THE EASTERN SHORE
Somerset County, MD, Monday, 02 June 2008

We plan to meet Kathleen’s brother at a cousin’s house along Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He is bringing his sailboat up from Florida. The Blackwells have family who live in an old house they have been renovating along the water. We drive down on Sunday afternoon to await the arrival of the boat and enjoy the company of John and Dana and their children.

The whole landscape is low and flat. It was originally cleared to plant tobacco for the North Atlantic trade. In mid-19th Century wheat and other corn was planted for export. Maryland was officially a free state during slavery. But black slaves outnumbered white freemen when Harriet Tubmann lived in nearby Cambridge. Some people say the Eastern Shore is really still The Confederacy.

The northern half of ‘The Shore’ has seen a lot of ‘development’ following the construction of the Bay Bridge near Annapolis. The southern portion however, remains rural. “Watermen’ trap the famous soft-shell clams.