East New Market, Maryland - Historic Preservation

Historic Preservation

Efforts made by Dr. M. Fred Tidwell, Phd., and his protege Joseph Gavlick, in the early 1970s to preserve the Sullivan family's Georgian style home, Friendship Hall, combined with activities during the 1976 celebration of the United States bicentennial promoted a renewed awareness of the town's uniqueness. This renewed awareness in turn combined with a federal C.E.T.A. grant used to excavate and re-lay the town's brick sidewalks (originally laid in 1894) provided part of the impetus to a larger effort to preserve the historic town and its heritage. The use of the grant for this purpose was the brainchild of then Mayor Charles F. Hurley, Sr. who saw it as a way of combining a federal jobs program with a lifelong interest in historic preservation. These and other efforts culminated in the bicentennial year town-wide costume ball held under a great tent on the grounds of the transitional Georgian/Federal house known as "Edmondson Hall" a.k.a. "Liberty Hall."

From the aforementioned activities came a new initiative. then council member Hurley, Dr. Tidwell (who was also an elected town councilman) and educator/school principal John Nossick (who later served on the town council) founded the East New Market Heritage Foundation, specifically to preserve the architectural and cultural heritage of the town. The town contemporaneously passed a zoning, and historic district ordinances. The initial historic district declaration provided the impetus for the next steps.

Based on the research of local historian Kirk L. Hurley application was made to the state for the granting of state historic district status. This research comprised a house by house, property by property account taking every property back to resurvey of 1776 and the prior grants. The result of this was the basis for the section dealing with East New Market in the historic sites survey published in the Maryland Historical Trust's book Between the Nanticoke and the Choptank, An Architectural history of Dorchester County (Weeks, 1984, The Johns Hopkins University Press). From the granting of state historic district status a successful recommendation was made and accepted for a National Historic District Status.