USA > Maryland > Kent County > History of Kent County, Maryland, 1630-1916 > Part 11
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An incident of that period of 1860 is here given : General Schenck had charge of the Department of Maryland with headquarters in Baltimore; John Frazier was "provost marshall of Kent County," and military law was in the ascendant. The county elections were about to take place. J. B. Ricaud was the Union candidate for State Senator and J. K. Hines for clerk. John Frazier wanted to be clerk himself, and a full ticket was put out with his name at the head, and on the day before the election two large government transport steamers arrived in Chestertown loaded with soldiers-cavalry and in- fantry. The military officers proceeded to arrest every one presumed to be in the way of Frazier's ambition for the clerkship! Hines and Ricaud, Col. Edw. Wilkins and other candidates were seized; the jail was forced open and prisoners released, and Deputy-Sheriff Benjamin placed under arrest; next came the judges of election-John T. Dodd, Charles Stanley and Thomas Baker-who were accompanied by a squad of soldiers to the prison steamer to keep the others company. Lastly the News office was sur- rounded by soldiers and an armed squad invaded it and issued orders for the conduct of the election which was to take place the following day. In troubling the types they ruined their cause. The editors were directed to print a certain circular order, which they refused to do at first, but after- wards wisely changed their minds. They printed the order and retained a copy. It was to the effect that at the election next day nothing but a League ticket should be voted and soldiers at every poll in Kent County were directed to see this carried out. The
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editors were then honored like the others-that is, placed in charge of armed soldiers and marched to the wharf, where they found in the dark lower saloon of one of the steamers the distinguished citi- zens previously arrested. About ten o'clock the steamers landed the prisoners in Baltimore; on the way over they met two transports loaded with Home Guards coming home to vote. Imagine their sur- prise upon reaching home to find what had been done. Great indignation was expressed and an in- formal election was held in one of the camps when Hines beat Frazier ten to one. George Vickers and George B. Westcott went to Baltimore by rail and the infamous political plot was exposed to General Schenck. The General expressed great indignation and said: "Gentlemen, if there is a steamer in Bal- timore harbor that can be had that can do it, you shall be landed at Chestertown by daybreak!" He made his word good. Just as the day was breaking the "prisoners" were landed at Thompson's wharf. and before noon Frazier and his man Tevis were under arrest and on their way to Baltimore.
ROCK HALL-ITS EARLY DAYS.
Somewhere about 1707 Rock Hall, that habitat of the watermen, was picked out by the colonists as a place of abode, and since then has grown into a. thriving town of many hundreds. New Yarmouth, Grey's Inn, was picked out as the capital some years previous, but this was changed in 1707 and moved to Chestertown. The old Rock Hall packet is now only a memory. It landed the mails, passengers and
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products of the land and water three times a week on Bowly's wharf. Rain or shine, wind or calm, the packet came. It was owned by Captain Harris, who could not see that steamboats must take the place of his sailing packet. For some years he fought against his harbor being a landing, although the natural outlet for Kent County, being in the bay and the nearest point to Baltimore, and in former days the route by which passengers reached the South, a regular daily packet sailing for Annapolis, which was fitted up with every convenience for man, beast and carriages. George Washington and other noted men in their diaries refer to the trip from Annapolis to Rock Hall on a large schooner. The opposition of Captain Harris, who feared the steam- boats would ruin his packet business, compelled the steamboat owners to select another point, Grey's Inn, for a landing place, which, although only two miles from Rock Hall, was twenty-five miles farther from Baltimore, and a four to five hours' trip, in- stead of less than two, as at present. The Govern- ment has had the old landing at Rock Hall dug out, and a fine, safe harbor is now open to the public, with one of the best piers and warehouses to be found on the bay. But owing to the fact that Cap- tain Sharp, the owner, wanted to dictate a certain schedule for steamers, the Chester River Steamboat Company bought land and built a wharf at Grati- tude, which has continued to be used to this day. The Sharp wharf was used for a few years as a stop- ping place for the Enterprise Company. It was no uncommon thing to see a hundred carriages there waiting for the arrival of the packet, which seldom
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failed to arrive on time, as the packet was fitted up with sweeping oars and hands to work them in case of a calm. In former times Rock Hall was only known as a landing, with an old house, postoffice and stabling, but now the farm on the bay, known from the earliest date of Kent's history as Rock Hall, taking its name not from the rocks, of which there are none to be seen, but from a large haul of rock fish before Baltimore had a corporation.
Lately the name has been usurped by the village of Rock Hall, which is one of the most thriving and handsome villages on the shore, with a number of stores, two schoolhouses-one with 200 scholars. the other some 75 to 80-a first-class bakery, two barber shops, drug store, hotel, blacksmiths, lumber yard, livery stable, two butchers, carpenters and painters. The chief source of prosperity comes from the water-fish, oysters and crabs. There is here a fine canning plant, giving work to many hands during the canning season.
It is said since the channel was cut to deep water in the bay, through which the tide runs rapidly, the crabs and fish have been more abundant, and it is no uncommon thing to ship one to five hundred bar- rels of crabs to Baltimore and Philadelphia daily. Thousands of bushels of oysters are tonged daily when weather permits the oyster fleet to go on the bar.
Owing to the extraordinary health of the neigh- borhood, it is becoming a great resort in summer for those seeking health and pleasure, and during the past four seasons the Rock Hall boarding houses have been filled with boarders from the city.
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With the view of obtaining a supply of pure water another artesian well has recently been sunk by the owner of the landing and farm, and the geological formation passed through is of interest, as certain facts were developed that were not known before- e. g., the thickness of the strata above the upper portion of the lower cretaceous or chalk rock from which the flowing waters come. This latter forma- tion had never been found before on the Eastern Shore, although many deeper wells have been sunk down the bay. Three hundred feet of the miocene, eocene and upper cretaceous strata were passed through, and at the bottom of the latter a hard pan or crust was reached, which, after much difficulty in drilling through the lower cretaceous strata, was found directly under the crust a water-bearing white sand, from which the water flows eight feet above tidewater with a uniform temperature of 60 degrees. The water is remarkably free from all mineral or organic matter, except a slight trace of iron, which is held in solution by carbonic acid, of which there is abundance in the water. The inference is that the water passes under the bay toward the ocean, and comes from the elevated cretaceous sand of the Severn.
A THOUSAND SAIL OUT FOR OPENING OF THE TONGING SEASON.
Rock Hall is the center of the Kent County oyster industry, and this sketch is from the memory of the writer during the earlier days before the gasoline engine came nor the $5.00 per day jobs in powder plants.
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In preparing for the opening of the season all was activity and life. Every little detail was being at- tended to and made ready for the "first day's catch." Some of the quaint little arks in which the oyster-
A TONGING SCENE OFF ROCK HALL BEFORE THE MOTOR BOATS CAME.
men live had been towed to their stations on the bay shore, in proximity to the distant oyster beds. Some. however, were still being fitted out. Beds and blan- kets were being stored away in the bunks, and bright new pans and cooking utensils were unpacked in readiness for housekeeping. Over the door of every one of the arks is nailed an old horseshoe for
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good luck. About 650 boats make Rock Hall their headquarters during the season, and upward of 2,000 persons are engaged in this industry. The average tonger's outfit consists of a pair of large rakes, one pair of tongs and a pair of nippers for shallow water. They have also a culling board, culling ham- mers, two half-bushel baskets and an iron half-bushel measure.
When the sun arose this first morning 1,000 sails dotted the waters of the Chesapeake Bay off Rock Hall and on the oyster beds of Chester River to be- gin the tonging season. About midnight the little oystering village began to stir, and about 2 o'clock in the morning the early birds set sail to catch the first oysters of the new season. The main body of the great fleet of prettily painted boats did not get under way, however, until about daylight. The out- look for oysters is good, and one old oysterman who has spent 55 seasons between the shafts of the oyster tongs, after scanning the little bay, in which was a forest of masts of oyster craft, said: "The boys ought to gather up 3,000 bushels tomorrow."
It is said that the Maryland oyster of good size lays about 16,000,000 eggs, and if half of these were to develop into female oysters we should have from a single female 8,000,000 female descendants in the first generation, and in the second 8,000,000 times 8,000,000, or 64,000,000,000,000. In the fifth genera- tion nearly 33,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,- 000,000 female oysters and as many males, or, in all, about 66,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,- 000. If each oyster fills eight cubic inches of space, it is argued, it would take 8,000,000,000,000,000,000,-
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000,000,000,000,000 to make a mass as large as the earth ; thus it may be seen that the five generations of descendants from a single oyster, if allowed to accumulate, would cover the world eight times. As the oyster lives for many years, however, and lays eggs each year, the possible rate of increase is very much greater than shown. The enormous propor- tions of these figures are beyond the conception of the human mind, but they serve to give an idea of the possibilities of Maryland's resources when the oystermen of the State once become alive to the sit- uation and begin measures tending toward the pres- ervation of this vast gold mine of wealth.
There seems to be no end to the variety of articles taken from the Chesapeake Bay oyster beds by the tongers and dredgers. Last year a Rock Hall oys- terman brought up a tombstone. About ten days ago a tonger was astonished to find a human skull in his tongs, and several days ago a fully equipped gasoline stove came up with the tongs.
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CHAPTER XXIX.
A NOTED RESORT.
Tolchester Beach Famed Far and Wide-The Life Work of One Man-Founded in 1877 and Used for Picnics.
The history of the Tolchester Beach Improvement Company of Kent County is practically the life story of one man, who in his boyhood days heard the irresistible call of wind and wave and wisely yielded to their witchery. Even so practical a place as a man's business office gradually acquires a cer- tain suggestion of the personality of its owner, and two objects framed and hung upon the walls of the office of the Tolchester Steamboat Company, on Light street, Baltimore, convey to the observing eye and mind a strong suggestion of the mental charac- teristics of Captain William C. Eliason, organizer, president and manager of this company. The first is a colored drawing of the model of the hull of a steamboat-the little craft Lamokin-that once plied upon the Delaware, and was the first boat with which the man was associated; the other is five lines of verse printed in large letters, neatly framed in dark wood and so hung that it meets the eye from almost any part of the room. The verse reads :
It is easy enough to be pleasant When life flows by like a song, But the man worth while Is the man who can smile When everything goes dead wrong.
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For several years under the supervision of the Messrs. Taggart, Captain Eliason was identified with the excursion and regular steamboat naviga- tion of the Delaware. Then the steamer Pilot Boy
HIGH TIDE AT TOLCHESTER, 1916.
being for sale, the Messrs. Taggart conceived the idea of purchasing it, buying some land upon the bay shore of Maryland, securing a wharf in Balti- more and opening an excursion resort within a few hours' ride of the city. They offered Captain Elia- son the management of the enterprise, provided he purchase a one-fourth interest in the boat and undertaking.
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It was a big risk for a young man to stake his all upon an uncertainty, but the opportunity also had exceptional advantages. So the enterprise was launched in a very modest way in the year 1877. Ten acres of land comprised the company's posses- sions at Tolchester Beach, in Kent County, 23 miles east of Baltimore, on the Eastern Shore of Mary- land, and 12 miles from Chestertown.
The beach was then a crude picnic ground. There was a little wharf, one small building, a couple of sheds, a diminutive hand-propelled flying-horse ma- chine and a hand organ. These were the modest im- provements, but the tree-crowned bluff was a pic- turesque one, the beach a white-shelled, white-sanded slope, with bracing salt-water bathing.
The company opened its resort with the announce- ment that the place would be strictly under temper- ance management, with no liquor sold upon the boat. This was a distinct innovation, and it was predicted that an excursion line founded upon temperance principles was foredoomed to a brief and profitless existence. Far from these gloomy predictions being realized, the example of temperance management set by the Tolchester Company has been followed since by most of the excursion boats now navigating the Chesapeake Bay.
So to this little bayside resort plied the tiny steamer Pilot Boy, whose capacity was 600 passen- gers. Captain Eliason was manager, clerk of the steamer, clerk of wharf, excursion agent-even deck- hand, as necessity required it. Under the energetic direction the enterprise expanded like the Biblical grain of mustard seed. Each year a few more acres
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of land or some improvements were added as the patronage steadily increased.
From the small beginning with the Pilot Boy the Tolchester Company has grown under the enthu- siastic and progressive management of Captain Elia- son to the proportions of one of the most important steamboat corporations of Maryland. Tolchester Beach now embraces 155 acres, with a picturesque and commodious hotel perched breezily upon a bluff. From its wide verandas a beautiful sweep of the Chesapeake Bay is visible, and the grounds sur- rounding this summer inn are terraced to the beach and shaded with wide-spreading trees. In early spring the sod is blue with violets, and locust trees. laden with white and perfumed blossoms, outline the curving shore. Inland from the beach are sev- eral lakes, hedged with green trees and flowering shrubs, on whose quiet waters float the broad leaves and wondrous blossoms of the water lily.
The Tolchester Company now owns and operates the steamers Louise, Emma Giles, Susquehanna and Annapolis. In addition to the Tolchester Hotel and excursion grounds the company has wharf property in Baltimore and Annapolis and on the West, Little Choptank, Sassafras and Susquehanna Rivers.
The officers of the company at the present time are: President and manager, William C. Eliason ; secretary, William H. Hudson; treasurer, John M. Naudain. The offices of the company are at Piers 14, 15, 16 and 17 Light street.
In 1899 the Sassafras River Steamboat Company was absorbed by the Tolchester Line and the steam-
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ers and property of that company added to the lat- ter company, thus securing the steamers Sassafras and Kitty Knight to the Tolchester fleet. Both of these boats were replaced by better boats. The Kitty Knight ran out of Worton Creek for many years and was known as the Trumpeter or Van Courlaer.
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CHAPTER XXX.
"Fish Hall," the Most Interesting Spot in Betterton.
To the westward old "Fish Hall," the first house ever built in Betterton, stands like a lighthouse on a cliff. The bricks in its chimney were brought from old England more than a century ago. When the first of the Crew family, Edward Crew, sailed from the old country and settled upon the farm where Betterton is now located, a friendly tribe of Indians who lived in the ravine below helped him to cut and hew the trees and assisted in laying the foundation of old "Fish Hall." Here Edward Crew and his wife, Elizabeth Hanson, reared a family of sons who early loved to sail and fish upon the beautiful waters of the bay and rivers stretching beyond their home. For generations the Crews of "Fish Hall" had watched the incomings and outgoings of the finny tribe until now old Chesapeake has attracted crowds of inhabitants to the high bluffs and sloping vales of the modern village. Here on a summer's morning the light skiffs are steered to the fishing banks or wrecks with the light and airy motion of seagulls. This old relic was torn down a few months ago, and beneath the floors were found skulls which were sup- posed to keep the "spooks" away. A more beautiful scene is hard to find than is beheld from the portico of Turner's Rigbie as we look out upon the broad sweep of splendid vista. The distant Susquehanna, the fair and lovely Sassafras, High Point, the Grove dividing it by a thin line from the flowing Elk, the Island of Spesutiae and the bold front of Turkey Point, with its friendly signal light that never fails.
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SHADBAKE AT BETTERTON.
BY THE BENTZTOWN BARD.
Ten miles of Chesapeake, crossing the bay:
Ten miles of Kentland across the blue way.
Shadbake at Betterton all afternoon,
Deep in the dream of the spring magic rune. Shad out of Eden, in Eden prepared,
Hot rolls like those that were made when they fared On golden ambrosia in Helicon's prime.
When lips sang of love and the honey dripped rhyme.
Shadbake at Betterton! Don't make a noise This is a sort of a sacrament, boys!
Food on the Chesapeake isn't just eat, But something artistic and sacred and sweet: Something quite matchless and magic and rare, Like goblets of dew on a breaker of air
When clover has ripened and wheat's on the way In footsteps of music o'er meadows of May.
Ten miles of Chesapeake-maybe it's more! Ten miles of Kentland, with naiads on the shore,
And sea nymphs and gods of old legend to guide Your feet to the table, with youth on your side, And shad served in glory as nowhere on earth 'Tis served with a flavor that turns into mirth Each mouthful you swallow-your eyes turned above As you taste baked elation, and beauty, and love.
Shadbake at Betterton-ten miles away
Gleams the loved Kentland and sings the blue bay! Morning has served it with skies of soft blue, Songs of cock robin and honey and dew. Gods on Olympus still wonder at night
Where Betterton shadbakes have been, for a bite; There in the grass searching early and late For one little crumb someone left on a plate.
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"FISH HALL," THE FIRST HOUSE BUILT IN BETTERTON, IN 1698, AND OWNED BY EDW. CREW.
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CHAPTER XXXI.
Shell Banks Made by Indians - Happy Hunting Grounds.
The central part of Kent County and that portion which lies on Chesapeake Bay comprise a district the greater part of which is very fertile, and pos- sesses commercial advantages equal if not superior to any part of the State. Intersected in every direc- tion by broad and navigable creeks, bounded on the north by the river Sassafras, on the south by the Chester, and on the west by the beautiful expanse of the Chesapeake, our great commercial emporium is brought within a convenient distance to every farmer.
Among the most important of these creeks may be mentioned the following, viz:
Langford's Bay, Gray's Inn, Swan, Tavern, Mor- gan's, flowing into the Chester; Still Pond, Churn, Worton, Farley, emptying into the Chesapeake, and Turner's and Lloyd's, which flow into the Sassafras.
Many of these are a quarter of a mile wide and are navigable by vessels of 50 tons nearly to their sources.
The face of the country is equally removed from the mountainous region and the continued plain. Gently swelling hills, covered with forest trees, everywhere adorn the surface, and fertile fields and winding streams add to the variety and beauty of the prospect.
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Worton, Fairlee and the bayside generally, from the Sassafras to the Chester, form a district remark- able for its fertility, and the numerous shell banks along the shore constitute a source of manure at once rich and inexhaustible.
The origin of these immense collections of shells has long been a subject of dispute. It is generally acknowledged that the peninsula comprehended be- tween the waters of the Delaware and Chesapeake is an alluvion. It is, however, certain that the pe- riod at which the waters receded must be extremely remote. The depth of the soil, which is indisputably of vegetable origin, and the large growth of timber. which covers, or (to speak more strictly) did at the time of its settlement cover, the whole face of the country, must be the work of many centuries.
The first opinion respecting the formation of these shell banks is that they assumed their present form in consequence of the currents and tides of the sea, at a time when the whole country was in a state of submersion. In support of this hypothesis it is urged that the aboriginal population must have ex- ceeded all calculation hitherto made, otherwise these numerous and extensive banks could not have been formed by them. The advocates of this theory also have recourse to the well-known fact of the existence of collections of the exuviæ of testaceous animals and limestone quarries, in situations far inland, universally believed to have been submerged at some remote period.
On the other hand, it is argued that the aborigi- nal inhabitants drew their subsistence entirely from two sources, hunting and fishing; and when it is
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considered that many thousands or hundreds of thousands of Indians inhabiting the extensive coun- try between the Delaware Bay and the Alleghany Mountains must have derived a considerable portion of their food, for probably some thousands of years, from the Chesapeake and its branches, it cannot appear so unreasonable to account for the formation of shell banks in this way. It is worthy of notice that these banks are not intermixed with sand (which, on the supposition of submarine formation, would be the case), but with a rich black vegetable mould, and that some are found at places where tra- dition informs us Indian towns were situated, on creeks where no species of shell fish are now known to exist. Without violating probabilities, we can easily suppose that the oysters may have been taken in the rivers and conveyed in canoes to the settle- ments. These settlements, or solitary cabins, were always located on the water.
This intermixture of vegetable mould puts it be- yond question that these collections could not have been formed while in the state of submersion. One other circumstance, of some weight in deciding the question, may be noticed. These collections are well known to consist entirely of oyster shells, together with the bones of deer and other animals of the chase. Now if they were of submarine formation, these collections would be found to consist of all kinds of shells which exist in our waters, of which there is a considerable variety.
Along the bay shore on Kennard's Point, Howell's Point, Fairlee Farm, and other places these shell beds may be found, some extending from 15 to 25
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feet in depth. Relics consisting of Indian arrows, etc., have been dug up and even an Indian skull. Oysters in abundance could be caught off these points some years ago and it is said that these oys- ter-shell banks grew up from frequent councils held by Indians of the colonies who held their meetings here frequently. Mrs. W. S. Maxwell, of near Still Pond, has a splendid collection of relics found in these shell mines.
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