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Crisfield

Coulbourne and Jewett Featured Image
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 gift shop is where the Coulbourne family lived for many years, and the Coulbourne & Jewett seafood-packing plant stood at the heart of the museum’s campus, on Navy…
February 19, 2021
Somerset Steak Knives Featured Image Small
CharactersWay Back Machine

Somerset Journey: The Steak Knife Was Invented in Crisfield, and That Story Begins on Marumsco Creek

The story behind the creation of the steak knife in your kitchen drawer involves a bit of manufacturing ingenuity, but there is more to it. Think romantic sleigh rides, a devastating fire, steadfast religious faith, and then—a Christmas gift from a friend that changes everything. This Somerset County, Md. tale begins with a farm boy who hated farm work. He much preferred puttering around in…
March 31, 2020
Downtown Crisfield, Maryland in 1922
Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Back in the 1920s, Crisfield Was a ‘Sort of Tiny Vulgar Venice’

Back in 1922, the writer Edward Noble Vallandigham penned this ode to Crisfield for his travel guide, Delaware and the Eastern Shore: Some Aspects of a Peninsula Pleasant and Well Beloved." "Newest of all the large and active communities on the Peninsula is Crisfield, … has grown into an active little city with a busy main street that looks like that of a raw Western mining…
April 2, 2017
Oyster Dredging on the Eastern Shore
Quote of the Day

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Chesapeake Oystermen, 1887: “One of the Most Depraved Bodies of Workmen in the Country”

This is from a report by the federal government written in 1887, at the height of the craziest and most violent oyster boomtimes that the Eastern Shore has ever seen. And hey, Somerset County, when you get to the end here, I am thinking that the writer is talking about you as the rare "respectable" and "honorable" exception to the rule--congrats! VERY STRICT PROTECTIVE LAWS…
May 30, 2016