A major fire claimed the popular Sill Pond Country Store and Post Office today in Still Pond. Fire crews battled with the flames starting late Tuesday morning before successfully putting the fire out close to 11 am. While no one was injured, there was significant damage to the store, which also houses the United States Post Office. The cause of the fire is believed to have been an exhaust fan at the back of the old building.
Walter Bowie, who lives a few houses away, is concerned for the town without the store. “The store has played a huge role for the town and I hope the owners will rebuild,” he said. Bowie pointed out that there are federal and state programs to assist buildings in historic districts and hopes the owners can take advantage. “I’ve been studying the original buildings in Still Pond and have mapped the original grants for Still Pond Neck. It would be a real loss if the store and post office didn’t come back.”
The lot that the store stands on was bought in 1862 by George W. Covington, who probably built the store shortly after, but not later than 1867. Covington was a druggist, but the store also sold general merchandize.
The store is the hub of the historic small town, which was reputed to be the first in America to allow women to vote in a municipal election — twelve years before the 19th Amendment to the Constitution gave women universal suffrage in 1920. The town, home now to artists and arisans, is also the locus of historic Medders Store, for many years known as Woolworths of the Eastern Shore. Situated next door to Still Pond store, it is now owned by boatbuilder Graham Ero, who donated the plywood used to secure the store once the fire trucks had left. By five in the evening, neighbors were gathering to see if they could help the owner clear out and rebuild, while speculating as to how the loss will affect the close-knit community.
“I don’t know if they’ll let us have a post office again,” said Still Pond resident Terry Rabinowitz. “For now, we’re supposed to go get our mail in Worton, but after that…”
“Just when I’m going to retire and get to go see people when I pick up our mail every day,” said Rabinowitz’s wife, Nancy.
[slidepress gallery=’stillpondfire’]
Joyce Benton says
Guess Nancy won’t get to retire now that the Post Office is gone…Sorry Nancy!
James Herron says
We’ve lived here in “downtown” Still Pond for seventeen years. I can’t imagine the town without the store and post office being open at the center of town. It was strange driving past the store on my way to work this morning and not seeing the same weekday morning activity and familiar faces out front. Hopefully she can rebuild soon.
cabinguy says
I hope you can rebuild it and keep the post office. It looks like a fantastic community you have there and this store is obviously central to it. Good luck – from a rainy UK.
Judy Ashworth Deringer says
Still Pond is such a lovely and historically important little community – it needs that P.O. and store as a center! My husband Hurtt would be voicing this opinion too!!
Ryan Grim says
I was probably in this store 9 out of every ten days of my childhood. I really hope they rebuild it, but either way, something irretrievable is lost.
Ken Noble says
It may have been a post office and store at a different site, but on April 17, 1865 my great great great grandfather posted the following letter at the Still Pond, Maryland Post Office (National Archives, Wash. DC, microfiche of the Judge Advocate General, Fort McHenry, Balto., Md.):
“Still Pond, Kent County, Md.
April 17, 1865
Major W.H. Wiegal (sic/) (Acting Provost Marshall)
Dear Sir,
Please accept this as my eleventh weekly report and oblige. (Mr. Hepburn was on probation for being a “Confederate sympathizer”)
Yours very respectfully, Sewell Hepbron
PS I was at the Post Office on Saturday, when the news came of the President’s and Secretary’s assassination
and when it was announced, consternation and alarm pervaded the whole around without respect to party. All good men must deplore this dreadful calamity. Good god what is to become of us. S.H.”
(Mr. “Hepbron” was Katharine Hepburn’s great grandfather and my greatx3 grandfather..and a complicated, cantankerous guy..thank you..)
On a lighter note…I will miss the wild turkey trophies, the pickled eggs, the liverwurst sandwiches on rye WITH horseradish, the COLD BEER, the fish bait, the gossip, the black people, the white people. the mixt people, the Mexican laborers, the hiding county employees (how many guys CAN sleep in a big yellow truck?) and the Super Bowl sweepstakes…this is a shame. We need an “economic stimulus” to keep the Still Pond Store open….ahhhh Martin.
Ken Noble