Photography By John Bildahl
Last spring, as Rosemary Freitas Williams and her electrician were poking around the cellar of her Depression-era Eastport home, they discovered folded yellowed papers wedged between some stair treads. The papers, dated September 19, 1933, were official forms declaring the insanity of one John Smith, a sixty-seven-year-old carpenter who had become violent after fracturing his skull a month earlier.
Williams had plucked from that hiding place a shred of someone’s life story—a reminder of the working class that shaped Eastport, a longstanding community of watermen and laborers on a peninsula a stone’s throw from downtown Annapolis. Smith no doubt suffered a workplace accident in this village of boat builders, whose shipyards are now mostly defunct.
In Eastport, connected to the mainland by a wooden bridge in 1868 and annexed by the city of Annapolis in 1951, a hardscrabble past makes the present all the more interesting. Newcomers who can afford the escalating real estate costs are snapping up modest cottages and bungalows, narrow rowhouses, and Victorians that grace the landscape.
Williams, age forty-six, a former television producer, now a watercolor artist and restorer of old houses, epitomizes the new Eastport denizen, someone at a crossroads who wanted a better quality of life, a sense of community in a down-to-earth place with a vibrant history. “I was always on the go, juggling three pagers, two cell phones, a BlackBerry, covering a plane crash in Pennsylvania one day, the Democratic Convention in Chicago the next,” says Williams, a Massachusetts native whose journalism career landed her in Washington, D.C. She won an Emmy for her work at MSNBC before deciding to quit the rat race in 2002 and stay in Eastport full time, where she’d bought a one-bedroom bungalow on Severn Avenue a couple of years earlier. “From the start, I wanted to figure out how I could stop leaving this place every day.”
Albert Jones, an Annapolis firefighter who grew up on Burnside, along with his twelve siblings, says, “We were in the creek all the time, crabbing, fishing, boating, ice skating.” Now million-dollar homes, renovated from humble beginnings, dominate the spot where Jones once waded with his fishing pole. “I remember when you couldn’t give homes on the waterfront away,” he continues. “This was a real working class place. We always said that the Naval Academy couldn’t exist without the workers from Eastport.”
Eastport traces its beginnings to 1665, when Robert Clarkson, a Quaker, was granted a tract called Horne Point. Colonists built a fort there in 1776 to defend the capital during the Revolutionary War. Later, Benjamin Ogle, Maryland’s governor from 1798 to 1801, acquired the land. In 1868, a group of Annapolis businessmen bought 102 acres of farmland and divided it into lots, which they sold to tradesmen, immigrants, and blue collar workers who constructed buildings at the Naval Academy.
“White and black families built homes here and worked side by side,” explains Peg Wallace, an Eastport resident since 1965, who in 1997 helped develop the self-guided Eastport Historic Walking Tour. Signs along the route call attention to landmarks celebrating Eastport’s working heritage, including homes, boatyards, and the site of the defunct Annapolis Glass Works on Second Street. Charles Murphy founded the factory in 1885 to manufacture bottles for beverages and medicines—and he also gave Eastport its name, after his native city in Maine.
Water dominates the Eastport landscape, bordered by Spa Creek to the north, Back Creek to the south, and the Severn River to the east, where it meets the Chesapeake Bay. The bulk of Eastport’s streets, laid out in a grid, are quiet and residential, with a small town feel. Thanks to a maritime zoning ordinance passed in 1987, much of Eastport’s shoreline is devoted to boating-related businesses such as marinas, sailmakers, and boating suppliers—no large-scale condo developments are allowed. “We didn’t want a ‘Manhattan on the Bay,’” says Wallace, a realtor who lobbied for development restrictions.
Eastport’s sought-after location has driven housing prices up 26 percent in the past eighteen months, and even a modest three-bedroom on the waterfront can sell for two million dollars. Even so, “Eastport will always be a little funky and rundown,” Wallace notes, “with tools, ropes, and battered stuff near the water, reminding us what made this a viable community.”
The funkiness is contagious. Bridget Bell Webber, former financial consultant, now author and mother of two boys, ages six and eight, was skeptical when her then-husband bought a house in Eastport in 1996 and uprooted her from D.C. Now, she says, “It’s wonderful here, eclectic and quirky, a lot like the town where I grew up [Woodstock, N.Y.]. If I want to run out for a coffee in my pajama bottoms, I can.” Stroll the narrow streets—paved with oyster shells before asphalt took over—to admire colorful doors and shutters, second-floor decks, yards brimming with flowers, and vine-laced fences. Here a mailbox shaped like a gaping-mouthed fish, there a row of ceramic puppies affixed to a railing. “The great thing about Eastport,” says Dick Franyo, a former investment banker who relocated from Baltimore and opened the popular watering hole the Boatyard Bar and Grill, “is that, unlike so many places today, it has a soul.”
That soul is inextricably entwined with boat building. The Annapolis Yacht Yard at Second and Third streets built sub-chasers and PT boats during World War II. In 1947, legendary craftsmen John Trumpy and Sons bought the yard to build luxury wooden yachts, closing down in 1974 after fiberglass came on the scene. The Spa Creek site, now on the National Register of Historic Places, still houses maritime businesses as well as the Chart House restaurant, known for expansive water views and giant slices of mud pie.
Local maritime heritage and its lessons come to vivid life in the old McNasby’s oyster packing plant on Back Creek, home of the Annapolis Maritime Museum, which opened in 2002. But a year later, Hurricane Isabel’s 65 mph winds and a seven-foot storm surge blew a hole through the building’s concrete block walls, rendering the exhibits temporarily homeless. The building is scheduled to reopen in 2006, and its wide pier has been rebuilt. The adjacent Barge House is set to reopen this fall as an interpretive center for the Thomas Point Lighthouse, the Chesapeake Bay’s last working screwpile light.
Pat Mahoney, age twenty-five, is part of Eastport’s living maritime history. He and his father are the last commercial watermen in Eastport, most of whom have been driven out by soaring real estate prices and expensive docking fees. “Grim,” Mahoney replies when asked the outlook for his future as an Eastport-based waterman. It’s grueling work, twelve-hour days, but “it’s what I love to do,” says Mahoney, who started in the business at age eight, bought his own boat in high school, and lives on family property a block from the water. “Every day, Mother Nature brings something different.”
Although Annapolis is known as “America’s Sailing Capital,” Eastport, with three yacht clubs and more than a half dozen marinas, plays a big part in the sailing scene. The Eastport Yacht Club’s deck on the water offers one of the best views of the Wednesday Night Races, a fifty-year tradition that attracts a hundred sailing crews whose vessels sprint, heel, tack, and bob toward the finish line.
At the nearby Davis’ Pub across from a small waterfront park on Back Creek, boaters can tie up long enough to grab a beer and crab cake sandwich. On a recent Monday night, a picnic table on the pub’s patio was full of the “ministers” of the Maritime Republic of Eastport. The MRE is a satirical movement that began seven years ago “over a couple of beers,” according to Josh Cohen, a MRE founder and now a city alderman, to promote Eastport businesses and prevent the loss of tourist dollars while the Spa Creek drawbridge was closed for a six-week repair. “Seceding” from Annapolis on Super Bowl Sunday 1998, the republic garnered international attention, raised funds for charity, and had fun along the way. “Eastport Is Revolting,” banners declared, while a motley militia fired blank shots over the water with cannons and muskets.
The MRE holds playful events and fundraisers annually, including a springtime .05K Bridge Run for people and dogs. The popular Tug of War (this year slated for October 29), features seven heats of thirty people yanking on a 1,700-foot-long rope across Annapolis Harbor, a competition so fierce that sometimes Eastport has to send reinforcements to the Annapolis side to even things out. The irreverent sense of fun bubbles up at the Burning of the Socks each March on the vernal equinox, when heaps of knit footwear are sacrificed on a bonfire to signal winter’s end. And December brings the Boat Parade of Lights, sponsored by the Eastport Yacht Club, when vessels of all shapes and sizes adorn their decks with twinkling lights.
To trumpet Eastport’s maritime heritage, artist Cindy Fletcher-Holden painted a 1,530-square-foot mural of workboats and pleasure craft on the side of an old furniture warehouse on Fourth Street—Eastport’s main street until the 1950s, now the focus of a revitalization effort. (In fact, look quick—the building and the mural may be gone soon to make way for new shops, etc.) She creates signs, boat lettering, and fine arts paintings at her studio, Fletcher Art. Twice a year she organizes an exhibit with other Eastport artists in the Annapolis Yacht Club’s “shed” at the foot of the Spa Creek bridge. The next Art Between the Creeks is planned for November 11-13.
New to the array of businesses here is Wild Thing, a cute gift and flower shop that complements owner Lisa LoVullo’s four-year-old online gift basket service. At Fourth and Chester, the private Peerless Rens Club stands as monument to Eastport’s African American heritage. Started in the 1930s as a basketball team of young Eastport men, it evolved into a social club that sponsored trips, balls, parties, and barbecues in its heyday in the 1960s—and is still a hangout for the aging membership.
Despite its blue collar roots, Eastport is home to a host of upscale restaurants, most near the Spa Creek bridge. On the spot where Greek immigrant Sam Lewnes opened an eatery eighty years ago, grandson Charlie established Lewnes Steakhouse, which garnered first place in the 2001 Zagat’s listing of regional restaurants. Out-of-towners gravitate to the well-known chain Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, directly across the street. O’Leary’s, consistently cited for the best seafood in Annapolis, has new competition in Rockfish, a chic contemporary restaurant whose signature dish is—what else—a whole rockfish. Carrol’s Creek is always popular for its water views and cream of crab soup. As for lodging, each of Eastport’s four inns has its own charming personality, from the contemporary Inn at Spa Creek to the 1860s Eastport House, adorable Peninsula House with its lovely English garden, and the Inn at Horn Point, a century-old Victorian.
Although Fletcher-Holden’s mural is worn and starting to peel, it gives the artwork a sort of tumbledown charm that suits Eastport just fine. “There’s a grace in imperfection, and Eastport embraces that,” says fellow artist Rosemary Freitas Williams. “Here I find all the kinds of things I like to paint—broken down boats, masts propped on sawhorses, the corner of a garden with flowers and weeds.” Despite the popping up of new houses, new businesses, and new coats of paint, an impeccably manicured and blemish-free look is not what this hometown strives for. Just note the yellow MRE flag flying above many Eastport residences; its steadfast motto states it just right: “We Like It This Way.”
Vicki Meade defected from Annapolis to the Maritime Republic of Eastport in December 2003.
Locals’ Guide to Eastport
Best Kept Secret
Karavan Treasures from Turkey, owned by antiques and carpet expert Muammer “Max” Onder, is the place for exotic handmade carpets, pottery, and jewelry. Onder, who grew up near the Black Sea, will serve you Turkish tea and chat about life, but unlike Istanbul merchants, won’t pressure you. 902 Bay Ridge Ave. 410- 295-4438 or http://www.treasuresfromturkey.com.
Sail Away
If you’re going to hang out in Eastport, you must know how to sail. Check out the Chesapeake Sailing School (7080 Bembe Beach Rd. 800-966-0032 or sailingclasses.com); Annapolis Sailing School, the country’s oldest of its kind, established 1959 (601 Sixth St. 800- 638-9192 or http://www.nnapolissailing.com); or JWorld, an ideal “school” for speed-oriented sailors and racers (213 Eastern Ave. 800-966-2038 or http://www.jworldannapolis.com).
Spill the Beans
Cafe Gurus is where the locals go for their cup of Joe—or sandwiches, salads, and awesome smoothies. You don’t pay until you’re ready to leave, whether you eat in the Wi-Fi-equipped dining room/art gallery or the outdoor tables. 601 Second St. 410-295-0601.
Off the Beaten Path
The Wild Orchid Café, housed in a 1912 bungalow tucked in a residential community, is not to be missed. Chef Jim Wilder is known for his butternut squash soup with chunks of crabmeat and seared scallops on sweet potato pancakes. 909 Bay Ridge Ave. 410-268-8009 or http://www.wildorchidcafe.net.
Sing a Local Song
The local band Them Eastport Oyster Boys—Jeff Holland and Kevin Brooks—elicit chuckles with their Bay-oriented lines such as “Let’s hear an ovation for subaquatic vegetation” and “good hat, good dog, good boat,” a favorite Eastport saying. See performance schedules at http://www.oysterboys.com.
Contacts
Annapolis and Anne Arundel County Conference and Visitors Bureau
26 West St., 888-302-2852
Annapolis Maritime Museum
222 Severn Ave., Bldg. 3, 410-295-0104
http://www.annapolismaritimemuseum.org
Boatyard Bar & Grill
400 Fourth St., 410-216-6206
http://www.boatyardbarandgrill.com
Carrol’s Creek
410 Severn Ave., 410-263-8102
http://www.carrolscreek.com
Chart House
300 Second St., 410-268-7166
http://www.chart-house.com
Davis’ Pub
400 Chester Ave., 410-268-7432
Eastport House
101 Severn Ave., 410-295-9710
http://www.eastporthouse.com
Fletcher Art
616 Third St., 410-263-8646
Inn at Horn Point
100 Chesapeake Ave., 410-268-1126
http://www.innathornpoint.com
Inn at Spa Creek
417 Severn Ave., 410-263-8866
http://www.innatspacreek.com
Lewnes Steakhouse
Fourth St. & Severn Ave., 410-263-1617
O’Leary’s
310 Third St., 410-263-0884
http://www.olearys-seafood.com
Peerless Rens Club
406 Chester Ave., 410-268-5427
Peninsula House B&B
11 Chester Ave., 410-267-8796
http://www.peninsulahousemd.com
Rockfish
400 Sixth St., 410-267-1800
http://www.rockfishmd.com
Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse
301 Severn Ave., 410-990-0033
http://www.serioussteaks.com
Wild Thing
413 Fourth St., 410-216-6626
http://www.wildthingonline.com
