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What the Bills Would Mean for Bay Jurisdictions
Bill for upgrades at PA water plants creates sticker shock
Tight budgets taking bite out of ability to restore Chesapeake
The eagle, in a steep, elegant dive toward the watery field of lotus plants, would have been enough.
Morning sun caught the flash of white feathers as the eagle hit the water and sent countless small birds shooting upward, out of its way.
The eagle dove again, and the small birds swirled in chaotic circles like a swarm of oversized insects with sweeter songs.
One scene like this, viewed through the trees on a high spit of land, is reward enough for visiting Turner's Creek Park or its immediate neighbor, the Sassafras Natural Resource Management Area.
But a quiet, slow morning-mixed with some paddling and maybe a little bit of homework-will yield the incredible depth of ecologic, geographic and human history that has touched this small corner of the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Turner's Creek is a short, broad and crooked jog off the Sassafras River, which flows into the Bay from Maryland's upper Eastern Shore. The county park and the state-owned management area combine more than 1,000 acres and about four miles of shoreline, including woods and wetlands, farmland, several historic structures and a public boat launch.
Both are members of the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network.
"This place has everything you need to see and know and appreciate what makes creation so special," said former Congressman Wayne Gilchrest. "The geology, the ecosystem, the human struggles-it's all right here."
Gilchrest has lived near Turner's Creek for 30 years, riding the trails, teaching children to swim and escaping the stress of Washington, D.C. with the stroke of his paddle.
For years, Gilchrest has watched shifting sands relocate the entrance to a large tidal pond. He saw the underwater grasses rebound when the state planted a wide buffer of trees along the shoreline at the Natural Resource Management Area, reducing runoff from its farm fields.
He waits each year for the late summer bloom of American lotus.
"When the water is high, the lotus blossoms are out, and you get out here pre-dawn and the water is like a mirror-man," Gilchrest said.
Now, Gilchrest would like to see the Turner's Creek Park and Natural Resource Management Area become a signature experience for every Kent County student-by making it an integral part of the curriculum, for kindergarten through 12th grade.
Gilchrest, once a high school teacher himself, calls the area a living library.
"Every tree here is a book. And every buzzard, every stone," Gilchrest said. "You have literally 1 million years of geology at your fingertips, and 15,000 years of human history."
The oldest of these stories is told through the sand and river stone at the water's edge, where melting glaciers flushed through ancestral versions of the Susquehanna and Delaware river basins and deposited sands and gravel on the terrace of an ancient sea.
Traces of a human presence reach back 15,000 years. Research has revealed a substantial presence of Native Americans, who drew on the natural resources for making tools.
The history section of Gilchrest's "living library" would certainly feature the public landing, where maritime commerce reshaped the landscape and continues in diminished form today.
The weathered gray building that dominates the scene is a granary-said to be the last remaining pre-Civil War granary on a Chesapeake river. It marks the site of a shipping port that sent Eastern Shore produce abroad and once sustained George Washington's troops at Valley Forge.
Donaldson Yeates, an 18th-century farmer and entrepreneur, developed much of the maritime commerce on the creek, which has a natural deepwater trough. At one time, the port included a ship-building enterprise, tannery, store and several houses.
A half-dozen workboats continue to dock at the landing, drawn in part by the large spawning of rockfish and American shad at the mouth of the Sassafras. Crabs and eel are also popular.
Kent County Commissioner Ronnie Fithian made sure the watermen are welcome, just as he once was. Fithian grew up in nearby Rock Hall, joining local watermen on spring trips to Turner's Creek.
"I started coming here when I was 6 or 7 years old, probably just getting in the way back then," Fithian recalled. "We'd come up here, net racks set out all over the place, boats coming and going, lots of activity."
Fithian, who spent 24 years as a waterman before entering politics, witnessed the decline of the seafood industry. He said that today's watermen not only need a catch; they need places to dock, too. Most marinas don't welcome workboats.
"We want to make sure they have the opportunity to continue working, so public landings like this one are extremely important," Fithian said. "And the public has a chance to see people in the seafood business at work."
In earlier times, farmers relied on the port as much as the watermen. Yeates, for example, was a grain farmer as much as a shipping agent, and he made money at both.
More recent agricultural heritage is celebrated at the Kent County Farm Museum, on the approach to the landing. The museum offers large exhibits of the curious equipment that once powered local farms, their kitchens and rural life as a whole.
Across from the museum, the local Soil and Water Conservation District manages 9 acres of fields that demonstrate techniques for reducing erosion and runoff from farmland.
The state-owned land was once a collection of several small farms that later became known as Bloomfield Farm. The land was used in part to raise cattle. Much of the land is leased for agricultural use today.
The dual themes of agriculture and water gave Yeates, and many after him, a successful life on Turner's Creek.
When Yeates arrived here from Delaware around 1760, he built a small home on the hill behind the modern landing. If the house still stood, it would enjoy a magnificent view of the creek-and a fine view of eagles seeking breakfast between the lotus plants. Instead, a pavilion marks the spot, and picnickers enjoy the vista.
During the American Revolution, Yeates served as a colonel in the militia.
In 1791, Yeates capped his career with the start of another home, just up the road from the landing: a stunning, three-story brick house that became known Knock's Folly. This time, Yeates' house survived. Finished after his death, the house stayed largely in family hands until it was acquired by the state in 1990.
Knock's Folly is a gem of federal-style architecture, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Tall windows flood the house with light and frame views of the creek. A dramatic staircase lined with slender white balusters climbs through the open foyer in angled layers.
The house stands closed and empty, but not for much longer. Knock's Folly is on the cusp of new life. It will soon be the home of an interpretive center for both Turner's Creek Park and the Natural Resource Management Area, with help from a grant by the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network.
The new center will help draw connections between the richly layered stories that Wayne Gilchrest strives to share with others. Each of these stories are already working their way to the surface-not yet forgotten, but not quite celebrated in the ways that Gilchrest and others feel they deserve.
"All of the information is there, but it's not synchronized with anything yet," he said.
However, Turner's Creek might deliver its most poignant message by direct experience alone. Gilchrest encourages slow visits, with time to explore and absorb.
Greg Wright, a writer and resident of northern Virginia, agrees. He lived on the grounds of Bloomfield Farm for seven years in 1960s, a self-described young hippie. He returns often to walk the trails and reminisce. Wright recalls skinny-dipping with the members of a commune, zipping across the frozen river on sleds and testing a makeshift boat with his brother. But his regular pastime was to simply pick a hill and sit on it.
"My favorite time, I still remember it," Wright said. "I put James Taylor on and I'll be honest with you, I cried. This is a blessed little piece of land."
