St. Michaels is the quintessential seaside Maryland town that dates back to the mid-1600s when it served as a trading post for area tobacco farmers and trappers. For those interested, let’s take a walk through history of St. Michael’s legacy. All others can scroll down to learn more about the venue.

St. Michaels is a treasure on Maryland’s fabled Eastern Shore, about halfway between the Susquehanna source and the Atlantic mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. This vintage harbor port whose origins date from the birth of the colonies, is nestled on the beautiful Miles River. Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, St. Michaels was a Chesapeake Bay economy focused primarily around the shipbuilding and seafood processing. The town was best known for its fast schooner, a type later known as the Baltimore clipper. Such vessels were well adapted to evading blockades or outrunning pirates or foreign naval vessels at sea. During the War of 1812, St. Michaels gained its name as “the town that fooled the British”. As the major shipbuilding center for the U.S. Navy, a British fleet set sail to destroy St. Michaels in what was known as the Battle of St. Michaels. Forewarned that the attack was coming at night, residents plotted a blackout, snuffing out all their lights -- and then lit lanterns high in trees to make the British gunners believe the town stood on a hill. This first successful “blackout” fooled the British into overshooting the town’s houses and shipyards. Only one house, forever since known as Cannonball House, was struck. The British proceeded to bombard the town from the barges and a brig, but failed to destroy the shipyards or cause any substantial damage to the town. After the war there was a decline in shipbuilding in the town, but the oyster industry revived the town a few decades later. Many were involved in some aspect of fishery, whether it was tonging oysters or the shucking houses that lined the waterfront. One of these businesses, Coulbourne and Jewett, came to specialize in crabmeat and devised the now well-known grading system of regular, claw, special, backfin, and lump crab meat.

This waterfront home dates back to the 17th Century. The Inn resides on property from an original land grant deed to the Benson family by Lord Baltimore in about 1680. The current piece of property was purchased by the Harper Family in 1884 for just $5,900. Frederick Harper and his wife, Louise, started running the Inn as a boarding home in 1902 to help with the expense of the farm. Guests would travel by steamship from the Western Shore to nearby Clairborne and then catch the train to the inn.