Join us on August 29, 2027 in Vienna, MD!

Most people have never heard of the Battle of Vienna. But it happened right here on Maryland’s Eastern Shore — and on August 29, the town of Vienna is bringing that story back to life.

Founded in 1706 on the banks of the Nanticoke River, Vienna grew into a busy colonial port, built on shipbuilding, tobacco, and trade. That prosperity made it a target. During the American Revolution, British forces raided the town repeatedly, and residents eventually built a defensive wall along the waterfront to protect against further attacks. Parts of that wall still stand today, quietly overlooking the river more than two centuries later.

The clearest physical evidence of those raids surfaced in 2015, when workers clearing debris near the Route 50 bridge uncovered the wreck of a 45-foot colonial cargo ship, buried in the mud of the Nanticoke River for more than 200 years. Charring on the timbers points to a deliberate burning, likely at the hands of British sympathizers sometime in the 1780s — a single, dramatic clue to a much larger and largely forgotten chapter of Revolutionary War history on the Shore.

Long before Vienna was a colonial port, the same ground was home to Chicacone, the largest Nanticoke village recorded when Captain John Smith explored the Chesapeake in 1608. Layers of history sit on top of each other here: Indigenous village, colonial trading town, Revolutionary War battleground.

On August 29, historian Dr. Patricia Johnson and Midge Ingersoll will unpack all of it — the battle, the buried ship, and what both discoveries mean for how we understand this stretch of the Eastern Shore — at Handsell, the 1770 Georgian manor house on Indiantown Road that anchors this history. Handsell has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2008 and sits on a 1665 land grant, making it one of the few places where you can stand in view of the river, the ship’s resting place, and the old town wall all at once.

Event details

• What: Battle of Vienna history program
• When: Saturday, August 29, 10 AM – 4 PM
• Where: Handsell Historic Site, 4835 Indiantown Road, Vienna, MD

If you’ve driven past Vienna on Route 50 without stopping, this is the day to make the turn. It’s a rare chance to hear the full story — the battle, the buried ship, and the village that came before both — from the historians who’ve spent years piecing it together.