Chesapeake Bay Journal III: Consorts

photograph by Hallie Cohen

Merriam-Webster defines “consort" as, ”A wife or husband especially of a king or queen." When you walk through the graveyard in front of the red brick Bond Chapel on the Quaker Neck Road in Chestertown, you discover not one but two gravestones which employ this royal term in describing the nineteenth century matrons who were buried there. Of course these deceased wives were a little different than Queen Taisi (1099-1050BC) who was the consort to King Wen of Zhou. Drive further down Quaker Neck Landing Road and you will come to a cul-de- sac facing a small harbor that’s a reminder of life lived at a totally different pace and scale than most people are capable of experiencing, even in rural areas today. The old graveyards, harbors and churches which dot small villages like Chestertown and Rock Hall are vestiges of a way of an existence that's kept alive due to maritime traditions and an indigenous culture that, in some cases, hearkens back to Indian times. You have ghost towns and deserted communities which have died due to the loss of an economic base and where time has come to a halt. However, what's miraculous here is the way that the past is kept alive, while the world of the future lurks only steps away. Neither off the beaten track, nor in the mainstream of tourism, shipping or industry these Chesapeake Bay villages on the Eastern Maryland Shore have managed to maintain a fragile balance in which the manners, mores and traditions of a bygone era harmoniously co-exist with the modern world.

Chesapeake Bay Journal I : Chestertown

High Street in Chestertown (photograph: Jennifer Schmidt)

The Eastern Shore of Maryland lies on the Chesapeake Bay. Chestertown, a village along the Eastern Shore, with a revolutionary heritage is famous for its Tea Party Festival. Back in 1774 the inhabitants of Chestertown showed their allegiance to their Boston confreres, and to British sanctions, by prohibiting the buying and selling of tea. You may recall that tea is a nickname for marijuana, but life was simpler back in those days and one wonders how the current populace stand with respect to the Tea Party today. Maryland straddles the lines between the blue and red states. For instance The Chestertown Spy ran a piece entitled “GOP Candidates Bring Anti Government Message to Government’s Backyard” (4/21/16) The crux of the article dealt with the fact that the tea party message of small government might not resonate in a place where so many people, due to the proximity to Washington, enjoyed the benefits of federal jobs. The Spy reported,  “The fact is, 503,000 hold local, state and federal government jobs, according to March statistics from the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation. That accounts for roughly one in five jobs in the state. In addition, the federal government alone spent $15,834 per person in Maryland in fiscal 2014—27.5 percent of the state's total economic output, according to a Pew Charitable Trusts study released in March. Only Virginia receives more federal dollars per person.” You try to absorb facts like these as you drive through the flat verdant landscape abutting the tidewaters, famed for its crab cakes. If you gravitate to traditional plantation redoubts you might want to try the gracious Southern Style Brampton Inn situated amidst refulgent landscaped gardens. Is this the world the Tea Party wants to preserve? Maybe so, but the irony is that for the residents of Kent County in which Chestertown sits, the Federal government is the biggest show in town. You can’t run a luxury inn unless you have someone to butter your bread.