June 2025 Tidewater Times Web Magazine

Tidewater Times June 2025

Just

Updated to Perfection

Six States in Nine Days (Part 2): Bonna L.

Spurry's Tire and Service Center: Tracey F. Johns

All Quiet on the Sound (chapter 22): B. P. Gallagher

Tidewater Gardening K. Marc Teffeau

The Berlin Diaries

Tripping to Yesteryear: A.M. Foley

Tidewater Kitchen: Pamela Meredith

More Patty Cannon Discoveries: James Dawson

Fabric of History

About the Cover Photographer Donna Tolbert Anderson

Donna Tolbert Anderson is an outdoor enthusiast and a passionate photographer of the natural world. Sharing with others what she captures with her camera has always been important to her. Through her photography, she shows the beauty of wildlife throughout the seasons, with the majority of her imagery coming from the Mid-Atlantic region. Off the beaten track photography trips to Alaska and Churchill, Manitoba infuse more “wild” images into her body of work. Spending time in the natural world as a spectator and photographer provides a relaxing

escape from today’s hectic world. Her work has been published in various local magazines; she has exhibited at the Waterfowl Festival, and was juried into an exhibit at the Academy Art Museum. She has worked with non-profits, providing stock images used in their publications. Donna has been a Saturday vendor for over 18 years at the Easton Farmers Market, offering canvases, metal prints, and fi ne art prints of her work. In addition, her artwork can be purchased directly from her website, www.whiteegretstudio.com.

Old Friends and Margaritas

by Helen Chappell

“How did we get so old?” my best friend asked me over margaritas. Thirty years ago, this place used to be the Cambridge Diner, a home cooking place that served muskrat in season and homemade desserts all year around. In true Shore tradition there were two toilets in the ladies’ room with no partition. When it was payday at what was then the Daily Banner, a bunch of us used to eat lunch here. Shirley, Arline, Cheryl and Anne all clustered in a booth and complained, as a newsroom will, about, well,

everything. We worked at the Daily Blunder and we discussed ways we could kill off an incompetent editor so no one could blame us.

[Editor’s Note: I get a little worried when I read things like this....]

And here I was, so many years later, eating in the same place. As I had deteriorated with time, the Cambridge Diner had vastly improved. Under new management, the place had been upgraded in every way, including a full bar where Karen and I could order

Old Friends and Margaritas still had an “R” you can bet that’s what I ordered.

margaritas from a handsome barista. Fried oysters were still on the menu, and since the month

As soon as our cocktails arrived, and our orders were taken, the organ recitals could begin. We started off with Karen’s knees and on to my back and the hoedown was in progress as we dissected each ache and complaint and remedy and cure.

In short, what had once been two relatively young and spicy chicks had turned into Hecates listing their physical problems as if we were playing instruments. It suddenly hit me that I have turned into one of those old ladies who complain about their aches and pains to anyone who will listen.

Well, actually, none of my

Old Friends and Margaritas

friends are currently that bad. But back in my spicy days, I had lots of older friends who could and would complain about their aches and pains with great enthusiasm. You could get on the phone with one of them, exchange some news and pleasantries and then it would start, the organ recital. My liver, my heart, my lady parts, my bowels (oh, they did love their bowel stories!), my arthritis, my rheumatism, my fibromyalgia and whatever else. In short, a recital of every crisis in every ageing body. An organ recital. I would listen patiently, make little coos of sympatry and think

I’ll never do this when I get that age -- And yet, here I am not only whining, but committing it to print for all the world to read. I’m so ashamed, but once the or-

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Old Friends and Margaritas

gan recital impulse strikes, you’re helpless in its claws.

Actually, this isn’t really about my physical aches and pains and miseries. It’s about my annual parade of medical checkups. At the beginning of every year, I have an overgrowing list of doctor’s appointments. I won’t bore you with the details because it’s all so tedious and I’m sure you have your list (and if you don’t now, you will, believe me). I guess my first beef is the way appointments cut into my day. Can’t get my morning work done because I’ve got to dress neatly and drive somewhere around Easton or Cambridge, poor me.

And the paperwork! You have to show your papers at every office as if you’re going from West Berlin into East Berlin and fill out forms. Endless forms. Now, one of

my doctors, whom I will not name, told me health insurance has a patient visit timed to fifteen minutes, and theoretically when that’s up, you’re out in the parking lot in your underwear with a prescription page in hand. And hopefully a diagnosis.

If it weren’t for the fact that I like my doctors and have a lot of respect for taking good care of me, I’d be a more miserable mess than I already him And I’m grateful for kind and patient people, from the CNAs to the office staff for their kindness and patience. I know it’s not easy to deal with cranky old people and I swear I’m trying not to give out organ recitals, but if you catch me doing it, please stop me!

Helen Chappell is the creator of the Sam and Hollis mystery series and the Oysterback stories, as well as The Chesapeake Book of the Dead . Under her pen names, Rebecca Baldwin and Caroline Brooks, she has published a number of historical novels.

How to See Six States in Nine Days

Missouri/Kansas, Days 4 to 5

by Bonna L. Nelson

After an exciting three days enjoying the culture, sights and cuisine in areas of Nebraska and Iowa, we drove farther south, zigzagging through states in the “Heartland of America.” Our destination was the Kansas City-Independence area of Missouri (MO) and Kansas City, Kansas (KS). We passed rolling hills and flat corn fields sharing spaces with verdant grasslands and vibrant forests in Iowa and Missouri along the Interstate 29 Highway parallel to the Missouri River.

Our 24th state, Missouri, has a population of over six million people. According to numerous sources, the state name is from the Missouria Native American tribe, also known as “the people of the big canoe.” French explorers adapted the name of the tribe, which later became the name for the river and state.

Missouri has also been called “Mother of the Midwest” and is a major agricultural state, also known as a center for beer brewing. The capital is Jefferson City. The Missouri River runs through the center of the state into the Mississippi River. The beautiful woodlands and

waterlands of the Ozark Mountains in the southern part of the state are a popular tourist destination through which we drove on our way to Oklahoma and Arkansas.

We settled in at Stoney Creek Hotel in Kansas City, MO, in a lovely setting on a lake with a walking path encircling it. Nearby, we spotted outlet stores including husband John’s favorite, Bass Pro. We were hungry for some barbecue.

We drove over the Lewis and Clarke Viaduct spanning the Kansas River and connecting Kansas City, MO to Kansas City, Kansas. An eth-

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Six States - Nine Days

nic and culturally diverse city fi lled with cultural and recreational opportunities, Kansas City, KS is world famous for its barbeque.

Kansas and the Kansas River are named for the Native American Kansa, or “south wind” people. The capital of the 34th state is Topeka, and the state’s population is almost three million. The state’s nicknames are both the “Sunflower State” and the “Wheat State.” It is also sometimes called the “Breadbasket of the World” because it is one of the largest wheat-producing states in the U.S. Additionally, Smith County, Kansas, is the absolute geographic center of the contiguous United States.

Slaps’ BBQ held onto Kansas City, KS’s international reputation for scrumptious BBQ. A two-story brick structure on a hill seated guests on the roof at old-fashioned picnic tables with benches under canopies and views of the city skyline. Smoking and grilling meats, ordering food as well as more seating options were located on the fi rst floor.

Six States - Nine Days

John is a meat guy. He salivated over barbequed ribs and brisket. I chose the “NO COW” platter, no kidding, including pulled smoked turkey, chicken, and cheddar sausage. We had our choice of multiple tangy

or sweet BBQ sauces to smother our entrees. And we savored our sides, including baked beans, collard greens, coleslaw, hush puppies and mac and cheese. Washed down with cold beers, we were in BBQ heaven. We squeezed ourselves into the car, having overeaten, for the drive back to the hotel in Kansas City, MO. We passed the impressive world champion Kansas City Chiefs football team stadium, GEHA Field at Arrowhead, on the drive back. It has

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Six States - Nine Days

a seating capacity of 76,416. GEHA stands for Government Employees Health Association, a non-profit organization. The stadium hosts other sporting events and music events.

But even more impressive to me was when we drove by the internationally exclusive CPKC Stadium, in Kansas City, MO, home to the KC Current women’s soccer team. It is the fi rst stadium in the world purpose built for a professional women’s sport team. The seven-acre property includes the 11,500-seat stadium. Brittany Mahomes, wife of Patrick Mahomes, the Chiefs’ quarterback, is a co-owner of CPKC and the KC Current and Patrick also became a co-

owner after Brittany. CPKC stands for Canadian Pacific Kansas City, two historic railways, the fi rst to connect Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

Day four of our six-state tour found us on a travel fi rst for us—a Presidential Library tour.

I hope to be remembered as the people’s President.

Harry S. Truman

33rd U.S. President, 1945-1953

We were warmly greeted by tour guides in the lobby of the Harry S. Truman Library & Museum in Independence, MO. During the tour we viewed a replica of the White House Oval Office from Truman’s tenure, important presidential and personal

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Six States - Nine Days

artifacts, art, photographs, dioramas, documents, murals and videos. We were reminded that he assumed the presidency from the position of vice president when President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office.

The amazing exhibits in the library helped us to remember that Harry S. Truman is best known for taking America from its traditional

isolationism into an age of international involvement. He is recognized for his accomplished leadership during the final years of World War II, including for the impactful decision to use atomic bombs in Japan, for initiating the Cold War and for containing communism.

He implemented the Truman Doctrine/Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after the war and along with other countries established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). On the domestic front, he expanded the New Deal and Social Security, raised the minimum wage, took steps to desegregate the military and advocated for civil rights. He famously said, “Do your best, history will take care of the rest.”

The center of the library courtyard is the final resting place for the accomplished and well-respect-

Six States - Nine Days

ed president along with his wife, daughter and son-in-law. Nearby is a perpetual flame called “Flame of Freedom.” We sat on a bench in the courtyard to process what we observed and to commemorate the late president.

Visitors’ favorite artifacts include Truman’s WWI uniform, daughter Margaret Truman’s baby carriage and a press release announcing U.S. recognition of the State of Israel. My favorite artifact was the photograph of his wife, Bess, which she gave him before he left to serve in WWI. He carried that with him throughout the war.

The highlight of the trip for me,

Elizabeth Kelly CID, NCIDQ sanctuaryinteriorsllc.com 443-786-1766 Easton, MD

don’t laugh, was our visit to the Hallmark Headquarters and Visitor Center. With all that is going on in the world, Hallmark movies are my go-to respite. They always have a happy conclusion. Yes, the plots are

Six States - Nine Days

mostly predictable, but I love that. I can even work while watching or watch in the middle of a movie and still pick up the story line. It’s a beautiful thing.

In the sweeping Crown Center complex in downtown Kansas City, MO, the Hallmark Headquarters and Visitor Center represents a revitalization of the city. The complex includes businesses, a mall, shops, garages, restaurants, hotels, parks and green spaces all planned, designed and built by the Hall Brothers, Inc., now known as the Hallmark brand. They were known first for their greeting cards, then gifts, ornaments, wrapping paper, ribbon, stores then movies.

A film in the Visitors Center presented the history of the amazing enterprise, still run by the family (since 1910) responsible for the greeting cards that bring so much joy. Exhibits included decorated Christmas trees, Hallmark tree ornaments, gifts, and cards, dioramas, wrapping paper and a ribbon exhibit

with a gadget for visitors to make ribbon bows.

Hallmark movies played on a television screen in a little alcove with a sofa decorated with Hallmark toss pillows which unfortunately were out of stock in the gift shop. However, I found a Hallmark pillow online when we returned home. My red Hallmark pillow, a souvenir of the visit, is my hugging pillow for watching Hallmark movies!

Kids love the nearby Rabbit hOle bookstore (not part of the Hallmark Crown Center complex), a children’s literature museum where storybooks come to life. I read about it in a Time magazine article titled The World’s Greatest, August 2024 issue, describing sites not to be missed around the world. The article described the bookstore thus: “Like Alice in Wonderland, visitors go down the rabbit hole (literally, through winding tunnels) into the

Six States - Nine Days

worlds of classic and contemporary storybooks and meet life-size characters.”

We just had to see it for ourselves. The immersive children’s museum is housed in a century-old warehouse, renovated by local architects and artists with tunnels and rooms decorated to represent children’s favorite books such as Amelia Bedelia and

Curious George. The museum spans three floors with an immersive, multi-sensory, narrative landscape filled with exciting environments and exhibits.

We arrived too late to take the hour-long tour through the Rabbit hOle tunnels and rooms, but we explored the intriguing tunnel entrance. We had a drink and snack at the colorfully decorated in-house café and browsed the bookstore/gift shop. The museum also includes a reading room and a story lab where kids learn to write their own stories. They offer workshops, field trips and in-person author events for the surrounding community. An utterly unique, first-of-its-kind literature museum.

At dinner on Lotowana Lake at Marina 27 Steak and Seafood restaurant, 35 miles from downtown Kansas City, we watched the sunset in Missouri. Our pasta dinners with salad and freshly made rolls were scrumptious. We lingered over dessert while listening to music on our last night in the state.

On our last morning in Missouri,

Six States - Nine Days

we walked the circular path around the lake at Stoney Creek Inn. We observed several families fishing from banks and piers, herons and gulls soaring and diving in competition for the lake fi sh. We needed the walk to balance sitting in the car on the next leg of our journey. But before we left, John wanted to peruse

the Bass Pro store, where he found the perfect pair of boots for his fall prairie bird hunting. We each had a wish fulfi lled, for me, Hallmark, for John, Bass Pro.

We left Missouri to continue zigzagging along state borders through the Heartlands of America on a halfday, 205-mile drive to Oklahoma. We experienced grand adventures visiting four states, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas in five days. We had five days left to explore select areas close to the borders of Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Bonna L. Nelson is a Bay-area writer, columnist, photographer and world traveler. She resides in Easton with her husband, John.

Tidewater Times July 2025 Cover Painting Contest

Rules and Plein Air Criteria:

◆ Plein Air Painting must pertain to the Mid-Shore

◆ Portrait/Vertical Orientation

◆ Room at the top for the Name and Date (Tidewater Times · July 2025)

◆ Deadline for Submission is June 5th to info@tidewatertimes with high res photo of your painting and “Cover Contest” in the subject line.

Trappe Vfd Country Carnival

July 31, Aug, 1 & 2

(Parade - Saturday Aug. 2 at 5 p.m.)

Live Music · Games Hay Rides Silent Auction Great Food and Fire Trucks, of course!

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JUNE 2025

30. Mon. AM AM PM PM 9:19 10:20 11:2112:09 12:55 1:41 2:28 3:16 4:04 4:51

SHARP’S IS. LIGHT: 46 minutes before Oxford

TILGHMAN: Dogwood Harbor same as Oxford

EASTON POINT: 5 minutes after Oxford

CAMBRIDGE: 10 minutes after Oxford

CLAIBORNE: 25 minutes after Oxford

ST. MICHAELS MILES R.: 47 min. after Oxford

WYE LANDING: 1 hr. after Oxford

ANNAPOLIS: 1 hr., 29 min. after Oxford

KENT NARROWS: 1 hr., 29 min. after Oxford

CENTREVILLE LANDING: 2 hrs. after Oxford

CHESTERTOWN: 3 hrs., 44 min. after Oxford

3 month tides at www.tidewatertimes.com 8:48 9:42 10:34 11:23 12:20 1:15 2:03 2:45 3:23 3:57 4:31 5:05 5:43 6:23 7:07 7:53 8:41 9:31 10:22 11:17 12:29 1:26 2:21 3:15 4:08 5:00 5:51 6:41 7:29 8:14

Spurry’s Tire Service

Integrity and Friendly Service

by Tracey F. Johns

There’s no flashy sales pitch or corporate jingle at Spurry’s Tire Service in Easton. Instead, there’s something rarer: unwavering honesty, old-fashioned hustle, and a steadfast commitment to treating people right.

“We’re not in the tire business— we’re in the people business,” says Brent Spurry Jr., who now runs the shop founded by his uncle and late father in 1980. “Our work is important, but the relationships matter most.”

Spurry’s Tire Service has built a loyal following over its 44 years in business, with five-star reviews flooding Facebook and Google. Customers routinely share stories of last-minute fixes, unexpected

Spurry's

savings, and the sense that they’ve been truly cared for.

That culture was set in motion by Spurry’s Tire President Mike Spurry and Brent Spurry Sr., who served as Vice President and passed away in 2020. Mike and Brent were brothers who grew up in St. Michaels and left their jobs at Tire Engineering in Easton in the late 1970s with a simple belief—they could do it better.

Armed with grit and a couple of service trucks they bought in Missouri, the brothers launched their own business and quickly earned the trust of commercial clients up and down the East Coast.

“They had the hustle,” Brent Jr. says. “And they were men of their word. That’s what kept people coming back.”

Now, Mike regularly comes into the shop to check on things while Brent Jr. and today’s team run the show. In honor of Brent’s dad, you’ll find a comfortable bench to sit on right outside of the pristine waiting room, carved with his name on it and facing the southerly sun.

“The bench recognizes a man

Spurry's

who barely had a high school education and zero college experience, yet could literally write the book on customer service,” says Spurry. “Ironically, Dad never sat down, but he’d be happy that we have this bench for others to sit on and relax while we fix things.”

Building Trust One Job at a Time

From its earliest days servicing tractor-trailers and farm equipment, the shop has expanded into a full-service garage offering tires, brakes, alignments, oil changes, Maryland state inspections, and engine repairs. Walk-ins are always welcome.

“We’re one of the only shops in town that says, ‘No appointment? No problem,” Spurry says. “If it’s a brake squeal, a vibration, a dashboard light—just come in. Let’s get it fixed.”

It’s a model that prioritizes urgency without sacrificing quality. The shop fields a three-truck fleet for roadside commercial calls and employs 16 team members, including mechanics with more than a decade of experience.

“When you do your estimate, you stick to it,” Spurry says. “Nobody likes surprises. But if we find something else that isn’t working right during the job, we communicate. That’s where trust comes in.”

A Culture of Character

Spurry credits much of the shop’s success to his late father, who taught him never to take shortcuts and always to tell the truth—even when it’s hard.

“I remember being a kid, and a customer asked if I had checked the brakes,” he recalls. “I said yes—even though I hadn’t—and immediately felt sick about it. That stuck with me.

Spurry's

If you don’t know something, say you don’t. And then go find the answer.”

It’s this kind of integrity that has shaped a workplace culture focused

on doing what’s right. New employees are trained not just in skills, but in service philosophy.

“Know the customer’s name within five seconds. Look them in the eye. Be grateful,” Spurry says. “We feel that every interaction is important in ensuring customers that they are in good hands.”

Loyalty That Lasts

Spurry says many people on his team have been with the shop for years. He says their longevity is rewarded with competitive pay, complete healthcare, matched retirement plans and paid vacation. Some came in with no experience at all—just drive and integrity.

“Sometimes that’s better,” Spur-

ry says. “That way we can teach them the right way from the start.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, while other shops reduced hours or let workers go, Spurry’s took a leap to continue stocking 90% of on-the-road tire sizes and parts. It was a huge risk that paid off.

“Farmers didn’t stop. Trucks didn’t stop. People still needed tires,” Spurry says. “We kept our doors open and made sure everyone here kept getting a paycheck.”

Now, they continue to stock more tire sizes than any retailer within 100 miles of Easton.

The Human Element

Spurry’s Tire Service is known for its efficiency and empathy. Customers regularly share how the

team eased their anxiety on bad days with calm reassurance.

“Every day, I see tears,” Spurry says. “Sometimes it’s the car. Sometimes it’s life. But you slow down, listen, and treat people like people. That’s what this business is really about.”

He knows the feeling all too well. Seven years ago, Spurry was diagnosed with a rare protein disorder that led to kidney failure. He spent nine months on dialysis before receiving a transplant—his wife, Claire, an Easton Elementary teacher, was the donor.

“That experience changed me,” he says. “It made me more patient, more grounded. And it reminded me how fragile life is. Everyone has something they’re carrying.”

Giving Back, Quietly and Often

Community giving is second nature at Spurry’s. The shop supports every fire department in Talbot County, sponsors local sports teams, backs high school fundraisers and provides Christmas donations to families in need.

Spurry's

“If someone’s in a jam, we usually help,” Spurry says. “You just do it. My dad always did. My uncle still does. It’s part of who we are.”

Spurry’s also contributes to Chesapeake Voyagers, Talbot Hospice, Talbot Humane, Habitat for Humanity and more.

“There’s no big PR campaign around it,” he says. “Just helping when we can because it’s the right thing to do.”

From Easton to Everywhere

Spurry’s roots run deep in Talbot County—Brent Jr. grew up in Cordova, graduated from Easton High and earned his business degree before choosing to return home and help run the shop.

At first, he wasn’t sure it was the right move. Several of his college friends took corporate jobs in Philadelphia. But when the 2008 recession hit, many lost their homes. Spurry, meanwhile, found clarity— and pride—in the work.

“My dad was so excited when I

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, 21

Spurry's

came back. And now I get it,” he says. “People are driving longer. They need tires. They need honest service.”

That honesty is why Spurry’s Tire Service is tagged in nearly every online thread asking for a trusted mechanic in town.

“You don’t earn that by accident,” Spurry says. “You earn that one brake job, one oil change, one handshake at a time.”

The Road Ahead

With numerous new homes expected across Talbot County in the coming years, Spurry says the challenge will be managing growth without losing touch.

“We’re not opening a second lo -

cation,” he says. “We’d rather stay small and excellent.”

For now, he finds joy in interacting with people and the quiet moments between them. After long hours at the shop, he enjoys being home to unwind with his wife, dogs, a book and the peaceful sounds of nature.

“I love silence,” he says with a smile. “After a day of solving problems and helping people, that’s where I recharge.”

Still, it’s clear that service is key to everything he does. And if you ever need a tire, a tune-up or just some plain honesty, you’ll find them all at Spurry’s.

When you arrive, expect to be greeted with kindness and consideration as you enter the pristine waiting room, where you’ll be spo -

CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL 2025

Ebenezer Theater, Easton, Maryland presents

JUNE 6–14 REFLECTION AND CELEBRATION

This six-concert series features renowned artists and Rising Stars performing works from Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Farrenc to Brahms, Smetana, Fauré, Schoenberg and Widmann.

For further details, and to purchase tickets, please visit ChesapeakeMusic.org

Experience the Extraordinary

ken to by name and receive excellent care for your tires and vehicle. That’s just how they do things around here, and you can be sure of it by checking out their most recent review or going to spurrystire.com to learn more. Tracey Johns has worked in communications, marketing and business management for more than 30 years, including non-profit leadership. Tracey’s work is focused on public and constituent relations, along with communication strategies, positioning and brand development and project management.

All Quiet on the Sound A novel by

B. P. Gallagher

Chapter 22: Thaw

It was three days before the cold leached out of Earl’s bones and warmth returned in full. Throughout, driving rains persisted. The empty, sinking feeling of hopelessness didn’t abate, not completely. He admitted to no one how close he’d come to letting go.

During his days abed, the Moore Island causeway was rendered impassable by the ceaseless rainfall. At times the water inundated the Higginses’ yard, swamping Dou-

gal’s doghouse and forcing Maggie to keep the pup inside all hours. Clara Gibbs had shacked up with them as well the last couple nights rather than wade next door after meals, at which she’d become a regular guest. She slept doubled up in Maggie’s bed, although Earl suspected (but didn’t care to know for certain) she spent some time upstairs in Leon’s room too. None of his business—unless Leon took to whispering family secrets between the sheets, of course. At any rate, Earl didn’t feel comfortable raising

the issue with his brother outright.

The silt and sand of Moore Island softened before the arrival of spring. Now that the last snows of the expiring winter had petered out, the island transformed into a spongy marshland. This time of year, the precipitation paused only long enough to change clothes. Snow turned to sleet, sleet to rain, and the rain malingered like an unpleasant smell. A loamy, wormy smell, the dank perfume of fool’s spring.

Unfortunately, the foul weather didn’t deter Tyler Calhoun. The deputy’s surveillance of the Higginses not only renewed with the resumption of regular tides, but redoubled. Earl couldn’t figure how the man hadn’t been removed from his detail for dereliction of other duties. The troubling conclusion to this line of thought, of course, was that Deputy Calhoun’s constant spying was sanctioned by the sheriff himself. At some point, the storm must make landfall. The Higginses could only brace themselves.

Notwithstanding the oppressive atmosphere, Leon seemed to be entering a high tide, or at least coming out of his low one. As the days lightened, he shed his winter funk scale by scale. His recent headway with Clara was doubtless partly responsible for the sea change. Earl envied his brother the distraction, though

he hoped Leon’s incongruous good humor didn’t veer into carelessness. It would be all too like Leon to lose interest in the pending investigation, if it stayed pending too long. And if Deputy Calhoun was wily as he seemed, he might be biding his time counting on just that.

One Sunday morning in March, after an evening of hellacious winds and rain, someone pounded on the front, then the back, then the front door again. Earl feared the hammer had fallen in the night. He went resignedly to the door, steeling himself to face Tyler Calhoun, ready, perhaps, to be dragged away in chains. To his surprise, he found Dave Howell on the stoop, looking winded.

“Good lord, Dave, we heard you the first time! Hell’s a matter?”

“Sorry! I was afraid you mightn’t with the house all shuttered up.”

“Well we did, you mad bastard!” Leon trotted downstairs. “Scared me half to death.”

“Sorry, really! I’m just shook up,” said Dave. “You will be too, once you see. Better come quick.”

“Is that Dave Howell I hear making all that racket?” Maggie appeared in the hall scrubbing sleep from her eyes. At the top of the stairs, Clara peeked meekly from behind Leon’s bedroom door. She wore only her nightshift.

“Sorry, Maggie. Didn’t mean to startle you,” said Dave, sheepish. Eyes downcast not to scandalize

Clara, he added in a murmur, “The girls better stay put. It ain’t pretty.”

Donning rain jackets and oilskins—a glance told them galoshes wouldn’t cut it today—the brothers joined Dave on the porch.

“Shew! ” said Leon. “Hell’s that graveyard stink?”

Earl had the same question. A charnel-house reek hung in the air, a miasma palpable as morning mist.

The effects of the rainstorm were immediately evident. A discolored waterline decorated houses and tree trunks alike, up to a couple feet in places. Most homes were built on stilts to accommodate occasional flooding and had made out fine. But Dougal’s doghouse had been displaced by the swollen tide and come to rest in a crook of the picket fence that bordered the Higginses’ back yard. The yard and its neighbors were now a standing swamp, the island’s single-lane dirt road a muddy river. Both were dotted with what looked from a distance like logs or tangles of driftwood.

“You’ll see soon enough, I’m afraid.”

“C’mon Davey, don’t play coy! Is the fleet alright? Christ, tell me we didn’t lose no boats or nobody!”

“Nothin’ like that. Fleet’s fine, far as I know. And we didn’t lose nobody, least nobody weren’t already lost.”

Earl and Leon exchanged a stumped look, but slogged on after Dave, nonetheless. They, like the other Moore Islanders, were restless after the maelstrom night. Neighbors gathered in bleary-eyed gaggles on their porches or on the side of the road. Some waved; others glanced pointedly away as the Higginses passed. Many clutched handkerchiefs to their noses to ward off the odor.

The dead were restless, too.

At the first bend in the road they came across one of the mounds of timber Earl had noted earlier. Near enough to see that it wasn’t, in fact, a log, but some sort of wooden crate or chest. A closer inspection revealed the horrifying truth: the crumbling slats were what remained of a coffin, and within…

“Lord almighty,” said Leon. “Is that…”

“I don’t know who it is, and I don’t much care to right now,” said Dave. “It’s awful, ain’t it?”

“Awful. Just awful.”

“How many?” said Earl, voice muffled by the hand clamped over his nose. Up close, the scent of decay was overpowering. This rotten casket’s occupant was little more than a skeleton, too. He imagined a more recent burial would smell far, far worse. He wouldn’t need to rely on his imagination for long, it seemed.

“Hard to say. Most are clustered near the graveyard, like you’d ex-

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pect, but looks like there’s quite a few of ’em all over the island. Cemetery looks like it’s been hit by an artillery barrage—bones all stickin’ up outta the mud everywhere.”

“Lord…” Leon looked green around the gills.

“What’d I tell ya? Now you see why I told the young ladies to stay put.”

Earl wasn’t too keen on being reunited with dearly departed relatives either, not in this macabre way. At the wrought-iron gates to the cemetery he began to see the occasion for what it was: an infernal wake, an exhumation by the elements. Spat up by the earth itself, the dead of Moore Island walked.

Muddy bones lay entangled with driftwood among headstones toppled like teeth, festooned in places with grinning skulls. Desiccated and decomposing limbs waved from beyond the grave, in varying states of fleshly undress. Earl dared not answer the empty stares of those bulging sockets, the mudcaked greetings of cadavers. He would know some of them; they, in turn, would know him. Intimately.

There were children’s coffins among the rest. These, being lightest, had traveled furthest from their original resting places. Recovering them promised a ghastly day’s work. But someone needed to do it, or risk their relatives’ re -

mains being dashed into the Sound with the next rain, lost forever.

“I’ll get the wheelbarrow,” Earl said.

Moore Island skipped Sunday service that day, busy regathering their wandered flock. Whatever mistrust had been seeded on the Shore towards the Higginses, when it came to handling the disturbed remains of their relations, Earl and Leon were as welcome in the mud as anyone. Eventually the girls joined in too, as was their right. These were their relatives too, after all. It was a labor of love, however gruesome, and there was an undeniable camaraderie in it. Neighbor worked alongside neighbor and steered one another away when their efforts were better off spent elsewhere. Because some of the remains were recognizable, and no one should be forced to reconcile fond memories of their loved ones’ faces with these ruined countenances.

Tyler Calhoun appeared by boat around midday and circled Moore Island like an ill-begotten buzzard. Somebody else was aboard the draketail with him, though Earl couldn’t tell who from this distance. Another lawman, maybe, hoping to take Earl and Leon in summarily. Earl’s skin prickled whenever he heard the grumble of the draketail’s motor making another watchful pass. But out of tact or an aversion to the sights and

All

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smells of freshly disturbed graves, the deputy kept his distance.

“He don’t quit, does he?” Leon watched the boat’s distinctive profile out of the corner of his eye as the deputy made another pass. On her deck, one of the men had produced a pair of binoculars.

“Nope, don’t seem like it. I don’t know that he ever will, either.”

“What, so we’re supposed to live like this forever?”

Earl shrugged, hoping the watchers on the water couldn’t read despondency in his slumped shoulders. He postured up, trying to shrug off the weight of scrutiny. Wouldn’t budge. Something had to give soon. Hell, something had given: this seeping horror that summoned the sunken past to resurface. What other foul flowers might bloom this spring? But he couldn’t say any of that aloud.

“Could pick up and leave town, I guess.”

Leon scoffed. “And let him win?”

Win what? thought Earl, exhausted. We done the thing he’s after us for, ain’t we? Hateful as the man is, he’s a hound on the right scent. Either they run us out of town, or they figure out a way to corner us. Even the earth gives up its secrets eventually.

“We’ll make him quit, the bastard!” said Clara Gibbs. Earl started at the venom in her tone. De -

spite being surrounded by sloshing puddles, he hadn’t noticed her approach. “These Calhouns! ” She made the name a curse. “They’re nothing but bullies and brutes! Taking whatever they please, thinking they own everything and everybody around here, just ’cos there’s so damn many of them. I wish—I wish somebody’d kill more of them!”

She was close to shouting now, quaking with fury, hands balled into fists at her sides. People near enough to hear the aggravated tone—but not the words, Earl hoped—glanced their direction, looked tactfully away. It had been a fraught day for everybody, seeing their loved ones and ancestors churned up. Only natural to get a little churned up themselves. Still…

Earl eyed Clara, trying to discern a fit of pique from a genuine assertion of knowledge on the subject of Calhoun killing. Leon caught his eye, and a silent exchange passed between them.

What does she know? Earl asked with a look. His brother responded with a minute head-shake, the movement almost imperceptible but the message a resounding: Nothing.

“It’ll be fine, Clara, don’t worry,” said Leon, favoring her with a fawning look uncharacteristic on his rugged features. He took her hand.

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As their fingers intertwined, Earl imagined he could sense Tyler Calhoun zeroing in with his binoculars. It made him uneasy. Then again, unease was his resting state now; had been for some time. Maybe his nerves were running away with him. It was, after all, a fraught day. But Leon and Clara had been getting awfully close lately, and in plain sight. Would Tyler Calhoun harangue Maggie and Clara at the cannery now, like he did Earl and Leon at the marina? Earl was convinced the bank hauling her Pop Pop’s car away had been no coincidence. If that didn’t make Clara a target of the deputy’s investigation, she was the next worst thing. And maybe she didn’t know anything, but when it came to the question of what, exactly, the late Mr. Gibbs had known…

Earl’s line of thought was disrupted by Maggie splashing up to them, making no mystery at all of her approach. “That skulking son-of-a-bitch,” she said, leaving no question to whom she referred. “Hasn’t he got a shred of decorum, not to gawk while we re-bury our own?”

“I’d guess he considers us about even, since he suspects us of doing worse to one of his.” Maggie and Leon frowned at him. “I’m not sidin’ with him!” Earl said. “He’s a rotten bastard for the way he’s gone about

it, no doubt, and them Calhouns do have too much pull around here, Clara, you’re damn right. We all know it’s true. But if that man’s got half the devotion to his family we’ve got to ours—and I think he’s shown as much, by now—then I don’t think we can’t count on him giving up and going away. Ever.”

“They can’t keep holding meetings at the firehouse every week,” said Maggie. “Jonah said they’ve had fewer folks out each time lately, and that’s with the investigation supposedly picking up! They can’t just go on forever.”

“Maybe they can, the ones that count. We never forgot how that damn pastor drove Mom to misery, did we?”

“Never,” said Leon.

“No,” said Maggie with considerably less force. “I guess not.”

“Right. So.”

“Still! They’ve got to make a move sometime, haven’t they? Unless they’re scared to cos’ their case has no legs to stand on, in which case they won’t go on wasting resources forever.”

“They’ve got something, alright,” said Earl, thinking of Tyler Calhoun’s alleged witness. He glanced at Clara. “Think they do, at least. But all this waiting and watching worries me. It ain’t just idle spectatin’—something’s building over the horizon, I can feel it.”

“What’re we supposed to do?” said Leon. “Seems like the whole

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world’s conspiring against us.”

“You’ll weather it,” said Clara. She took both of Leon’s hands.

“We’ll weather it.”

I hope you mean that. Because whatever comes, you’re apt to be caught up in its path too.

Unless, of course, the storm could be headed off somehow. Risky business, trying to steer an ongoing investigation, but if it could be done… The merest push off course might spare them a lot of misery. Earl needed to make the fi rst move, and soon—if only he had more than the slightest inkling what that ought to be! But his inkling would have to serve. If he didn’t do some-

thing, they were all going to end up sunk. Far too much was already beyond his control, and if he didn’t get out in front of it, far worse would come to pass.

A horrifying thought had been eating at him all day, one which continued to consume him as the sun set: If the spring thaw could bring the buried dead of Moore Island to the surface, might the Blackwater too belch up its secrets?

Could Pastor Calhoun rise again, and spell all their doom?

Brendan Gallagher is a 2013 graduate of Easton High School and is currently finishing up a Ph.D. in Social-Personality Psychology at the University at Albany.

"Welcome to our Roadhouse Bar & Grill, where the open road meets mouthwatering flavors and good ol’ fashioned hospitality. In the heart of Preston, Caroline County, we are not just about great food; we’re about creating great memories" ~ Ian & Elinor Fleming Serving Lunch 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. ~ Mon through Sat inclusive Serving Dinner 4 p.m. - 8 p.m. ~ Tue through ur inclusive 4 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. ~ Fri and Sat 201 Main St., Preston, MD 667-342-4024 Reservations Recommended!

Caroline County – A Perspective

Caroline County is the very definition of a rural community. For more than 300 years, the county’s economy has been based on “market” agriculture.

Caroline County was created in 1773 from Dorchester and Queen Anne’s counties. The county was named for Lady Caroline Eden, the wife of Maryland’s last colonial governor, Robert Eden (1741-1784).

Denton, the county seat, was situated on a point between two ferry boat landings. Much of the business district in Denton was wiped out by the fire of 1863.

Following the Civil War, Denton’s location about fifty miles up the Choptank River from the Chesapeake Bay enabled it to become an important shipping point for agricultural products. Denton became a regular port-ofcall for Baltimore-based steamer lines in the latter half of the 19th century.

Preston was the site of three Underground Railroad stations during the 1840s and 1850s. One of those stations was operated by Harriet Tubman’s parents, Benjamin and Harriet Ross. When Tubman’s parents were exposed by a traitor, she smuggled them to safety in Wilmington, Delaware.

Linchester Mill, just east of Preston, can be traced back to 1681, and possibly as early as 1670. The mill is the last of 26 water-powered mills to operate in Caroline County and is currently being restored. The long-term goals include rebuilding the millpond, rehabilitating the mill equipment, restoring the miller’s dwelling, and opening the historic mill on a scheduled basis.

Federalsburg is located on Marshyhope Creek in the southern-most part of Caroline County. Agriculture is still a major portion of the industry in the area; however, Federalsburg is rapidly being discovered and there is a noticeable influx of people, expansion and development. Ridgely has found a niche as the “Strawberry Capital of the World.” The present streetscape, lined with stately Victorian homes, reflects the transient prosperity during the countywide canning boom (1895-1919). Hanover Foods, formerly an enterprise of Saulsbury Bros. Inc., for more than 100 years, is the last of more than 250 food processors that once operated in the Caroline County region.

Points of interest in Caroline County include the Museum of Rural Life in Denton, Adkins Arboretum near Ridgely, and the Mason-Dixon Crown Stone in Marydel. To contact the Caroline County Office of Tourism, call 410-479-0655 or visit their website at www.tourcaroline.com .

Easton

Map and History

The County Seat of Talbot County. Established around early religious settlements and a court of law, Historic Downtown Easton is today a centerpiece of fine specialty shops, business and cultural activities, unique restaurants, and architectural fascination. Treelined streets are graced with various period structures and remarkable homes, carefully preserved or restored. Because of its historical significance, historic Easton has earned distinction as the “Colonial Capitol of the Eastern Shore” and was honored as number eight in the book “The 100 Best Small Towns in America.” With a population of over 16,500, Easton offers the best of many worlds including access to large metropolitan areas like Baltimore, Annapolis, Washington, and Wilmington. For a walking tour and more history visit https:// tidewatertimes.com/travel-tourism/easton-maryland/.

Dorchester Map and History

Dorchester County is known as the Heart of the Chesapeake. It is rich in Chesapeake Bay history, folklore and tradition. With 1,700 miles of shoreline (more than any other Maryland county), marshlands, working boats, quaint waterfront towns and villages among fertile farm fields – much still exists of what is the authentic Eastern Shore landscape and traditional way of life along the Chesapeake.

For more information about Dorchester County visit https://tidewatertimes.com/travel-tourism/dorchester/.

TIDEWATER GARDENING

by K. Marc Teffeau, Ph.D.

June Gardening on the Shore

With the last frost well behind and summer heat setting in, our gardens are in full swing. The warm temperatures and longer daylight hours create ideal conditions for growing various plants. What to do in June? June is a maintenance-heavy month, and timely care ensures your garden

continues to thrive through the hot months ahead.

In the vegetable garden, June is a transition month. The early edible pod peas you planted in the garden should be ready for harvest along with greens like lettuce and spinach. If you have not done so already, it is time to plant warm-

Tidewater Gardening

season crops like peppers, tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, sweet corn and squash. Even though I spray with an organic repellent, I always have a problem with squash vine borer in the zucchini. To compensate for some damage, make additional squash plantings about 3 weeks apart through mid–July.

This planting schedule works well with the vegetable garden’s cole crops like broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. When you finish harvesting these plants and they start to bolt (flower), pull them out and replant them with zucchini, yellow-necked squash, or seed green snaps or bush beans.

Do successive plantings of green beans every two weeks until the middle of July. This will give you a continued harvest before the first frost. To enhance the growth of green beans, coat them with a pea and bean bacteria inoculant. Beans are legumes and can “fix” atmospheric nitrogen from the air if rhizobium bacteria are present in the bean roots. Using an inoculant of rhizobium bacteria will increase

Tidewater Gardening

yields, especially in soils where beans have not been grown before. Packages of bean and pea “inoculant” can usually be found where vegetable seeds are sold, or you can order it online from seed catalogs.

Proper watering practices in the vegetable garden are important. Water deeply in the early morning to reduce evaporation. Keep the water off the plant leaves to reduce the possibility of leaf diseases spreading. Use 2–3 inches of mulch around plants to conserve moisture and suppress weeds.

Remember that the time of day vegetables are harvested can affect their taste and texture. For sweetness, pick peas and corn late in the day. That’s when they contain the most sugar, especially if the day was cool and sunny. Other vegetables, such as lettuce and cucumbers, are crisper and tastier if you harvest them early in the morning before the day’s heat has a chance to wilt and shrivel them.

Yellow crookneck or straight

neck squash tastes best when 4 to 7 inches long. Pick when pale yellow (rather than golden) and before skin hardening. Scalloped (patty pan) squash is best when grayish or greenish white (before it turns ivory white) and is still small, even silver dollar size.

By June, many bedding plants at the garden centers look a little ragged. However, you can still get some good deals when the retailer is trying to clean up its inventory. Remember that when choosing bedding plants, look for wellproportioned plants with sturdy stems. Leaves should be rich and green.

Check for pests to see if foliage appears mottled or the edges of the leaves are curled. Try to buy packs with large, deep cells spaced far apart, which encourages a larger root system. Also, don’t forget to remove old flower heads from bedding plants to prolong the bloom period.

June roses are now in full bloom. A little attention given to your roses now can ensure an abundant supply of blooms through the summer. A recent study showed that a well-cared-for floribunda rose bush can produce over 250 blooms in its lifetime. Prune off old blossoms from grandifloras and hybrid teas to keep them flowering all summer. On ramblers and smallflowered roses, remove canes right after blooming. Prune rambling

Tidewater Gardening

Climbing roses don’t climb; they have long canes that require support. You’ll need to loosely tie the canes to trellises with broad strips of material. Do not use wire, as it can damage the cane. If you have

noticed odd flower formations on your rose bushes, they may be due to cold temperatures during bud formation. Buds so damaged do not open completely, giving rise to a lopsided flower. Also, as the temperatures and humidity rise, watch for and control black spot and powdery mildew on rose foliage.

Now is the time to divide spring

Custom Yearly Programs

Mosquito and Tick Control

Fertilizing

Weed Control

Insect Control

Organic Matter/Compost Topdressing MDA 31197 · MDA-F 0621

Disease and Fungal Control Soil Amendments Overseeding Aeration

Complete Lawn Renovations Grading and climbing roses immediately after blooming.

and early summer flowering perennials after the blooms fade. Instead of severing the clump in half, try jiggling the roots apart with two sharp spading forks. This takes more time, but damages fewer roots than cutting the clump apart. Remove the yellowing and drying foliage from spring bulbs. Most bulbs can be left in the ground for next season. Tulips benefit from being lifted from the soil and stored in a cool, dry location during the summer. Your spring bulb plantings will also benefit from a light top dressing of bone meal or 5-10-5 fertilizer after flowering. Set out bedding plants to cover the bare spots, using care not to disturb or damage the spring bulbs planted below.

Prune out the spent flowers of the spring-flowering perennials to maintain a vigorous plant and good flower production for next spring. This practice is also important for the annuals planted in the landscape to keep them flowering continuously. Disbud chrysanthemum flowers to secure large, beautiful blooms on straight, strong stems. To disbud, remove the small side buds that form in the angles of the leaves along the stems. This allows all food reserves to be used for one large flower rather than many smaller ones.

June is peak season for strawberries on the ’Shore. Harvest them frequently and remove overripe or rotting berries to prevent

Tidewater Gardening

disease. Net bushes to protect from birds. Mulch around berries to keep fruit clean and reduce fungal issues. After harvest, consider fertilizing and thinning strawberry plants to encourage healthy growth for next year.

Gardeners celebrate Pollinator

Week in June, a great time to support bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Planting native flowers and reducing pesticide use can help create a thriving pollinator population. Pollinator Week 2025 will take place June 16-22.

According to the Pollinator Partnership ( pollinator.org/pollinator-week), “Pollinator Week is an annual celebration in support of pollinator health that was initiated and is managed by Pollinator Partnership. It is a time to raise awareness for pollinators and spread the word about what we can do to protect them. The great thing about Pollinator Week is that you can celebrate and get involved any way you like! Popular events

include planting for pollinators, hosting garden tours, participating in online bee and butterfly ID workshops, and so much more.

“Pollinator Week 2025 is a cel-

LIZ’S Home Cleaning

ebration of the vital role that pollinators play in our ecosystems, economies and agriculture. Under the inspiring theme “Pollinator Weave Connections,” this year’s event urges us to appreciate the essential role pollinators play in creating and expressing human culture, in all of its forms. These essential creatures, including bees, butterflies, moths, bats, beetles and hummingbirds, are the unsung heroes behind the food we enjoy and the beauty that surrounds us.”

Check with your county Extension Master Gardener group to see if they have any Pollinator Week activities you can support.

Happy Gardening!

Marc Teffeau retired as Director of Research and Regulatory Affairs at the American Nursery and Landscape Association in Washington, D.C. He now lives in Georgia with his wife, Linda.

The Berlin Diaries Playwright to Speak at Temple B’nai Israel

Temple B’nai Israel—the Satell Center for Jewish life on the Eastern Shore—is proud to present a conversation with internationally produced playwright Andrea Stolowitz and her play: The Berlin Diaries.

Stolowitz is a three-time winner of the Oregon Book Award in drama. The L.A. Times calls her work “heartbreaking,” and the Orange County Register characterizes her approach as a “brave refusal to sugarcoat issues and tough decisions.” She is a member of New Dramatists class of 2026 and a Lacroute Playwright in Residence at the Oregon Jewish Museum Center for Holocaust Education.

Stolowitz’s great-grandfather kept a diary after escaping to New York City in 1939 as a German Jew. She goes back to Berlin to bring the story of her previously unknown ancestors to light. The record keeps as many secrets as it shares: How do people become verschollen, lost, like library books, leaving only the dusty outline? How do you fi nd a home when a family history is scattered like the torn pages of a journal entry released to the wind? How do you remember the past without transmitting the trauma to the next generations? It’s a story that reso-

nates with all who yearn to fi nd out about their origins, ancestors and their history.

Learn what inspired her to write the play, her actual playwriting process and all about The Berlin Diaries at the Temple’s program on June 3, and then join us when we head down to Washington, D.C. on June 18 to enjoy the Theater J matinee production of The Berlin Diaries.

Andrea’s play The Berlin Diaries was a recipient of the NYFA/NYC Mayor’s Office Award for Women in Theater, Film and TV. The Berlin Diaries was produced in five cities during 2024-25 season, with a fi nal production in Washington, D.C. at Theater J in June, 2025

The program takes place Tuesday, June 3 at 7 p.m., at the Temple, 7199 Tristan Drive, Easton, with a reception to follow. Admission is free. Please register at: BnaiIsraelEaston.org/event/Stolowitz.

Tickets for the June 18 excursion and Theater J performance are limited. For details, registration, and more information go to: BnaiIsraelEaston.org/event/berlin_diaries_fi eld_trip or call the Temple at 410-822-0553.

St. Michaels Map and History

On the broad Miles River, with its picturesque tree-lined streets and beautiful harbor, St. Michaels has been a haven for boats plying the Chesapeake and its inlets since the earliest days. Here, some of the handsomest models of the Bay craft, such as canoes, bugeyes, pungys and some famous Baltimore Clippers, were designed and built. The Church, named “St. Michael’s,” was the first building erected (about 1677) and around it clustered the town that took its name.

For a walking tour and more history of the St. Michaels area visit https://tidewatertimes.com/travel-tourism/st-michaels-maryland/.

Tripping to Yesteryear by A.M. Foley

The Eastern Shore attracted a lot of attention following the Civil War. For some reason, several major national magazines sent writers for in-depth investigations of life here in the 1870s. While the Centennial Exposition drew celebrants to Philadelphia for the country’s 100th anniversary, Lippencott’s Magazine carried a four-part series on Eastern Shore life in 1876. The author, Robert Wilson Sr., was a well-qualified observer, having received double doctoral degrees,

first as a medical doctor, then as a doctor of divinity. Reportage was only his sideline, but he became well-acquainted with the entire Shore in the course of serving as rector of historic upper Shore Episcopal churches.

Robert Wilson was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in October 1838. When the Civil War broke out in that city’s harbor at Fort Sumter in spring 1861, he was a twenty-two-year-old widower, recently graduated from medical

Yesteryear

college. He served as a surgeon at Wayside Hospital in Columbia, South Carolina. Like other wayside hospitals, Columbia’s facility began near the railroad depot, where local ladies voluntarily catered food and drink to Confederate troops in transit. As the war raged on, the women were forced to add nursing duties, as the catering station gradually morphed into a hospital. Wilson served Columbia Wayside Hospital as an assistant surgeon from 1862 to 1864, as it grew into the largest of its type in South Carolina, serving 75,000 troops, before being disbanded early in 1865.

Following the war’s trauma, Dr. Wilson resumed religious stud -

ies, which had also attracted him earlier. He was ordained a Rector of the Episcopal Church in 1866. Within a couple years, he came north and served many years at Eastern Shore churches. In his first 1876 Lippincott’s article, Wilson relates how he was enticed to relocate: “About eight years ago I received an invitation to take my residence in what to me was terra incognita . One of the strongest inducements held out to me by the enthusiastic writer of the letter was the existence of a plain old country church, with ‘the most beautiful graveyard in the State.’” This would have been Saint Paul’s in Kent County. He also served later at Christ Church in Easton.

As he prepared to leave South Carolina, he fell into conversation with an elderly man who had been employed on the Shore in his youth “measuring corn for shipment…separating the yellow from the white. I casually expressed my preference for the latter, but the old man gravely shook his head. ‘No, sir! said he: ‘the yellow is the best. Why, there’s a gallon more of whiskey to the bushel in it.’”

Reverend Wilson’s first glimpse of the Eastern Shore came to him aboard a steamer bound from the Rappahannock River to Havrede-Grace. Stopping at Crisfield, which he aptly called “the Venice of the Eastern Shore,” he marveled at the development then

Oxford Map and History

Oxford is one of the oldest towns in Maryland. Although already settled for perhaps 20 years, Oxford marks the year 1683 as its official founding, for in that year Oxford was first named by the Maryland General Assembly as a seaport and was laid out as a town. In 1694, Oxford and a new town called Anne Arundel (now Annapolis) were selected the only ports of entry for the entire Maryland province. Until the American Revolution, Oxford enjoyed prominence as an international shipping center surrounded by wealthy tobacco plantations. Today, Oxford is a charming tree-lined and waterbound village with a population of just over 700 and is still important in boat building and yachting. It has a protected harbor for watermen who harvest oysters, crabs, clams and fish, and for sailors from all over the Bay. For a walking tour and more history visit https://tidewatertimes. com/travel-tourism/oxford-maryland/.

Yesteryear

underway. In 1876, the boomtown was blissfully unaware that oyster harvests were cresting (and sea level rise accelerating). Ten years earlier, the Eastern Shore Railroad had extended to navigable water by bridging across wetlands

to a steamboat wharf, where a new town was rising. Wilson describes the scene a decade later. Clustered about the depot were large packing houses, two hotels, stores, and dwellings, but “The town proper is embossed in the woods on the main, and presents no features essentially different from other Eastern Shore villages.”

He explains the residential development of the new town: “A man purchases a ‘water-lot’ alongside the causeway and encloses it with piles. He then dumps in oyster-shells until he has enough terra firma to support his house, which he proceeds to build, filling in his yard by degrees as he needs various out-buildings, connecting

The Treasure Chest

these by bridges with the main edifice. If the emergency is pressing, he expedites matters by erecting a house on piles and filling in land afterwards.”

Leaning on a hotel porch rail, smoking a cigar after breakfast, an amused Wilson watches a man “feeding his chickens on an island at the foot of his yard, another leading his horse from a peninsular stable, and still another stepping from his kitchen-door into the canoe which is moored beneath.” Across a wide stretch of marsh he views the old town “in

the far distance…treetops and the chimney of an occasional dwelling.”

Upon reaching Kent County, Rector Wilson must have learned that his background in medicine and theology was something of a Saint Paul’s tradition. He was preceded there by a D.D. (but not an M.D.) Rev. Dr. Sewell Stavely Hepburn (Katharine’s grandfather). Despite his lack of medical credentials, family lore tells of Reverend Hepburn, as a young circuitrider in Maryland and Virginia, traveling horseback down rutted, rural roads, tending physical as well as spiritual needs. Reputedly Hepburn comforted the dying, assisted at operations, births and amputations, and once performed an appendectomy with only whiskey as anesthesia. Need be, in the vestibule after services, he took up forceps and extracted teeth.

When St. Paul’s parishioners learned of Wilson’s medical degree, some surely consulted him for free medical advice, if not ex-

Yesteryear

tractions. Newly arrived from the old Confederacy, he would also have needed diplomacy to navigate parish curiosity about his history and opinions on the fratricidal War Between the States. Evolution was another debate soon to erupt locally, pitting religious fundamentalists against proponents and undecideds on Darwin’s theory. With a dual background in medical science and theology, Wilson must have walked a fine line on the topic of evolution. By 1882 the theory had gained fairly wide acceptance. Nevertheless, Washington College’s Vice Principal William H. Zimmerman was

deemed to have crossed the line on the hot subject. Discussion of the possibility was unavoidable for Zimmerman, as a professor of natural philosophy. He was never accused of anti-biblical teachings, but some college board members thought he’d ventured too far in that direction.

Repower for Summer

Fred Dumschott’s History of Washington College describes Professor Zimmerman as “a capable instructor who became very popular with students,” but the board opted to “accept his resignation.” Zimmerman departed to Western Maryland College, now McDaniel College in Westminster. Then newly established with a voluntary Methodist affiliation, Western Maryland College could not have been a hotbed of liberalism. Reverend Wilson, doctor and theologian, held a delicate position, but must have walked the tightrope. One year after Zimmerman went west, one source indicates Rev. Dr. Robert Wilson, Sr. received a Doctorate of Divinity from Washington College.

Wilson seems to have thrived in his new environment and enjoyed exploring the length and breadth of the Eastern Shore. He said, “… the problem which is puzzling the public brain from one end of the peninsula to the other” was the shortest route to New York. “The bay-steamer penetrates into the heart of the country through a hundred narrow and tortuous channels, but while the various ‘heads of navigation’ lie so near to each other that the shriek of the steam-whistle often sounds from one to the other, the bay can be reached only by long and circuitous routes…” The solution of the day was to dig canals, the Interstates of the 1800s.

He relates a concern arising in the mid-1870s from above the unofficial northern boundary of Delmarva, the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. The fourteenmile-long C&D Canal had been open since 1829. When a more northerly canal route to the ocean was proposed, Wilson reports fears arose against a “proposed ship-canal between the upper waters of Chesapeake and of Delaware bays, through which ocean-steamers may pass to the Atlantic…with a saving of at least two days…A very able engineering argument against it was widely published.”

The dubious theory held that a more northerly route, across a

Tidewater Residential Designs since 1989

Yesteryear

rocky neck of land, would unmoor sandy Delmarva, severing it from the main. As a result, like the bow of a ship, Cape Charles would lead the entire peninsula adrift into the Atlantic. Enthusiasm for the second canal waned as the bogus study spread. Today some might

welcome that vision of Delmarva as an alternative to statehood or secession.

To provide perspective and preserve awareness of the atmosphere of life as it was one hundred fifty years ago, Chesapeake College Press published Rediscovery of the Eastern Shore: Delmarva Travelogues of the 1870s . The

reprint includes all four articles by Reverend Wilson, plus those of three other writers: Bayard Taylor, George Alfred Townsend, and Howard Pyle.

Even as Wilson prepared his series for Lippencott’s, the Ericsson Line in Baltimore was adding passenger service to its freight line from the Light Street Pier. The new steamers reportedly provided

seventy to eighty staterooms to accommodate western shore residents crossing Delmarva through the C&D Canal to attend the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Today a modern vacationer might question our progress, comparing the old time canal trip to crossing to Kent Island by bridge and dashing across the peninsula by car to the ocean.

Forty-some years ago, A.M. Foley swapped the Washington, D.C. business scene for a writing life on Elliott Island, Maryland. Tidewater Times kindly publishes Foley’s musings on regional history and life in general.

Since 1982

5 Quick Dinners for Long Summer Days

Beat the heat with fresh produce, lean proteins and easy-to-make meals. These recipes not only capture the essence of summer but also align with a healthy eating plan. They are quick to prepare on busy evenings when you want a delicious meal without spending hours in the kitchen.

When the days are long and the weather is warm, it doesn’t mean you have to settle for boring salads and frozen meals. That’s where a list of easy summer dinner ideas comes in handy.

If you are looking to make the most of seasonal garden produce that is perfect for busy weeknights,

Tidewater Kitchen

relaxed evenings on the patio or impromptu dinners with friends, these recipes are fuss free and full of flavor. You might be able to make these dishes faster than it will take for delivery to even arrive.

Summer Garden Pasta

This is a delightful side dish that pairs well with grilled meats or can stand alone for a light meal. Best of all, it cooks up in less than 25 minutes.

4 pints cherry tomatoes, halved

1/2 cup good olive oil

3 garlic cloves, smashed

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

Salt & freshly ground black pepper

1 cup fresh basil, julienned

1 pound angel hair pasta or your favorite gluten free version

1-1/2 cups freshly grated Parmesan cheese; you can also use dairy free

In a large bowl, combine tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, red pepper

flakes, salt, and pepper. If you let it sit at room temperature for at least 15 minutes, it will start to marinate. Combine up to 4 hours ahead for an easier meal prep. Cook pasta until al dente. Drain and immediately toss with tomato mixture. Add basil and Parmesan. Serve warm or at room temp.

Tomato & Avocado Salad

A fresh and perfect light dinner or a side with grilled protein.

2 ripe avocados, diced

4 large tomatoes, sliced about ½ inch thick

1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced 1 small cucumber, sliced

2 cups baby arugula

Juice of 1 lemon or lime and zest for a refreshing taste

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes, optional

1/2 cup Feta cheese cut into small cubes optional

In a large bowl, gently toss tomatoes, avocado, onion, and arugula. Drizzle with lemon or lime juice, zest, olive oil, pepper flakes, salt and freshly ground pepper to taste. Gently toss. Serve immediately.

Summer Skillet with Clams, Sausage & Corn

Here is a great coastal one-pan dinner—fast and full of flavor and minimal cleanup.

1 pound littleneck clams, scrubbed 1/2 pound spicy Italian sausage, or

your favorite vegan, sliced

2 ears corn, cut into 1” rounds

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup dry white wine or clam juice

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

Crusty sourdough bread, for serving

In a large skillet, cook sausage until browned. Remove and set aside. Add garlic to the pan, cook 1 minute. Add wine or clam juice and bring to a simmer. Add clams and corn. Cover and cook 7–10 minutes, or until clams open. Return sausage, stir in butter and parsley. Serve with bread.

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Tidewater Kitchen

Greek Potato Salad Serves 8

In this healthy potato salad recipe, a white-wine vinaigrette dresses the potatoes, tomatoes, feta and olives. Waxy potatoes, such as red and yellow, make the best potato salad because they hold their shape when cooked. Keep the potato skins on for more fiber and potassium.

2 pounds medium red or yellow potatoes

1/2 to 2/3 cup olive oil

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon rosemary, crumbled

1/2 pound feta cheese, crumbled

½ cup green onion, chopped 1/2 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and chopped

Salt & pepper to taste

Boil potatoes in water, jackets

on, until fork-tender, 15-18 minutes. Drain and let cool slightly. Coarsely cut them into bite-sized pieces. In a large bowl, whisk oil, vinegar, oregano and rosemary and pour over the potatoes. Add remaining ingredients. Mix gently. Let stand 1/2 hour so flavors marry. Chill or serve at room temperature.

Roasted Summer Vegetables

A colorful tray of goodness that works with everything.

2 zucchinis, sliced

1 red bell pepper, cut into chunks

1 yellow squash, sliced

1 red onion, cut into wedges

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 head of garlic

Tidewater Kitchen

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 425°F (220°C). Toss all veggies with olive oil, herbs, salt, and pepper. Drizzle the entire garlic clove with olive oil. Roasted is so delicious. Spread on a sheet pan. Roast 20–25 minutes, flipping halfway. Serve warm or at room temp. Squeeze the pouches of garlic on toasted bread, on any grilled protein or on top of your vegetables.

Let’s round out your summer meal with a fresh and easy dessert. Here are two quick options (ready in 15–20 minutes) that pair beauti-

fully with light summer dinners.

Peach-Raspberry Crisp (Individual or Family-Style)

4 ripe peaches, sliced, or your favorite fruit in season

1 cup raspberries

1 tablespoon flour

Juice of 1/2 lemon & zest

Crisp Topping:

1/2 cup oats

1/4 cup flour or gluten free flour

¼ cup brown sugar or coconut

sugar

1/4 teaspoons cinnamon

4 tablespoons cold butter or vegan butter, cut into cubes

Preheat oven to 375°F. Toss fruit

with flour, lemon juice and zest. Combine topping ingredients with fingers until crumbly. Divide fruit into ramekins or a baking dish. Sprinkle with topping. Bake 15–20 minutes, until golden and bubbly. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or homemade whipped cream.

Frozen Key Lime Pie

Here is a favorite no-bake, summer-inspired dessert that is refreshing, make-ahead friendly, and absolutely delicious:

Crust: 1-1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs or favorite gluten free option 1/4 cup sugar or coconut sugar for lower glycemic load 6 tablespoons unsalted butter or vegan favorite, melted

Filling:

1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk or your favorite nondairy version

1 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 cup fresh lime juice (key lime or regular)

1 teaspoon lime zest

1/2 cup heavy cream, whipped (optional for topping) or nondairy kind

Preheat oven to 350°F (only for the crust). Mix crust ingredients, press into a 9-inch pie pan. Bake 8–10 minutes, cool completely. Mix 1 tablespoon cornstarch with the condensed milk, lime juice and zest. Pour into crust. Freeze at

least 6 hours or overnight. Top with whipped cream and lime slices before serving.

Tip: For a fully no-bake version, skip baking the crust—just chill it in the fridge for 30 minutes before filling.

Here are five tips to make these summer dinners even quicker, healthier, and more delicious:

1. Prep Once, Eat Twice. Chop

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extra veggies or cook a double batch of grains (like quinoa or pasta) to save time later in the week. Leftovers from one dish (like roasted veggies) can be added to salads, wraps, or omelets.

2. Keep a Well-Stocked Pantry. Olive oil, garlic, Dijon mustard, canned beans, pasta, and grains can turn seasonal produce into a full meal fast. Store-bought is fine, just go for high-quality basics.

3. Use Fresh Herbs Generously. Fresh basil, dill, parsley, and thyme instantly brighten summer dishes. Keep small pots on your windowsill or in the garden for easy access and zero waste.

4. Grill Everything. If it’s too hot to cook indoors, take it outside.

Grilling adds flavor with no extra fat. Try grilling peaches, corn, or even avocado to upgrade your summer salads.

5. Keep it Simple & Seasonal. Summer meals don’t need fancy techniques. Let fresh, in-season ingredients like tomatoes, corn, and zucchini shine with just olive oil, salt, and a squeeze of lemon.

Pamela Meredith, formerly Denver’s NBC Channel 9 Children’s Chef, has taught both adult and children’s cooking classes.

For more of Pam’s recipes, visit the Story Archive tab at tidewatertimes.com.

More Patty Cannon Discoveries by

James Dawson

My three articles about the infamous kidnapper, slave stealer and murderer Patty Cannon were in previous issues of the Tidewater Times in September and November 2022 and February 2023. I got some good responses from those articles, including emails from folks who shared more Patty Cannon information with me, plus I found more information myself that I present here.

Patty Cannon and her gang were known for kidnapping slaves and free Blacks in the early 1800s in Delaware, Maryland and Phila -

delphia. In 1829, she was arrested but died before her trial. Patty was buried in the northeast corner of the Georgetown, Delaware, jail yard, and it is said that her skull was exhumed either in 1840 or 1902.

In my last Patty Cannon T.T. article, “Too Many Skulls for Patty Cannon,” I presented evidence that the so-called skull of Patty Cannon recently owned by the Dover, Delaware, public library was an imposter skull, as the genuine skull was probably gotten by the phrenologist O.S. Fowler in February of 1840 for display in his museum in

Patty Cannon

New York City. Woodcuts of it are shown in several of his publications, and Fowler’s Patty Cannon skull looks nothing like the Dover Patty Cannon skull, as there was damage in the Fowler Patty Cannon skull that is not present in the

Dover Patty Cannon skull and vice versa.

To recap, the second Patty Cannon skull was found in July 1902 and was given to James Marsh, who was a deputy sheriff and lawyer in Georgetown, Delaware. Marsh then gave it to his brother-in-law Charles S. Joseph, who later passed it on to his son Alfred.

I heard from Alfred’s son Charles I. Joseph, who told me that the skull was hanging up in a burlap bag in his father’s barn and that when he was a kid he used to take it down and kick it around outside, which is why the skull has no teeth. They took it with them when they moved to Kirby’s Pond. It was in a hat box, and when they moved from Kirby’s Pond his father gave the skull to the Dover Public Library in 1961. “Jim, I am 85 but don’t remember a Mr. March. All I remember is Charlie I. from Hollyoak near Milton worked at the Georgetown Court house and got the skull when they moved the grave. The Entailed Hat book was one of my favorites. Especially liked the description of life on the Chesa-

peake back then and the tales of Patty Cannon, etc. Please keep me informed on future developments. Charlie Joseph. P.S. November 10, 2023. Jim—Charles I’s sister, Laura, was married to James Marsh per attached. Funny, but Dover Library asked me to sign off ownership of the skull yesterday. Charlie.”

Fowler the phrenologist also got the skull of Ebenezer Johnson Sr., a member of Patty Cannon’s gang who was killed in a shootout. Details of his death were sketchy until I recently found a previously lost account of Patty Cannon and her gang in several articles written by George Alfred Townsend while researching his Patty Cannon novel, The Entailed Hat . These articles

Patty Cannon

Patty Cannon

apparently hadn’t been seen since they were written in 1882 for a Cincinnati newspaper and forgotten for 143 years. They contain much “new” information.

As for the death of Ebenezer Johnson, Sr., Townsend wrote that Twiford was a ship captain who lived at Twiford’s wharf on the Nanticoke River about five miles south of Sharptown, Maryland. A widower, he had married Patty Cannon’s sister Betsey. Townsend wrote that Betsey was an accomplice in her sister’s kidnapping gang, and free Blacks had been chained to trees on an island opposite the house awaiting transportation to the South. Betsey was never caught or prosecuted.

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Ebenezer Sr. was a desperate man, said to have been born in New England, who would take a man’s cut wood off in his sloop, or steal his corn, or even take his vessel and no one dared to interfere with him or his sons. He was murdered about 1814–1817.

“The Twiford family finally had judgements in law rendered against them, and a man named James Twilley ventured to bid in their farm at Twiford’s wharf in Somerset Co., Md., and, seeking an occasion when the men should be away, he and his posse entered the house and threw out Betty’s furniture and put in his own. They had scarcely finished when old Ebenezer Johnson and his sons and crew appeared, and proceeded to knock down, drag out and draw their weapons, shedding blood and scaring the possessors nearly out of their wits. Among others a boy named Joseph King, not twenty years old, was seized by

Patty Cannon

old Ebenezer Johnson and thrown ‘like a dead hog’ out of the door; as he was going out in that unceremo -

nious way he reached out his hand and it fell upon a rifle leaning in the doorway. As he struck the ground, with this rifle in his hand, he turned and saw Ebenezer Johnson, sen., following him in the doorway, and supposing his life in danger the boy turned and fired two balls out of the rifle through his assailant’s left eyebrow. The outlaw sank down on his hams with a single quiver, and the wicked had ceased from troubling.

“Yet the Johnson tribe held the house for their connection, Betty, in defiance of law or force. Several years before the rebellion, not far from 1850, the phrenologist, Fowler, lecturing in this part of the country, having obtained the skull of Patty Cannon in George -

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town, wanted also the skull of old Johnson, her confrere and possible guardian, and he was not molested in disinterring it to take to his museum, where both skulls are now to be found. The two holes were found in Johnson’s skull and one of the bullets, the other having passed through and been found in the house.” [The Enquirer (Cincinnati, OH), Feb. 6, 1882, p. 1]

One problem with Townsend’s account of Ebenezer Johnson Sr.’s murder is that in the 1814–1817 period, rifles, muskets and pistols were single shot, muzzle loading guns which had to be reloaded by hand after each shot, as repeating rifles weren’t invented until 1860. So Joseph King could not have fired off two shots in quick succession, that is unless someone had accidentally loaded the gun with one charge of powder, but two balls, which is possible.

But as Townsend wrote that there were two bullet holes in the

skull and one bullet remained in it and the other one found in the house there would have been two entry wounds and one exit wound for a total of three holes. Another mystery.

Another account has it that King was killed by Joe Johnson. So whose skull was it with the two bullet holes in it that Fowler had, or is this just more skullduggery? We will probably never know, as all the skulls in Fowler’s Phrenological Museum vanished after it closed in the early 1900s.

But Townsend’s account is probably correct. Historian Brice Stump

Patty Cannon

Ebenezer Johnson, III

Patty Cannon

tells me that Mason and Dixon had stayed at the Twiford house when they were surveying the line between Maryland and Delaware, The Twiford house is no longer standing. Ancestry.com has Patty Cannon listed as Patty Lucretia Hanly, and her confusing stats are that she was born in Canada about 1779. However, her Canadian birth may be in error, as it was said that her sister lived in Delmarva. She is also listed as Lucretia Patricia “Patty” Cannon born in the U.S., and some say “Patty”’s name was Martha, born in Dorchester County, daughter of Levin P. Hanley. She was a woman of mystery, indeed. She married

Jesse Cannon and he died maybe under mysterious circumstances in 1822.

Now hold on to your skulls, ancestry.com says that Ebenezer was born in Massachusetts on April 8, 1759, but that he died and was buried in Tolland, Connecticut, on April 2, 1817 which doesn’t match what Townsend wrote about his place of death being at the Twiford house in Maryland, although the year seems right. However, as it turned out, this was a different Ebenezer Johnson with different children.

When the skeletons of two children and one adult were found buried behind Patty’s house in April 1829, there were arrest war -

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rants for Patty Cannon and two of her henchmen, Ebenezer Johnson’s sons Joseph and Ebenezer Johnson Jr. on suspicion of murder on the testimony of Cyrus James, who worked for Patty and who knew where the bodies were buried. Literally. The adult was said to be the bones of a white slave trader who came there to buy slaves and made the mistake of bragging how much money he had with him to spend. A fatal mistake at Patty’s place, as they could kill the trader, get his money

and, as a bonus, still have the slaves to sell.

But Joseph and Ebenezer had already disappeared, leaving Patty Cannon to her fate. Patty Cannon was arrested but died in jail before her trial. Neither Joseph nor Ebenezer was ever caught or prosecuted for those or any murders, although Joseph had already been found guilty of kidnapping and was publicly whipped for that. In 1827, the mayor of Philadelphia put out a $500 reward for persons kidnapping free Blacks there, which is why he and his brother took off. It was said that Ebenezer was as bad as or worse than his brother.

There were rumors that Joseph had gone south, but Ebenezer’s fate was unknown. That is, until Sue Bramhall contacted me about information that she had from Don Bosley, a descendant of Josephus Moore, who said he was Joseph Johnson and his first wife, who was Patty Cannon’s daughter, Mary.

As it turned out, both Joseph and Ebenezer changed their names and ended up in Texas, where most likely they had made contacts when they went south selling the slaves and free Blacks that they had kidnapped. Texas desperately needed slaves to work the cotton fields and paid good money for them.

Joseph, whose full name was Joseph Moore Johnson, changed his name to Josephus Moore, and his brother, Ebenezer Fraser JohnPatty Cannon

Patty Cannon

son, changed his name to Ebenezer Fraser, and of course, in the days before fingerprints and I.D. cards, it was very easy to start a new life in a distant state under a different name.

Genealogical information from ancestry.com shows that Josephus and Ebenezer were brothers and that their parents were Ebenezer Johnson and Amelia Moore.

Early genealogical information online is sometimes contradictory and garbled about the brothers, which is to be expected when someone is living in a distant state under an alias two hundred years ago, and in fact Ebenezer’s name is given as John Ebenezer Fraser, a.k.a. Ebenezer Fraser Johnson, and says he was born in Somerset, Maryland. Later he lived in Harrison, Texas in 1846, and was a Justice of the Peace! However, his tombstone in Kilgore, Texas reads, “Ebenezer Son of Ebenezer & Amelia Fraser Born in Dorchester Co., Md. March 17, 1800 Died April 28, 1876.” Probably someone confused Somerset with Dorchester.

So there is the local connection. Ancestry.com also says his father was Capt. Ebenezer Fraser Johnson, so that’s where the Fraser came from. And in fact, Ebenezer Sr. was captain of a vessel and certainly ran the kidnapped Blacks for sale in the southern states, as did his son Joseph.

But now thanks to online genealogical sites, we can track Joseph’s and Ebenezer’s wanderings down south by where and when their children were born. Ebenezer Jr. married Sally Shehee in Dorchester County, Maryland, in 1825, and their first two children were born in Georgia in 1828 and Tennessee in 1831. Sally died in Arkansas in 1833. He remarried in Arkansas in 1835, and his second wife died in 1836 in Arkansas. He married his third wife in Alabama in 1836, their four children were all born in Texas and he died in Texas in 1876. He did get around.

Josephus Moore’s dates from ancestry.com are that he was born in 1795 in Virginia, married Mary Margaretta Cannon (1792-1835),

Possible photo of Josephus Moore.

Patty Cannon

lived in Madison, Florida, in 1840, and died in Kilgore, Texas, in March 1853. His first three children were born in Maryland in 1815, 1817 and 1824, and their later children in Florida in 1829 and Georgia in 1832; then, when Mary Cannon died, he married Mary Jane Page in 1840 and their five children were born in Texas.

Note that by 1829, the year that Patty Cannon was arrested, both Joseph and Ebenezer had already taken off for parts unknown, and now we know where those two went. So Joseph and Ebenezer, you can run but you can’t hide! At least not forever.

There are photos of Ebenezer and Joseph online. Cliff Krainik, a specialist in antique photographs, looked at them for me. While he thinks that the photo of Ebenezer, who died in 1876, does look like an 1870s photo by the type of clothes worn and style of the photo, the cartes de visit style photo of Joseph, who died in 1853, looks more like it’s from the early 1860s by the clothes worn and because that type of photo did not exist in 1853, so it might be a photo of his son Joseph Jr. instead.

On a modern note, for one more Patty Cannon surprise, if you happen to be driving on Woodland Ferry Road in Delaware, you might be startled to see a very nice development with the rather arresting name

of Patty Cannon Estates, which, as the sign says, was founded in 1973 by Thayer P. Porter, a local lumber dealer. No one is quite sure why Porter chose that particular name, but as Porter died in 1988, we can’t ask him. Perhaps it was because she was a local “celebrity.” Despite the name, the ad says that residents love it “for its safety and the warm, friendly atmosphere that makes it a great place for kids and dogs alike. Patty Cannon Estates is a peaceful, family-friendly neighborhood in Seaford, USA, known for its clean, tree-lined streets.” Which streets, by the way, are named Cannon Drive and Johnson’s Drive.

Much can change in 200 years and sometimes for the better. Two centuries ago, the place was not safe for people of any color, especially if they were flashing around money or could be caught and sold.

James Dawson is the owner of Unicorn Bookshop in Trappe.

The Fabric of History Special Programs

The Oxford Museum is proud to announce two special June programs in addition to its current antique quilt exhibit, The Fabric of History. Quilts are among America’s most traditional forms of creative expression. Once viewed merely as a decorative craft and even dismissed as merely “women’s work,” historic quilts are now appreciated as a highly sophisticated artform, combining intricate patterns, bright colors and extraordinary needlework. These works reveal very personal stories of celebration, community and identity. Although the makers of many quilts remain unknown to us, their passion and creativity are unforgettable. The museum exhibit is a stunning collection of 30 antique and traditional American quilts, featuring Maryland quilts including local examples from Talbot County Historical Society and the Oxford Museum’s own collection

If you own a quilt and would like to know more about it, you can schedule a 30-minute Documentation Day appointment at the museum with guest curators Kay Butler and Catherine Spence from The Fiber Arts Center of the

Eastern Shore. They can give you an approximate age of the quilt, its pattern and other details. This is not an appraisal. Documentation appointments are $25 per quilt and will be available between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 7. Appointments can be scheduled on the museum’s website, oxfordmuseummd.org . The weekend of June 21 and 22, additional quilts will be on display at St. Paul’s Church, 225 S. Morris St., Oxford. On Saturday, June 21 from 10 a.m.–noon, Kay Butler and Catherine Spence will conduct a quilt-turning

program, also known as a bedturning. Bed-turning is a way to display quilts while telling their story. It originated long ago as a social event. A married woman might hold a bed-turning in her home among family members and friends. Quilts would be piled on top of each other on a bed. The hostess would then turn back each quilt, one by one, as she talked about them. We won’t have a bed, but we will have a full stack of quilts, and Kay and Catherine will explain each one as they are turned. This event is free to Oxford Museum members and $25 for non-members. At-

tendance is limited to 40 people. Following the turning on Saturday, the St. Paul’s exhibit will be open to the public from noon–4 p.m. with free admission. Sunday the exhibit hours will be 10 a.m.–4 p.m. with free admission. The Oxford Museum and Shop, 101 S. Morris St., is open to visitors from 10 to 4 p.m., Friday through Monday. Admission is free. The Fabric of History exhibit will run through July. For more information on the museum and membership please visit oxfordmuseummd.org .

Melissa Grimes-Guy Photography

Kent County and Chestertown at a Glance

Kent County is a treasury of early American history. Its principal towns and back roads abound with beautiful old homes and historic landmarks.

The area was first explored by Captain John Smith in 1608. Kent County was founded in 1642 and named for the shire in England that was the home of many of Kent’s earliest colonists. When the first legislature assembled in 1649, Kent County was one of two counties in the colony, thus making it the oldest on the Eastern Shore. It extended from Kent Island to the present boundary.

The first settlement, New Yarmouth, thrived for a time and, until the founding of Chestertown, was the area’s economic, social and religious center.

Chestertown, the county seat, was founded in 1706 and served as a port of entry during colonial times. A town rich in history, its attractions include a blend of past and present. Its brick sidewalks and attractive antiques stores, restaurants and inns beckon all to wander through the historic district and enjoy homes and places with architecture ranging from the Georgian mansions of wealthy colonial merchants to the elaborate style of the Victorian era.

Second largest district of restored 18th-century homes in Maryland, Chestertown is also home to Washington College, the nation’s tenth oldest liberal arts college, founded in 1782. Washington College was also the only college that was given permission by George Washington for the use of his name, as well as given a personal donation of money.

The beauty of the Eastern Shore and its waterways, the opportunity for boating and recreation, the tranquility of a rural setting and the ambiance of living history offer both visitors and residents a variety of pleasing experiences. A wealth of events and local entertainment make a visit to Chestertown special at any time of the year.

For more information about events and attractions in Kent County, contact the Kent County Visitor Center at 410-778-0416, visit www. kentcounty.com or e-mail tourism@kentcounty.com . For information about the Historical Society of Kent County, call 410-778-3499 or visit www.kentcountyhistory.org/geddes.php . For information specific to Chestertown visit www.chestertown.com .

Chesapeake Film Festival’s New President Shares Her Excitement for Upcoming Season

The new President of the Chesapeake Film Festival, “CFF,” wants us to know she is thrilled about the Festival’s upcoming season! Irene A. Magafan, a celebrated independent filmmaker herself, is a past and current member of the organization’s programming committee, which reviews and selects from hundreds of submissions from around the world each year. As CFF President, she is now in a position to further contribute to and guide the legacy of this established creative stalwart in the Eastern Shore’s cultural landscape.

“Regional film festivals like CFF are an essential bridge between filmmakers and audiences. We have the power to discover and elevate films and the platform to engage and inspire audiences. As a filmmaker, it’s just thrilling to be able to participate in curating the upcoming season and to see how this remarkable organization works behind the scenes with our communities, universities, as well as cultural and environmental organizations to offer such inspiring programming,” states Magafan.

When the CFF Board of Directors recently voted in Magafan as its new president, the festival recog-

Irene A. Magafan

nized both her talent as an awardwinning documentary filmmaker and her passion for storytelling. In addition, the board was tapping into her belief that cinema can be a powerful tool to spark dialogue and change, especially in the areas of the natural world and social justice. Magafan knows how to attract both filmmakers and audiences. She is a senior video specialist and editor at the World Wildlife Fund and has a resume that includes the awardwinning documentary The Bonobo Connection, narrated by Hollywood actor and activist Ashley Judd. The film also inspired Magafan’s TedTalk on how bonobo apes are our

Film Festival

closest living relatives and one of the most peaceful animals on Earth. The Bonobo Connection will be shown on CFF’s popular Opening Night of environmental films with a panel discussion following the screening.

“We’ve always been grateful for CFF’s terrific leadership over the years. Having a filmmaking pro like Irene guiding us this season makes us confident that our programming will continue to be entertaining and compelling to all who attend the festival in downtown Easton this fall,” shares Cid Collins, CFF Executive and Artistic Director.

Serving Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne's & Talbot Counties

The Mid-Shore Community Foundation connects private resources with public needs in order to enhance the quality of life throughout the Mid-Shore Region. We provide tools that enable donors to easily and effectively support the causes they care about - immediately or via bequest.

102 East Dover Street Easton, Maryland 21601 410-820-8175 www.mscf.org

Early Bird Tickets are now on sale

Save your seat and save money by purchasing early-bird tickets to the Chesapeake Film Festival, October 10-12, showcasing over 40 of the fi nest independent and student fi lms in historic downtown Easton. Guarantee yourself a seat at the Festival’s top screenings at the beautifully renovated Ebenezer Theater, the Academy Art Museum and the Talbot County Free Library and save substantially on the ticket price. The early-bird deadline is August 15. Tickets sold out online for the 2024 festival almost a month prior to opening night, so don’t hesitate to reserve your spot today. Visit chesapeakefi lmfestival.com for more information.

Queen Anne’s County

The history of Queen Anne’s County dates back to the earliest Colonial settlements in Maryland. Small hamlets began appearing in the northern portion of the county in the 1600s. Early communities grew up around transportation routes, the rivers and streams, and then roads and eventually railroads. Small towns were centers of economic and social activity and evolved over the years from thriving centers of tobacco trade to communities boosted by the railroad boom. The county is named for Queen Anne of Great Britain, who reigned when the county was established in 1706.

Queenstown was the original county seat when Queen Anne’s County was created, but that designation was passed on to Centreville in 1782. It’s location was important during the 18th century, because it is near a creek that, during that time, could be navigated by tradesmen. A hub for shipping and receiving, Queenstown was attacked by English troops during the War of 1812.

Construction of the Federal-style courthouse in Centreville began in 1791 and is the oldest courthouse in continuous use in the state of Maryland. Today, Centreville is the largest town in Queen Anne’s County. With its relaxed lifestyle and tree-lined streets, it is a classic example of small town America.

The Stevensville Historic District, also known as Historic Stevensville, is a national historic district in downtown Stevensville, Queen Anne’s County. It contains roughly 100 historic structures, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is located primarily along East Main Street, a portion of Love Point Road, and a former section of Cockey Lane.

The Chesapeake Heritage and Visitor Center in Chester at Kent Narrows provides and overview of the Chesapeake region’s heritage, resources and culture. The Chesapeake Heritage and Visitor Center serves as Queen Anne’s County’s official welcome center.

Queen Anne’s County is also home to the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center (formerly Horsehead Wetland Center), located in Grasonville. The CBEC is a 500-acre preserve just 15 minutes from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Over 200 species of birds have been recorded in the area.

Embraced by miles of scenic Chesapeake Bay waterways and graced with acres of pastoral rural landscape, Queen Anne’s County offers a relaxing environment for visitors and locals alike.

For more information about Queen Anne’s County, visit www.qac.org .

A Brief History of African American Baseball on the Eastern Shore

by John Payne

Baseball came to the Eastern Shore in 1866, and by the early 1900s had a national reputation for the quality of its independent professional baseball. In 1902, the village team in Crumpton (pop. 401) was described as a “pitcher from

Philadelphia, a catcher from Baltimore and a team from God knows where.” While African American baseball is not as well chronicled, an adequate picture of the quality and importance of baseball in these communities can be pieced together.

Bellevue All Stars c. 1930

Baseball

The first known report of Black baseball teams comes from Cambridge in 1875. Nearly three hundred people crammed into eight passenger cars on the train to Seaford, DE. Over a thousand gathered for a Colored Odd-fellows convention where they indulged in dancing, croquet and baseball. The fact that baseball is included on the schedule and played for a prize suggests this was far from the first game. Often it was fraternal organizations of African American communities that had the funding necessary to sponsor teams.

Local coverage of Black baseball was rare and scant, providing little

more than teams and scores. Some baseball activity was reported only because of a non-baseball event. Such was the case when “decided actions” avoided a racial conflict in Cambridge over the use of the Academy St. lot by a group of Black baseball players. By 1900, all steamboat lines and the towns they serviced advertised “colored excursions” in the Baltimore Afro American newspaper. All the communities on the Shore were eager for tourist dollars, with St. Michaels, Oxford and Cambridge at the forefront on the mid shore. It was these excursions that brought over the best Black teams from Baltimore and Washington, and down from Philadelphia. It is around this time that the Afro

American begins a more detailed if inconsistent portrayal of local Black baseball.

Local residents acting as rural correspondents sent regional news to the city newspaper, often including baseball activities. These reports indicate a vibrant African American baseball scene. Some of the top teams of the early 1900s included the Cambridge Orioles, Crisfield Corkers, Denton Tigers and the Bellevue All-stars. Eastern Shore teams held their own against some of the best clubs from nearby metropolitan areas. The Cambridge team took on the highly regarded Hilldale Club of Philadelphia at least twice. The Afro American also provided occasional box scores The

Alvan Holston, DDS, Andrew Barnes, DDS and the team

Oaksville Eagles

from the Eastern Shore, allowing for identification of some of the participants, sometimes providing attendance figures and where the game was played. And all of this was happening in a Jim Crow environment.

Future Hall of Fame player Judy Johnson was six years old in Snow Hill and lived through some of the most vicious years of Jim Crow on the Eastern Shore. Acts of violence were followed by escalating reprisals, which on a couple of occasions led to lynching. But it rarely stopped there. After one incident, the citizens stormed the segregated part of town where people were pulled

Judy Johnson

from their homes and “fiercely mauled.” The entire Black communities of Princess Anne, Crisfield, Snow Hill and Onancock, VA, were run out of those towns around this time. Johnson’s father was a merchant seaman, had a stable of amateur boxers and had seen more than the Eastern Shore. He wasn’t going to wait around to see what happened next, so he packed up the family and joined a migration north to the less violent segregation of the Philadelphia/Wilmington region.

Those who remained usually played their games on what were described as scrub fields, wherever they could find dry, level ground and scrape out an infield. Many small African American enclaves pulled together to provide playing grounds. Oaksville in Somerset

County was a community of 30-40 families of farm laborers. According to the research of Oaksville native Dr. Kirkland Hall, the community scraped together the money and put in the sweat to build a field that would be home to one or more community teams between 19101984. They were probably doing it before 1910, but that is when the research trail ends. It was on these isolated country fields that many learned the benefits of teamwork, hard work and the value of community support.

Baseball was usually played on Sundays and holidays as the only free day, since most worked six days a week. A morning of church was followed by an afternoon of baseball, and an evening picnic, comprising the social event of the

Oaksville Ball Park, Princess Anne, MD - one of the few surviving African American sandlot baseball fields - home of the Oaksville Eagles.

week. The Church Hill Hawks were one such participant sponsored by Mr. Deaton, owner of a local beer garden. After church every Sunday morning the trucks would roll up and they would load every chair, stool, bench and table and form a convoy, all so their fans had a place to sit at the scrub field they were heading to.

Perhaps one of the better Midshore teams was the Bellevue Allstars, who made their mark as independents and then in later leagues. Bellevue was an African American waterman’s community at the time. Being a waterman was one of the few opportunities for an African

American to be self-employed. While they worked hard for their money, it was a thriving business and community, perhaps a bit larger than most enclaves. They may have had a little more cash to spend on baseball than their farm laboring competitors.

By the 1920s there were occasions that Black teams were allowed to play some of their games on the community field. In 1921 the big game between the Easton Blue Sox and the St. Michaels club took place at Federal Park in Easton, something unlikely to happen ten years earlier. Rarely reported in the local newspapers, but noticed in the Afro American were the interracial exhibitions that began to occur at

all levels of play from high school to town ball to class D minor league teams. But the creation of the Negro Leagues brought further use of community fields by Black teams. In 1925 the Baltimore Elite Giants took on the Harrisburg Giants in a six-game series on the Eastern Shore. They were led respectively by Hall of Fame inductees Jud Wilson and the great Oscar Charleston. Charleston was often referred to as the Black Ty Cobb. The extended series saw games played in Easton, Salisbury and Dover, DE. On the Giants roster was Wilbert Pritchett of Ridgely, who saw action on the mound during the series.

Exhibitions would increase in number with the arrival of Joe

Cambria as the owner of the minor league Eastern Shore League Salisbury Indians. Cambria owned Bugle Field in Baltimore, where most Black baseball was played in that city, and had been an owner of the Baltimore Black Sox. While there is no direct documentation of his involvement with these exhibitions, his presence suggests the likelihood that he had some kind of connection. The Eastern Shore’s proximity to Negro League franchises in Baltimore, Washington, Philadelphia, Harrisburg and New York made the Shore an easy stop over for these quick exhibitions when these teams were enroute to regular league contests. The New York Eagles, Baltimore Elite Giants, the New York

Baseball

Black Yankees, Newark Eagles, and the Philadelphia Stars are among those advertised for coming games. On the rosters of these teams were future Hall of Fame inductees Biz Mackey, Satchell Paige, Leon Day, Mule Shuttles, Monte Irvin and Roy Campenella. Unfortunately, game accounts have not been found for these exhibitions. Yet it is reasonable to suppose that at least a few of these baseball icons played before Eastern Shore crowds on their community fields.

The peninsula was more than a place for Negro League players to earn extra cash. It was also a training ground for future Negro League players. The first African American baseball star from the Eastern

Shore was Charles “Bugs” Raymond of Salisbury, who pitched two years for the Philadelphia Giants. His career was cut short when he was tragically killed in an auto accident in 1909 while enroute to start the fourth of July game. John “Neck” Stanley of Kent County and Buddy Burbage of Salisbury had sixteenand fourteen-year careers, respectively. Thirty years before Harold Baines came along, Robert Harvey of St. Michaels was signed off of the Phillips Packing team in Cambridge to play in the Negro Leagues. Toots Ferrell of Chestertown, Goldie Cephas of Preston, Wilbert Pritchett of Ridgely and Elmer Wicks of Crisfield had Negro League careers. Baseball on the Eastern Shore was fiercely independent, and leagues were generally avoided for

Hall of Famer Harold Baines

the rules that came with them, but they were inevitable. Oral tradition has it that an African American Eastern Shore League began with the efforts of a J.O. Chapman in 1932. However, the Afro American reports a league on the Eastern Shore as early as 1925 that included the Crisfield Giants, the Bellevue All-stars and the Maryland Eagles as participants. They then provided standings for the Bi State League in 1936, and the Tri County League in 1938. All of these leagues have the appearance of being Chapman’s group by a different name. A version of this league survived until 1979, and it was seen as an African American enterprise until it folded. Linwood Baines played in

the league for the last twenty years. Of the experience, he said, “We were still a Black league; it was still segregated. We played on Sundays and holidays. It always drew a big crowd because there was nothing else to do so everybody flocked to the baseball game after church, We didn’t bar anybody from the league. If the white players wanted to play, we let them. We just wanted to play baseball.”

It is evident from imperfect sources that baseball held an important social and economic role in these Eastern Shore communities as local teams competed with the best clubs from nearby metropolitan areas. The Negro Leagues played many exhibitions in local

Baseball

Linwood Baines (Harold’s father) was a standout in baseball. The story goes, "He once hit a baseball so far, it not only traveled out of the ball park but across Frederick Douglass Elementary School on Mitchell Street in St. Michaels."

Monday-Saturday 10:30-5:30

ball parks, providing fans with a look at the best talent the Negro Leagues had to offer. In such an environment the scrub fields of the Eastern Shore produced several players who made it to the Negro Leagues. While the picture may be incomplete, perhaps the future will fi nd more pieces to a neglected story.

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