Part 2: Exploring the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, by SL550

As recounted in Part 1 of this report, last spring I piloted my 2020 Mercedes-Benz SL550 along the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, searching for scenery, history, and boundless adventure.  I found all of the above and thoroughly enjoyed the trip.  Three weeks later, I returned for the second round of my tour—this time, on the eastern shore of the bay. 

A Navy Battle Between Maryland and Virginia?

Crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge is always a treat, as you soar over 350 feet above the level of the bay.  On the other side, my first stop was Kent Island, the largest island in the bay.  As all good Marylanders know, the colony of Maryland was founded in 1634 when English settlers arrived at St. Clements Island on the Potomac River, having sailed across the Atlantic on 2 small ships, the Ark and the Dove.

Less well known is the fact that the first colonial settlement in this area actually occurred 3 years earlier, when Englishman William Claiborne established a trading post on Kent Island, named Kent Fort.  He had bought the island from the local Susquehannock Indians; they—and their forebearers—had lived here for about 12,000 years, give or take a millennium. Soon, Kent Fort was a thriving settlement, and Claiborne claimed the land on behalf of the colony of Virginia.

The Calvert family, led by George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore, was not amused.  They had been given the land by King Charles I, and in 1635 they attempted to take over the Kent Fort settlement.  In the process, they seized one of Claiborne’s ships and confiscated its cargo of beaver pelts and tobacco.  Claiborne, in response, sent out multiple armed vessels to attack Maryland ships in the Chesapeake Bay.  The Calverts responded with armed ships of their own, and these impromptu naval battles reached a bloody climax in April and May of 1635.  They were the first armed naval engagements in the New World.

Kent Island was captured by the Calverts in 1637, recaptured by Claiborne in 1644, and retaken by the Calverts in 1646.  Legal battles continued off and on for decades, with the final decision—in Maryland’s favor—not occurring until 1668.  (Drawing of William Claiborne and painting of Maryland Governor Leonard Calvert courtesy of Wikipedia.)

An Anglican congregation was formed in 1632 on Kent Island.  By about 1650, they built Christ Church at Broad Creek.  It was the first church on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.  Today, the church and town of Broad Creek are long gone, and a newer Christ Church building is located in nearby Stevensville—but the original Broad Creek Cemetery, uh, lives on.

Archaeologists have discovered the foundations of the 1650 church, which are now marked by bricks.  It was only 25 by 40 feet and by 1714 was described as “being old and gone very much to decay.”  An effort was made to rebuild the church, but it failed when the roof collapsed and knocked down the walls.  However, if you’re looking for a quiet, park-like cemetery for your final resting place, Broad Creek is once again accepting burials.

Long before the Chesapeake Bay Bridge was completed in 1952, ferries transported people from one side of the bay to the other.  One of the most popular lines ran between Annapolis and this pier in Matapeake on Kent Island, where the bay is relatively narrow.  On Sunday afternoons, cars would line up for 3 miles, waiting for the ferry ride back to Annapolis.  (Historical photo courtesy of History of Matapeake.)

In the above photo, the Matapeake Clubhouse is visible at far left.  Travelers could get a meal there while waiting for the ferry.  The ferries stopped running once the Bay Bridge was open, and the Clubhouse entered a long period of disuse and decay.  A full renovation began in 1999, and the building is now quite popular for weddings and other events.

The path from the clubhouse leads to a public beach and a nice view of the Bay Bridge.

How Did a Sunken Ship End Up Beneath the U.S. Naval Academy?

The Chesapeake Bay is home to approximately 1,800 known shipwrecks, along with countless other “underwater archaeological features.”  The shipwrecks vary from early Native American dugout canoes to the Express, which was a steam-powered passenger ferry that sank in a storm in 1878.  In 1774, the angry citizens of Annapolis staged their own “Annapolis Tea Party” by burning the Peggy Stewart after it brought in a load of heavily taxed tea.  The Peggy Stewart now lies somewhere beneath Luce Hall at the U.S. Naval Academy.  Although the ship sank in open water, a later expansion of the Naval Academy extended the shoreline overtop of the ship’s location.  (John Manley Rosé painting “The Burning of the Peggy Stewart” courtesy of Historic Annapolis via The Capital Gazette.)

Other such underwater “features” include everything from tiny shards of ancient pottery to the skull of a 22,000-year-old mastodon.  Fossilized sharks’ teeth can be easily found all up and down the shores of the Chesapeake.

The Chesapeake Bay has been experiencing both higher water levels and sinking land levels (“subsidence”) for many decades.  As a result, roughly 400 former islands—including several large ones—now lie beneath the waves.  Shore lands are also imperiled, including the Naval Academy itself, which now frequently experiences flooded streets.  Remember the original Kent Fort settlement from 1631?  Well, it now lies under water, possibly just offshore from this picturesque setting.

Why would the land be sinking?  The primary culprit seems to be the last ice age.  As the stupendously heavy Laurentide Ice Sheet descended from Canada into the northern United States (creating the Great Lakes in the process), its weight pushed down the land beneath and levered up the land ahead of its path—including today’s Mid-Atlantic coast.  Later, as the glacier melted, this “teeter-totter” effect reversed, leading to gradual land subsidence in this area.  This effect is exacerbated by removal of ground water due to public water systems and individuals’ wells.  Is land subsidence of 1.5 to 4.0 millimeters per year worth worrying about?  Well, sure—and don’t forget the increasing water level, which has added a foot of depth over the last 100 years (3.0 mm per year, and accelerating).  Of course, everything is relative: Consider the possibility of another meteor strike like the one 35 million years ago that left a crater twice the size of Rhode Island and resulted in the formation of the Chesapeake Bay.

An Enterprising Fellow

Okay, back to the tour!  Friendship is one of the oldest houses on the island.  The larger, older part was built in the 1740s, probably by Joseph and/or Lewis De Rochbrune.  The house has weathered the last 280-or-so years nicely.

Before crossing over the Kent Narrows and leaving the island, I swung by the home and general store of one James E. Kirwan (1848-1938).  As individuals go, Mr. Kirwan was remarkably industrious.  He was working at the Baltimore docks by age 6, and at age 10 he served as a cabin boy and cook on Chesapeake Bay ships.  By age 16 he was the captain of the James Baynes, delivering goods from Baltimore to Philadelphia.  He married Mary Rebecca Gardner at 19 and opened his first general store at 25.

James Kirwan was appointed Deputy Commander of the Chesapeake Bay “Oyster Navy” in 1876 and happily apprehended illegal oyster dredgers while he helmed the police ship Frolic.  Using copious amounts of drift lumber—reportedly from the 1889 floods that decimated Johnstown, PA—he built this home for his family and added the adjacent country store.  (The building is now the James E. Kirwan Museum.)

In 1898, Kirwan was elected to the first of 2 terms as a Maryland State Senator.  He was also instrumental in blocking an Army proposal to take over Kent Island and create a military proving ground.  (The Army subsequently created the Aberdeen Proving Grounds farther north along the Chesapeake Bay.)  In 1904, he built this house for his daughter Sophia and her husband.

Did I mention what a beautiful day it was?  And, yet again, the SL550 was proving to be the perfect vehicle for historic touring—fast, comfortable, and able to improve the appearance of any scenic photograph.

In Search of the Richest Person in America

Rolling along Bennett’s Point Road, I was greeted by numerous signs warning of stray deer and wild turkeys.  However, this stubborn vulture was the only animal I encountered.  He or she was determined to stay put and even appeared to be grinning at me.

As I motored further, a mere glance at the entrances to the houses told me that I was no longer in farm country.

I later learned that Bennett’s Point had been purchased by a developer in 1972, who proceeded to build a number of luxurious waterfront homes, each on 5 acres of land.  I liked this one the best, in part because of its 3-car garage.

Eventually I found the ruins of Bennett’s Chapel.  Interestingly, most of the chapel’s interior was taken up by an inner room, like a mausoleum, with 8 impressive, above-ground graves.  Historians believe that this inner room was actually an older chapel, built  to cover the grave of Colonel Peter Sayer.

The 2 matching graves, just to the right of center in this photo, are the final resting places of Richard Bennett, III (1667–1749) and his wife Elizabeth Rousby Bennett (1682–1740).

As recounted in an interesting 1972 Baltimore Sun Magazine article, Richard Bennett, III was the richest man in North America and the continent’s first multi-millionaire.  He achieved this status through a series of shrewd (and sometimes ruthless) business dealings.  He was particularly adept at lending money to area farmers and then foreclosing at the earliest opportunity when the borrowers fell behind.  Despite his great wealth, however, his chapel disintegrated, his grave became obscured by layers of soil and a forest of poison ivy, and the cemetery became lost in the middle of a pig farm.  Centuries later, it was rediscovered by Dickson Preston, the author of the article, and renovated by the developer of the luxury homes.  This photo shows a corner of Bennett’s tomb in 1972.

One of the tombs stood out for its more elaborate appearance.  But who lies here?  And what is the significance of the large stones sitting atop the brick wall?  Although archaeologists discovered the foundation of the plantation mansion owned by Col. Sayer and later inherited by Elizabeth Rousby Bennett, little information is available regarding the cemetery’s inhabitants.

An entire book could be written about Richard Bennett, III and his ancestors.  His grandfather, Richard Bennett, was the governor of Virginia in 1652–1655 and a crony of the notorious Oliver Cromwell, who deposed the King of England during the English Civil War.  His mother was Henrietta Maria Neale Bennett, the goddaughter and namesake of Queen Henrietta Maria of England, for whom Maryland is named.  (A “mourning ring,” given by the Queen to Henrietta Maria Neale at her birth, is now on display at the Maryland Center for History and Culture.)  Henrietta Maria also remained a staunch Catholic, even after Puritans had taken over the government in Maryland and outlawed Catholicism.  But we’ll leave all that for another journey through the state.  For now, Richard Bennett, III remains a noteworthy but largely forgotten personage in Maryland’s history.

Don’t Step on the Cannonball…

Driving back up Bennett’s Point, I spotted some old farm buildings that seemed to have escaped the developer’s bulldozers.  Moreover, the 2½-story farmhouse looked to be in fine shape.  Back home, it took a lot of searching to discover that this is Sedgewick Farm, built in 1810.  It sits on over 55 acres, including half a mile of waterfront shoreline on the Wye River.  Coincidentally, it’s for sale—if you happen to have a spare $3.5 million handy.  Seems like a bargain, actually.

Speaking of early 1800s, 2½-story houses…  Here I’ve parked in front of the “Cannonball House” in downtown St. Michaels, MD.  It was built in about 1805 for the aptly named shipbuilder William Merchant and his family.  We’ve all seen or heard of buildings that still have a Civil War cannonball lodged in their walls.  But this house was hit by a cannonball fired from a British Navy vessel during the pre-dawn Battle of St. Michaels in 1813.  The clever townspeople of St. Michaels had placed lanterns high up in the trees, while also blacking out their windows.  The British gunners overshot the town and did very little damage.  One stray shot, however, landed in the attic of this house and rolled down its main staircase—frightening, but not injuring Mrs. Merchant as she carried her young daughter downstairs.  Thereafter, the cannonball was displayed prominently in the parlor.

By Land or by Sea…

 As the world’s largest estuary (based on shoreline length), the Chesapeake Bay has numerous coves.  It is also fed by more than 150 fresh-water rivers and streams.  As a consequence, there are thousands of points of land protruding into the Bay.  From Bennett’s Point to Rich Neck is only 2½ miles across the water, but the driving distance from one to the other is over 40 miles.

Rich Neck was first settled and farmed in 1652, by Captain James Murphy.  There were various owners over the years, but Matthew Tilghman Ward inherited the property in 1722 and soon married Margaret Lloyd—the daughter of good ol’ Henrietta Maria Bennett Lloyd, who had remarried after Richard Bennett, III died.    Matthew and Margaret adopted 15-year-old Matthew Tilghman, who eventually inherited the property.  (Try to keep up here; there will be a quiz…)  Rich Neck has had its ups and downs, but there is still a small mid-1600s chapel and a large, late-1700s manor house about three-quarters of a mile up this road.

Young Matthew Tilghman went on to a life of public service that earned him the nickname “The Father of the Revolution” in Maryland.  He served as Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates and headed the state’s delegation to the Continental Congress in 1774-1776.  He led Maryland’s efforts to establish a new government, including a constitution that—after almost 90 years of Puritan rule—guaranteed freedom of religion for all citizens.  He finished out his government service as President of the Maryland Senate.  (Portrait of Matthew Tilghman, painted by John Hesselius, courtesy of Founder of the Day.)

A Miracle House

Nearby, the tiny town of Claiborne was once the principal ferry landing for people traveling from Baltimore and Annapolis to the beach resorts on Maryland’s Atlantic coast.  Steamship wharves were built here as early as 1867, and passenger travel exploded once a railroad line was added to the town in 1890.  (These days, beachgoers complain about the traffic congestion crossing the Bay Bridge.  In 1890, a family would take a 2½-hour ferry ride from Annapolis to Claiborne, a half-hour train ride to nearby Easton, MD, and then a 3-hour train to Ocean City.  It’s all relative…)

Ferry service largely ended in Claiborne in 1930, when the principal carrier relocated to Matapeake, but the old pier remains.  It’s mostly used for fishing now, and for watching the eagles that nest in this area.

Near the Claiborne landing, I drove around Miracle House Drive to see what was left of the tuberculosis “preventorium” that operated here from 1913 to 1944.

Miracle House was a nonprofit organization that brought about 200 children each summer from Baltimore, where they had been exposed to tuberculosis, to Claiborne for 10 weeks of fresh air, sunshine, good food, swimming, and other exercise.  The goal was to build up their resistance to the disease.  There was no charge for this program, and by all accounts it was very successful.  Mindelle Moon, who had been a counselor at Miracle House for 15 summers, wrote that the children gained an average of 4 pounds per month and developed “a beautiful tan.”  (Historical photos courtesy of the Talbot Historical Society and Tea At Trianon.)

The Miracle House program ended once effective antibiotics were developed during World War II.  Sadly, the main house, dormitories, and most of the other Miracle House buildings burned some years ago.  All that remained were a small cottage and this former one-room schoolhouse, which was used here for Sunday School lessons.

Claiborne has a total of just 63 homes, and town ordinances strictly limit any future construction.  The former United Methodist Church now serves as the town’s community center.

Ancient History, and the Dinghy of Doom

 Despite many thousands of miles of touring in the Mid-Atlantic area, I’d somehow never made it to Tilghman Island on the Chesapeake Bay’s eastern shore.  It’s only 3 miles long and a mile wide in places, but it practically drips history wherever you turn.  Some of the earliest signs of history have been found here, at Paw Paw Cove.  What now looks like a typical Chesapeake Bay beach was, 21,000 years ago, “a high bluff, looking over the [ancestral] Susquehanna River—no bay had yet formed.”  During 1977-2003, geo-archaeologists found fossilized teeth from mastodons, giant beavers, tapirs (which look like a cross between a pig and an elephant), and an extinct species of horse, among others.

The researchers also discovered a number of “Clovis points” (spear tips and arrowheads, made by flaking quartz and other stones), knives, and other prehistoric Paleo-Indian tools from about 13,000 years ago.  One of these experts was Darrin Lowery, who grew up on Tilghman Island and started collecting fossils and arrowheads at the age of six.  His discoveries of prehistoric hunting and lodging sites in the Mid-Atlantic area have added substantially to the knowledge of these early peoples and their way of life.  (Photo of a sample of Darrin Lowery’s Clovis points courtesy of the University of Delaware.)

Tilghman Island was a sleepy farming settlement for 175 years.  In the 1830s, its economy turned to fishing—oystering in particular.  Leaving from Dogwood Harbor, a flotilla of skipjacks, bugeyes, and other sailing ships would ply the waters off Tilghman Island, returning with tons of oysters and clams that would be processed by the island’s canning facilities and shipped all over the country.  Several of the classic skipjacks are still docked in the harbor, although these days they provide rides for tourists, rather than fresh seafood.

A largish sailboat ought to have a dinghy, right?  And, rather than having to row the dinghy, why not use an 800-pound Cummins diesel marine engine?  And just for good measure, let’s add what looks like a DIY-engineered turbocharger…  Interestingly, there is no apparent way to steer this dinghy!

The Trouble with Lighthouses

Today, Tilghman Island’s watermen, oyster shuckers, and canning operations are long gone, and the island primarily offers watersports, tourism, and a comfortable, remote lifestyle for residents.  I got an excellent crab cake sandwich for lunch at the Tilghman Island Country Store, along with a “cruffin”—a muffin made with croissant dough and lots of cinnamon and sugar.

Everywhere I looked, there were still signs of yesteryear’s activities, including the 1882 Sharps Island lighthouse.  It sits 3.8 miles off the southern shore of Tilghman Island, so my photo of it is a bit sketchy.  The historical photo is courtesy of the U.S. Coast Guard.  The closer and clearer photo is courtesy of Secrets of the Eastern Shore.  It’s the third lighthouse to guide sailors in this area.  Although built on a sturdy iron and concrete caisson, it began leaning in 1973 and was knocked further askew by a rogue ice flow 3 years later.   It has survived ever since despite tilting 15 to 20 degrees.  The lighthouse is currently in very poor condition, and you could probably buy it for next to nothing if you were so inclined.

The first lighthouse was built on Sharps Island itself in 1838, a good 30+ feet above the level of the bay.  Erosion got to it anyway, and it was replaced in 1866 by a “screwpile” lighthouse, mounted on long iron rods that were literally screwed into the floor of the bay.  It worked fine until the winter of 1881, when a massive ice flow knocked the lighthouse clean off its pilings.  Lightkeeper Christopher Columbus Butler and his assistant could have climbed into their dinghy and left safely at any time, but they were highly dedicated public servants—and they stayed with the lighthouse for 16 hours as it floated 5 miles up the Chesapeake, eventually running aground just off Paw Paw Cove. They managed to rescue the valuable lens and light mechanism before the lighthouse once again floated away.

As for Sharps Island itself, it once featured 900 acres of land, numerous houses, farms, a resort hotel, boardwalk, and steamship landing.  But you remember the “teeter-totter” glacial impact and land subsidence, right?  By 1830, Sharps Island was down to 300 acres, and then to just 94 in 1900.  Sometime between 1940 and 1960, it disappeared altogether.  Today, the one-time island is just another shoal lurking beneath the waters of the Chesapeake Bay.  (Photo of Sharps Island in 1950 courtesy of Chesapeake Quarterly.)

They Don’t Build ’Em Like They Used To

The patient SL550 didn’t seem to mind puttering around scarcely above idle in search of history.  It was happy just to be out of the garage—and even happier when called upon to accelerate aggressively from one location to another.

There were plenty of beautiful old houses on Tilghman Island.

St. John’s Chapel was built in 1891 when a faction split off from the nearby Tilghman Island Methodist Church.  Over time the congregation dwindled, however, and the church building deteriorated significantly.  Fortunately, a group of residents formed Friends of St. John’s Chapel, the church has been beautifully renovated, and it has reopened for services every Sunday.

This quaint, W-shaped house is said to capture breezes from any direction.  It was the home of the Lee family from about 1893 to around 1930.  It was later used as a boarding house but then sat vacant for 30 years.  Since 2015 it has housed the Tilghman Watermen’s Museum, open Saturdays and Sundays.  By 1900, there were 13 of these Victorian “W” houses on the island, but only 2 now remain in their original configuration.

My favorite house from the entire trip was this sprawling, 2½-story masterpiece.  Note especially the 5-sided, second-story room that sits above the front porch.  Why doesn’t anyone build houses like these anymore?

It took some doing, but eventually I learned that this home was “The Elms,” built in 1893 for Charles Howeth and his family.  Leona Garvin Harrison, the “grande dame of Tilghman Island,” acquired the place in 1928 and started The Elms Fishing Resort.  Her husband Buddy would take customers out in his 36-foot boat, angling for rockfish (striped bass), which is one of the Chesapeake Bay’s delicacies.  “Miss Leona” would pamper the guests with nice rooms and fabulous meals.  For $5.50, a visitor could get a mammoth breakfast, a packed lunch to take on the boat, and a hearty dinner including the resort’s famous Crab Imperial, clams, oysters, baked rockfish, and strawberry pie a la mode.

A Presidential Duel?

 We’ve already seen where the first church on the Eastern Shore of Maryland had been, namely Christ Church at Broad Creek.  The second was Whitemarsh Church, near a tiny crossroads town once called Hole In The Wall.  It was built sometime between 1662 and 1665 as a frame structure and subsequently expanded with this brick wing.  As for Hole In The Wall, it was later called Hambleton after a local military hero.  Today, however, the still-tiny town appears not to have a name at all.  (Historical photo of Old Whitemarsh Church courtesy of the Talbot County Free Library.)

Looking at the ruins of Whitemarsh Church from the other side, it’s clear that very little of the place survived the devastating fire that occurred in 1897.  And even the center portion of this wall is a reconstruction, judging by the historical photo below.

Daniel Maynadier was the Rector for Whitemarsh from 1711 to 1745.  He and his wife Hannah are buried beneath the memorial plaque shown below.  Maynadier was succeeded by the Rev. Thomas Bacon, who was devoted to the cause of education for all children, including both free and enslaved African Americans.  In 1755, Rev. Bacon established the Charity Working School, which provided free training in traditional skills for all children, regardless of their race, gender, or societal status.  Like many clergymen in this period, however, his teachings emphasized that Christian religion supported the superiority of slaveowners over their slaves.

Local Hole-In-The-Wall legend includes an intriguing event that has never made it into history books.  Quoting from the Whitemarsh Church’s nomination to the National Register of Historic Places:

There is a story of a duel fought within a mile of the church one foggy morning. After two shots rang out in the still air, one man, Andrew Jackson, later to become President of the United States, hurriedly mounted his horse and sped away to Oxford Port to catch a boat for Washington. The other man lies in an unmarked grave in Old Whitemarsh Cemetery, never identified.

A true story?  Andrew Jackson is known to have participated in over 100 documented duels and an unknown number of undocumented ones.  My money is on the local legend.  (Drawing courtesy of Country Life.)

A Poor Choice of Signals, and a Missing Almshouse

Just outside of the Whitemarsh Church ruins lies the grave of Robert Morris, Sr.  Although born into a poor family in Liverpool, England, in America Morris quickly proved to be a “mercantile genius.”  He earned a large fortune through his business operations, which he left to his son, Robert Morris, Jr.  Robert, Jr. was also adept at business, and he later became known as the “financier of the American Revolution” for his donations of food, clothing, arms, and salaries to the Continental Army.  Tragically, Morris, Sr. died as a result of a mistimed cannon volley in his honor, as he was leaving a ship in a small boat.  The ship’s captain had ordered his crew to fire the cannon at his signal—which would be when he touched his nose.  But well before the boat had a chance to reach a safe distance, a fly landed on the captain’s nose…  Yes, truth is once again stranger than fiction.

 Remember Rev. Bacon’s Charity Working School?  It was a large brick building and provided valuable education for children for about 30 years.  Thereafter, it became the Talbot County Almshouse, sheltering indigent individuals and families, who would do farm work to help cover the cost of their care.  The poorhouse was located on Almshouse Road, “halfway between Hole In The Wall and the head of Island Creek.” Naturally, I went looking for it.

For over 100 years in Colonial America, churches and communities had provided help to needy people on an ad hoc basis.  In 1768, the Maryland Legislature passed legislation encouraging the creation of county almshouses, to centralize care and reduce costs.  Talbot County was one of several Eastern Shore counties that responded.  While the intentions were noble, the execution involved the use of overseers to enforce the work requirements, and almshouse residents were required to wear badges with a red letter P on a white background.  If an individual did not comply, he or she would lose their benefits and be subject to a whipping.

After a brief search, I discovered that the Talbot County Almshouse no longer exists.  It ceased operations in the mid-1940s and was demolished in the early 1970s.  Bricks from the building were reused in many other places, including the entry columns for the Talbot County Garden Club in Easton, MD.

As best I could determine, this was the site of the almshouse.  There is not the slightest sign of its existence today.  The apparatus in the background is used for watering crops and is a common sight on the Eastern Shore.  This one draws water from Island Creek.

My last stop before heading home was at the 1880 Peachblossom Meeting House.  It was originally called “Union Church,” probably because four different religious denominations combined their limited resources to build the church, with each holding services here every fourth Sunday.  One of these congregations, the German Baptist Brethren, eventually gained full-time use of the church, but they outgrew the little building by about 1893.

In an interesting article, James Dawson relates that the hexagonal building has six corners on the outside (naturally) but seven corners on the inside.  His article explains why and is well worth a read.

Unusually, there are two separate cemeteries at Peachblossom.  I had parked the faithful SL550 behind the little church, next to the smaller of the two.  Within the little iron fence lies the grave of Dr. William P. Bayhan and his wife Adelaine.  Dr. Bayhan was not a physician; he was a medium, i.e., someone who claimed to communicate with the dead.  When Dr. Bayhan himself passed away, his church refused to allow his burial in their cemetery, perhaps fearing that he might lead a spirit insurrection or perhaps form a union demanding more favorable resting conditions.  The Brethren congregation at Peachblossom graciously allowed his burial here—but only in a separate area, surrounded by a fence.

With thoughts of prehistoric Native American populations, beautiful old houses and churches, various wars on U.S. soil and water, geo-archaeologists, and the plethora of historic sites surrounding the Chesapeake Bay, I motored on home.  A fun trip all around, and a marvelous conveyance for finding everything.

Rick F.

PS: Unless otherwise noted, historical photos are courtesy of the Library of Congress or the National Register of Historic Places.