Between 1870 and 1900, Oxford grew rapidly from a town of 277 inhabitants into a busy resort and commercial center. In 1871, General Tench Tilghman brought regular Maryland and Delaware Railroad service to Oxford with its terminal at Pier Street, and 3,000 people celebrated the first arriving train. During the 1870s, oystering, boatbuilding, and farming helped the town thrive, while steamboats and the railroad brought increasing numbers of tourists, and 10 million bushels of oysters were shipped from Maryland to markets in the north. A new school for White children was built in Town Park in 1876 beside a small structure moved there in 1868. River View House opened in 1875 on the site of the current Robert Morris Inn, offering rooms, a livery stable, a newly dug town well, and a bowling alley. In 1878, Eastford Hall Hotel, the largest structure ever built in Oxford, opened in Town Park, and Molly Stewart became Oxford's first female postmistress, serving for 63 years. By 1880, Oxford had become a popular vacation destination known as "The Cape May of Maryland." In 1882, a causeway linked the Strand to the oyster packing plant and apple orchard on Kerr's Island. The Maryland Military and Naval Academy opened in 1885 under Colonel Oswald Tilghman, son of General Tench Tilghman, using Eastford Hall Hotel as its main building and enrolling 254 cadets in its first year, but it closed in 1888 after protests by cadets and poor management, and Eastford Hall reopened as a tourist hotel. By 1890, Oxford's population had reached 1200, and 68 businesses operated there, including seafood packing houses, grocery stores, dry goods and clothing stores, general stores, boot and shoe dealers, millineries, a butcher, a barber, livery stables, a dentist, carpenters, doctors, a drug store, a bank, and a furrier. In 1894, Eastford Hall Hotel burned, while Sinclair House, Ornis House, River View Hotel, Tred Avon Inn, and several boarding houses on the Strand continued to welcome summer vacationers.