Skip to main content
Category

Characters

One-of-a-kind people on the Delmarva Peninsula–the Eastern Shore of Maryland, the Eastern Shore of Virginia, and Delaware.

Helen Lowe Bullet Point Bio Featured Photo Delmar
BULLET-POINT BIOGRAPHY: The Graduate (Delmar High, 1903) CharactersWay Back Machine

BULLET-POINT BIOGRAPHY: The Graduate (Delmar High, 1903)

A couple of years back one of those social-media waves rolled through, inspiring everyone to post their old high school graduation picture. No disrespect intended to all my friends who played that game, I didn't see anyone on my newsfeed who had a better old photo than that of Helen Lowe, a 1903 graduate of Delmar High School. I came across her photo in the…
April 18, 2022
The Greatest Honeymoon in History CharactersHome Page Feature

The Greatest Honeymoon in History

NOTE: This is one of the fun stories from my book, You Wouldn’t Believe! 44 Strange and Wondrous Delmarva Tales. You can find more information about the book–including how and where to buy it–at this link. When 19-year-old Vernon Cooper landed at the mouth of the Wicomico River, the Wisconsin native didn’t catch on immediately that he’d found his forever home. He didn’t have a crystal ball. He…
January 28, 2022
Holly Making for Story on Fruitland Market Featured Photo
Fruitland’s Accidental Auctioneer: A Christmas Holly Tale CharactersWay Back Machine

Fruitland’s Accidental Auctioneer: A Christmas Holly Tale

NOTE: This is an excerpt from my book, You Wouldn't Believe! 44 Strange and Wondrous Delmarva Tales. Find out more about that (and my other books) here. Another chapter in this book, “When Delaware Delivered the ‘True Spirit of Christmas,’” tells the story of how the seasonal holly wreath industry took off in the late 1800s and early 1900s, starting in Southern Delaware and then…
December 13, 2021
William Still Featured Photo with Harriet Tubman
The Miraculous Reunions of Underground Railroad Hero William Still CharactersWay Back Machine

The Miraculous Reunions of Underground Railroad Hero William Still

I am posting this during the week of the bicentennial of William Still's birth on Oct. 7, 1821. Let's get the obvious question out of the way first: Why bother about a Philadelphia guy on a site devoted to stories of Delmarva? I mention Still countless times in my book of Tubman Travels: 32 Underground Railroad Journeys on Delmarva. That's because he played two key…
October 4, 2021
Tallulah Bankhead Featured Image
ROAD TRIP! Visiting with Tallulah in Kent County, Md. CharactersDestinationsFrom the BooksRoad Trips

ROAD TRIP! Visiting with Tallulah in Kent County, Md.

This is an excerpt from my book, Eastern Shore Road Trips #1: 27 One-Day Adventures on Delmarva. The full trip here is titled "The Road to Rock Hall" and includes stops at Caulk's Field, Rock Hall, the Eastern Neck National Wildlife Refuge, and other spots. Here goes with the Tallulah section:   St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which lies to the left (or southwest) on Sandy…
March 4, 2021
Harriet Shephard Featured Image
TUBMAN TRAVELS: The Other Harriet’s Wild Ride to Freedom CharactersFrom the BooksTubman TravelsWay Back Machine

TUBMAN TRAVELS: The Other Harriet’s Wild Ride to Freedom

This is an excerpt from my book, Tubman Travels: 32 Underground Railroad Adventures on Delmarva. The book tells keystone stories about the Underground Railroad, with each story attached to place or places that you can go visit. More info about the book here. BIG PICTURE: A Ride for the Ages American history has its share of famous horseback rides. There is the “Midnight Ride” of…
March 4, 2021
Coulbourne and Jewett Featured Image
The St. Michaels Seafood Packing Plant that Helped Blue Crabs Rise To a Whole New Level in the Early 1900s CharactersWay Back Machine

The St. Michaels Seafood Packing Plant that Helped Blue Crabs Rise To a Whole New Level in the Early 1900s

The next time you’re at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Md., take a few moments to remember that you’re walking in the entrepreneurial footsteps of William H.T. Coulbourne and Frederick Jewett. It’ll be easy—the Coulbourne & Jewett seafood-packing plant stood at the heart of the museum’s campus on Navy Point. Founded on a shoestring in 1902, Coulbourne & Jewett is notable for…
February 19, 2021
Turkey Point Light Fannie Salter Featured Photo
Distaff Beauty: The Women Lighthouse Keepers of Turkey Point CharactersDestinationsWay Back Machine

Distaff Beauty: The Women Lighthouse Keepers of Turkey Point

This is a free excerpt from Eastern Shore Road Trips 2: 26 MORE One-Day Adventures on Delmarva. It comes from a chapter that includes stops in the towns of Elkton, North East, and Charlestown, as well as a visit to a covered bridge the remains of an old gristmill. The most beautiful of those overlooks lies at the end of a 12-or-so-mile drive down Turkey…
December 31, 2020
Jack Messick Memories of Life on the Choptank River Lighthouse
Sweet Memories of Life on the Lighthouse CharactersWay Back Machine

Sweet Memories of Life on the Lighthouse

A sad introductory note to this post that originally went up in 2020: Jack Messick passed away in July 2024. May he rest in peace. My friend Jack Messick is probably the last living person who spent a lot of time in the original Choptank River Lighthouse. In the late 1940s, when Jack was around 10 years old, his father asked a question that would…
December 31, 2020
We Have a Blind Irishman to Thank for Our “Chesapeake” Lighthouses CharactersWay Back Machine

We Have a Blind Irishman to Thank for Our “Chesapeake” Lighthouses

The Chesapeake lighthouse, with its splayed legs supporting a homey cottage set atop a platform rising from the sea, ranks today as a defining icon for the region. I set out recently to learn more about how those beacons came to be and soon found my way to a tale two centuries and 3,000 miles away. Spoiler alert #1: The hero of the story is…
December 30, 2020