Vienna Maryland

Where is Vienna Maryland?

Vienna, LA is located at 38°29′7″N 75°49′37″W / 38.48528, -75.82694

General Information on Vienna, MD

Vienna in Dorchester County, Maryland has a total size of 0.5 km² and in 2000 a total 280 people called it their hometown. Exactly half of them were married couples living together, a third of them living by themselves.
The median age was 42 years whilst men earned a good third more than their female counterparts. With an average income of $18,082 per capita, less than 5% lived below the poverty line.

Vienna, MD – Maryland

In 2005, the Mayor, Russel Brinsfield, stated the following:
"Facing potential significant growth and change in the 21st
century, Vienna has a tremendous opportunity to link
and protect cultural, historic and recreational opportunities,
while accommodating appropriate development."

Vienna's former industrial properties were bought up and
have been turned into a waterfront park that offers a
river walk and a marsh creation project, transient floating
docks and include plans to build the John Smith Chesapeake
National Historic Trail, that was established in May 2007.

Also, the Captain John Smith Nanticoke Discovery Center is
being planned to turn Vienna into the region's tourism centre.
Vienna is easily accessible by car and hopes to bring
significant tourism to the entire area and serve as a gateway
to the greater Nanticoke River Watershed.

Vienna's residents and its Mayor have great vision concerning the future development of its town. For example, the creation of a 'Town Center' district is in planning, also residential development zones on the outskirts of town and a 'greenbelt area', land for which has already been acquired.

Every year just before Christmas, Vienna's streets are illuminated by over 1600 candles during the Lumanaria.

In the early evening, churches, private homes and shops will open their doors to the public. Christmas carols, refreshments and the genuine 'Spirit of Christmas' will be offered to everyone interested, while those visitors who don't prefer to walk will be transported around town by the Vienna trams, all leaving from Vienna Heritage Museum, the main stop and Official Luminaria Night Headquarters, where maps, private home tour tickets and general information will be available.

Brief history of VIenna, MD

First mentioned by no one less than Captain John Smith, the region of the Nanticoke River in Dorchester County as early as 1608, it was another century until Vienna was formally founded in 1706.
In the following decades the Town flourished through successful trade in lumber and tobacco and was soon competing with a new town called Baltimore.

In the Revolutionary War, as well as the war of 1812, Vienna was subsequently attacked and raided by the British army. To protect themselves, its citizens built a stone wall along the waterfront, remnants of which can still be seen.
During the Civil War, Vienna offered provision to blockade runners.
Today, Maryland's economical focus may not be on Vienna any more, but the Town's citizens have made sure much of the architecture is sustained and restored.

"In discussing economic development strategies for Vienna, Mayor Russ Brinsfield said he wanted to increase traffic downtown and establish an interpretive center along the Nanticoke River to look at the natural and historic aspects of the river and town. He wanted us to scientifically look at the John Smith map printed in 1612 about his voyage up the river in 1608 and see if we could overlay it over today's maps and see if he did, in fact, stop at what is now Vienna," said Scott.

For Elliott's Island history buff and author Ann Foley, that's good news. "This bears out the accuracy of local legend that says Smith stopped at Green's Island. Years ago, a plaque was placed there by several Dorchester County men noting his visit, a spot they located long before the technology that's now available to researchers," Foley said.

Smith's second stop was at Nantaquak village (thought to
be in the Lewis' Wharf vicinity) and then to Kuskarawaok. As Scott sees it, it was at Kuskarawaok that the crew encountered American Indians ("four came to us in their canoe") and invited them to their village, as detailed in Smith's account.

"What we found, was that one of the primary Indian villages, called Kuskarawaok (and later an Indian reservation), is near what is now Emperor's Landing, the site of Vienna. Smith's map shows a lodge at Kuskarawaok, and this indicates the 'king's home,' " as Smith perceived it, said Scott.

"Indeed John Smith stopped at (what is now identified as) Emperor's Landing and met 200 (or 2,000) Indians who gave him food, water and entertained him with dancing," Scott said. "His map is hugely important in American history. It was the first time the Chesapeake Bay was ever mapped .... and he marked on his map the limits of his discovery on every river, that was rare at the time. His map was used at least the next 100 years as the base map of the bay. For Vienna's mayor, the findings are exciting. "We wanted credibility to the belief that John Smith came aground here. We didn't want to go out promoting that John Smith landed in Vienna," without some sound evidence, Brinsfield said.

Adding credibility to belief

For David Owens of the Vienna Heritage Foundation, the study seems to confirm what folks here have believed for years: "This will give Vienna a lot of publicity and bring people here. A lot of people in Vienna have always believed Smith and his men got food and water here."

Tourist sights in Vienna, MD

Customs House c. 1790

A brisk trade in tobacco and white oak lumber kept the port busy and the office in use until after the Civil War. The Customs House still stands on its original foundation.
Martinek Button Factory - an interesting old button factory from ca. 1950

Vienna Heritage Museum
a museum with many interesting displays and new resources are being added on a regular basis. The museum welcomes special prearranged group tours. Interesting demonstrations of the button factory in operation, guided tram tours of Historic Vienna, and special museum events are scheduled all year.

A Walking Tour of Historic Vienna There's a full color walking tour map and guide of the town. Historic highlights and points of interest are pictured with brief explanations of their historical significance.
The brochures are available at the museum and other Dorchester County tourist information facilities, by download, or by mail upon request.

Foundation Meetings Guests are always welcome at our regular foundation meetings which are held at the museum on the third Tuesday of each month at 7 PM. We are actively seeking new members to help with all aspects of current foundation projects and events.

Vienna Heritage Museum Expansion Plans
The Vienna Heritage Foundation is currently reviewing plans for a major expansion at the museum in the future. The expanded facilities will house Vienna's first fire engine, a restored 1936 Ford, a recently acquired significant Native American Artifact collection, a new meeting room and other amenities.

Kuskarawaok

"All of the villages Captain John Smith mapped (Nause, Nantaquack, and Kuskarawaok) and the two he recorded but didn't map (Sarapinagh and Arseek) were all part of the larger Chiefdom (a modern anthropological term) that Smith called the Kuskarawaok, the people Maryland came to call the Nanticoke who lived along the Kus Flu, now the Nanticoke River.

There were settlements all along the Nanticoke River watershed (including areas into Delaware) that we know of from archaeology and from post-Smith historical information." [Dr. Virginia Busby - 2007]

Captain John Smith's 1612 Map of the Kus Flu (Nanticoke River) showing the three native villages of Nause, Nantaquack and Kuskarawaok is an important evidence of Vienna's history.

Excerpts from Captain John Smith's Journal

"...four native fishermen ... asked us to stay, and before long they returned with some twenty others, and after a short conference, two or three hundred men, women and children came clustering about us, everyone presenting us with something, which a little bead would so well requite, and we became such friends they would contend over who should fetch us water, stay with us for hostage, conduct our men elsewhere, and give us the best content."

"Today the Nause-Waiwash comprise 250 persons, who are descendent's of the original Nanticokes. Their name is a reference to two Nanticoke ancestral villages, Guinea and Chance Islands, in Fishing Bay. The tribe makes annual visits to these villages.

Nanticoke lore has it that, by the early 1600's, the tribe had been in the area for 13 generations, with a Chief of Chiefs for each generation. Tribal lore also states that the Nanticokes were descended from the "grandfather" peoples whom settled in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The Nanticokes were a matriarchal society. Children lived with their mother's clan. These clans, while organized into a tribe, might live as much as a mile apart. In later times, as the Native American population shrank, the clans began to move closer together. The Chief of Chiefs headed the tribe. He was assisted by lesser chiefs. Women had a great deal of influence. The Clan Mothers always made the decision as to whether or not to go to war. The male members of the tribe had no vote in this matter.

The Native Americans in the area believe that the area which is now the Town of Vienna was the feast grounds, which was some distance from the village itself. Feast grounds were traditionally located on high spots of land."

Chief Sewell "Winterhawk" Fitzhugh - 300th Anniversary History of Vienna - 2006

The Nanticoke

A moody river flows beside my door;
It mirrowed once the easy paddle-stroke
Of him whose name it bears, The Nanticoke.
Three hundred years ago, or less or more,
He hunted, fished and trapped along this shore.
His unsung tribe and chief and he are dead,
And left behind a blunted arrow head
Along these banks where ships with wings now soar.

Not much! And yet not all does he resign
Who leaves a name, who builds a burial mound;
A bleak, dark figure, like a lonely pine,
Who dreamed of yet a happier hunting ground -
Though brief my dream as his, my sleep as sound,
The ghost that haunts this shore will not be mine.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.viennamd.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna,_Maryland

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