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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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as a causeway. On extreme tides, there’s nothing visible to describe. It simply disappears.
Local lore is divided on how the marsh road acquired its tortuous course: whether from wild cattle left to graze the marsh, or earlier, from Native Americans wending their way from hummock to hummock. Whoever or whatever blazed the way, a narrow path meandered eight miles from the wooded fastland of Hurley’s Neck to what became John Elliott’s Island.
From pre-history to modern times, sight-lines reached miles across thousands of acres of marsh, obvious proof to some the world was flat. In Mr. Stump’s words, “On a sunny summer day huge white clouds, with edges shaded with gray, passed ever so slowly in a deep blue sky.” With the coming of the automobile, occasional pulloffs prevented head-on collisions on the twisting single lane. Passage served as something of a metaphor for island living, where daily progress often depended on cooperation among neighbors.
Before the 1960s, when the county finally paved the single lane with asphalt, they had spread a variety of substances on its surface. Lawson Ewell, born into the island’s foremost boatbuilding family, migrated in adulthood to Philadelphia and thrived as a skilled
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woodworker. He once told me, “I bought a 1922 Ford for $50 at $5 a week. We used to come down home to stay on summer vacation. They’d cut poles out of pine, maybe four inches across, and laid ’em across the roadway, then covered ’em with dirt. You’d drive along over those poles listening to ’em go ‘putt, putt, putt, putt, putt.’”
Another senior I met in the 1970s told me about his one trip from Cambridge to Elliott Island. He rode along with a friend, delivering a truckload of sodas to an island store. When they got to the marsh, thumping over the corduroy road, bottle caps started popping (putt, putt, pop, pop . . . ) After eight miles, they reached the store with every soda open. He must have gotten himself a good shaking as well. He said, “I swore I’d never go there again, and I never have.”
According to Lawson Ewell, the county tried to improve on dirtcovered logs: “They got the idea of putting oyster shells on top of the dirt. Those shells are sharp; you might have four flat tires before
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you got to the Crossroads.” Islanders fought back by wrapping and fastening old tires over their working set.
In his youth, Ralph Foxwell Jr. worked as an island farmhand five days a week, plus a half-day Saturday. For months, he saved every cent from a $9/week salary to get a car. He told me, “I bought a car in Federalsburg that had re-grooved tires—tires that had worn down smooth, then had new grooves cut in them down to the cord. They looked almost new. The salesman said they’d last for a year, but they all tore up in no time.”
After the Elliott Island school was closed in 1958, students were bused to Vienna. One student remembered trips home: “We were eating dust from the water tower on down. Then they started paving one-mile increments every two or three years. . . . It was the 1960s when they actually had all the pieces together.” By the close of the ’60s, the road beyond Hurley’s Neck still narrowed from two to one lane, but it was paved all the way. School bus contractor and native islander Austin Gray had been elected a county commissioner.
A lot of this history came to me as I drove abroad with Eva Thomas riding shotgun. Before we became acquainted, she still drove herself off-island in an ancient two-door
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sedan. I sometimes had the misfortune of getting stuck behind her as she crept across the marsh ~ eight miles of impatience with no passing possible. I asked a youngster who that was, the old woman who drove so slowly. “Oh,” he said, “that must’ve been Eva Knievel.” Eva and I came to be friends and roamed together often. I surely miss her wit and words of wisdom that so shortened the road.
Eva grew up when women averse to boats didn’t leave the island. Like all her contemporaries, once liberated by a functional road, she never passed up a chance for a trip as long as it stayed within her com-
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fort zone. Too far from the island, she’d get the vapors.
I guess Eva was somewhat the reverse of fishermen who worked the Atlantic Ocean off Ireland’s west coast in cowhide-covered boats. It’s said islandmen there got “land-sick” from staying ashore too long. Launching into a bit of rough water cured them. After the island’s crab house burned down, pickers boarded a surplus WW II landing craft to work at Toddville. On landing, Eva would have to lie down for a spell to recover.
In today’s 21st century, we usually enjoy a fully functioning, two-lane paved “road” across the marsh. The county widened it in the mid-1980s and eventually painted a stripe down the middle, a great visual aid in fog or moderate tide.
The late historian Geoffrey M. Footner owned a house on the island before the way was widened and before Freddie Waller and I wrote Elliott’s Island: The Land That Time Forgot. Mr. Footner thought of the road as a thread tying the island to the mainland. In a blurb for our book cover, he wrote, “Elliott’s Island is at the end of a thread that weaves natural patterns into art, small talk into poetry, and joy into living.”
At the time, Nora still operated her store, and any unknown cus-
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Oxford Business Association July 2022 Calendar
Painted Oxford Picket Fences are up all around town. Come visit them all, pick out your favorite! They will be auctioned on Sept. 24 to benefit local organizations.
Latitude 38 has reopened – Serving dinner Wednesday thru Saturday, 5 – 10 pm. Expanded hours in coming weeks. Pope’s Tavern at the Oxford Inn - now open for Lunch, Thursday – Sunday. 7/1- 4 Vintage Jewelry Show and Sale - Modern Mercantile, 201 Tilghman St. Oxford 7/2 – Cars and Coffee - Anyone can come out and enjoy cars, coffee, and camaraderie. Oxford Community Center. Free; 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. www.oxfordcc.org; 410-226-5409 7/3 – Mystery Loves Company 31st Birthday Celebration – With local author Susan Reiss and espionage author Bill Rapp, book signing and refreshments; 12 – 2 p.m.; 202 S. Morris St. 7/3 – Fireworks – from the Tred Avon River; begin around 9 p.m. 7/4 – The Water’s Edge Museum 4th of July Celebration – Everyone is welcome! Guided tours, music, refreshments, and MORE! 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., 101 Mill St. RSVP to watersedgemuseum@
gmail.com
7/7 - Beginner Chalk Mineral Paint Class – Learn how to use Dixie Belle chalk mineral paint and sealers. All materials provided. 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., $45. The Treasure Chest, 111 S. Morris St. For more info or sign up, go to www.treasurechestoxford.com or call 410-924-8817. 7/8-10 - Contemporary and Midcentury Art Show and Sale - Modern Mercantile, 201 Tilghman St. 7/8-10 - Local Artist Show featuring Toni Wilson. Preview reception Friday, July 8 from 6 to 8 p.m. Show open Saturday and Sunday noon to 6 p.m. Oxford Vintage & Trade. 202 Bank Street 7/10 - Pancake Breakfast – Oxford Volunteer Fire Dept. 8 to 11 a.m. 7/13 - Sign Painting and Transfers Class – Paint a sign and add an inspirational word transfer. All materials provided. 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., $36. The Treasure Chest, 111 S. Morris St. For more info or sign up, go to www.treasurechestoxford.com or call 410-924-8817. 7/15-17 - Vinyl Record Event and Sale - Modern Mercantile, 201 Tilghman St. 7/17 - Oxford Paint-Out -Plein Air Easton artists will be painting around town throughout the day. Come watch them at work. Exhibit and Sale at Oxford Community Center at 5 p.m. Free. A great opportunity to purchase a fresh painting of our town! 7/21 - Bring Your Own Furniture Chalk Painting Class – Bring a small piece and make it new again. All painting material provided. 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., $65. The Treasure Chest, 111 S. Morris St. For more info or sign up, go to www.treasurechestoxford.com or call 410-924-8817 7/26 - Ice Cream for Breakfast – Scottish Highland Creamery - If you wear pjs you get extra ice cream or free sprinkles. Tons of breakfast flavors too! Opens at 9 am. 314 Tilghman St. 29 - SILK All-in-One Chalk Paint Demo – Learn to use SILK all-in-one paint and get to practice. All materials provided. 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., $10. The Treasure Chest, 111 S. Morris St. For more info or sign up, go to www.treasurechestoxford.com or call 410-924-8817 7/29-8/1 Oxford Vintage & Trade Anniversary Celebration - 202 Bank St.
~ ONGOING ~
The Oxford-Bellevue Ferry is operating daily 9 a.m. until posted time, call 410-745-9023 for times of last trips as varies with the sunset. Caronna Estate Sales - online auctions at caronnacollections.com. Jam Session - Free. Mon. @ 6 p.m., Oxford Community Center. Call ahead to confirm 410-226-5904. Yoga and Exercise Classes @ Oxford Community Center, info. at oxfordcc.org. 410-226-5904.
Check restaurant and shop websites or facebook for updated hours
Oxford Business Association ~ portofoxford.com
tomer was likely a hunter. Once deer and duck season passed, an unknown vehicle was an oddity. Ordinarily, any island man sitting in the store recognized a vehicle by the sound of its engine. If a strange-sounding car passed the store, a man would have to get up off a bench, peer through the plastic window film and speculate on the driver’s identity and destination.
Now that a large green Route 50 sign signals an exit to Elliott Island, and two paved lanes carry cars 18 miles to a dead end, visitors are no longer a rarity. One islander blamed Freddie and me, saying, “Since Freddie and Ann wrote that book, you never know who’s on here.”
Personally, I think it’s the highway sign.
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.
Our 70th Anniversary party was a HUGE success. Aside from having a great time, we also managed to raise $4,075 for the Talbot County Sheriff’s Department D.A.R.E. program. There are so many people we need to thank!
Ian and Elinor Fleming, chef Mark Salter and their staff at the Robert Morris Inn did an amazing job providing delicious food and drink, and a lovely venue for our event.
John Coleman, our brother and friend, sang a beautiful song for us, and his lovely wife, Pastor Barbara Coleman delivered the perfect Irish blessing!
We also want to thank Maryland State Senator Addie Eckardt; Maryland State Delegate Johnny Mautz and Talbot County Sheriff Joe Gamble for your kind words and proclamations.
Most importantly we want to thank our family ~ the folks who work for Tidewater Times, our printer and those that advertise. We couldn’t do it without all of you! Businesses Who Contributed to the Silent Auction
Jason's Computer Services Sundance Kitchens, Baths & Exteriors Aloft and Hunter Harris Thomas's Fine Jewelry Momma Maria's Guilford Fine Jewelry St. Michaels Inn The Avalon Foundation Aqua The Academy Art Museum Sullivan's Plastic Surgery Delmarva Printing Wades Point Inn Wild Birds Unlimited Carpenter Street Saloon A-Fordable Tree Service Pulse and Beats Robert Morris Inn An Optical Galleria Mullins Automotive Dwelling & Design Dragonfly Boutique Oxford Inn Pope’s Tavern
