Look up and down Morris Street. Oxford’s business district once stretched several blocks in both directions.
"I believe we had five grocery stores. We had a drug store... we had a confectionary store where you bought ice cream and candy and things of that sort. And we had a dry goods store, as I said in the Robert Morris Inn before it was remodeled to be the Robert Morris Inn. His name was Mr. Frey and he sold merchandise. People in the olden times when I was a child, they made their own clothes and he sold material that they went and bought and also you could order shoes or different things, whatever you wanted, from Mr. Frey. We also had a doctor, Dr. Ross, who did not live in Oxford but he had a home in Trappe, but he treated you for everything. It didn’t make any difference what you had. He had a remedy for it. And all of us was his babies, even if you was forty years old, we were still his babies." -- Alice Banks
In the nineteen thirties, much of this was wiped out by a fire that also burned down the firehouse that was just behind the stores. That was embarrassing. After the fire, many of the damaged stores were replaced by residences.
This large 3-bay structure, known as the Oxford Mews, has long been an important fixture in the main commercial district of town. Built in 1878, the three-bay structure was originally owned by William H. Valliant, a prominent area businessman who speculated on Oxford town property during Oxford’s boom era. Over the next century, the building changed hands several times, housing stores retailing dry goods, notions, clothing, shoes, groceries, paint and oil, and even at one time, a smokehouse out back.
In 1971, the property was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Edward J Vinnicombe of Baltimore. He was the Director of Marketing for McCormick and Company and Sylvia hosted a very popular Baltimore talk show with guests like Maureen O’Hara, Charleton Heston, Jackie Gleason, and Dean Martin.
The Vinnicombes opened the Oxford Mews and Bike Boutique as a "modern-day general store.” They combined a bicycle shop, an art gallery mixed in with a general merchandise, and gourmet food operation - including McCormick spices of course - and meats to provision boaters' galleys. Above the stores were two apartments. After Mrs. Vinnicombe’s death, the building fell into disrepair. The Town recently purchased and rehabilitated the interior framework of the building and the historic exterior facade. It is once again available for commercial development.
Cross to the Mews side of the street if you are not already there, and walk south on Morris Street past the Oxford Market to Saint Paul’s Church. (Stop #29)
