Tylerton, Smith Island, Maryland

This blog will chronicle our (Pat and Patty Anderson's) 

cruising adventures on the Great Loop!

DAY 46 – May 16, 2017

We left our friends' home at Cod Creek after breakfast, goodbyes and thank-yous to start the short journey across the Chesapeake Bay to Smith Island.  We might have headed for nearby Tangier Island, but Smith Island sounded better to us with better dockage at the side-tie Tylerton Town Dock and an equal look into the isolated life on a little island in the Chesapeake Bay. Plus Tom Hale had promised us that the best crab cakes anywhere were at the Drum Point Market in Tylerton on Smith Island!

Smith Island is actually several separate islands with channels between them.  The uninhabited lower third is in Virginia, while the upper two-thirds, where all the people live, is in Maryland. There are three separate communities on Smith Island, with a total population in the 2010 census of 276. Ewell has a marina (of sorts) and a fuel dock. We passed through Ewell and fueled at the fuel dock there, but really did not look around much. We saw Nick and Barb Malden's boat RioMarLargo at the marina in Ewell, and when we saw them again in Tylerton the next  day, they said there was not much to see in Ewell. We could see Rhodes Point from Tylerton, and as far as we could tell, there were just some houses there but we also did not explore Rhodes Point. Tylerton, on the other hand, is a very interesting place, and this blog post is really about Tylerton!

Pat and Daydream at Tylerton Town Dock

We tied up at the Tylerton Town Dock behind a large boat named Capt. Jason II, which was the only other boat on the dock. We learned the significance of this boat to the community, but that comes later! The Tylerton Town Dock is a long fixed pier parallel to the shoreline, which makes docking and tying up much easier compared to the little finger piers with pilings on the opposite side that we saw at Ewell and most other places on the Chesapeake. Based on the Active Captain entry for the Tylerton Town Dock, we expected to pay a dockage fee, but there was nobody there to pay, and the man at the little bait – tackle – ice shop on the pier said not to worry about paying! We assume if anybody would know, he would! So our stay at Tylerton turned out to be free, our favorite price!

Union United Methodist Church

Volunteer Fire Department

There was a nice painted map of the streets and landmarks in Tylerton near the head of the Town Dock. There is a Cultural Center, the Union United Methodist Church, a Volunteer Fire Department, and the Drum Point Market. There were other landmarks on the map but these are the ones I remember. The streets all have street signs and are laid out more or less in a grid pattern. The homes are mostly older, perhaps very old, but with few exceptions neat and well kept.The church was very imposing, far and away the largest building in town.  There were no cars, and the streets were too narrow for cars anyway. We saw a lot of golf carts but the only functional motor vehicles appeared to be a couple of motor scooters and the ambulance at the Fire Station.  

Drum Point Market

Patty with Crab Cake Platter

Since it was lunchtime, we headed for the Drum Point Market for the famous crab cakes!  We ordered the platter! The Drum Point Market is obviously the central focal point of life in Tylerton for the residents.  It is both a restaurant and a reasonably well stocked little grocery store, with a good selection of canned food, frozen meats and vegetables, and a small selection of fresh vegetables, including most of the usual suspects as well as some of the less common ones like rutabagas and yams. While we were waiting for our food, we had a great window on life in Tylerton. Quite a few people came and went while we were there, and as you would imagine, everyone knew everyone else.  We overheard the usual small town banter! The crab cakes lived up to their billing, all crab meat with no filler. I had mine on a bun, and Patty had hers plain, with coleslaw on the side!  Delicious!

We struck up a conversation with the man sitting at the next table, who we frankly had a bit of a hard time understanding. Looking at the Wikipedia article on Smith Island, I learned that Smith Island is inhabited by one of the region's oldest English-speaking communities, known for its relic accent, preserving speech patterns from the original English settlers. This could account for our difficulty understanding him! We learned his name was Larry from the newspaper article with his picture posted on the bulletin board!

Skipper Larry of the Capt. Jason II

The Capt. Jason II

Larry, it tuned out, was the skipper of the Capt. Jason II. He was about to leave to pick up the school kids he had taken to their school off-island that morning. We saw the Capt. Jason II that evening with the school kids, other passengers, and assorted goods!  We also saw the boat leave the following morning with the school kids, other passengers, and an aft deck piled high with boxes destined for the mainland, what they contained we know not. It was clear that whatever comes to Tylerton or is shipped from Tylerton, depends on the Capt. Jason II, and its skipper Larry!

I walked Baxter several times while we were at Tylerton, both the day we arrived and the next day before we departed. We stopped and I chatted with people along our walks, and Baxter always drew attention and smiles. People in Tylerton, like people everywhere, love a happy little dog! 

A lot of things here in Tylerton reminded me in so many ways of the Snoqualmie of my childhood, before I-90 crossed Snoqualmie Pass. The same grid  pattern streets. The same well kept neat little old houses. Just as Snoqualmie was a one-industry town then (logging), Tylerton is a one- industry town now – crabbing.  While we were at the Town Dock, workboats were coming and going, just like logging trucks were coming and going in Snoqualmie in my youth. The difference is that Snoqualmie, for better or worse, moved on. Tylerton did not, and due to its isolated circumstances, could not. My overall impression of Tylerton is of a 1950s small town, for better or worse, frozen in time!