Eastern Shore of Maryland - Geography

Geography

The Eastern Shore consists of the nine counties of Maryland that lie on the east side of Chesapeake Bay or the east side of the Susquehanna River (the western border of Cecil County with Harford County). It is bounded to the north by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (across the Mason-Dixon Line), to the east and north by the state of Delaware, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Maryland's and Virginia's Eastern Shore and the state of Delaware are part of the Delmarva Peninsula.

The counties in Maryland occupying the Eastern Shore are Caroline, Cecil, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne's, Somerset, Talbot, Wicomico, and Worcester counties. To the south, the Calvert-Scarborough Line separates the Eastern Shore of Maryland from that of Virginia. A modern Worcester County highway map (PDF) shows its location. While not exactly where it was laid down in the 17th-18th century, it has moved little once everyone could agree on where Watkins Point, on the western side of the peninsula, is and where the shore of the Bay began (since the bay side peters out into marshes and wetlands).

In 1668, Philip (Calvert -ed.)obtained recognition from Virginia of Maryland's claims to what is now Somerset County and actually participated in the survey of the dividing line between the two colonies with the Surveyor General of Virginia, Edmund Scarborough. At about the same time, he negotiated treaties with Lower Eastern Shore Indian tribes who were harassing English settlers. The terms of these treaties established rules of behavior in Indian-English relations that applied to whites as well as Indians, and on the whole, kept peace in the area thereafter.

The northern limit is harder to place. Some dispute Cecil County as a true Shore county, because of the presence of Interstate 95 and related development, the county's proximity to and influence from nearby urban areas such as Philadelphia and Wilmington, and its position straddling the Elk River — leaving half geographically west of the Shore, if the Elk River is taken as its northern edge.

Land and water both figure in the argument about whether Cecil County is part of the Eastern Shore, and so do man-made features.

Like New Castle County, Delaware, Cecil County is crossed by the fall line, a geologic division where the rockier highlands of the Piedmont region meet the Atlantic coastal plain, a flat, sandy area that forms the coast. The coastal plain includes the Delmarva Peninsula and hence the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The geology of Delmarva is an inseparable part of the Eastern Shore, which has few rocky outcrops south of Kent County.

The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal crosses from Back Creek on the Elk River to Port Penn, Delaware. While it was a shallow canal with locks after its construction in 1829, it was deepened in the early 20th century to sea level, and physically separates the Delmarva Peninsula from the rest of the United States. Maryland, south of the canal, is usually considered the Eastern Shore by residents. (The term "Western Shore" is less common).

The north-south section of the Mason-Dixon Line forms the border between Maryland and Delaware. The border was originally marked every mile by a stone, and every five miles by a "crownstone". The line is not quite due north and south, but is as straight as survey methods of the 1760s could make it. It was surveyed as a compromise solution to a century-long wrangle between the Penn and Calvert families of England. If the Chesapeake Bay/Delaware Bay watershed divide had been taken as the borderline, Delaware would be about half its current size.

Finally, although this has received less attention than other parts of Eastern Shore culture, commercial east-west ties between Delaware towns and Maryland towns were culturally significant in Colonial and Early American periods despite the border line (which largely cut through woods and swamps). Trade with Philadelphia was conducted by overland routes to Delaware towns like Odessa (then called Cantwell's Bridge) and Smyrna (then called Duck Creek). Agricultural products and milled grain were taken up the Delaware River by "shallop men" in small vessels called shallops. These cultural connections continue to this day.

Ocean City is a modern resort on what was once called the "seaside" or "seaboard side." It is on a long north-south sandspit that is essentially a barrier island.