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Talbot County

TV Appearance Television
On WBOC-TV, the fun story of the Great Poplar Island Black Cat Fur Farm of the 1840s The Newsroom

On WBOC-TV, the fun story of the Great Poplar Island Black Cat Fur Farm of the 1840s

Secrets co-founder Jim Duffy recently went on WBOC-TV’s Good Day Delmarva to tell the tale of The Great Poplar Island Black Cat Fur Farm--a strange and ill-fated business venture in the 1840s. You can watch the segment here: Poplar Island Black Cat Story on Good Day Delmarva This is one of the scores of stories from days gone by that you can find in my…
March 19, 2020
Liars Building in Trappe, Maryland
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Maybe we needed a whole building because we had so many liars.” Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Maybe we needed a whole building because we had so many liars.”

Lots of towns have had famous “liar’s benches” over the years--a corner in a store or post office where old men gather and tell tall tales from days gone by. But in Trappe on Maryland's Eastern Shore, they had much more than a bench--a whole building there was set aside for the fine art of small-town storytelling. The description below of what days back in…
January 29, 2020
TV Appearance Television
On WBOC-TV, Secrets of the Eastern Shore talks about the Prohibition Era The Newsroom

On WBOC-TV, Secrets of the Eastern Shore talks about the Prohibition Era

Secrets co-founder Jim Duffy recently went on WBOC-TV’s Good Day Delmarva to tell stories about the era of Prohibition on the Delmarva Peninsula. The 100th anniversary of Prohibition taking effect landed on Jan. 17, 1920. Have you heard the one about the guy in Wachapreague who set up a secret compartment under his kitchen floorboards so that booze would pour out of one of his…
January 16, 2020
Harriet Tubman Escape Anniversary
“Underground Railroad Journeys” Talk in St. Michaels, Md. on Monday, Feb. 3 The Newsroom

“Underground Railroad Journeys” Talk in St. Michaels, Md. on Monday, Feb. 3

Author and storyteller Jim Duffy of Secrets of the Eastern Shore will tell true-life tales about “Underground Railroad Journeys on Delmarva” in a presentation and discussion at the St. Michaels (Md.) Public Library on Monday, Feb. 3. The presentation is based on Duffy’s book, Tubman Travels: 32 Underground Railroad Journeys on Delmarva. Part of the Lunch & Learn series, the event begins at noon in the…
December 29, 2019
Steamboats on the Choptank
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Steamboats, Steers, & Slapstick on the Choptank River MiscellanyQuote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Steamboats, Steers, & Slapstick on the Choptank River

A couple of months back I had a great time reading Trappe: The Story of an Old-Fashioned Town by the historian Dickson Preston. Trappe is in Talbot County, Md., across the Choptank River from Cambridge. Preston spends some pages in there discussing the steamboats that used to ride up and down the Choptank, including the Avalon and the Joppa. The section at hand here begins…
November 21, 2019
Book Signing in Dowtown Easton during the Waterfowl Festival on Sat., Nov. 9 The Newsroom

Book Signing in Dowtown Easton during the Waterfowl Festival on Sat., Nov. 9

Click the image to check out the book! Writer Jim Duffy of Secrets of the Eastern Shore will be in Easton, Md. for a book signing event on the afternoon of Sat., Nov. 9 at Vintage Books & Fine Art. The signing happens in the midst of the big annual Waterfowl Festival, a celebration of the arts and heritage of the Chesapeake Bay area that…
October 27, 2019
Eastern Shore Road Trips 2 Stores
Book Signing at Vintage Books in Easton, Md. on Fri., Oct. 4 The Newsroom

Book Signing at Vintage Books in Easton, Md. on Fri., Oct. 4

Writer Jim Duffy of Secrets of the Eastern Shore will be in Easton for a book-signing event on the evening of Oct. 4, 2019 as Vintage Books & Fine Art joins once again in the monthly First Friday Gallery Walk festivities featuring an array of exhibit openings and meet-the-artist receptions in the downtown area. Duffy is the author of a brand-new book, Eastern Shore Road…
September 27, 2019
Tilghman Packing Company on Tilghman Island
ROAD TRIPS 2 EXCERPT: Boom Times on Tilghman Island From the BooksRoad Trips

ROAD TRIPS 2 EXCERPT: Boom Times on Tilghman Island

This is an excerpt from Eastern Shore Road Trips #2: 26 MORE One-Day Adventures on Delmarva: During those boom times, oyster shells were discarded off of Tilghman Island in such volume that they soon congealed into an island that would grow large enough to house a store, a post office, and, eventually, the storied Tilghman Packing Company. You can catch of glimpse of that island…
May 23, 2019
Oxford Bellevue Ferry on the Eastern Shore of Maryland
ROAD TRIPS 2 EXCERPT: ‘Notoriously Scandalous’ at the Oxford-Bellevue Ferry From the BooksRoad Trips

ROAD TRIPS 2 EXCERPT: ‘Notoriously Scandalous’ at the Oxford-Bellevue Ferry

One of the adventures in my book, Eastern Shore Road Trips 2: 26 MORE One-Day Adventures on Delmarva is the "Five Ferries Tour," which will have you (and your car) making five different river and bay crossings aboard history-laden routes. The excerpt below covers one of those crossings, at the Tred Avon River in Talbot County, Md. Not one of the five ferries here is…
April 18, 2019
Emancipation in Oxford: Joining the United States Colored Troops Tubman TravelsWay Back Machine

Emancipation in Oxford: Joining the United States Colored Troops

In this excerpt from the book Tubman Travels: 32 Underground Railroad Journeys on Delmarva, a visit to Oxford, Maryland puts travelers in touch with stories about the slave trade there and the way some men found a way to freedom for them and their families by signing on to serve in the United States Colored Troops. The little town of Oxford, Maryland on the Tred…
April 13, 2019