Early last Friday evening, some special friends of the Eastern Shore Land Conservancy gathered at the Garfield Center in Chestertown for the first of ESLC’s “Shore Talks” program.
Hosted by Joe and Marianne Hickman, they invited Echo Hill Outdoor School‘s Andrew McCown to take the stage to share some Gilbert Byron stories and Chesapeake Bay songs.
The last poem read by Andy, entitled “The Eastern Shoreman” first appeared in a collection entitled, “The Wind’s Will” by Byron published in 1961. His interpretation is that the voice of the shoreman speaking is from the late 1930s.
Gilbert Byron has been known as the “Voice of the Chesapeake” for many years after he began writing about the Eastern Shore. He best known novel, the Lord’s Oyster” was published in 1957. Byron grew up in Chestertown and eventually moved to a small cabin a few miles outside of St. Michaels for the last thirty years of his life.
This video is approximately three minutes in length
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