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WATER-FOWL AND FISH. 3
The total area of Maryland includes 13,959 square miles, but of this only
"9,674 is land. Previous to the settlement of the " backwoods," the 4,285
square miles of the Chesapeake and its estuaries must have been much the
larger half of the State. Through this bay our people had a water front of
over five hundred miles; and its fifty navigable streams, cutting into the tidewater sections in every direction, like the legs of a centipede, made Lord
Baltimore's Province appear like a larger Venice. The facilities for easy
transportation thus afforded the inhabitants are difficult to overstate. Even
to-day, grain can be delivered in Baltimore from the Pocomoke more cheaply
.and easily than over twelve miles of country road in Baltimore county; and
the farmer at Oxford or St. Michael's, gets his crops to market in one-half the
time and at about one-fourth the cost for freight that is incurred by the
farmer at Reisterstown. In the colonial times, the planter had the still
further advantage that the ships which brought out his supplies from Bristol
.and London and took his tobacco in exchange, anchored, so to speak, within
-sight of his tobacco houses, and the same barges and lighters which carried
his tobacco hogsheads to the ship, returned freighted with his groceries and
osnaburgs, with the things which were needed to supply his cellar and pantry
and his wife's kitchen and work-basket.
This noble bay and all its branches was alive with water-fowl and shellfish. Every point that jutted out into it was an oyster bar, where the most
delicious bivalves known to the epicure might be had for the taking. Every
cove, and every mat of seaweed in all the channels, abounded in crabs, which,
" shedding " five months in every year, yielded the delicate soft crab, and at any
point on salt water, it was only necessary to dig along shore in order to bring
forth as many mananosays, or soft shell clams, as one needed. It is a grave
reflection upon the taste of our ancestors that there is no evidence earlier than
the beginning of the present century that the diamond-back terrapin was
known and appreciated, but the more famous canvas-back duck certainly was
known, and its qualities appreciated at a much earlier date.
At the time of which we write, and, indeed, up to the general employment
of steam navigation in our waters, the Chesapeake and its estuaries abounded
in an almost incalculable number and variety of water fowl, from the lordly
swan and the heavy goose to the wee fat " dipper." In the very valuable
"Journal" of Dankers and Sluyter,1 the authors, writing from a point not far
probably from Fairlee or Worton Creek, in Kent county, say: " I have
nowhere seen so many ducks together as w^ere in the creek in front of this
house. The water was so black with them that it seemed when you looked
from the land below upon the water, as if it were a mass of filth or turf, and
when they flew up there was a rushing and vibration of the air like a great
storm coming through the trees, and even like the rumbling of distant thunder,
1 Journal of a voyage to New York and a original manuscript in Dutch for the Long
tour in several of the American colonies, in Island Historical Society, and edited by Henry
1679-80, by Jaspar Dankers and Peter Sluyter, C. Murphy, Brooklyn, 1867. Alsop also speaks
of Wiewerd, in Friesland; translated from the of the " millionous multitudes " of water-fowl.
| Title | History of Maryland - 2 |
| Creator | Scharf, J. Thomas (John Thomas) |
| Publisher | J. B. Piet |
| Place of Publication | Baltimore |
| Date | 1879 |
| Language | eng |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Title | 00000026 |
| Type | Books/Pamphlets |
| Transcript | WATER-FOWL AND FISH. 3 The total area of Maryland includes 13,959 square miles, but of this only "9,674 is land. Previous to the settlement of the " backwoods," the 4,285 square miles of the Chesapeake and its estuaries must have been much the larger half of the State. Through this bay our people had a water front of over five hundred miles; and its fifty navigable streams, cutting into the tidewater sections in every direction, like the legs of a centipede, made Lord Baltimore's Province appear like a larger Venice. The facilities for easy transportation thus afforded the inhabitants are difficult to overstate. Even to-day, grain can be delivered in Baltimore from the Pocomoke more cheaply .and easily than over twelve miles of country road in Baltimore county; and the farmer at Oxford or St. Michael's, gets his crops to market in one-half the time and at about one-fourth the cost for freight that is incurred by the farmer at Reisterstown. In the colonial times, the planter had the still further advantage that the ships which brought out his supplies from Bristol .and London and took his tobacco in exchange, anchored, so to speak, within -sight of his tobacco houses, and the same barges and lighters which carried his tobacco hogsheads to the ship, returned freighted with his groceries and osnaburgs, with the things which were needed to supply his cellar and pantry and his wife's kitchen and work-basket. This noble bay and all its branches was alive with water-fowl and shellfish. Every point that jutted out into it was an oyster bar, where the most delicious bivalves known to the epicure might be had for the taking. Every cove, and every mat of seaweed in all the channels, abounded in crabs, which, " shedding " five months in every year, yielded the delicate soft crab, and at any point on salt water, it was only necessary to dig along shore in order to bring forth as many mananosays, or soft shell clams, as one needed. It is a grave reflection upon the taste of our ancestors that there is no evidence earlier than the beginning of the present century that the diamond-back terrapin was known and appreciated, but the more famous canvas-back duck certainly was known, and its qualities appreciated at a much earlier date. At the time of which we write, and, indeed, up to the general employment of steam navigation in our waters, the Chesapeake and its estuaries abounded in an almost incalculable number and variety of water fowl, from the lordly swan and the heavy goose to the wee fat " dipper." In the very valuable "Journal" of Dankers and Sluyter,1 the authors, writing from a point not far probably from Fairlee or Worton Creek, in Kent county, say: " I have nowhere seen so many ducks together as w^ere in the creek in front of this house. The water was so black with them that it seemed when you looked from the land below upon the water, as if it were a mass of filth or turf, and when they flew up there was a rushing and vibration of the air like a great storm coming through the trees, and even like the rumbling of distant thunder, 1 Journal of a voyage to New York and a original manuscript in Dutch for the Long tour in several of the American colonies, in Island Historical Society, and edited by Henry 1679-80, by Jaspar Dankers and Peter Sluyter, C. Murphy, Brooklyn, 1867. Alsop also speaks of Wiewerd, in Friesland; translated from the of the " millionous multitudes " of water-fowl. |
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