Coming Soon! 27 MORE Eastern Shore Road Trips
I hope you enjoyed the first round of Eastern Shore Road Trips! I realized early on while putting that book together that one book of Road Trips wasn’t going to be enough. I got to work right after finishing that one on More Eastern Shore Road Trips!
Here, as promised, are three preview trips from that book.
--Jim Duffy, Secrets of the Eastern Shore
SecretsoftheEasternShore.com
Facebook.com/SecretsoftheEasternShore
Bonus Road Trip #1 MUSEUMS: The Shipwrecks Tour
In the heat of their moment in time, shipwrecks are tragic affairs, full of despair and danger and death. But with the passage of decades and then centuries, they take on something of a magical aspect. I think Hollywood is to blame for this, having served up so many treasure-hunting tales built around shimmering underwater scenes where time stands still and every thing is laid out in a dreamy tableau that looks like it will last for all eternity. The Atlantic Coast of the Delmarva Peninsula is thick with this sort of shipwreck lore, nowhere more so than in the waters around Cape Henlopen. When sailing into Delaware Bay, vessels need to navigate perilously close to nearby shoals, and in bad weather, that journey can go from dangerous to deadly in the blink of an eye. Wrecks piled up in such numbers near the Cape back in Colonial times that the merchants of Philadelphia took up a collection among themselves in the 1760s in order to build Cape Henlopen Light, just the sixth lighthouse in the colonies. Farmers were our first responders in those days, often turning into working- class heroes who went to amazing lengths trying to help strangers in need. The U.S. Lifesaving Service got up and running shortly after the Civil War. They arrived on the Delaware Coast in 1876, setting up shop at the Indian River Inlet. The building they put up there is now a National Register affair that has been meticulously restored to the way it looked in 1905. It houses an interesting little museum called the Indian River Life-Saving Station, which is located below Dewey Beach in the sprawling Delaware Seashore State Park. Inside, you will learn about the “surfmen” who left the comforts of family life to live in then-remote outposts where they would spend their days in training and their nights on beach patrol, always gearing up for the next sighting of a ship in distress. The crew at Indian River responded to more than 60 wrecks over the years. They are credited with saving more than 400 lives. Along with their compatriots up and down the coast, they were lionized in the media back than as “storm warriors.”
There is a brief introductory movie at the museum, after which you should consider taking the self-guided cell phone tour, which is quite well done. You will learn about the small-ish, but incredibly heavy lifeboats that allowed surfmen to navigate by oar even in the worst conditions Mother Nature had to offer. There is also interesting material about the “breeches buoy” method of lifesaving, which was basically rescue by makeshift zip line. Surfmen would use cannon-like “Lyle” guns to shoot lines equipped with a leg harness and a pulley as far as 600 yards. (Be sure to check the station’s event calendar before visiting—they put on breeches buoy reenactments several times a year.) One last note here at Indian River: There is a bit of irony to the story of how the Indian River station came to the end of its life as an active outpost. The brutal Ash Wednesday storm of March 1962 left the building buried in sand up past the first floor windows. For a few years there, its roofline stuck up out of the sand like a landmark out of the last scene in the original Planet of the Apes. The building was fully restored in the 1970s. The route to the next stop on our shipwreck tour leads south along the highway, through Bethany Beach. There are a bevy of good dining options here. Seafood lovers will want to consider Off the Hook, Matt’s Fish Camp, and Bluecoast Seafood. The traditional American comfort food at The Cottage Café gets great reviews as well. Another swell option to consider is trolling for junk food while strolling the boardwalk. Most of the museums that I write about in these books are set up as either traditional nonprofit operations or government enterprises. Our next stop, the DiscoverSea Museum is a little different. A private enterprise located in Fenwick Island, it’s a labor of love put together by scuba diver, treasure hunter, and amateur archeologist Dale W. Clifton Jr. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Clifton at the time of this writing, but I’ve read and heard quite a bit about him. Legend has it that he caught the shipwreck bug as a boy after hearing about how a stretch of beach near the Indian River Inlet was known as “Coin Beach.” He spent most of a year combing through the sand there on a regular basis before he finally found what he was looking for. Holding that old coin in his hands, the young Clifton started thinking about the fact that he was the first human being to touch it in some 200 years. Then he started wondering about the person who had touched it before him. What was his or her life like way back then?
“It was like shaking hands with history,” he says. That’s pretty much the mission statement for his museum. Housed on the second floor of a run-of-the-mill looking retail building, DiscoverSea showcases quite the treasure trove of shipwreck artifacts. Most items here are straight from Clifton’s personal collection, which is believed to be the largest one of its kind in the country. Coins, weapons, china, keys, gold bars, and much more are on display. He even has a collection of silverware from RMS Republic, the sister ship of the Titanic. If you’re lucky, Clifton himself will be working the place when you arrive. From what I’ve heard, he seems to be the kind of guy who can gab in spellbinding fashion for hours on end about something as small as a thimble, as long as it came out of one of his wrecks. One quick extra note for shoppers while we’re here in Fenwick: The sprawling Seaside Country Store is a must stop if nautical and country-style décor are up your alley. The third stop on our shipwreck tour is a little ways south, across the Maryland line. The Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum is a little different from its compatriot up at Indian River—in addition to stories of surfmen and shipwrecks, this one also focuses on the broader history of Ocean City as a resort town. The town was barely a blip on the map in 1891, when the U.S. Lifesaving Service put up the building that houses the museum. Originally located up on Caroline Street, it now stands at the lower end of the boardwalk, near the Ocean City Inlet. It’s quite the kid-friendly affair, thanks in no small part to a couple of giant 250-gallon aquariums. Artifacts from 24 different shipwrecks are on display in an exhibit area dubbed “Davy Jones’ Locker.” Another exhibit, “Wreck in the Offing,” showcases one of the country’s best collections of vintage lifesaving equipment. The big surfboat here is the item that caught my attention—I couldn’t get my head around just how small it was while also imagining a team of surfmen heading out into the teeth of a bad nor’easter or worse hurricane. There are regular breeches-buoy lifesaving reenactments here, too, so once again, check the calendar of events before you go. The Boardwalk of Yesterday” is the exhibit where the museum turns its attention to the story of Ocean City and its growth from a remote settlement into a 21st century resort that has just 7,000
full-time residents, but holds a midsummer population of 300,000. I could gawk forever at the sweet old photos on display here. This is also where you will find “Laughing Sal,” the clown-like figure whose eerie howls of laughter echoed up and down the boardwalk in the 1940s and 1950s. Sal was set up outside of Jester’s Fun House at Worcester Street back then—that’s the site of today’s Sportland Arcade—and she was secretly wired up to a nearby concession stand, where workers would randomly unleash her infectious cackle of a soundtrack. Here is a valuable tip for you armchair travelers out there. There is lots to see and smile about up on the website of the Ocean City Life-Saving Museum. There are fun oral histories under “Memories of Ocean City” and lots of interesting stories under “Shipwrecks & Rescues.” The “Video Collection” is great, too—you will find it under “Exhibits & Events.” Your first stop there should be at the one titled “The Storm of 1933.” One last option I would like to mention here is geared toward true shipwreck aficionados. In recent years, the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs has presented a regular series of warm-weather events focused on the wreck of the British warship HMS DeBraak. Some 35 crewmembers and 12 prisoners perished when she went down in a sudden squall on the Delaware Bay on May 25, 1798. These sessions at the Zwaanendael Museum in Lewes start with a lecture and a look at replicas and artifacts from the ship. Then there is a van ride out to an archaeological lab, where what’s left of the DeBraak’s hull is stored. One thing that makes the DeBraak story interesting is that it isn’t just an 18th century affair. In the late 20th century, when treasure hunters located the wreck, they treated the ship and its artifacts in a rather reckless fashion that angered traditional archaeologists. The scientists didn’t really care about the romance of the chase for buried treasure; they were more concerned with the fact that no other ship like the DeBraak had ever before been recovered. The controversy that followed helped spur passage of the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987, a measure that protects important shipwrecks by granting the official title of ownership to the government of the state where the wreck lies.
Basic Connections Mattsfishcampbethany.com/; 302.539.2267 The Indian River Life-Saving Station Location: 28635 Coastal Highway, Bethany Destateparks/attractions/lifesavingstation; Beach, Del. 19930 302.227.6991 Location: 25039 Coastal Highway, Rehoboth Bluecoast Seafood Grill Beach, Del. 19971 Bluecoastseafoodgrill.com; 302.539.7111 Location: 1111 Coastal Highway, North Discoversea Shipwreck Museum Bethany Beach, Del. 19930 Discoversea.com; 302.539.9366 708 Coastal Highway, Fenwick Island, Del. The Cottage Café 19944 Cottagecafe.com; 302.539.8710 33034 Coastal Highway, Bethany Beach, Del. The Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum 19930 Ocmuseum.org; 410.289.4991 Location: 813 South Atlantic Avenue, Ocean Seaside Country Store City, Md. 21842 Seasidecountrystore.com; 302.539.6110 Location: 1208 Coastal Highway, Fenwick HMS DeBraak Tours Island, Del. 19944 Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs Further Listening http://history.delaware.gov/; 302.736.7400 Here is where you can hear Laughing Sal. * In recent years, the DeBraak tours have (The last time I visited, I needed to been running between June and September. scroll down toward the bottom.) Click events at this link to check on Ochh.net/laffing-sal.html current schedule. Further Reading Zwaanendael Museum Here is where you can read more about History.delaware.gov/museums/zm/zm_main.sht Laughing Sal: ml; 302.645.1148 Ocmuseum.org/index.php/site/oc- Location: 102 Kings Highway, Lewes, Del. history_article/sal_the_laughing_lady_queen 19958 _of_the_funhouse
Advanced Connections Further Watching Southern Delaware Tourism Here is that “Storm of 1933” video I Visitsoutherndelaware.com/; 302.856.1818 mentioned: Ocmuseum.org/index.php/site/video_article/s Bethany Beach torm_of_1933 Townofbethanybeach.com/; 302.539.8011 Nearby Road Trips in the 1st Book Fenwick Island Berlin (#1) Fenwickisland.delaware.gov/; 302.539.3011 Delaware Seashore Outdoors (#9) Assateague Island (#23) Worcester County Tourism Ocean City Boardwalk (#26) VisitWorcester.org; 410.632.3110 Nearby Road Trips Planned in the 2nd Ocean City Tourism Book OCocean.com; 800.OCOCEAN Southern Delaware Trio (Georgetown, Seaford, Laurel) Off the Hook The Dover Green Offthehookbethany.com/; 302.829.1424 The Hooks on Delaware Bay Location: 769 Garfield Parkway, Bethany Southern Delaware Backroads Trip TBA Beach, Del. 19930 Matt’s Fish Camp
WAY BACK MACHINE Trapped in the Rigging, 1883
The schooner Sallie W. Kaye was headed from Baltimore to Boston when it sailed into a blinding snowstorm and ran aground in the predawn darkness of January 10, 1883. Waves soon started crashing over the vessel with such force that the lone lifeboat was swept away.
Realizing they had no other alternative, all seven crewmembers climbed up into the rigging and wriggled out onto the jib boom. There, they wrapped themselves up in a stretch of sail in a desperate attempt to stay warm.
The wait must have been interminable, stretching hour after hour after hour. When would the storm clear? Would someone on land ever see the trouble they were in? How much longer would their bodies be able to deal with the cold and the wet?
At one point a crewman named Anton decided that he was going to save the day by swimming ashore. Minutes later, he was swept out to sea while his shipmates looked on from up in that rigging.
The Sallie W. Kaye was only about 250 yards off shore. A lull in the storm finally arrived at about 11am, and that’s when a surfman strolling the beach on lookout duty spotted the vessel. That surfman ran off to get help, which soon arrived the form of a team of men pushing a so-called “mortar” cart. Soon, these surfmen were taking aim at the schooner with their zip-line “cannon.” They hit the mark on the first shot, and the surviving sailors, utterly exhausted by the six or so hours they had spent hanging on to that boom, began to haul in the line.
Two days later, the body of Anton was washed ashore, sixteen miles to the south. A few days after that, the six survivors had recovered enough to leave Ocean City and head back to their homes.
Bonus Road Trip #2 GREAT OUTDOORS: Pocomoke Adventures
Let’s start the Pocomoke adventure with a mood setter from Henry David Thoreau, the famous back-to-nature guru of the late 1800s. Whenever his spirit sagged in life, Thoreau knew where to go in search of a lift. He would “seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable, and, to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place—a sanctum sanctorum …”
Thoreau never visited the Eastern Shore, as far as I know, but I am thinking he would feel right at home even today along the lower reaches of the Pocomoke River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Here, the scenery has the feel of the Deep South—a little swampier, a little spookier. The trails are darker here, and more foreboding.
Sanctum sanctorum, here we come.
This is not a new observation on my part. It actually dates back to before Thoreau’s time. Here is how the naturalist Thomas Nuttall described his visit to the banks of the Pocomoke in 1809: “I met with an old man who usually conducts strangers into the swamp… and about a mile from his house we began to enter one of the most frightful labyrinths you can imagine.”
Here is another naturalist, Brooke Meanley, writing more recently, in 1949: “One has but to launch a canoe south of Pocomoke City to float through a cypress wilderness which, except for the absence of Spanish moss, reminds one of the Santee in South Carolina or the Ogeeche in Georgia.”
Today, the best place to go today to see the same sorts of things that so struck Nuttall and Meanley is Pocomoke River State Park. Covering 900 acres in the middle of the larger Pocomoke River State Forest, it’s quite the popular destination for hiking, paddling, fishing, and camping. The park is divided into two sites, one on the north bank of the Pocomoke and the other on the south.
When you arrive, take a moment to locate a map of the park. It will probably seem quite an expansive affair on first glance, but it’s actually just a small surviving remnant of the truly great swamp that used to stretch from here all the way up into the headwaters of the Pocomoke, some 40 miles away in Delaware. (You
can find another remnant of the swamp at Trap Pond State Park, near Laurel—it’s a beautiful place, too.)
The star of this swamp is the bald cypress, which is one of the strangest trees that you will ever meet. It looks like a pine tree in the warmer months, but then it goes and drops its needle- like leaves every winter, as if it were a maple or an oak. It thrives in flood-prone spots where most other trees would drown and die.
And what is up with those knobby little “knees” rising up around the trunk? They look like a gaggle of kids gathered around a grandfatherly old storyteller. The theory used to be that cypress knees evolved as a creative way of getting oxygen into and up through a waterlogged trunk, but scientists seem to have changed their minds lately. Now they think that the knees are all about structural stability—bald cypresses are renowned for their ability to withstand the high winds of tropical storms and hurricanes.
Like every other natural landscape on the Eastern Shore, the swamp has seen its share of human activity over the centuries. You may have heard somewhere along the line that the word pocomoke means “dark water” in an old Indian language, but experts nowadays have changed their tune on that one, too—they now say that the real meaning of the word is “broken ground,” and that it refers to Native American farming practices that were significantly more intensive and aggressive than the simple gathering up nuts and berries, which is what many of us were taught back in our schooldays.
A super observant Road Tripper here may be able to pick up on signs of decades- or centuries-old human activity in the park— pilings from an old boat landing, say, or ditches originally dug out for forestry operations. But the re-vegetation process is pretty far along by now. More than two decades ago, the naturalist William Sipple was already describing certain areas of the lower Pocomoke as one of the rare places on the Eastern Shore that “no doubt appear[s] quite similar to what Captain John Smith saw when he sailed up the river.”
It’s not a perfect reproduction, of course. The earliest written description of the Pocomoke swamp dates to 1797, and it talks about cypress trunks with diameters of eight feet and knees reaching heights of 10 feet. That’s a whole lot bigger than any of the trees you will see nowadays.
Here is another thing to put in your mind’s eye as you stroll or paddle through the swamp: For centuries, the place has served as a hideout for the likes of British loyalists, escaped slaves, and moonshiners and other outlaws.
The nearby Furnace Town Living History Center presents another fascinating chapter in the history of human activity in this swamp. The story behind it dates back to the first part of the 19th century when an outfit called the Maryland Iron Company set up shop here along the longest of the Pocomoke’s tributaries, Nassawango Creek. They built a company town that was home to some 300 people in the 1830s and 1840s.
The furnace employed a technique known as “hot blast,” which was pretty much a brand new invention at the time. A mix of bog ore, oyster shells, clam shells, and charcoal was loaded into the furnace. When the temperature inside reached 3,000 degrees, two different liquids began oozing out at the bottom. One was slag, which was then cooled and thrown away. The other was iron, which was poured into molds for shipping to cities as far away as New York.
The company went bankrupt in 1850, and the town was eventually abandoned. Various historical preservation groups tried over the last half a century or so to rescue the site from oblivion before it finally became an “historical village” with a restored blacksmith shop, one-room schoolhouse, woodworking shop, and other period buildings.
My favorite part of the visit is walking up to the top of the old iron furnace and thinking about the backbreaking work that went into taking nature’s ingredients out of this swamp and turning them into 700 tons of iron a year. Furnace Town is open from April through Christmastime. Every October, it’s the site of one of the region’s biggest Celtic festivals.
Keep your eyes peeled while inside the village for the entrance to the Paul Liefer Trail, which will lead you into and through the Nature Conservancy’s Nassawango Creek Preserve. At 9,000 acres, the preserve is just about as big as Pocomoke State Park. But it draws far fewer visitors and feels even more isolated and sanctum santorum-ish.
The preserve boasts 14 different species of orchids. The Conservancy has undertaken several big restoration efforts in recent years, transforming quite a bit of farmland back into forestland, for one example, and planting 14,000 Atlantic white
cedar trees, for another. These cedars are not nearly as abundant on the Shore as they used to be, largely because their have a habit of generating sturdy, useful boards of lumber, something that puts them at constant risk of being chopped down.
While making your way from one stretch of outdoors to the next in this stretch of Worcester County, there will be no shortage of civilized outposts where you can take a break and find a proper meal. Snow Hill and Pocomoke City both boast downtowns full of gorgeous old buildings and sweet riverfront scenery. There are lots of fast-food options in both towns, along more substantial and creative fare at places like The Riverside Grill and Lin’s Asian Cuisine in Pocomoke City, and the Blue Dog Café and Harvest Moon Tavern in Snow Hill.
Snow Hill has been making a big push in recent years to establish itself as a sort of base camp for outdoors lovers. Canoe & Kayak magazine included the town in a recent listing of up-and-coming paddling destinations, and the town is at the center of a new annual event in early October, Delmarva Paddling Weekend. Last I heard from the guy behind this push, a friend named Michael Day, he was working up a plan to put some cute little pygmy goats on a place called Goat Island to serve as a draw for paddlers and photographers.
The biggest event of the year in Snow Hill is a true Eastern Shore classic, the Blessing of the Combines. Generally held on the first Saturday of August, it brings a fleet of oversized farm vehicles from out in the countryside into the heart of town for a day of fun and parades and vendoring that’s all in the spirit of paying tribute to local farmers.
The Delmarva Discovery Center in Pocomoke City is another stop that may be of interest. Geared mostly to families with kids, the center has permanent exhibits devoted to topics such as beaver lodges, cypress swamps, and life in colonial times. Outside of town in Pocomoke City, you can find fresh, farm-made ice cream at Chesapeake Bay Farms on Whitesburg Road.
And if at the end of your outdoors travels here, you find that you are still in the mood for more Thoreau-style swampiness, the place to go is the Hickory Point Cypress Swamp. Covering some 2,000 acres southwest of Pocomoke City, it doesn’t offer much in the way of marked walking paths or paddling trails or creature comforts. It’s more a destination best suited for experienced adventurers ready to embrace that concept of sanctum santorum.
Basic Connections Worcester County Tourism Blue Dog Cafe VisitWorcester.org; 410.632.3110 Bluedogsnowhill.com; 410.251.7193 Location: 300 North Washington Street, Pocomoke River State Park & Forest Snow Hill, Md. 21863 Dnr2.maryland.gov/publiclands/Pages/eas tern/pocomokeriver.aspx; 410.632.2566 Harvest Moon Tavern Location (Shad Landing Area): 3461 Harvestmoontavern.com; 410.632.9890 Worcester Highway, Snow Hill, Md. 21863 Location: 208 West Green Street, Snow Location (Millburn Landing Area): 3036 Hill, Md. 21863 Nassawango Road, Pocomoke City, MD 21851 Pocomoke River Canoe & Kayaking Pocomokerivercanoe.com; 410.632.3971 Furnace Town Living Heritage Village Location: 2 River Street, Snow Hill, Furnacetown.org; 410.632.2032 Md. 21863 Location: 3816 Old Furnace Road, Snow * I didn’t actually mention this Hill, Md. 21863 outfitter in the piece, but I have heard good things about them and so Nassawango Creek Preserve thought I would include here. Nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/north america/unitedstates/maryland_dc/places Delmarva Discovery Center weprotect/nassawango-creek- Delmarvadiscoverycenter.org; preserve.xml; 301.897.8570 (statewide 410.957.9933 office) Location: 2 Market Street, Pocomoke Location: Access through Furnace Town— City, Md. 21851 see address above. Delmarva Paddling Weekend Hickory Point Natural Area Delmarvapaddling.com/ Dnr2.maryland.gov/wildlife/Pages/Natura lAreas/Eastern/Hickory-Point.aspx; Blessing of the Combines 410.632.3732 Blessingofthecombines.org/ Location: The best access to the area is along Hickory Point Road, which is Chesapeake Bay Farms south and west of Pocomoke City, just Supportlocalcows.com; 443.373.8487 above the Virginia line. Please be sure Location: 4111 Whitesburg Road, to be aware before you go of any Pocomoke City, 21851 hunting seasons that are open and active. Nearby Road Trips in the 1st Book Berlin (#1) Advanced Connections Saxis on the Sound (#19) Riverside Grill Assateague Island (#23) Riversidegrillpocomoke.com; Chincoteague (#24) 410.957.0622 Location: 2 Riverside Drive, Pocomoke Nearby Road Trips Planned in the 2nd City, Md. 21851 Book Small Towns: Salisbury Lin’s Asian Cuisine Islands: Smith & Tangier Linsasian.com; 410.957.1688 Islands: The Barrier Islands Location: 126 Newtown Boulevard, The Beach: Ocean City Off the Boardwalk Pocomoke City, Md. 21851
Bonus Road Trip #3 ISLANDS: A Dorchester Duo
A few years back I was wandering the back roads of South Dorchester County when I felt a need to check my cell phone reception. I called up one of my apps to see if it would load, and it did--but it offered one and only one location nearby, and that location was titled: “The Middle of F#&!@*! Nowhere!”
The wiseacre who created that check-in gave me a good laugh that morning. What made his or her joke even better is the kernel of truth lurking behind it. One thing that makes South Dorchester such an interesting and unique place is the fact that it has remained relatively isolated from the rest of the world for such a long time.
It’s true, of course, that people here have been involved for centuries with the maritime trade and the seafood industry. It’s true, too, that automobiles and steamboats showed up here just as surely as they showed up everywhere else in America.
But while the isolation was never complete, this place nonetheless managed to hold on to its local identity for much longer than most other places. In some ways, the people of South Dorchester are still hanging on. We are talking here about a place whose biggest annual communal celebration famously involves both a beauty pageant for local teenage girls and a world- championship competition in muskrat skinning.
Consider the case of Hooper’s Island, one of two islands featured in this Road Trip to “The Middle of #&!@*! Nowhere.” Island native Jacqueline Simmons Hedberg, who put together the book, Hoopers Island, for the “Images of America” series, found an interesting way to put all this into perspective. In her introduction to that book, she points out that the array of surnames that appeared in the 1930 census of Hooper’s Island were pretty much the exact same ones that appeared in 1800.
Thanks to little things like the Civil War, the Transcontinental Railroad, and the Industrial Revolution, this was a stretch of time that saw sea changes in just about every other corner of the country. But here, Hedberg points out after wading through a few more facts and figures, “[Just] ten families, with all their branches, were almost the entire population of Hoopers Island for 300 years.”
Keep that fact in mind as you head out of Cambridge on Route 16, bound for the vast expanse of marshland that locals refer to as “Down Below.” You are heading into one of the best places on the Eastern Shore to get a feel for the way those long and isolated centuries have piled up, one on top of the next.
First stop: Taylor’s Island. It’s a 20-minute ride from Cambridge, along a two-lane affair known first as Church Creek Road and then as Taylors Island Road.
There are a couple of places to keep an eye out for along the way. The big red tomato that pops up on the roadside a little ways after the endearingly named Pig Neck Road marks Emily’s Produce, a first-rate farm stand operated by Kelly and Paul Jackson, members of a family that has been working the land hereabouts for six generations.
You can enjoy a snack or a meal at a picnic bench at Emily’s, or grab something to go. If you have kids in tow, they will be able to feed the chickens, ogle the goats, and mess around at a little playground.
A little farther down the road is the Woolford General Store, where you will find grocery staples and other life essentials in the midst of a bevy of hunting supplies. The store has a little grill, too—as of this writing, they are serving sandwiches and the like from early morning until late in the evening. And here is a little something extra to put in your mind’s eye while visiting the store: In the dead of winter, big-city dealers in the fur-coat business set up shop here at the store so that local muskrat trappers can bring in their bounty.
Just beyond the store Route 16 intersects with Harrisville Road. Some historians believe that Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman was likely born in the 1820s in a cabin that used to stand near the spot where this road comes to a dead end. I am not sure whether the experts regard this debate as settled once and for all yet, but I can say for sure that the drive down to that dead end is a beautiful and serene affair.
One thing that Underground Railroad historians definitely do agree on is this: Young Tubman and her family had deep ties to this area and performed backbreaking work in the local forests and shipyards. You will soon come upon the sleepy burg of Madison, where a handful of local watermen keep their workboats in postcard-pretty Caper’s Wharf. The scene here would have been
anything but sleepy in Tubman’s time—as a center of timbering and shipbuilding, Madison would have been a place full of noise, traffic, dust, and chaos.
The rest of the drive out to Taylor’s Island is a gorgeous affair, full of water views and stately little stands of loblolly pine. Cross the bridge over Slaughter Creek, and you’ve arrived at an island whose first European residents gave their new abode the tongue-in-cheek name of “Taylor’s Folly” back in the 1600s.
There are no museums to visit on Taylor’s Island. There are no tours to take, plans to make, tickets to buy, or directions to follow. What you do on Taylor’s Island is wander around a bit and see what catches your fancy. One day it might be the wildlife that strikes your imagination, as hawks herons, eagles, and sika deer are here in abundance. On another day, it might be the eerie, if-walls-could-talk beauty of abandoned houses that takes center stage in your mind.
Just over the bridge is a little 12-pound cannon mounted atop a hunk of stone. It was captured from the British in an obscure War of 1812 encounter called the Battle of the Ice Mound. Head north from there to find your way to the two Taylor’s Island churches that are on the National Register of Historic Places.
Grace Episcopal is a sweet piece of Victorian Gothic architecture. The small Chapel of Ease on its grounds dates clear back to the 1700s. There’s a gorgeous cemetery, too, and I always find something of interest in graveyard wanderings. On one expedition a couple of years back it was the stone for Medford Shenton that caught my eye—I had to do a double take at the dates, because it turns out that little Medford lived for just a couple of months back in the late 1800s, and yet he has one of the biggest gravestones here. It’s little surprises like that that can spark your imagination and give you a mental picture for the joys, challenges, and heartbreaks of life in a place like this during times gone by.
The nearby Bethlehem Methodist Episcopal is a Gothic Revival affair. Built in 1857, it’s blessed with a photogenic belfry up top that is in turn adorned with dome-and-spire combo that gives it the look of an upside down ice cream cone. Some of the graves in the cemetery across the road here date to the 1700s.
On the south end of the island, along Robinson Neck Road, you will find a little pull-off at the entrance to the Robinson Neck
Nature Preserve, a 920-acre tract owned by the Nature Conservancy. A sweet hiking trail runs through the preserve, and it will be worth your time, especially in non-buggy months. Pack along boots if you can—the trail is frequently dotted with wet spots. The Taylor’s Island Wildlife Management Area is a tad farther south, alongside Punch Island Creek. It’s accessible only by water, and I will be sure to include contact information about outfitters at the end here.
If your wanderings on the island leave you with an appetite, find your way to Palm Beach Willie’s. Located on a floating barge in Slaughter Creek Marina, which is actually back on the mainland side of the creek, it’s a down-home joint that serves up sweet water views and fun tiki-bar decor to go along with old-school seafood dishes at lunch and dinner times.
One last Taylor’s Island suggestion, this one geared especially toward armchair travelers. There is a wonderful Facebook page called, simply enough, “Taylors Island Maryland,” and it is full of photographs of sweet Chesapeake Bay sunsets that are guaranteed to add a welcome bit of beauty and serenity to your news feed.
Next up, Hooper’s Island. But first, we need to take a brief detour into the realm of geology. Back in the mists of time gone by, the islands we know as Taylor’s and Hooper’s (along with another one, James) were all connected into one big land mass. Their breakup over the years was the result of natural phenomena going back many centuries in the Chesapeake Bay, where the water is slowly rising and the land is slowly sinking.
The route from Taylor’s to Hooper’s will take you back on the mainland along Smithville Road, another sweet stretch of Down Below driving. For much of its length, the road is sandwiched between Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and the Taylor’s Island Wildlife Management Area. The bits of water that pop in and out of view along the way carry evocative names like Hog Marsh Gut and Scallop Point Gut.
Keep an eye out for the pretty New Revived Methodist Church, still known among locals by its original name of Jefferson Methodist Episcopal. There used to be several black churches hereabouts, serving quite a sizable African-American population, but Jefferson is the only one left. As the timbering and seafood industries went into decline over the course of the 20th century,
the families that used to worship here moved to Cambridge or other towns where work was more readily available.
Oak Grove Church is another beauty here, with its tall, skinny windows and high-pitched roof. The church, which dates to the late 1800s, takes its name from the gorgeous stand of trees that makes wandering the adjacent graveyard and snapping pictures of the site such an appealing option when the sunlight is falling just right.
European settlement on Hooper’s Island dates to the 1600s, and this island, too, gets it name from the first family to arrive. It’s actually a string of three islands, with only two being inhabited today as the third is now all but under the Chesapeake Bay. There is some astounding scenery along Hoopers Island Road, especially in spots where you get to ogle both the open Chesapeake Bay on the west and the broad Honga River on the east. Like Taylor’s, this island is thick with raptors, herons, egrets, and other birds.
There is a healthy smattering of “come heres” and “weekenders” on Hooper’s Island nowadays, but most of the families living here still have deep roots on the island and remain closely connected to the water in one way or another, whether working as crabbers, oyster tongers, on charter boats, or in one of the island’s seafood packing houses. Fishing Creek is the first village that you’ll come to, and it presents a postcard-pretty scene—a bevy of bobbing workboats on Back Creek.
Among the half dozen or so seafood houses on the island, one in particular stands out for its history. The Phillips Seafood Company started doing business here in 1914. Half a century later, Phillips opened a small crab house in Ocean City, and that arm of the business has since grown into a chain of restaurants stretching from Myrtle Beach to Washington, D.C. It’s probably the best known crab company in the world. Tours of the packing house here on the company’s original home turf are available by appointment.
The scenery gets even more impressive as you cross the tall, swooping bridge from Upper Hooper’s to Middle Hooper’s and into the town of Hoopersville. Look out into the Bay on a clear day and you might catch a glimpse of the 63-foot-tall Hooper Island Lighthouse, which dates to 1902. Keepers lived out there up until 1961.
The bridge is a modern, two-lane affair that went up in 1980. Before that, drivers made the journey across what writer Tom Horton once dubbed “the longest, narrowest, clatteringest old wooden bridge in Maryland.
“[A]nd no matter how far you’ve come,” he added, “crossing it is the most memorable part of your trip.”
Not everything you see on Hooper’s Island will be about looking back in time. At the bottom of House Point Road on Upper Hooper’s, you will find the Hoopers Island Oyster Aquaculture Company. Here, former waterman Johnny Shockley and his partner Ricky Fitzhugh are pioneering the development of new technologies and new approaches to the farming of oysters.
Shockley and Fitzhugh are not alone. More than a dozen other oyster aquaculture businesses have opened in Dorchester County in recent years, raising hopes that a new and sustainable way of working the water can help grow the local economy here in the 21st century.
As your Hooper’s wanderings draw to a close, be sure to leave a little extra time for lunch or dinner at Old Salty’s Restaurant. Housed in an old elementary school building, Old Salty’s is nothing less than an institution in these parts when it comes to Eastern Shore comfort food.
Basic Connections Emily’s Produce Dorchester County Tourism Emilysproduce.com; 443.521.0789 Visitdorchester.org; 410.228.1000 Location: 2206 Church Creek Road, Cambridge, Md. 21613 Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge Fws.gov/refuge/blackwater; 410.228.2677 Woolford General Store Location: 2145 Key Wallace Drive, Cambridge, Woolfordstore.com; 410.228.3020 Md. 21613 Location: 1614 Taylors Island Road, Woolford, Md. 21677 Grace Episcopal Church 410.228.2940 Palm Beach Willie’s Location: 4401 Hooper Neck Road, Taylors Facebook.com/palmbeachwilliesti; 410.221.5111 Island, Md. 21669 Location: 638 Taylors Island Road, Taylors Island, Md. 21669 Bethlehem Church Location: Hooper Neck Road between Bay Shore Phillips Seafood Road and North Point Road, Taylors Island, 410.397.3752 Md. 21669 Location: 2423 Hoopers Island Road, Fishing Creek, Md. 21634 Robinson Neck Nature Preserve Location: Robinson Neck Road, Taylors Island, Hoopers Island Oyster Aquaculture Md. 21669 Hioac.com; 410.397.3664 Location: 2500 Old House Point Road, Fishing Taylors Island Wildlife Management Area Creek, Md. 21634 Location: This area is accessible primarily by water, from a boat launch on the mainland Old Salty’s Restaurant where Smithville Road meets Beaverdam Creek. Oldsaltys.com; 410.397.3752 See below in Advanced Connections for 2560 Hoopers Island Road, Fishing Creek, Md. information about outfitters and kayak 21634 rentals. Boat Rentals, Charters, Cruises, and Marinas New Revived Methodist Church Visitdorchester.org/see-and-do/outdoor- 410.228.2110 activities/boating/ Location: 4350 Smithville Road, Taylor’s Island, Md. 21677 Kayak Rentals Blackwater Paddle and Pedal Adventures Oak Grove Church Blackwaterpaddleandpedal.com; 410.901.9255 Location: The church is on Smithfield Road, Location: 2524 Key Wallace Drive, Cambridge, between Hip Roof Road on the south and Md. 21613 Beaverdam Creek on the north. Nearby Road Trips in the 1st Book Advanced Connections Cambridge (#2) National Outdoor Show Easton (#5) 410.397.8535 Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge (#7) The event is generally held on the last The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway weekend of February at the South Dorchester (#22) School in Golden Hill. For some reason I could not get a link to work here, but if you Nearby Road Trips Planned in the 2nd Google National Outdoor Show, you will find Book your way to their website. St. Michaels Museums: Little Gems of the Mid-Shore Back Roads: The Write Stuff Tour (James Michener & Frederick Douglass)
WAY BACK MACHINE The Greatest Invocation of All Time, 1980
The story of how the modern bridge that links Upper Hooper’s with Middle Hooper’s came to be built is a thoroughly modern tale. Before 1980, the crossing was a one-lane affair on a low wooden bridge with draw in the middle and an itty-bitty pull off area so that vehicles could pass each other.
The writer Tom Horton recalls how making the trip as a newly licensed young driver involved navigating through a gauntlet of “summer crabbers who bend unconcernedly over both railings, giving no quarter as they lean to dip crustaceans flippering on the tide.”
“Somehow,” Horton writes in the book, Bay Country, “no hind ends ever were fractured there, although a couple of windshields were sharded by the long, wooden handles of crab nets.”
At some point in the 1970s, the opportunity arose to bring in federal money to cover most of the cost of replacing that bridge. Initial estimates set a price tag of $500,000, with just $125,000 of that due from local coffers.
As part of the deal, federal engineers had the last word. They were the ones who chose a design that left crabbers and bicyclists out in the cold. They were the ones who brushed aside local requests to leave the old wooden bridge standing with the span open so people could keep fishing and crabbing even while cars zipped across the new bridge.
The final cost of that new bridge, which soars up to a peak of 35 feet over the water, came in at $3.5 million, seven times higher than the original estimate. The county turned out to be on the hook not for $125,000, but for $900,000.
All of which brings us to Tom Flowers, a Hooper’s Island native who enjoyed a distinguished career as a local educator and politician. He also was renowned as a first-rate storyteller and local character, dubbing himself “The Old Honker” at public appearances and in newspaper columns.
On Sept. 6, 1980, Flowers was invited to give the invocation at a ceremony marking the completion of the new bridge. Here is the
prayer he sent up before the crowd of politicians and bureaucrats that had gathered for the occasion.
“Father, today we are gathered here to dedicate a bridge that is a monument to man’s stupidity, a monument to man’s waste, a monument to government interference and inefficiency. For there is no need for such an elaborate structure as this is … which is so out of keeping in the peaceful and lovely environment of south Dorchester. … Our great Creator and Father bless this bridge, and those who will use this structure to meet their needs, knowing that wind and wave and tide are daily at work destroying that which has been built.”