The Gift of a Second Railroad

By 1870, Centreville was connected with much of the Northeast by the Queen Anne's and Kent Railroad from the rail station in the center of town, but it lacked a railroad link to Queenstown and Kent Island and onward to Baltimore, leaving agriculture without railroad steamship access to a vital market. That changed when a group of Centreville men incorporated the Queen Anne's Railroad on February 26, 1894. Unable to finance the project fully on their own, they secured financing and ownership from Baltimore businessmen while the Centreville men remained on the board. The Maryland State Legislature chartered the railroad with a tax exemption in 1894, the Delaware portion was chartered in 1895, and construction began on June 27, 1895, by Peninsula Construction Company. The first train ran on the new Queen Anne's Railroad in April 1897, first scheduled service ran in May 1897 from Queenstown to Greenwood, Del., and service extended to Lewes, Del., in 1898. In 1901, the LeKenney Family sold rights of way across three of their farm properties to the Queen Anne's Railroad, and with the purchase of the John Slaughter "Marshes" now Millstream Park, the railroad extended to Centreville at this site. That gave the agriculture surrounding the town direct access to Baltimore by railroad and steamships. In February 1901, the Centreville and Kent Island-Love Point branches opened. The Queen Anne's Railroad went into receivership in 1904, was sold and merged into the Maryland, Delaware and Virginia Railroad on January 27, 1905, and creditors were paid after bonds were paid off in 1908.

Centreville, Maryland · United States