Fall 2008 - Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
Fall 2008 - Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
Fall 2008 - Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum
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The future of Claiborne shifted to its current location when<br />
it became the junction for the ferries and railway of the Baltimore,<br />
<strong>Chesapeake</strong> & Atlantic Railroad Co. Tourists packed<br />
the ferries that landed on the Eastern <strong>Bay</strong> side of the village<br />
where they boarded the train bound for the beaches of Ocean<br />
City. Maple Hall and several other major boarding houses,<br />
including Wades Point Inn across the harbor, flourished.<br />
The railroad company printed booklets every year touting<br />
the wonders of the area.<br />
In 1915, the booklet described the area in glowing terms.<br />
“Certainly there is not a<br />
more favorable location<br />
for summer boarding houses<br />
on the entire Eastern Shore.”<br />
It went on to say, “It is popular<br />
with Baltimore people because it<br />
is so handy to their city; moreover,<br />
the service is excellent and<br />
the fare low.’<br />
Penny pulls out an almost pristine pamphlet<br />
for the ferry to Claiborne advertising the fare<br />
from Baltimore to Claiborne as $1, each way.<br />
The railroad booklet, which is part of the CBMM collection,<br />
lists Maple Hall as one of the Claiborne boarding houses<br />
with a capacity of 50. The going rate was $7 a week per person.<br />
Wades Point Inn, which could accommodate 80 guests,<br />
charged a dollar more a week.<br />
So popular was the area that 28 boarding houses were<br />
listed between Claiborne and Royal Oak. Three inns in Royal<br />
Oak advertised that they had lodging for 100 guests.<br />
To take advantage of this popularity, John Cockey, who<br />
married Penny’s great grandmother, saw another vision of a<br />
grand little city.<br />
A blueprint that Penny found at Maple Hall entitled “Plan<br />
of CLAIBORNE Talbot County, MD” and dated March 1912,<br />
The lawn of Maple Hall extends down to the waterfront,<br />
and includes a family cemetery for the Tunis, Cockey, and<br />
Cook families.<br />
shows most of what is the current village but with a greatly<br />
expanded footprint. It had a wide <strong>Bay</strong>side Boulevard sweeping<br />
along the edge of the harbor and an equally impressive<br />
Washington Boulevard that wound along the banks of Tilghman<br />
Creek, passing as if in review, in front of Maple Hall.<br />
Much of the land was owned by John Cockey, and the<br />
subdivision was prepared for the Maple Hall Real Estate Co.<br />
It was another plan that never quite made it far from the<br />
drawing board.<br />
By the 1920s, much of the Baltimore traffic had been<br />
shifted to Love Point on Kent Island, where trains could take<br />
passengers to Rehoboth, Del., as well as Ocean City. The last<br />
ferries to Claiborne stopped running after the first<br />
<strong>Bay</strong> Bridge opened in 1952, making<br />
Claiborne, once a<br />
transportation hub, into a<br />
cul de sac off the road between<br />
St. Michaels and Tilghman<br />
Island.<br />
Penny Rhine walks the lawn<br />
of Maple Hall, taking in the view<br />
from the family cemetery on the water<br />
to the imposing inn. The seven acres are what is left of the<br />
Tunis-Cockey-Cook holdings.<br />
“The family sold off 150 acres in the 1950s for $50 an<br />
acre,” she said.<br />
Penny and Rick advertise Maple Hall with the slogan, “A<br />
Shore Tradition.” But now, Penny says sadly, it is time for<br />
the long family tradition to come to an end. Maple Hall Inn<br />
is for sale.<br />
“I have lived all but 17 years of my life here,” say Penny,<br />
60. “This was always home, even when my family traveled<br />
with my father while he was in the service.”<br />
The family cemetery will not be part of the sale, she says.<br />
Penny and Rick have already made plans to be buried there<br />
in the shade overlooking the creek, along with generations of<br />
Tunises, Cockeys and Cooks, including three Confederate veterans.<br />
It is a fitting resting place for the families that helped<br />
shape the <strong>Bay</strong> Hundred for the better part of two centuries. <br />
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