edge of the people, places and events described here are invited ~ nay, you are urged ~ to contribute corrections and additions to this project. So, here follows the opening portion of the Revised 2020 Edition of Tilghman‘s Island: An Exploration. If all goes well, we should have a completed manuscript with which we can go to press ~ before next Christmas. ~ GDC Fairbank Tilghman’s Island INTRODUCTION In the middle of the vast Chesapeake Bay lies a small island. Less than three miles long and a mile wide, forming the period at the end of the Bay Hundred peninsula, the island stands sentinel at the mouth of the Great Choptank River, four miles across from Cooke’s Point on the Dorchester shore. One tends to come upon t his island by chance. Driv ing dow n from the city to explore the Eastern Shore, people cross an odd little bridge and soon simply run out of road. It is hard to escape the feeling of being at Land’s End, of having stumbled upon a curious lost world. But this is not the case, as this isle was “found” a very long time ago. A r tifacts found on its shores demonstrate human presence for more than 100 centuries. The island has been continuously occupied by immigrants from the Old World for more than 350 years. For half of that period, it served as a plantation for a succession of owners. Beginning in 1843, the island was broken into parcels of land, and the new owners founded a thriving community.
The names of many of those first settlers remain on the island today. The islanders remain a close-knit, proud and hard-working community, many still striving to wrest a living from the Bay. T he e a rly Eu r op e a n s e t t ler s called it Choptank Island, or Great Choptank Island, after the river. It now carries the unusual and historic name of Tilghman. Many interesting people comprise its history. And the story begins a long time ago.... PRE-HISTORY: THE PALEO-INDIANS Before there was a Tilghman’s Island, even before there was a Chesapeake Bay, Native Americans were in the Delmarva area.
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