The corner is a slice of Americana where the Jefferson__??????????
family, friends and church still flourishes

    Nestled slightly on this side of obscurity on the flat expanse of southern Caroline County on Maryland's Eastern Shore, the hamlet of American Corner is aptly named.

    The village is the intersection of to rural roads approximately six miles west of the Delaware border. Only yards north of the hamlet's one intersection a sign reads: "Denton (the county seat) 11 miles. Travel at your own risk - Road Under Construction"

    American Corner proper has an estimated population of 75 to 100 (since it isn't incorporated there's no official count), but the surrounding area claims a population of more than 1000.

    It's leading citizen is A. Curtis Andrew, the 35 year old president of the three member Board of County Commissioners. He is also the proprietor of the A. Curtis Andrew Auction, which holds forth in a converted cannery on Thursday nights, and the A. Curtis Andrew farm which was awarded to his ancestors by the English monarchy. Andrew still possesses the original sheepskin deed.

   Dressed in a blue denim outfit replete with well-scuffed cowboy boots, Andrew was exceedingly skeptical about the presence of the Baltimore media in his town.

    "If you tell this guy here," Andrew says gesturing toward an employee, "that you're from a Baltimore newspaper, he'll think you're nuts. Besides, we don't have any problems and  don't need coverage."

    American Corner consists of a general store with a couple of BP pumps outside; an eyeful of white, mostly green shuttered, frame houses; a few trailer homes; the remnants of a gasoline pump; and a stately cream colored home in an unfortunate condition of disrepair. The hamlet sits in a sea of cultivation which reaches to the horizon in all directions.

    The primary beneficiaries of the demise of the two general stores_??? are Raymond and Elisabeth Daffin who_???._ The shop offers such products as fan belts, Hershey Twin Pops (still only 5 cents), and beer by the quart. The compact shop also displays a revolving "Hose Boutique". a Coca-Cola clock, and a Cheesecake calendar picture of a 1950's bathing beauty.

    Customers arrive in pick-up trucks which are as common to rural America as station wagons are to suburbia.

    "We have no crime here, knock on wood." Mrs. Daffin says pounding lightly on the table. "Oh, sometimes someone will get drunk."

    Thirty years ago Mrs. Daffin lived in Baltimore, but didn't care for urban life "because of the meaness of the place." Now her only contact with the city on the western shore comes from a newspaper, three television channels and an occasional trip to Memorial Stadium.

    Life, she maintains, is not the least bit boring. Entertainment comes from Moose Club dinners in Easton, dances with the V.F.W. in nearby Federalsburg (also the site of the closest theatre), and bowling in Easton.

    To her recollection, the most exciting event in American Corner was the discovery of Charle's Dickinson's corpse. Really. Dickinson, a Revolutionary War hero whose body was dragged back to American Corner by a slave, was uncovered in a field a few years ago.

    The high school principal, James Dyer, extols the virtue of the community.

    "The people here are relaxed," Dyer, a Carroll County native, says. "They're not concerned with keeping up with the Jones'. I guess it's just less artificial than the cities.

    He talks of students who still have a little respect for authority. The student population of 450 come mostly from farming households. One third of the students are black. "We haven't had a race fight in four years."  Only ten high school students are from American Corner.