The Starting Point: Betterton, Maryland

 

Betterton is located at the mouth of the Sassafras River on the upper Chesapeake Bay in Kent County, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore region of the Bay and Delmarva Peninsula in the Eastern United States). The GPS coordinates are 39°22′4″N 76°3′39″W (39.367863, -76.060877). It has a population of about 350 people. Betterton Beach is located near the mouth of the Sassafras River at the northwest part of the county, where fresh water currents lower the salinity of the upper Chesapeake and free Betterton's waters of sea nettles, which in late June or July often interrupt swimming lower down in the Bay.

The Beach is a public park, with 300 feet of frontage for swimming and 700 feet of shoreline access and has a public restrooms, 500 feet of boardwalk along where a grassy area with picnic tables and the beach begins. The boardwalk area has benches and lights. an A picnic pavilion is located on a bay-view bluff. There is a fishing jetty with a public pier as well as a public landing and pier for boating.

The recorded history of Betterton dates back to the 17th century. The Fishall Patent was granted in 1664, the house later becoming known as Fish Hall. In 1715, Edward Crew leased Fish Hall and the name was changed to Crews Landing. For the next 100 years, Crews Landing was a small fishing village and then later a port for the waterborne transport of local farm produce to urban markets. In 1851, Richard Townsend Turner named the town “Betterton” after the family of his wife Elizabeth Betterton. The Turner pier, and later the Ericsson pier, provided access to the town for the shipping trade. Eventually townspeople rented out rooms to the travelers, salesmen, and shippers attracted to the beach. Mr. Turner built the Rigbie Hotel (demolished in August 1986) and Mr. Crownhart built the Belmont Hotel (destroyed by fire in 1956). These were joined by such lodging establishments as the Betterton, the Chesapeake, the Country Cousin, the Southern, and many others.

Steamboat traffic from downtown Baltimore's "The Basin" (now Inner Harbor) and Philadelphia on the excursion cruises like the Old Bay Line (Baltimore Steam Packet Company, 1840-1962) and the competing Ericsson Line (and others, such as the Wilson Line later) brought the visitors and vacationers from the Middle Atlantic cities. The Ericsson Line was named after John Ericsson (1803-1889), the Swedish-American inventor of the "screw propeller" (and of Civil War revolutionary naval Ironclad warships) to more speedily and efficiently power ships. It was this invention that allowed steamboats to be built with narrow enough beam to allow them to traverse the recently opened Chesapeake and Delaware Canal then only 25 feet wide (before it was later widened and improved), connecting the upper Chesapeake with the Delaware River and Bay. Betterton was an easy and natural stop for boats using the canal and the explosion in steamboat traffic along the American East Coast brought growth and prosperity to Betterton. For some time before the turn of the 20th century, there were 11 scheduled steamboat landings daily at Betterton's piers. The boom period for Betterton is generally thought to be from 1918 to 1930, when increasing numbers of restaurants, taverns, dance halls, bowling alleys, and amusement arcades all helped create the bayside town's pleasure resort image. Some of the Victorian era-style wooden frame resort structures which were used to accommodate the steamboat passengers are still standing. 

Beginning with the Great Depression and then with the construction of the Bay Bridge from Annapolis to Kent Island in the 1950's as well as the improved U.S. Routes and Interstate Highways systems Betterton's tourist activity began to decline. Tourists began to go instead to the North Atlantic Ocean beaches and growing resort towns there like Ocean City, Maryland and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

The town hosts the Betterton Heritage Museum in order to "promote, preserve and restore the historical heritage of the town and the surr0unding area."