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Oxford Map and History
Oxford is one of the oldest towns in Maryland. Although already settled for perhaps 20 years, Oxford marks the year 1683 The Strand Tilghman as its official founding, for in that year Oxford was first named by the Maryland General Assembly as a seaport and was laid out as a town. In 1694, Oxford and a new town called Anne Arundel (now Annapolis) were selected the only ports of entry for the entire Maryland province. Until the American Revolution, Oxford enjoyed prominence as an international shipping center surrounded by wealthy tobacco plantations. Today, Oxford is a charming tree-lined and waterbound village with a population of just over 700 and is still important in boat building and yachting. It has a protected harbor for watermen who harvest oysters, crabs, clams and fish, and for sailors from all over the Bay.
For a walking tour and more history visit https://tidewatertimes. com/travel-tourism/oxford-maryland/.
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Benoni Ave. Pleasant St. Robes Hbr. Ct. South Morris Street Bachelor Point Road Pier St. E. Pier St. Oxford Road
W. Division St. Caroline St.West St. Tred Avon Ave. First Street Jack’s Pt. Rd. Third Street Bonfield Ave. 2nd St.
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Stewart Ave. Norton St. Mill St. Wilson St. Banks St.Factory St.Morris St. Oxford Park South Street Jefferson St. Sinclair St. Richardson St. Town Creek Rd.
Oxford Community Center
Oxford Bellevue Ferry
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dio provided: “I was a young man of seventeen years old and it was the same thing as being in prison for no reason at all. You can imagine how it was, being confined to a lighthouse with seven rooms in it, having to stay there twenty-four days and being off six days. It was not very pleasant.”
Perhaps mature crewmen adapted more easily to the environment. Both Hooper-named lights were among a cluster of fully manned stations guiding traffic around Tangier Sound’s shoals, offshore of numerous islands and semi-aquatic villages. There were seven more lighthouses around the Sound: Sharkfin
202 Morris St., Oxford 410-226-0010
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Shoal off Clay Island, Great Shoals off Deal Island, Holland Island Bar off that severely eroded island, Solomons Lump in Kedges Strait, Janes Island at the entrance of Annemessex River, Somers Cove at Crisfield, and Tangier Sound, at its Virginia entrance. The lights’ occupants were part of a large society of amphibious people who lived around the water’s edge. Dwindling numbers of watermen today belie the fact that, in their day, resident “wickies” were not so isolated as might be imagined.
A hundred boats of all description may have passed in the course of a day, most too small to rate mention in the log, but captained by familiar watermen. If two men were aboard the light when one received word by radio of an emergency at home, he could hail a passing waterman for a lift ashore, so the station’s boat remained with his mate. To augment supplies delivered peri-
Tangier Sound Lighthouse
Open for Dinner Wednesday through Saturday, Lunch Wednesday through Saturday, Brunch Sunday & Breakfast seven days. THE ROBERT MORRIS INN 1710 OXFORD MD
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odically by tenders, crews fished off the railed gallery. Perhaps someone hauling watermelons to town might drop one off to the keepers.
Eastern Shore photographer Orlando Wootten interviewed a woman who spent her honeymoon at Great Shoals Lighthouse. Her new husband persuaded two mates to take leave while he smuggled his bride aboard for a week. The groom must have used some artistic license when completing the week’s log. Lightkeeping required such meticulous records of a day’s activities, it’s a wonder any work ever got done.
The honeymooners were throwbacks to an earlier time, before chronic erosion forced locating lights away from shore. Earlier land-based lights were attached to dwellings, where keepers’ families lived conventional lives. When later lights were erected off shrinking shorelines, families naturally moved along with them until icy winters proved too hazardous. Captain James Bolling of Sevenfoot Knoll Light had a family of seven aboard, plus a container garden, and assorted livestock fenced on the lower platform. They persevered through winter hazards and livestock losses until 1879, when a tugboat had to brave ice to rescue Mrs. Bolling and the children. They resettled in the city.
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TIMOTHY B. KEARNS
TBKEARNSDESIGN.COM · 410.226.5100
Except for the Sparkplug Hooper Island Lighthouse, today’s automated Tangier Sound lights have been remounted on bases that formerly held cottages. The Coast Guard dismantled or burned obsolete cottages, aside from Hooper Strait
Sevenfoot Knoll Lighthouse Hooper Island Lighthouse, today.
Treasure Chest Gift Shop & Art Gallery
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10%-50% off most items in the store. Enter the free gift basket giveaway, refreshments served. Furniture Painting Classes Available, Register Online.
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Lighthouse. Local citizens were organizing to save the lighthouse on location in the Straits when CBMM prevailed, slicing it in two and removing it to Navy Point in St. Michaels.
Visitors can overnight in CBMM’s Hooper Strait Lighthouse, perhaps imagining keepers enjoying a leisurely life. Those who work “remotely” in our modern world know that employers devise ways to ensure their money’s worth for a day’s wages. Similarly, inspectors toured manned lights to confirm work logs had not become too fanciful.
Populations decline now on many shores around Tangier Sound, where lightkeepers once befriended villagers, occasionally found refuge
S. Hanks Interior Design
Suzanne Hanks Litty Oxford, Maryland
shanksinteriordesign@gmail.com 410-310-4151
among them, and courted and married local girls. Keepers like Cornwell and Whaley are ebbing into history, following smugglers who sailed men and supplies down the Sound into the Confederacy, pirates who rendezvoused among its islands, British bargemen who raided waterside planters and the indigenous people who fi rst harvested its rich oyster beds.
The new owner of Hooper Island Lighthouse might recapture some inkling of yesteryear’s adventurers. A Memorandum of Agreement with the Navy specifi es awareness that the lighthouse is located in a “surface danger area.” The Naval Air Warfare Center must be notifi ed of visitors on the light. Nearby Bloodsworth Island is still pummeled periodically with practice bombs and inert missiles and rockets. In the days of manned lights in Tangier Sound, accidents were known to happen. Luckily, no keeper incurred serious harm.
Forty-some years ago, A.M. Foley swapped the Washington, D.C., business scene for a writing life on Elliott Island, Maryland. Tidewater Times has kindly published portions of one upcoming work, Chesapeake Bay Island Hopping, along with other regional musings. Foley’s published works are described at www.HollandIslandBook.com.
Pamela P. Gardner, AIA, LLC
311 N. Aurora St., Easton · 410-820-7973 · pam@ppgaia.com www.pamelagardneraia.com
