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Tangier Island

Tangier, dubbed the “soft crab capital” of the nation, is a unique island located in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay that is only accessible by boat or plane. Technically part of the state of Virgina, the island is only about 1 mile wide and 3 miles long and has about 700 residents, most of whom make their living off the water.

Captain John Smith first visited Tangier Island in 1608 and in 1620 settlers arrived from Cornwall, England. Today, the island is home to a close knit community, many of whom are related. Visitors will find that many of the residents they meet have the last name of either Crockett, Parks, Pruitt, or Thomas. Most of these residents make their living crabbing in the Chesapeake Bay, much like their ancestors did.

However, due to a number of factors (rising sea levels, erosion of shorelines, and destruction of the crab and oyster populations) both the island of Tangier and the life style of it’s residence is disappearing.

Oyster Wars of the Chesapeake

The Oyster Wars were a series of sometimes violent disputes between oyster pirates (a name given to persons who engage in the poaching of oysters), authorities, and legal harvesters from Maryland and Virginia in the Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River from 1865 until about 1959.

Pirates Dredging at Night

Pirates Dredging at Night

A wood engraving in Harper’s Weekly, published on March 1, 1884, depicts men dredging oysters at night in the Chesapeake Bay. This method of oyster harvesting, in which a metal frame and net are raked across the waterbed, can cause permanent damage to oyster beds, and by 1880 had been outlawed in both Virginia and Maryland. A sudden increase in the demand for oysters, however, led to an increase in illegal dredging. During the so-called Chesapeake Oyster Wars of the 1880s, violence flared up between oyster farmers who claimed rights to the same oyster beds; between local watermen and poachers from New England; and between oyster pirates and lawmen who patrolled the bay to prevent illegal harvesting.

Original Author: Schell and Hogan, artists

Medium: Wood engraving

Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division

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Deadrise Oyster Boat

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Smith Island

Smith Island is an archipelago sits in the Chesapeake Bay twelve miles west of Crisfield, Maryland. The island chain is three-by-five mile island and currently has three villages with a total population of about 350 year-round residents.

Captain John Smith, for whom the island was named, first charted the archipelago in 1608, but seasonal occupation by Native Americans goes back more than 12,000 years. Most current Smith Island residence are descended from 17th-century settlers, most of whom arrived in Maryland and Virginia from southwest England and Wales. But the popular surnames of desendents indicate a smattering of Scotts and Irish soon followed. Both Maryland and Virginia claimed Smith Island until the dispute was finally settled in the 1873. The Maryland-Virginia state line runs through the island chain, a fact that played a key role in the bloody “Oyster Wars of the Chesapeake.”

Smith Island is closely associated with the maritime activities of crabbing and oystering, which is the main source of income and employment on the island. But the first permanent residents of the island were actually farmers. The farming communities continued until the Civil War.

After the Civil War a demand for seafood and wildfowl skyrocked, due to the destruction of main food producing farmlands. This demand also came at a time when erosion and rising water levels made farming increasingly challenging. These factors cause most islands to turn to the Bay as a source of food and income.

These days the Cultural Center of the island is in Ewell, which is the largest village. Ewell joins Rhodes Point by bridge, while Tylerton is on a neighboring but unconnected island. Most everything and everyone that comes to Smith Island arrives by boat. The cruise and passenger ferries offer roundtrip passage daily throughout the summer and early fall. The passenger ferries also provide limited passage during the off-season.

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