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Quote Harvest Liquors in Trappe, Maryland FEATURED IMAGE
MiscellanyQuote of the DayWay Back Machine

Harvest Time in the 1850s: The Key to Success Was … wait … Whiskey on the Job?

The Delmarva Peninsula "Quote of the Day" is a regular feature around here. What I do is share funny, enlightening, or otherwise interesting tidbits that I come across while reading up on the history and culture of our communities. This one comes from the 1976 book Trappe: The Story of an Old-Fashioned Town by Dickson Preston. Trappe is located just up from the Choptank River…
Liars Building in Trappe, Maryland
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…
Steamboats on the Choptank
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…
Cannery Poem from Defender Plant in Trappe, Maryland
Quote of the DayWay Back Machine

QUOTE OF THE DAY: In an Old Tomato Cannery, “the Satisfication of All Our Work Done Right”

One winter day a few years back I drove out to St. Michaels, Md. to hear a presentation at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum by a panel of local folks whose families were involved in various old canneries that used to be so central to the economy in the mid-Shore region--and all around the Delmarva Peninsula. One of the presenters passed around a copy of…
September 16, 2018
Moses Viney in Talbot County, Maryland
Tubman Travels

TUBMAN TRAVELS: How the Other ‘Moses’ Kept the Dogs of Slavery at Bay

The story of Moses Viney that follows is excerpted from Tubman Travels: 32 Underground Railroad Journeys on Delmarva, a book by Secrets of the Eastern Shore that tells stories of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, and many other men and women whose journeys in slavery and out of bondage went through the Eastern Shore and Delaware. Moses Viney had a pretty fun go of it for…
1914 Nace's Day Parade in Trappe on Maryland's Eastern Shore
CharactersWay Back Machine

Uncle Nace’s Day: An Eastern Shore Tradition Since 1867

There are a couple of different places along Route 50 between Easton and Cambridge to stop and consider the fascinating life of Nathaniel “Nace” Hopkins, a native son of the Eastern Shore whose journey began in slavery and included stints in jail and the Union Army before he launched one of the oldest and sweetest civic traditions on the Delmarva Peninsula—Uncle Nace’s Day. Highlighted by…
Philadelphia Athletics on field at Shibe Park, 1911 World Series, Home Run Baker is second from left
Road Trips

America’s Pastime on the Eastern Shore: A tour chock full of baseball greatness

NOTES: This is a free excerpt from my book, Eastern Shore Road Trips #2: 26 More One-Day Adventures on Delmarva. Enjoy! More info on the book here. JIMMIE FOX OF SUDLERVILLE Itty bitty Sudlersville is the first of four stops in this tour of the Shore’s rich baseball history. Located off of Route 301 as it heads up from Queenstown toward Delaware, this town with…