The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
Geography and The Eastern Shore By William E. Bohn THE SLICE OF land and people which we call the Eastern Shore has a history and a quality all its own. There is no better plot of earth in...
...beans, peaches, apples—every sort of vegetable and fruit you could think of...
...And it is amazing to see to what an extent these people have kept their special qualities to the present day...
...All of this was rolled out before me recently, fn the process of spending a summer at home, my wife and I are making a series of short, explorative journeys...
...A few Sundays ago, for example, we set out early for a celebration in connection with the restoration of a tiny Episcopal church which is said to be the oldest house of worship in continuous use in this country...
...There were no bridges or ferries and it took the Government a long time to take hold over there...
...There, small but bright and perky in the midst of the great crowd, stood the sturdy and shiny and very much re stored Episcopal church...
...But he spent a good part of his time in praise of the religious tolerance which was characteristic of Marylanders along about the middle of the 17th century...
...That will all change in the course of time...
...As we inspected the handsome little house of worship which had brought that crowd together and examined the old tombstones in the romantic churchyard...
...I couldn't get the special quality of the Eastern Shore out of my mind...
...Besides the great stretches of corn there were sweet potatoes, peppers...
...In making his address in honor of the restored 17th-century church, the Governor seemed to be conscious of the special character of the crowd he was addressing...
...He is much too clever for that...
...For 15 or 20 minutes we sat on our hard folding chairs and thought about the people of the Eastern Shore...
...Within a few years we shall have a combined tunnel and bridge at the very point of the long peninsula...
...We already have the Bay Bridge carrying an endless stream of traffic across the wide bay...
...He knows, as well as anyone, how these Eastern Shore folks have objected to any change in race relations...
...What a land...
...We started from northern Delaware, a region which hardly belongs to the Eastern Shore at all, but within less than an hour we were rolling along the lazy and level coastal regions of Maryland...
...Every smidgeon of peculiarity in food or speech or politics will disappear...
...The agricultural establishments down there have always been big...
...There is no better plot of earth in connection with which to pose the question: Does geography fashion people...
...Any little vessel would carry them across the narrow bay and on the other side they would be al most free from interference by the crown...
...And so, as in Maine, the churches, politics, speech, food and habits all took on their own cast...
...Generally we travel no more than 1-200 miles from home and we are often astonished to discover what exciting experiences we can find within that radius...
...The people here are now criticized for their conservatism, but praised and sought after for their quaintness...
...Many of the more or less ir regular settlers, including the pirates, made their way to this haven...
...And boats...
...He did not, of course, utter a word of criticism...
...I inevitably reverted to a comparison which I made years ago: Though they are different enough in some ways, these folks are a lot like the people of Maine...
...Tucked in between the Atlantic and the Chesapeake, the Eastern Shore has had an island character for some 300 years...
...Finally, across the wide Choptank River and not far from other wide-spreading bodies of water, we came to a place where great tents had been erected and thousands of festive-looking people were assembled...
...What troubles me is that they are sure to lose their special qualities...
...Before the Civil War many of them were slave plantations, and now, in this regime of the machine, they have taken on really impressive size...
...Hundreds of boats of all sorts with great hosts of people sailing, fishing, swimming...
...Down here in this softer climate, settlers who wanted to escape from western Virginia or Maryland had an easy way...
...There will be no more separateness...
...Up there in New England the itchy and restless folks of Massachusetts went "down-east" by water and so came to the islands and coast of Maryland...
...Fortunately, I shall not be here to see this change...
...And what wide tidal streams spread lazily down to join the bay...
...Rolling along, we received a multiple impression of a union of land and water and hosts of people taking their pleasure in the enjoyment of that union...
...I am not worried about the political stiffness of these people...
...There these restless individuals settled down and each family ran its own affairs according to its own taste...
...Clergy galore, headed by a bevy of bishops, glamorized the ceremonial program —and the Governor, looking very much the part, was waiting to officiate...
...The present character of the people, their whole view of life, has developed out of their geographical isolation...
...And what crops...
Vol. 43 • August 1960 • No. 33
