Mid-Shore History: The Tale of Handsell

The historic House at Handsell, near Vienna, sits on land inhabited by the Nanticoke tribe of Native Americans for at least 2,500 years. In the mid-1600s, the Englishman Thomas Taylor claimed ownership of the territory, and the natives ended up collected on reservations. Eventually, they were forced by the British government to move north, away from their ancestral home. At that point, the land became the property of Henry Steele, who built the first real house at Handsell.

Steele was a revolutionary patriot, and British privateers burned his house, leaving only part of the structure. In the 1830s, the land, with the remains of the house, came into the hands of John Shehee. It was he who rebuilt the structure into its smaller, present form. All during this time, Black slaves and freemen worked the land.

The Webb family won Handsell in a card game in 1892, and they continue to farm most of the land to this day. By the 1930s, no one lived in the boarded-up house, but the descendants of freemen and enslaved people continued to live on and near the property into the fifties.

In 2004, David and Carol Lewis bought the house at Handsell, along with two acres around it, with the intention of preserving it. Toward that end, they sold it to the Nanticoke Historic Preservation Alliance in 2009, and that group began the great task of fixing up the place. The NHPA emphasizes the three cultures who called Handsell home—the Native Americans, English, and Black people—and they plan to expand the tourism and educational opportunities on the property with a Three Cultures Center.