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Claiborne is an
unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...
in Talbot County,
Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It borders the states of Virginia to its south, West Virginia to its west, Pennsylvania to its north, and Delaware to its east ...
, United States. The village is located on the eastern shore of the
Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...
near the mouth of the Eastern Bay at , and uses ZIP code 21624. The 2000 U.S. Census listed the population as 147 and the number of homes as 84, slightly down from its 1941 population of 156. Between 1890 and 1930, the village was a busy port for passenger and then automobile ferry service across the Chesapeake Bay, with numerous stores and motels/resorts, including Maple Hall and the Bellfonte Hotel. A post office was added in 1893 and the Protestant Episcopal Church of Claiborne was built in 1898. In 1912, an elementary school and Methodist Church were added. Before 1912, students attended school in nearby McDaniel. The town's first school consisted of the kitchen of the local railroad pavilion, used as a classroom. In 1913, the town became home to the Claiborne Fresh Air Association, Inc., (“Miracle House”) which was formed for the purpose of providing 10 weeks of fresh air and summer vacation for children who had been exposed to
tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...
. The role of Claiborne as a terminal for cross-Bay ferries was diminished in 1930 when the primary route shifted to Matapeake in Kent Island. It ended altogether in 1938 when the direct connection from Annapolis to Claiborne was terminated and only an auxiliary shuttle between Claiborne and Romancoke on Kent Island remained. This shuttle service ended in 1952, a few months after the opening of the
Chesapeake Bay Bridge The Gov. William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bridge (informally called the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and, locally, the Bay Bridge) is a major twin bridges, dual-span bridge in the U.S. state of Maryland. Spanning the Chesapeake Bay, it connects the ...
; thus ending all ferry service to Claiborne after more than six decades.


History

Prior to the 1870s, Claiborne was part of the nearby McDanieltown postal community (now McDaniel). Its name can be traced back in honor of
William Claiborne William Claiborne (also spelled "Clayborne",  – ) was an English surveyor and early settler in the colonies/provinces of Virginia and Maryland and around the Chesapeake Bay. Claiborne became a wealthy merchant and planter, as well as ...
, a fur trader who founded an English settlement on nearby
Kent Island Kent Island is the largest island in the Chesapeake Bay and a historic place in Maryland. To the east, a narrow channel known as the Kent Narrows barely separates the island from the Delmarva Peninsula, and on the other side, the island is sep ...
in 1631. Early land patents in Claiborne included "Rich Neck Manor," which was first granted 2,000 acres to Capt. William Mitchel, Esq. in 1649 Subsequent owners of Rich Neck, Philip Land, built a chapel in the 1650s. The Rich Neck Manor Chapel still stands, but is private property. Rich Neck was also home to
Matthew Tilghman Matthew Tilghman (February 17, 1718 – May 4, 1790) was an American Planter class, planter, and Revolutionary leader from Maryland. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress from 1774 to 1776, where he signed the 1774 Continental Asso ...
, the head of the Maryland delegation to the Continental Congress, and Lloyd Tilghman, Confederate general. It was past the entrance to today's Claiborne harbor that British vessels passed during the
War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...
, landing in McDanieltown, within sight of Claiborne. The area of town now known as "Old Claiborne," was located on Tilghman's Creek facing the Miles River. It included a steam sawmill started by John Hansel Tunis around 1867. "Bingham's Steamboat Wharf" was created in 1867 to support a planned resort at "Bingham's Mineral Springs," with thrice-weekly service between Old Claiborne and
Baltimore Baltimore is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland. With a population of 585,708 at the 2020 census and estimated at 568,271 in 2024, it is the 30th-most populous U.S. city. The Baltimore metropolitan area is the 20th-large ...
and other destinations up the Miles River to St. Michaels. By 1877, John Tunis' son, Joseph Tunis, had added the Claiborne Oyster Company, a boatyard, a few homes, two more steamboat wharves, and expanded his father's sawmill into the Claiborne Saw and Planing Mills. At the foot of Rich Neck Road was a general store. Tunis also laid out grids for a new community of 188 lots and advertised them for between $18 and $40. A plat of it appears in an 1877 county atlas, showing eight main streets with the names: Rich Neck Road, Leeds, Ward, Progress, Monument, Tilghman, and Dom Pedro. At its center was
Henry Clay Henry Clay (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the United States Senate, U.S. Senate and United States House of Representatives, House of Representatives. He was the seventh Spea ...
Square, a large area reserved for public buildings. Joseph Tunis provided a slogan: “Young man don’t go West, but to Claiborne.” The village did not develop as Tunis had hoped and by 1893, Tunis had abandoned his plans. In later years several families from North Carolina who knew or where employed by the Tunis family in their North Carolina lumber mills relocated to "Old Claiborne", for example Ben Perry whose home in "Old Claiborne" was built in 1905. A second community, the "new" Claiborne, was started in 1886 when Gen. Joseph B. Seth and the Baltimore & Eastern Shore Railroad Company agreed to begin ferry and railroad service between Claiborne and Bay Ridge, on the western shore of the
Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula, including parts of the Ea ...
. Seth along with Theophilus Tunis and Frank Turner envisioned a resort community similar to Bay Ridge and laid out plans for the "new" Claiborne, calling it "Bay City”. Although "Bay City" never developed as expected, Claiborne's importance was raised once the
ferries A ferry is a boat or ship that transports passengers, and occasionally vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A small passenger ferry with multiple stops, like those in Venice, Italy, is sometimes referred to as a water taxi or water bus. ...
began operating with Claiborne as a primary terminus on the Eastern Shore. In 1890 the Baltimore & Eastern Shore Railroad Company completed a railroad line from Claiborne to Easton so that passengers coming into Claiborne could continue through to Ocean City. Initially the plan was to use rail-transfer steamers to move rail cars between Bay Ridge and Claiborne but this was abandoned in late 1891 and a conventional passenger ferry service between Baltimore and Claiborne was substituted. This service failed to provide adequate cash flow to service the outstanding debt, and the Baltimore & Eastern Shore Railroad was liquidated in August 1894. The assets were purchased by the newly created Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway. Steamer service by the
Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway The Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway, nicknamed Black Cinders & Ashes, was a railroad that ran from Claiborne, Maryland (with steamship connections to Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore), to Ocean City, Maryland from 1894 to 1924. It incl ...
continued until 1924 when BC&A had shifted its traffic to Love Point. In 1927 the Baltimore, Chesapeake, & Atlantic Railway filed for bankruptcy and was sold at foreclosure on March 28, 1928. One parcel was for the company's railroad and the Claiborne ferry, and was sold for $650,000. At that point passenger rail service from Claiborne to points further east was discontinued, and the Claiborne-McDaniel section of the rail line was removed in 1938. In 1916, the recently amended Panama Canal Act precluded the operation for ferry lines by railroad companies, with exceptions permitted only via approval of the
Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later Trucking industry in the United States, truc ...
. The ICC ordered the
Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...
, parent of the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway, to terminate its Chesapeake ferry operations, with the exception of the Love Point and Claiborne routes since those were seen as extensions of the rail lines, rather than competitors. Local merchants on the Eastern Shore protested the order to close, World War I intervened, and the order was effectively dismissed in the early 1920s. A second ferry company, the Eastern Shore Development Steamship Company, began service in 1912 between Claiborne and Annapolis starting with the steamer "Atlantic" and then switching over in December 1912 to the steam yacht "Texas", formerly owned by Edward H. R. Green, the son of Wall Street investor Henrietta Green. That business, owned by New York investors A.J. McIntosh, B.A. Sinn and J.W.R. Crawford, failed in 1916. It had proven too difficult for the new ferry company to compete against the established railroad ferry, as the latter added capacity, shifted schedules and refused to wait for arriving ferries from the Eastern Shore Development Steamship Company, even as it would for its own ferries. The railroad also refused to sell joint tickets with the new ferry competitor and charges connecting rail passenger in Claiborne a premium compared to its own bundled rail-ferry tickets. The matter was submitted to the ICC for action and the two parties negotiated a partial solution before the ICC was forced to act. In 1919, another competing ferry, Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry, Inc. (later the Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry Company), began service between Claiborne and
Annapolis Annapolis ( ) is the capital of the U.S. state of Maryland. It is the county seat of Anne Arundel County and its only incorporated city. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...
. On Sunday evening it was not uncommon for traffic to be backed up several miles into Claiborne, waiting for the return ferry trip across the Chesapeake Bay. The increased automobile traffic to Claiborne forced the state to take the then unusual step of passing a special roads bill to improve the road between Claiborne and
Easton, Maryland Easton is an incorporated town in and the county seat of Talbot County, Maryland, United States. The population was 17,101 at the 2020 census, with an estimated population of 17,342 in 2022. The primary ZIP Code is 21601, and the secondary ...
. In 1921, bus service was added from Claiborne to Easton, Hurlock, and Cambridge. In 1926 the service was enhanced with the introduction of the first "double-ender" ferry, the "Gov. Albert C. Ritchie." At that point the ferry company began to earn strong profits. In 1928 Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry, Inc. was restructured and renamed the Claiborne-Annapolis Ferry Company. In 1930 the primary eastern terminal for cross-Bay ferries from Annapolis was moved from Claiborne to a new ferry terminal at Matapeake, on Kent Island. This significantly shortened the distances involved for most people leaving Annapolis. While direct service between Claiborne and Annapolis was continued after 1930, by the mid-1930s that service had been downgraded significantly. In 1938 the ferry route to Claiborne was changed to run between Claiborne and Romancoke on
Kent Island Kent Island is the largest island in the Chesapeake Bay and a historic place in Maryland. To the east, a narrow channel known as the Kent Narrows barely separates the island from the Delmarva Peninsula, and on the other side, the island is sep ...
. This ended direct cross-Bay service to Claiborne. In 1943 the western terminal was moved from Annapolis to Sandy Point. Ferry service stopped running in December 1952, a few months after the
Chesapeake Bay Bridge The Gov. William Preston Lane Jr. Memorial Bridge (informally called the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and, locally, the Bay Bridge) is a major twin bridges, dual-span bridge in the U.S. state of Maryland. Spanning the Chesapeake Bay, it connects the ...
was built. ''Claude W. Somers'' was listed on the
National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
in 1985.


Connecting passenger train service east

As late as 1924 the
Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway The Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway, nicknamed Black Cinders & Ashes, was a railroad that ran from Claiborne, Maryland (with steamship connections to Baltimore, Maryland, Baltimore), to Ocean City, Maryland from 1894 to 1924. It incl ...
was operating daily except Sunday passenger trains east from Claiborne to various points on the DelMarVa peninsula: Easton, Hurlock, Salisbury's
Union Station A union station, union terminal, joint station, or joint-use station is a railway station at which the tracks and facilities are shared by two or more separate railway company, railway companies, allowing passengers to connect conveniently bet ...
, Berlin and finally,
Ocean City, Maryland Ocean City, officially the Town of Ocean City, is an Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic resort city in Worcester County, Maryland, Worcester County, Maryland, along the East Coast of the United States. The population was 6,844 at the 2020 United States c ...
. In 1924 the service was changed from a steam-powered locomotive to a gasoline-powered rail car. However, by 1928 that railroad company's successor, Baltimore and Eastern Railroad had dropped passenger train service from Claiborne. Nonetheless, travelers at that time could get train connections in Easton: the B&ER was still running Love Point - Easton - Ocean City trains. This service had ended by 1938.


Pictures


References

"Denton Journal", 23 Aug 1890. article: "The Tuckwogh Chartered as a Transfer" "Denton Journal", 15 Oct 1890. article: Timetable advertised for Balto. and Eastern Shore Railroad in effect for 29 Sep 1890 "Denton Journal", 2 Dec 1893. article: "Claiborne now has a postoffice" "Denton Journal", 28 Aug 1915. article: "TO RESTORE COMPETITION" "Denton Journal", 17 Jan 1920. article: "The Governor has decide to have the Claiborne road built"
PRR Corporate HistoryGuide to the Checklist of Maryland Post Offices
"Talbot County: A History", Dickson Preston "Steamboats Out of Baltimore", Robert H. Burgess and H. Graham Wood "History of Talbot County Maryland 1661-1861", Oswald Tilghman Star Democrat, 7 Sep 1984 Annual Report of the Maryland Comptroller, 1915. Claiborne Fresh Air Association, Disbursements for 1914.
Report by Maryland. State Dept. of Public Welfare (Claiborne Fresh Air AssociationMaryland Historical Trust: Claiborne School
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Maryland Unincorporated communities in Talbot County, Maryland Maryland populated places on the Chesapeake Bay