| A Busy Little Harbor |
| By Michael L.Dixon |
| Part II |
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| Once upon a time, the Big Elk Creek aided the development of the Town of Elkton. Today, however, its name is associated with flooding. Part two of the County Post's three-part series, examining the past of this little stream in Elkton, continues this week. This week we look at the final years of navigation on the waterway, years when it was used for business and pleasure. Next week we conclude the series by looking at the time when navigation soon halted and the stream became known for flooding. |
| Elkton -- As the 19th century leisurely stretched into the 20th century, Elkton Harbor (the creek west of Bridge Street) was active. It served the community's two largest employers, the Scott Fertilizer Co. and the Kenmore Pulp & Paper Co. Some 300 laborers toiled there, producing fertilizer and pulp in the late 1880s. A mile down stream at Elk Landing, the Diebert Barge Building Co. fabricated 12 to 14 large barges (up to 200 feet long) yearly. Forty-five hands made a living there. |
| Vessels plying the Big Elk in 1899 included the steamer Fannie; the tugs Gen. I. J. Wister, and Roman; the barges Violet, Lotus and Virginia, and the schooners Edith W. Scott, Farmers Friend, and Bohemia. The Edith W. Scott belonged to the fertilizier company. A two-masted schooner, she was used in the grain and fertilizier carrying trade. In April 1884, she departed for the Sassafras river with a full cargo of ‘Sure Growth,' the Company's fertilizer brand, according to the Elkton Appeal. It was her first trip. |
| Twenty-nine thousand tons of freight valued at $327,000 were carried on the waterway, in 1905. Pulp wood, fertilizer ingredients and fertilizer, hay, and flour made up the bulk of the freight. Drafts of five to nine feet were required for these craft. From time-to-time, novel freight arrived at the wharf. One of those instances happened in April 1859, when Captain Ford's schooner Iglehort transported a piece of fire apparatus for the town. It was a hand pumper, which had been purchased from a Baltimore company. Squeezing into this crowded locality was the occasional steamboat. |
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| The town "was thrown into a state of semi-excitement over the report that a real steamboat had entered our tortuous and shallow creek and ‘rounded to' at the Bridge (Bridge Street)." |
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| But steamer visits to the Bridge Street wharves were infrequent enough to grab the notice of Elkton's newspapers even at this busy harbor. The town "was thrown into a state of semi-excitement over the report that a real steamboat had entered our tortuous and shallow creek and ‘rounded to' at the Bridge (Bridge Street)," an Elkton paper reported in 1877 It was the Port Royal, a boat one hundred feet long and forty feet wide, at the wharf of "Scott and Bro." Port Royal's visit heralded, again, regular steamer traffic between Baltimore and Elkton. Hauling passengers and freight, she embarked from Elkton Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Passage to Baltimore: one dollar. |
| Leisurely Summer Voyages |
| From this anchorage, Elktonians made leisurely summer voyages down the winding stream for diversion. "Memorial Day was the ‘Big Day' on the Elk River, everything that could float was on display," F. Rodney Frazer said in Parts of Elkton in 1918 as I Remember it. In the summer, parties could be scene leaving and returning on power boats such as the Jeanette, the Spray or the Ono. Some craft were available for hire, and with the entire Chesapeake to utilize for pleasure they would take parties to nearby resorts in Kent County (Betterton or Tolchester), points down the Elk River, or elsewhere. |
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| But shoaling was starting to restrict the narrow creek, and the commercial interests noticed. Vice President, Wm. H. Mackall, of the Scott Fertilizer Company wrote the federal government the summer of 1899. Fannie, a steamer which has been coming to Elkton every year since she was built, might not be coming back because of the "very great difficult she had" in getting to Elkton, Mr. Mackall reported. "The truth is the river is practically unnavigable for vessels drawing over 7 feet of water except on very favorable tides, and unless steps are taken promptly to dredge the river another year's navigation will have to be abandoned except for the smallest craft." By today's scale, seven feet of water is an abundance around Bridge Street. |
| As late as 1916, a steamboat company, which had a wharf near Bridge Street, reported that shallow water caused delays in handling excursionists and freight. It could well be that the summer boating season of 1916 was the last year a steamer visited the head of navigation, for I have found no other reports. |
| Go to Part I Elkton and It's Little Harbor Grow Up |
| Go to Part III Navigation ends on the Big Elk Creek |
