Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in Sharptown, MD

Sharptown is an incorporated town in Wicomico County, Maryland, on the southern bank of the Nanticoke River, and it was first incorporated in 1874.

Sharptown's first incorporation was repealed in 1880, and the town was incorporated again in 1888 under an act identical to the original 1874 charter.

The settlement was recognized as early as about 1769, and tradition holds that the town was named for Horatio Sharpe, who served as proprietary governor of Maryland from 1753 to 1769.

In 1776 Sharptown was little more than a hamlet at the first high, dry building site on the south side of the Nanticoke River, almost 32 miles from the river's mouth.

Sharptown became known in the nineteenth century for shipbuilding: the Sharptown Marine Railway, founded by Matthew Marine around 1818, built eighteen vessels registered as U.S. merchant ships, and the town's docks were home to the largest fleet of schooners on the Nanticoke River.

The four-masted schooner Anandale, built at Sharptown in 1919, was the last large sailing vessel constructed on the Chesapeake Bay.

The San Domingo School, a historic schoolhouse associated with the nearby African American community of San Domingo, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.

Sharptown is governed by an elected board of town commissioners rather than a mayor and council.

According to the Census Bureau, the town covers about 0.42 square miles along the river in northwestern Wicomico County.

The 2020 census counted 691 residents in Sharptown, up from 651 in 2010.