such, St. Michaels earned the moniker as the “town that fooled the British.” By this point of the fight, several other militia units had heard the gunfire and raced their own ordinance to the site. A fierce firefight ensued between the British and the new, makeshift coastal batteries in St. Michaels. Despite being heavily outgunned and outnumbered, the American militia companies managed to turn away the greatest navy afloat at that time!

Shipbuilding had declined significantly by the mid-1800s, but a prosperous oyster fishing industry emerged in its wake. Crabbing and other kinds of commercialized fishing followed suit, too. With the dawn of the next century, every household had at least one person who engaged in some form of commercial fishing for employment. Dozens of boats owned by local fisherman were a common sight in the nearby channel of Eastern Bay. Shucking houses soon defined St. Michaels’ landscape, specifically along the immediate shoreline of the Miles River. One of the most prominent “shucking” businesses of the era was a crabmeat packing company called “Coulbourne and Jewett.” Entrepreneur Frederick Jewett ran the enterprise, becoming one of the first successful African American business owners in Talbot County. He made the firm incredibly prosperous by advertising the crabmeat with a five-level grading system that rated its size and quality. (Consumers had to pick from the following categories: regular, claw, backfin, lump, and special). The system proved so successful that every other crab fisher adopted it—it is even still in use today! In recent years, St. Michaels has emerged as one of Maryland’s exclusive vacation retreats. (The Inn at Perry Cabin has especially driven this development.) But the town is also home to many fascinating cultural attractions, including the Cannonball House, Sherwood Manor, Crooked Intention, and the Saint Michaels Historic District. All are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Greek Revival-style architecture first appeared throughout the western world during the late 18th and early 19th century. It appeared at a time when intellectuals in both Europe and English-speaking North America became obsessed with Greco-Roman culture. The style borrowed heavily from elements of Greek architecture, using it to build a wide variety of civic facilities. Ancient Greek culture was especially popular, for most people knew little about its history. The first archeological excavations had occurred earlier in the 18th century, exposing Hellenistic Greece to the West en mass for the first time. But while many European architects utilized the Greek Revival-style architecture, it truly reached the pinnacle of its popularity in the United States. In fact, some historians consider Greek Revival-style to be the nation’s very first “national” architectural form! The reason for that steeped interest was drawn from romanticized interpretations of Greek society that had started to permeate throughout America. The United States was a young nation at the end of the 1700s, and its citizens were desperate for previous democratic examples that they could emulate in their won republic. Nowhere was this desire more apparent than among the country’s founding elite. They looked to the philosophies of the Grecian republics of antiquity for successful examples of popular government. This pursuit gradually seeped into the cultural fabric of the United States, influencing everything from artwork to literature. Even the names of several towns—including Ithaca, New York, and Athens, Georgia—reflected this development.

The national fascination with ancient Greece took root in America’s architectural practices, too. Many architects began designing buildings that mimicked structures like the great the Parthenon. Even Thomas Jefferson—known to be an accomplished engineer—used Greek design principles to create the Virginia State Capitol Building in 1785. American architects—as well as their European counterparts—typically constructed buildings in the style of Greek Revival by using a symmetrical foundation anchored by combination of stucco and wooden walls. They subsequently painted them white to give the illusion that they had been constructed out of marble or some other elegant stone. A brilliant front portico acted as the main entrance into the building, which was surrounded by a large porch that could span the length of the building’s front façade. The roof itself was low pitched and was either gabled or hipped. Just below the rooftop rested an area called the “entablature” that consisted of elaborate trimming and cornicing. In some cases, the entablature itself consisted of a frieze where most of the decorative work resided. But perhaps the single greatest defining feature of Greek Revival-style buildings were the many columns (or pilasters) that proliferated throughout the interior and exterior. Architects designed the columns in one of three sub-categorical styles known as Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. They were also usually fluted or smooth and featured an ornate structure called a “capital” at the top. By the 1820s, Greek Revival-style architecture had become the most widely used in the United States. It remained that way for the next three decades, until different revivalist architectural forms finally displaced it in popularity.

The First Kiss (1928)

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