Oyster Wars...
The Choptank River BridgePrior to the Governor Emerson C. Harrington Bridge which was built over the Great Choptank River in 1935 (the Chesapeake Bay Bridge at Kent Island did open until 1947) ferries were used to cross the river. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was on board his presidential yacht Sequoia, when it became the first vessel to pass through the draw. The President delivered a congratulatory speech at Long Wharf in Cambridge, which is now the site of the Yacht Harbor. A memorial to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the faux smoke stack (it was actually an elevator shaft) from his later Presidential yacht, U.S.S. Potomac, is located there. Parts of this bridge still span the Choptank and serve as a fishing pier. The new bridge was completed in 1986.
Oyster Wars...The Choptank is home to some of the finest oyster grounds in the Chesapeake Bay where sailing skipjacks and hand-tongers still dredge for oysters. In fact, oystering became so profitable that laws were passed restricting dredging of oysters in Dorchester waters to only citizens of Dorchester County. The Oyster Navy was armed to guard the oyster beds from poaching by residents of nearby Somerset County, Baltimore City, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. Conflicts resulted in at least one death.
By the turn of the 20th century, Cambridge ranked 3rd in the United States for the quantity and value of its oyster exports. There were times an individual could cross Cambridge Harbor on the hundreds of skipjacks that were so tightly docked there. Seafood packing houses peppered the landscape along the Choptank and throughout the county and was the county's major employer until the early 1950s.
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