Annapolis Maritime Museum

You're looking out across the mouth of the Severn River where it meets the Chesapeake Bay. In the summer of 1608 Captain John Smith sailed within sight of this spot four times during his "voyages of discovery" up and down the Chesapeake Bay. His journal never mentions the Severn, but if he had explored the river he might have met some of the Algonquian-speaking Indians who occasionally hunted and camped along its shores, feasting on oysters and other Bay seafood. A large buried pile of oyster shells discovered near here shows that ancient Indians used this area for many centuries. They called the Bay "Chesepiooc," an Algonquian word meaning "Great Shellfish Bay."

Indians of the Chesapeake region fashioned dugout canoes from logs, using tall, straight cypress or cedar trees. Carvers used fire to burn the part of the log they wished to hollow out, then scraped away the charred wood and shaped the hollowed log into a seaworthy vessel. These canoes could be quite large, up to 45 feet long and 3 feet deep, and could carry up to 40 people. When early English settlers arrived, they copied this technique because sawn boards were scarce and logs were plentiful.

Key
1. Indians used dugout canoes for harvesting fish and oysters and for traveling across the open waters of the Bay.
2.



Captain John Smith explored the Bay in a small open boat called a "shallop."
3. Horn Point, the end of the peninsula where you're standing now.
4. Greenbury Point, on the far side of the Severn River.
5. Kent Island, on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
6. Chink's Point, on the other side of the mouth of Back Creek.
7. Ospreys dive for fish. Look for their large nests on a nearby piling.
8. Red wing blackbirds feed on horseshoe crab eggs in the spring.
9. Little green herons stalk the creek bank for fish and other critters.

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Show me all markers in:  Annapolis, MD  |  Anne Arundel County  |  21403  |  Maryland  |  United States of America

From this spot, you can see 1672 - Providence: Settlement on the Severn
From this spot, you can see 1774 - The "Annapolis Tea Party"
From this spot, you can see 1887 - The Age of Steam
From this spot, you can see 1919 - Oysters: The Bay's "White Gold"
Oysters: Vital to Nature. Vital to Our Future.
Oysters: Vital to Commerce. Vital to Culture.
Oysters: Vital to the Lifeline of the Chesapeake
From this spot, you can see 1998 - Annapolis: America's Sailing Capital
Welcome to Eastport
Harvesting the Bay

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