Cresting the apex of the Kent Narrows bridge I spied the CALLINECTES; a southern Chesapeake Bay fishing boat that would help transport our class up the Chester River and back in time. Having arrived a few minutes early I decided to drive around in search of some Java. It had been about 20 years since I had crossed the old Kent Narrows draw bridge but flashbacks of siblings crammed in an old station wagon, roasting, quickly flooded my mind. The CALLINECTES and her crew would take us farther back in time, much farther.
The crew consisted of the Captain, Dr. John Seidel, his wife Elizabeth Seidel and master teacher Lucia Calloway. Dr. Seidel began our day by orienting our class to the geography and history of the Chester River by sharing many early maps and painting from the region.
The Captain throw the lines and expertly motors into the hard pulling currents of the narrows and up into the lower Chester River or the bottom of the “saxophone” as Dr. Seidel likes to envision that part of the Chester. I quickly headed out of the wind and into the cabin and was soon followed by a couple of other Dorchester County teachers. The synergy that ensued was what I love most about these trips. We poured over the maps, pictures and books. We shared stories and knowledge with one another. We picked the Captains brain.
The lower Chester reminds me a lot of Dorchester’s Choptank River; big, open, tidal and hemmed by very low land (the wide part on the sax). The middle Chester (where the keys would be on the sax) takes on a different character. The waterway narrows and the land rise considerably. On nearly every rise is an eighteenth century home and not coincidently also often evidence of Native American settlements. Dr. Seidel points out that many of the oldest Native American sites are most likely underwater as sea levels were considerable lower when the region was first settled during the last ice age 12,000- 18,000 years ago.
Eating lunch on one of the prettiest stretches of the Chester we talk about how humans have always manipulated and altered the land to benefit themselves. Native American first used fire to create open space and transition zones to increase game. Early colonial settlers used that same open land to grow crops and raise livestock. Except for the modern boat moored periodically it was very easy to transport one’s self back to colonial times as the waterfront along the Chester has changed very little over the last three centuries. It became even easier to imagine when the PRIDE OF BALTIMORE and the SULTANA appeared around the bend in the river. Arriving in Chestertown (the neck of the sax) the sight of the modern bridge brought me back to the 21st century.
The crew left us with a fabulous collection of maps, pictures and many other resources to use in our classroom and also the memories of the place and time spent with a group of kindred spirits.
