Mapping the Waters — the U.S. Coast Survey:
No one could travel across the Eastern Shore without
crossing water, and for generations most places were reached only by boat.
The traffic moved up creeks to well-established public and private wharves,
across the broadwater to the barrier islands, and out into Chesapeake
Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Beginning in 1870, the United States Coast
Survey (U.S.C.S.) mapped in detail the seacoast of the Eastern Shore of
Virginia. These surveys indicated marshes, channels, inlets, bars, islands,
and soundings. They located lighthouses, buoys, markers, and other navigational
aids. For the first time they formalized and opened to the public information
for navigating the complex seascape of the region and provided comprehensive
data for future navigational aids and instruments. For decades the War
Department controlled seacoast mapping for military purposes, and the
Civil War accelerated modern seacoast mapping along the
Virginia
Capes. In the 1870s the pace of U.S.C.S. work intensified and took
on a scientific and exploratory character. The activities of the U.S.C.S.
teams were followed with close scrutiny on the Eastern Shore. The U.S.C.S.
hired local residents to help survey — what a newspaper editor termed
"mapping out our waters."
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Taking full advantage of the newly-documented information on the Shore
and its complex waterways, private steamboat companies improved old
networks
of communication and established new ones. Immediately after the Civil
War, steamboat companies out of Baltimore and Norfolk increased the
number
of vessels and wharves on their Eastern Shore lines. By the early 1880s,
steamers called regularly at twenty-three wharves on the bayside of
the
peninsula and during the potato harvest at eight on the seaside. Baltimore
dominated the bayside trade of Accomack and upper Northampton, while
Norfolk
captured that of lower Northampton. On the seaside the trade networks
were also divided. From there, steamers out of several Atlantic coast
ports carried produce to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. Position,
proximity, access, and history combined to divide the tiny Eastern Shore
into numerous zones of trade and traffic.
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Published: 31 July 2007
© 2007 William G. Thomas III, Brooks Miles Barnes, Tom Szuba and
Southern Spaces 
