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MiscellanyWay Back Machine

Launch Days in Bethel

This is a free excerpt from my book, Eastern Shore Road Trips #2: 26 MORE One-Day Adventures on Delmarva. In a trip focused on visiting the Southern Delaware towns of Laurel and Bethel I write a bit about how Bethel was a famous shipbuilding center focused on building the gargantuan ships known as "Rams." This fun little anecdote appears as an afternote at the end…
November 20, 2022
From the BooksMiscellanyRoad Trips

Road Trip! Kent Island, Maryland

This is a free excerpt from my book, Eastern Shore Road Trips #2: 26 MORE One-Day Adventures on Delmarva. More info here about that and my other books exploring the history, travel, and culture on the Eastern Shore and in Delaware. Every year, millions of travelers looking to get away from their busy big-city lives catch their first glimpse of the Delmarva Peninsula in the shoreline of…
August 14, 2022
MiscellanyWay Back Machine

Revisiting the Glory Days of Summertime “Camp Meetings”

Though much of the 1800s and well into the 1900s, "camp meetings" ranked as a summertime joy for families on the Eastern Shore and in Delaware on the level of our beach vacations and downtown block parties. Sponsored by local churches, these religious revivals were conducted out in forests and fields, mostly in the dog days of August. The preaching and singing and soul-saving stretched…
July 7, 2022
Sunset atBlackwater 2013 Featured Image
Good Times & Fun EventsMiscellanyThe Newsroom

The Delaware City Book Signing! Oct. 2, 2021

The award-winning writer Jim Duffy of Secrets of the Eastern Shore will be in Delaware City for a book-signing event on the afternoon of Oct. 2, 2021. The affair will take place downtown at the Delaware City Trading Company, 60 Clinton Street, 1-3pm. Duffy is the author of the bestselling Eastern Shore Road Trips series. Subtitled “One-Day Adventures on Delmarva,” the two books in the…
August 11, 2021
Ben Ross Cabin Featured Photo
MiscellanyTubman TravelsWay Back Machine

Young Harriet Tubman Finds Her Strength, With a Little Help from Her Father

This is an excerpt from my book, Tubman Travels: 32 Underground Railroad Journeys on Delmarva. A smidgeon of background: This story begins while an adolescent Harriet Tubman—her name in her younger days was Minty—is in the midst of a long recovery after suffering a near-fatal head injury when hit in the head by a hardware-store metal weight flung by a plantation overseer. (You can read…
May 31, 2021
Country Stores in 1918
MiscellanyQuote of the DayWay Back Machine

Life & Times in Old-Fashioned Country Stores, 1918 (with lots of photos!)

I was looking up something else in the February 23, 1918 edition of the Denton (Md.) Journal when I got distracted by the wonderful little essay below. It’s about the many roles that general stores and their shopkeepers filled in the communities of Delmarva around that time. There was no headline on the piece. Nor was there a byline. Old newspapers can be weird like…
March 1, 2021
Quote Harvest Liquors in Trappe, Maryland FEATURED IMAGE
MiscellanyQuote of the DayWay Back Machine

Harvest Time in the 1850s: The Key to Success Was … wait … Whiskey on the Job?

The Delmarva Peninsula "Quote of the Day" is a regular feature around here. What I do is share funny, enlightening, or otherwise interesting tidbits that I come across while reading up on the history and culture of our communities. This one comes from the 1976 book Trappe: The Story of an Old-Fashioned Town by Dickson Preston. Trappe is located just up from the Choptank River…
October 30, 2020
Saxis on Saturday Night Featured Photo
MiscellanyQuote of the DayWay Back Machine

Saxis on a Saturday Night! Scenes from Days Gone By

Those of you who've been there know that Saxis is a remote, real-deal watermen community on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. I visited there while working on my book, Eastern Shore Road Trips #1: 27 One-Day Adventures on Delmarva. It's a quiet place nowadays, with one fun restaurant, one tiki bar, and a local history museum being the main attractions for visitors outside of the…
August 2, 2020