In Hulbert Footner’s 1944 book “Rivers of the Eastern Shore,” the author takes note in his chapter on the Wye River of a little-used old drawbridge leading out to Wye Island, on Maryland’s Upper Eastern Shore:
Wye Bridge, which crosses to the island, is a long, creaking, wooden structure, dry and silvery with age. In the middle it has a true drawbridge like the one at Crisfield, that is pulled back on rails with a winch.
I saw the aged bridge tender, tall, lean, and gnarled, a typical Eastern Shoreman, sitting on a bench in front of his tiny shack on the mainland bank. Since water-borne traffic has disappeared from these parts, I thought his job must be just about the least laborious in the world, and I asked him how it was.
“Oh, they still come through, they still come through,’ he said. “Since winter [this was May] I had to open the bridge, let me see, three, no, four times. That’s right; four times, sir. …
“But at that I’ll say it’s a lonely spot,” he went on. “I have to talk to myself or I’d lose the power of speech. Yes sir, I asks myself questions and answers them myself.”
I don’t believe this book is in print anymore, but copies are often available in our best local bookstores. Here is the Amazon page where used copies are available.
–posted by Jim Duffy on Aug. 31, 2017 and updated on June 26, 2022.
