Sinepuxent or Sinepuxent Town was a village in

Worcester County, Maryland Worcester County is the easternmost county of the U.S. state of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the population was 52,460. Its county seat is Snow Hill. It is the only county of Maryland that borders the Atlantic Ocean, and the only county ...

, located on Sinepuxent Neck across

Sinepuxent Bay Sinepuxent Bay is an inland waterway which connects Chincoteague Bay to Isle of Wight Bay, and is connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Ocean City Inlet. It separates Sinepuxent Neck, in Worcester County, Maryland from Assateague Island, and W ...

from the barrier island of

Assateague Assateague Island is a long barrier island located off the eastern coast of the Delmarva Peninsula facing the Atlantic Ocean. The northern two-thirds of the island is in Maryland while the southern third is in Virginia. The Maryland secti ...

. The village was destroyed by a

hurricane A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...

in 1818Stewart, Donald F., "When the Ships' Cannon Roared off Old Worcester Coast", ''Maryland Beachcomber'' (August 24, 1979).
/ref> and never rebuilt. Its location arose in large part from its convenience to ocean-going ships: an

inlet An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In marine geogra ...

—Sinepuxent Inlet—allowed access through Assateague Island from the Atlantic Ocean to Sinepuxent Bay, until it was closed by the same hurricane that destroyed the village. Sinepuxent was the birthplace of

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

officer

Stephen Decatur Stephen Decatur Jr. (; January 5, 1779 – March 22, 1820) was an American naval officer and commodore. He was born on the eastern shore of Maryland in Worcester County. His father, Stephen Decatur Sr., was a commodore in the Unite ...

in 1779.

References

Geography of Worcester County, Maryland Former populated places in Maryland {{WorcesterCountyMD-geo-stub