The longest of the Eastern Shore rivers, the Choptank flows seventy miles from the western part of Delaware to the Chesapeake Bay. It is tidal fresh for most of those miles, with brackish lower reaches as it nears the Bay.
As early as the mid-17th century, the river was settled by tobacco farmers. It was Dorchester County's principal commercial thoroughfare and helped nurture Cambridge, MD into a thriving tobacco and grain port. For many living along it, the Choptank was the main contact with the outside world. Schooners and steamboats regularly sailed the river until the 1930s. Today oystermen still navigate the river under the sails of majestic skipjacks.Watermen and recreational fishers catch the succulent Maryland blue crab in these waters as well.
Recreational boaters enjoy the wide, looping meanders and the marshes along this noble river and its coves and creeks which open out to a sound several miles wide.
Source: Exploring the Cheaspeake in Small Boats, John Page Williams, Jr. (Tidewater Publishers, 1992)
 |
