Old Salty’s restaurant, about to celebrate it’s 40th anniversary, has been a beloved Hoopers Island community anchor since opening in the early 1980s. But, long before being refurbished into a famed down home haven for crabcake lovers near and far, the structure originally served as a schoolhouse for the tightly knit community at Fishing Creek, on the first of the three Hoopers Islands. 

While more than ever a local favorite, 75 percent of customers coming through Old Salty’s doors are now actually newcomers, attracted to the area by growing media coverage for nearby attractions such as Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Park. 

According to current owners Mike and Melinda Kerr Perry, one recent Old Salty’s first timer arrived via a word of mouth recommendation during a visit to New York City. Another hauling from the Netherlands spotted an Old Salty’s ad while in Washington, D.C., and decided to make the trip. 

It was under founding owners, JoAnn and Wayne Ashton, that the eatery first became an Island mainstay. (The sea captain on the sign is a picture of JoAnn’s dad, local waterman Ben Parks.)

It continued to thrive under second owner Jay Newcomb, former District One Dorchester County Councilman and President. 

That’s when the Perrys, then among the growing number of Island ‘weekenders’, became loyal customers. “From the day we walked in this place, we were basically in love with it,” Mike recalled. 

The couple would privately joke with Newcomb, that if he ever sold the place, it had better be to them. Two years ago, when Newcomb was ready to wind down his many varied responsibilities, he felt assured the Perrys would be the kind of devoted caretakers the restaurant deserved, and the deal was done, including the popular Old Salty’s recipes.

Though originally from rural Anne Arundel County and not Island natives, the couple are totally committed to keeping faith and doing their best by the place that’s become their adopted ‘home away from home.’ 

Melinda, 50, grew up in Hanover, what she calls “a little, tiny, tiny town just outside the airport loop,” without “MTV, or cable, or anything,” she laughs. But her parents lived in a house right next door to her grandparents on the same property. Her first job was as a restaurant dishwasher, then working her way through the kitchen. That was before becoming a jeweler for 28 years, holding down top management positions with Jared the Galleria.

Mike, 52, was raised five miles away in Severn, chopping tobacco and vegetables, on land his family has lived and worked on for 160 years. He, too, had early restaurant training, “cutting my teeth” cooking in an Elks Club kitchen during his teens. He’s gone on to own several businesses. 

As Baltimore’s urban commercial sprawl began spreading further out, things there started to change. But on Hoopers Island, they rediscovered the life they’d known and loved.

“That’s what we feel like we found here, living in a complete neighborhood of family, it’s what drew us here,” Mike added.

With extended family living on Hoopers Island in the 1970s, Mike was a frequent visitor. In 1986, he and his brothers bought their own property there. As he and Melinda became a couple, they began coming over, falling more and more in love with the area, eventually buying a house,  becoming Old Salty’s patrons, and now, owners, who want to give back to the community.

“This entire area has kept this place in business for 40 years, and that’s a heck of a feat,” Mike noted.

To that end, they decided to do something special to mark the milestone and return some of the longstanding love. 

After a year of planning, the Old Salty’s 40th Anniversary Bluegrass Festival gets underway Saturday, May 20 at 1 p.m. The free community event with no cover charge will be open to all. Artisans, vendors, and kids activities are on the menu, along with live music featuring Billy Harrison & The Haywire, Cooking with Fire, and Across the Track.

A 30 x 30 foot tent will be set up in the waterfront field behind the restaurant, and people are welcome to bring chairs and blankets. 

Food and drink options for purchase will include a limited Old Salty’s menu, including, of course, crab cake, from a mobile food trailer; Fat Truck Brewing of Centreville will also be on hand.

The festival represents an ongoing initiative of the Perrys to build on the restaurant’s solid reputation as a dining destination, while adding to it’s repertoire of events for locals and visitors alike.

Live music is now on the menu each weekend, both at the Salty Hooker Tiki Bar, added out back last March, and indoors at the Back Creek Bar. 

On May 5-6, Old Salty’s also hosted it’s first annual fishing tournament, The Salty Hooker Throwdown. 

The venue’s large indoor hall, the former school auditorium, has recently offered some decidedly nontraditional special event fundraisers, carefully billed as adults only programs, such as January’s Bingo with the Boyz and April’s Drag Bingo Brunch. Both drew big crowds and raised sizable sums in support of  Patriot Point, the Veteran Refuge on Taylor’s Island.

“Having something as important as Patriot Point in our backyard, and being able to support it, is truly amazing,” Mike added, noting that both he and Melinda have military members in their families.

Another point of pride for the Perrys is providing fresh, seasonal local seafood and produce. “A customer came in last week and asked for oysters on the half shell; I had to tell him, sorry, that’s over,” Mike mentioned with a smile. 

They’re grateful for ongoing support from the Dorchester County Chamber of Commerce, which is holding a ribbon cutting ceremony Friday, May 19 at noon to kick off the 40th Anniversary, including all three Old Salty’s owners to thank the community together. 

For more information, visit Old Salty’s Facebook Page.

Debra Messick is a retired Dorchester County Public Library associate and lifelong freelance writer. A transplanted native Philadelphian, she has enjoyed residing in Cambridge MD since 1995.

 

 

Those dedicated to reckoning with our nation’s history but unable to devote the considerable time, stamina, and energy it’s dedicated pursuit deserves, owe a debt of gratitude to climate scientist turned enterprising author David Goodrich, and his remarkable work, On Freedom Road.

When Goodrich began commuting 13 miles by bike from his Rockville home to NOAA’s Silver Spring headquarters, his main objective was improving his health. (The fact that he was also improving the planet’s well-being may have also factored in.)

But through that lifestyle change, Goodrich learned about others practicing far-flung adventure cycling. When he retired in 2011, Goodrich, who had headed NOAA’s Climate Observations and Monitoring Program, and had also served as director of the UN Global Climate Observing System in Geneva, Switzerland, joined their ranks.

He embarked on a trip from Delaware to Oregon, which resulted in his first book, A Hole in the Wind (Pegasus Books, 2017).

Another journey, this time across the Upper Midwest and Canadian prairies, geologically known as the Western Interior Seaway, brought forth a second volume, A Voyage Across an Ancient Ocean (Pegasus Books, 2020).

While both books offered on the ground insights into current ecological realities, the seeds for an altogether different two-wheeled expedition were planted during that first coast to coast journey.

As Goodrich explains in the opening pages of his third volume, On Freedom Road, Bicycle Explorations and Reckonings on the Underground Railroad (Pegasus Books, 2023):

“I was only looking for a place out of the wind. In May 2011, eleven hundred miles into a bike trip from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a cold, hard headwind left me tucked down on the handlebars all morning.”

At the next town, Vandalia, Illinois, an “Open” sign beckoned welcome refuge, so Goodrich warmed up in the basement of an old church housing the Fayette County Museum. While perusing musty smelling displays, the curator showed him a “heavy brass ring, so big I needed two hands to hold it,” then explained that it was a slave collar.

Although its authentication was later proven to be doubtful, the impactful  initial sight of the purported artifact stayed with him.

A few years later, while accompanying his wife Concetta, a dedicated birder, to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, the couple visited the newly opened Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Park and Visitors Center next door.

Along with the moving history of Harriet Tubman’s journey displayed throughout the Center’s exhibits, one item especially caught Goodrich’s eye–the map of her daunting routes from Cambridge, through Delaware and Philadelphia, up through New York, then into Canada and freedom. He knew right away it was a ride he wanted to make.

A few years earlier, on a trip to Wales to show his son the ancestral Goodrich family castle, he learned that a relative, Captain John Goodrich, had helmed a boat on the Middle Passage, in which many did not survive. That moment of reckoning was another factor inspiring him to explore the legacy of suffering and courage along the Underground Railroad.

On Saturday, April 1, Goodrich returned to the Tubman UGRR National Historical Park in Church Creek to speak about Freedom Road for the discussion program Ranger Lawson Nakwudo’s Book Review.

In introducing Goodrich, Ranger Lawson noted that over the course of four years, Goodrich rode by bicycle 3,000 miles east of the Mississippi to travel the routes of the Underground Railroad, delving into its history and stories where they happened.

The book is divided into two main sections, Freedom Road East, The Trail of Harriet Tubman, and Freedom Road West, The River, The Blues, and the Borderland.

Goodrich mentioned physical training throughout the winter and spring to prepare for the 50 and 60 mile days of riding through varying terrain from rugged rural and busy urban.

He also invested countless hours doing painstaking background research at the Library of Congress, reading definitive works such as Kate Clifford Larson’s Bound for the Promised Land, and tracking down vital, hard to find Underground Railroad route information, including African American historian Charles L. Blockson’s Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad.

Starting in Cambridge, Goodrich informs his readers “I knew we were on the right road when I saw the mural.”  (He and riding companions Rick Sullivan and Lynn Salvo, who holds the Guinness Record for oldest woman to ride across the U.S., each touched Harriet’s iconic outstretched hand for luck.)

The Tubman Trail leg of the trek began with a 50 mile “shakedown” circuit beginning and ending in Cambridge, covering the landscape of Minty Ross’ formative years– Madison, Blackwater, the Brodess Farm, and the Bucktown Store.

Next, it was north towards Poplar Neck to find Red Bridges, the shallow Choptank River crossing spot used by freedom seekers, then into Delaware to locate the still standing Star Hill African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Dover. Originally called Star of the East, the church was erected on a little rise in 1842 in order to be visible to freedom seekers coming from Maryland, Goodrich noted.

The trio approached, hoping to at least view the famed church from the outside. But as they arrived, Sunday morning services were in progress. Trying to be unobtrusive, the three white spandex clad cyclists slipped into the back of the building. Two women from the congregation silently arose, returning with ice water for them. Later, they were offered refreshments and spoke with the church’s longtime unofficial historian, Lucretia Wilson, who believed that Tubman must have traveled through the area.

In a post Civil War interview, Tubman acknowledged  the Delaware town of Blackbird, populated by several free Black communities, as being among her favored route landmarks.

Goodrich credited the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway for providing excellent tracking of Tubman historic sites throughout the Delmarva Peninsula. Further north, even in Philadelphia, the trail often “runs cold,” he acknowledged.

But the reader can travel along, discovering rich background stories of legendary figures Thomas Garrett, William Still, and many others.

Photos from the era further document the area’s Quaker abolitionist activities, including one taken in 1865 at the Longwood Meeting in Kennett Square, PA, showing William Lloyd Garrison and Conductor and Tubman friend Thomas Garrett, who has park dedicated to him in Wilmington, featuring a statue depicting him and Tubman. Another,a daguerreotype taken at the 1850 Anti-Fugitive Slave Law Convention in Cazenovia, New York, shows wealthy Abolitionist champion Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass, and sisters Mary and Emily Edmondson, who had grown up enslaved “where a golf course stands, three miles from my home in Maryland,” Goodrich noted.

In New York City, following Eric Foner’s Gateway to Freedom history, Goodrich again vividly shows how haunts pivotal to Underground  Railroad history are often hiding in plain sight, as the book’s jacket suggests. On Nassau Street, he visits the building once home to the American Anti-Slavety Society, where Tubman, needing money, once laid down on the floor, and was ultimately bequeathed an amount far surpassing her initial request. Today, the bottom floor of the 12 story building houses an unassuming eyebrow threading salon.

Proceeding further north, through Albany and Auburn, the cyclists see first hand the marked difference in the the modest Tubman and more grand Douglass gravesites, just 40 miles apart, reflecting each one’s approach to battling slavery’s injustice.

While Tubman’s Trail might initially seem of greater interest to our area’s readers, Freedom Road West offers a wealth of information and insight to the Underground Railroad, from a slave rebellion in New Orleans up through the Mississippi Delta and a Civil War massacre at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, one of the first places Colored Troops proved their fighting spirit.

Transcending time, Goodrich rides us through the treacherous borderland along the banks of the Ohio River, rife with fugitive slave bounty hunters, where he crossed paths with the ghost of Josiah Henson, who became Harriet Beecher Stowe’s inspiration for the main figure in Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Goodrich is careful to note how markedly less dangerous their own route was than for those being hunted, at constant fear for their lives. But their modern day trek continued on relentlessly through foul weather, bleak accommodations, and in Oberlin, Ohio, a persistently unshakable flu bug.

Finally giving in to the need for a day’s rest, Goodrich ultimately ended up at another modestly housed museum, The Ohio Historical Society in Columbus, viewing a “magic shawl” once belonging to Harper’s Ferry martyr Lewis Leary.

The fragile cloth remnant, reverently handed down, had once cradled a Leary descendent as a baby, future poet Langston Hughes.

On Wednesday, April 5 at 6 PM, Goodrich will again be discussing Freedom Road at Chestertown’s Retriever Bar as part of The Bookplate’s “Authors and Oysters” presentations. For information call 410-778-4167.

Debra Messick is a retired Dorchester County Public Library associate and lifelong freelance writer. A transplanted native Philadelphian, she has enjoyed residing in Cambridge MD since 1995.

Historically, Cambridge had been home to many successful businesses, notably fruit and vegetable canneries, seafood packing houses, and related production facilities. The industries produced economic boom times and plenty of jobs for locals needing work.

Those once bustling businesses have long since drifted away. Yet some vacant factories and warehouses remained, somber signposts of past glory gazed at in the rear view mirror.

But lately, flickers of hope have been resurfacing on the horizon, in the form of good enterprising ideas looking for fixer upper buildings featuring good bones to call home, along with lots in need of love to live again.

One such Cinderella scenario has taken place at 10 Washington Street, in a modern farming complex tucked away behind the Police Department, in what some might consider an ironic twist of fate and others poetic justice.

The property, once home to a glass manufacturing facility, has been transformed into a state of the art, green certified cultivation campus for CULTA, the Maryland-based medical cannabis startup which, since sprouting from the fertile minds of co-founders Mackie Barch and Matt Bickel in 2017, has rapidly matured into a homegrown success story.

Following a continuous upward trajectory, in 2021 CULTA’s business offices moved from Silver Spring to a larger Bethesda facility. The company’s innovative, ever expanding craft product lines are available at the flagship Federal Hill dispensary in Baltimore, as well as others throughout the state.

Jay Bouton, Senior Director of Cultivation, shared that after starting out with an original crew of 10, today about 150 of the company’s 180 employees work at the Cambridge growing facility.

A Colorado transplant, Bouton reflects a number of staffers willing to relocate here from out-of-state due to the quality of jobs available. “The industry in Maryland has matured from a workforce perspective, and more people are finding that it offers great career paths doing something that they have always had a passion for,” he added.

According to the CULTA website, the unconventional urban farm comprises three outdoor acres and 20,000 indoor square feet featuring a heavily automated, multi-stack LED vertical growing system inside a medical grade code building, ensuring the same surgically clean environment as a hospital or medical facility.

On April 17, 2018, the company celebrated its first cannabis harvest of 450 plants, nurtured within the outpost’s initial indoor grow space.

In 2019, CULTA broke new ground, literally and figuratively, becoming not only the East Coast’s first outdoor cannabis cultivator, but the first organically managed farm in the state to earn stringent Green Clean certification, regarded as among the highest international industry standards.

This month another milestone was announced–the 100th harvest, with a bumper crop of 950 cannabis plants, Bouton noted.

“When I first stepped into the facility in 2018, I was immediately impressed by how clean the entire place was. Over the years, as we have expanded, the facility has continued to exceed all expectations and proves that anything is possible with the right team. Retrofitting an existing warehouse has its unique set of challenges, but that is also part of the fun and the challenge to make it work with the canvas you have available,” he mentioned.

“​Technology that is available to the cannabis industry is changing rapidly, and you can see that firsthand with our two phases of indoor grow rooms. The lighting, HVAC, and irrigation/fertigation equipment that we installed in 2020 was much improved over the equipment available to us in 2016, when the first purchases were made. LED lighting and multi-tiered grow rooms have been the biggest recent changes to the industry overall,” Bouton noted.

“We joined the Sustainable Cannabis Commission (SCC) in January of 2022, with a focus on becoming carbon neutral in the next 10 years. We have installed only LED lighting in our grow rooms for the past three years, which gives us significant energy savings for every batch harvested. These lights also reduce the amount of heat in the room, which in turn decreases the amount of air conditioning needed, creating more savings. Sustainability will continue to be a primary focus for CULTA for years to come,” he added.

It also appears that the innovative enterprise looks forward to being part of the Cambridge landscape for the foreseeable future, as well.

“​We feel that we have been welcomed to Cambridge with open arms and couldn’t have chosen a better town to call home. Since we popped our first seeds in 2017, there have been many improvements and additions to the area, and we look forward to being involved with the future of Cambridge,” Bouton added.

For more information visit https://culta.io/.

Debra Messick is a retired Dorchester County Public Library associate and lifelong freelance writer. A transplanted native Philadelphian, she has enjoyed residing in Cambridge MD since 1995.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge is about to offer an exciting–you might even say ‘cosmic’–new vista to explore: the night sky.

A powerful, relatively compact Meade LX 600 telescope with 12 inch aperture lens, using a space saving folding mirror design, has been mounted on a platform in the field, the South Lawn, of the Visitor’s Center on Key Wallace Drive, past the Butterfly and Pollinator Garden.

Soon, the Friends of Blackwater will open a Night Sky Tours program to prospective stargazers aged 12 and up.

Dr. Harry Heckathorn, retired astrophysicist and Friends Board Vice President, who initiated the ground, or in this case, firmament breaking, idea, hosted the inaugural First Light event on Tuesday May 17 from 8:45 to 11:00 p.m., rescheduled from an original Sunday, when the lunar eclipse occurred, due to a forecast of cloud cover and storms.

First Light is the astronomical term referring to the prime sky viewing time following sunset until moonrise, Heckathorn explained.

A select group including the Friends Board, their spouses, and several others joined Heckathorn and Bob Quinn, a professional IT retiree adding his expertise to Blackwater’s five wildlife webcams, the Giftshop computerized cash register system, and now the telescope.

Quinn, a wildlife photographer, is enhancing the telescope’s already impressive capability with a sensitive camera, able to show more detailed views of the various stars, nebulas, and the moon.

It’s hoped that as Phase II of the Night Sky project advances, these photographic capabilities will also enable viewing from within the Visitor’s Center for those with disabilities precluding venturing over the grassy terrain, and when summer’s buggy and winter’s chilly nights make outdoor viewing less inviting.

All who attended were afforded the opportunity to spot a series of celestial bodies with what Heckathorn called “the incomparable naked eye experience.” But as the photographic images were displayed on a computer screen monitor, each sparked a spontaneous chorus of appreciative oooooohs and aaaaaahs from the group.

In addition to providing a unique viewing experience, Heckathorn also offered a remarkably detailed perspective on what each image showed, revealing encyclopedic knowledge of the subject in down to earth, easy to comprehend language and examples.

When enhanced photos, taken with Quinn’s Sony Alpha 7 full frame Mirrorless camera, appeared on the video monitor behind the telescope, Heckathorn enthusiastically answered the steady stream of observers’ questions.

With a laser the size of a flashlight, Heckathorn also pinpointed various individual stars within numerous constellations visible overhead, including Gemini, Virgo, Draco the Dragon, and Ursa Major ( The Big Dipper).

Besides bringing added perspective to the overall discussion, the laser locator directed attention to Blackwater’s outstanding vantage point for seeing a multitude of stars, with bonus Spring evening serenade from the Refuge wildlife multitude in the distance.

Blackwater’s night sky tour program represents an innovative Refuge development not only here, but throughout the system.

Heckathorn’s recent article in the Spring 2022 issue of The Link, The National Wildlife Refuge online publication, explained why Blackwater was uniquely situated to offer optimal telescope viewing:

“Satellite images of Earth at night show that Blackwater has the darkest skies east of the Interstate 95 corridor – particularly when looking south down the Chesapeake and toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy. Night sky photographs inspired the Friends of Blackwater to construct a small astronomical observatory for public night sky tours,” Heckathorn wrote.

The photos were taken during almost instantly sold out annual Milky Way photography workshops held over the past few years, organized by Robert Sullivan of Working Image Photography, with all proceeds donated FOB.

Heckathorn added that Blackwater’s after dark landscape also presents to viewers a chance to view the same stars which helped guide Harriet Tubman and other freedom seekers in this area , who relied on them to navigate their way to safety.

“I’m very excited we’re bringing this free educational offering to Blackwater NWR and feel like it will bring many new visitors to the Refuge. I don’t know of any other National Wildlife Refuge in the nation offering a unique program like our Night Sky Tours,” noted Rick Abend, FOB Board President.

“Receiving a $5000 grant from the Heart of Chesapeake Country Heritage Area and Maryland Heritage Area Authority was icing on the cake and allowed us to put Harry’s plan in motion. The Refuge Staff and our volunteer support has been amazing. Over a dozen people have helped with the construction. With Harry’s meticulous planning, the project has come together very smoothly,” Abend added.

Abend, Heckathorn, and Refuge Visitor Services Manager Ray Peterra, and other volunteers built the telescope’s concrete pedestal and a surrounding wooden platform to help viewers maintain safe footing. Heckathorn also designed the telescope’s customized protective enclosure, fitted with fans, heaters, and humidity preventing silica. The portable unit’s platform rises and lowers to safely allow the telescope to be removed from its concrete perch.

Initially (and still) heading the Friends’ scholarship awards program, Heckathorn began assisting photographer Tom Hook in setting up the Friends’ first digital Osprey webcam in February 2018, going on to prepare additional cameras focusing on waterfowl, eagles, and most recently, River Osprey.

His own interest in helping others take part in night sky viewing harkens back to his own boyhood experience, literally in the fields of his Minnesota, where he had many opportunities for stargazing, especially during his predawn paper route.

Heckathorn also cited his dad’s home built backyard telescope (“that was the most affordable way for people who wanted telescopes in those days”) as well as his high school astronomy club as influences.

But he points to a ride in his dad’s Buick one fateful 1957 day, during which he heard the radio news announcement about the Russian satellite Sputnik going into orbit around the Earth, as the actual unofficial launch of his eventual career path first in astronomy and then space science and rocketry.

He earned his doctorate in astrophysics in 1970, held a post-doctoral position at what was then NASA’s Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston, worked in the Physics Departments of the University of Houston and Johns Hopkins University and worked 25 years in the Space Science Department of the Naval Research Laboratory developing astronomical instruments for use at terrestrial observatories, on sounding rockets, and on the Space Shuttle. From there he became interested in rocketry and missile defense, managing the development and use of simulation software and data archiving and retrieval facilities for the Missile Defense Agency.

Retiring in 2006, Heckathorn relocated from Arlington, Virginia to Church Creek with his wife Glenna, a longtime health care industry professional, who currently serves as the Mid-Shore League of Women Voters Co-Convener.

For updated announcements, Abend recommends following the Friends of Blackwater Facebook page for Night Sky Tours.

Debra Messick is a retired Dorchester County Public Library associate and lifelong freelance writer. A transplanted native Philadelphian, she has enjoyed residing in Cambridge MD since 1995.