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JM Clayton in Fog Featured Photo
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PICTURE THIS: On Cambridge Creek, the Oldest Crabpacking Plant in the World

Crabs weren’t always a big deal on the Eastern Shore. All the way through the 1800s, the oyster was the unrivaled king of Chesapeake seafood. Crabs were an afterthought. People rarely ate them—and when they did, they had to catch them, because nobody was selling crabs or crabmeat on a commercial basis. This iconic Delmarva scene up top here—it’s the work of Jill Jasuta Photography,…
Hoopers Island Bridge
The Newsroom

On WBOC-TV, Secrets of the Eastern Shore Tells the Tale of ‘A Monument to Man’s Stupidity’ on Hoopers Island

One of the trips in the new Secrets book, Eastern Shore Road Trips 2: 26 More One-Day Adventures on Delmarva, is a journey through the remote backroads of Dorchester County, Md., with visits to a pair of historic islands, Hoopers and Taylors. Jim Duffy, the author of all the Secrets of the Eastern Shore books, recently went on WBOC-TV's Good Day Delmarva to talk about…
The New Hoopers Island Bridge
From the BooksQuote of the Day

QUOTE OF THE DAY: A ‘Monument to Man’s Stupidity’ at the Hooper’s Island Bridge

This excerpt from Eastern Shore Road Trips #2: 26 MORE One-Day Adventures on Delmarva is a bonus section that comes at the end of a road trip chock full of backroads adventuring through remote South Dorchester County, Md. and out to remote Taylors Island and Hoopers Island. The story of how the modern Hoopers Island bridge came into existence is a tale of politics and bureaucracy.…
St Marys Star of the Sea Chapel in Golden Hill, Maryland
DestinationsWay Back Machine

How This Little Backroads Chapel Evokes the Stories in Michener’s Famous Novel

Sweet scenes abound on the long ride out to Hoopers Island. The landscape of remote south Dorchester County—an area that the locals call “Down Below”—is a glorious run of marshlands, rivers, and farm fields. Along the way you will find a pair of churches in Golden Hill, Maryland that go by the name St. Mary Star of the Sea. They are hiding along a bend…
Panoramic Skipjacks
Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY, 1907: Those Newfangled Skipjacks “Are as Cheap as Anything in the Form of a Boat Could Be.”

    Back in 1907, the Baltimore Sun published an essay lamenting the disappearance of an old sailing vessel called the pungy from the Chesapeake Bay sailing fleet. The business of oystering was in transition in those years, and the pungy was a bad fit for the new way of doing things. With the infamous Oyster Wars well under way, watermen were looking for vessels…