Deal Island - September 17, 2007





Today I needed to listen to 6 CD's to review for my class final exam. Since I don't like doing just one thing, I figured I could find something to combine that activity with. The result was an 8 hour adventure in the car driving across the bay bridge and down the Eastern shore to Deal Island (about 3.5 hours away). Most of the trip is along Route 50 which is ugly, boring and just dull enough to motivate me to pay close attention to my review CD's. Once I made the turn onto 363 in Princess Anne and began to head into the desolate marsh lands surrounding Deal Island my concentration was broken. I turned off the CD's to save the rest of the lectures for the trip home and began to explore.

My first goal was to find the grave of Joshua Thomas. I have spent the past month immersed in his life by reading and rereading his biography Parson of the Islands by Adam Wallace. I was quickly sidetracked by the mesmerizing marshes. At one point, near Dame's Quarter, it seemed like the marsh grass extended to the horizon on all sides. That kind of lonely isolation is so rare in my suburban life that I had to stop and take a series of pictures. They are presented below, but don't really do the scene justice. I didn't expect them to, but it was worth a try.

I located St. John Methodist Church and the Joshua Thomas Chapel on the main road in Deal Island and it didn't take much wandering around to find his grave by the side of the chapel. I expected to be more emotionally affected by seeing it in person, but I was more fascinated than moved. I found a variety of other graves I had read about including a man with an intriguing name, Mr. Mister. I wandered into the chapel and looked through the various tributes set up for him. I then ran into a woman who was arriving to clean. She told me the the camp meetings had been held on the other side of the property. I had hoped there was some vestige of the grounds left, but it was an elementary school and nothing to evoke the descriptions in the book.

I then continued on down the road to the end of the island. I expected to see a center of town, but it is nothing more than a winding street, a few side streets, a marina and an astounding number of Methodist churches. The marina captured the feel of the area. There were almost no pleasure boats. It was filled with working waterman boats and piles of crab pots. I looked across the water to Little Deal Island, and had hoped to find a place to rent a canoe so I could paddle over, but those types of tourist facilities didn't exist in this blue collar slice of the Eastern shore. Next time I must try to bring a canoe or something to get over to that island (which is a wildlife refuge).

I drove around the side streets to get a feel for the place. It seems a dramatic mix of dilapidated houses and mobile homes and tidy little cottages that are lovingly kept up. The Remax website has a nice way to look at houses. Searching for Deal Island and then turning on the Map feature will bring up all sorts of places for sale and demonstrates the wide range of condition of the houses (as well as the wide range in prices). There was a general store down at the end of the island by the marina, but it was more of a bait and tackle shop from what I could tell. Midway through town there was an old brick "Bank" that looked like it had been built in the 1800's and was abandoned. I wish I had taken a picture of it. Since I was in such a rural, isolated area I expected folks to be friendly. I was taken aback by the cool stares in response to my waves. I guess I really stood out as an outsider. I would have liked to explore more, but my purpose was to have time to study my CD's so I had to head back. I hope to visit again, but I'm not sure if that will happen.

I pulled into my driveway about 9 hours after driving away. My window away from home was almost exactly the same as my typical workday and yet I felt like I had been gone for weeks. I expected the yard to be overgrown (which it was since it was overgrown when I left) and that I would find a big stack of mail. It was wonderful to spend a few hours in another world.

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