Oldtown is a unincorporated community in Allegany County, Maryland along the North Branch Potomac River. It was established in 1741 by Thomas Cresap, who built a trading post along an old Native American trail. The settlement was called "Shawanese Old Town" because it was the site of a Shawnee village abandoned about a decade earlier. In later years the explanatory prefix was dropped from the name and the place because known simply as "Oldtown." ...
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Oldtown is a unincorporated community in Allegany County, Maryland along the North Branch Potomac River. It was established in 1741 by Thomas Cresap, who built a trading post along an old Native American trail. The settlement was called "Shawanese Old Town" because it was the site of a Shawnee village abandoned about a decade earlier. In later years the explanatory prefix was dropped from the name and the place because known simply as "Oldtown." Cresap's son Michael Cresap was born at Oldtown.
A post office was established there on May 26, 1870. Oldtown is connected by a one-lane low water toll bridge to Green Spring in Hampshire County, West Virginia.
The "Chesapeake & Ohio Canal" reached Cumberland, MD from Georgetown (Washington, DC) in 1850 by way of Oldtown at Milepost 166.5. The "Baltimore & Ohio Railroad", located just across the Potomac from Oldtown had reached Cumberland eight years earlier. The canal finally closed operations as a carrier in 1924 due to flood damage. The B&O...
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